Boys and girls, one of the words that we hear
a lot when we come to church and we read a lot about in the
Bible is the word salvation. Salvation kind of sounds like
a big word and it's not a word that we use too often in our
daily lives. But we do use the word save a
lot and salvation comes from the word save. Save gets used
in lots and lots of different ways. If you were a Goalkeeper
at an ice hockey match. It would be your job to save
the goal if someone was trying to score into your net. When I was a little boy, I used
to save football cards and I had hundreds and hundreds of these
football cards and I thought they were very precious and very
valuable and I put a lot of time and effort into my collection,
my saving of these football cards. Maybe your mum and dad sometimes
go to the grocery store and maybe buy some groceries or buy some
gas for the car. And maybe if they're really clever
and there are some good offers on, they can save $10 when they
fill their car with fuel. And they feel very clever with
themselves for saving all that money. And then when we're on
our computers, And we forget to save the things that we've
been working on. We don't feel so clever then
when we lose all the data that we've been working on in the
computer. So we use the word save in lots
of different ways. And to save means to rescue. It means to rescue when we are
in trouble. That's probably the most important
meaning of the word. If the doctor gave you some medicine
when you were really, really ill, and that medicine made you
well again, then he would have saved you from that illness getting
progressively worse. or if you fell out of a boat
when you were fishing and you started to feel the water going
over your head and you put your feet down to stand up and you
discover there's nothing there for you to stand on, and then
someone reaches down and takes your hand and pulls you out,
then that person has saved you from a very dangerous place and
position. And that gives us really the
best understanding of what salvation means, because the Lord Jesus
Christ is our salvation. In fact, when we read the New
Testament, we discover that the Lord Jesus Christ's name actually
means Saviour. The name Jesus means saviour
or deliverer, someone who saves us from a difficult place and
a difficult situation. Call his name Jesus, said the
angel, for he shall save his people from their sins. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did when he went to the cross. He saved his people
from their sins. His people were those that had
been given to him, given to him to look after, given to him to
protect and preserve. And they had fallen, just like
that little child fell out of the boat. They had fallen. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
to save them. He took our place. But the salvation that the Lord
Jesus Christ brought was more than just the salvation which
a doctor might give to a child that was ill. It was more than
just falling into a river and somebody reaching out and grabbing
a hold of us. Because we had committed a terrible
crime. That crime is called sin. And what the Bible teaches is
that we are all sinners. And that crime, because it is
committed against a holy God, requires a terrible price in
payment. The terrible price is death. Because the Bible says, the soul
that sinneth, it shall die. And the wonderful thing about
our Saviour, the Lord Jesus, is that when He came to save
us from our sins, He became our substitute and He died in our
place. The judgment of God, the justice
of God demanded that a price be paid for sin. A person has to die because he
has committed a terrible sin and the judge looking upon him
there passes that sentence of death as the prisoner is led
away, as the prisoner is led away to have that sentence enacted
upon him. Imagine what he must feel like
knowing that he has come to the end of his life and justly so,
because he has been convicted of his sin. But then imagine
that as he is being led away to his punishment, someone steps
up and says, let this guilty person go free. I will take his
punishment. I will die in his place. I will
satisfy the demands of justice for him. And that's exactly what
the Lord Jesus Christ did. He died in the place of his people. He took our guilt. He took our
judgment. He took our sin. And he died
under the justice of God because he loved us so much. There is a man in scripture called
Simeon. Simeon was an old man and he
was waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
told that he waited every day in the temple at Jerusalem for
the Lord Jesus Christ to come and he waited patiently because
God the Holy Spirit had told him that he would see the Saviour
before he died. And he knew, though he was old,
that he was waiting to see the Saviour. One day, a young couple
with their newborn baby walked into the temple. They were there
for quite a different reason. They were there because they
thought that that was something that was appropriate and useful
to do. So they carried their little
baby into the temple to have him blessed. And there the old
man sat, watching the door, wondering when he was going to see the
Saviour. And the Holy Spirit spoke to
him. And the Holy Spirit told him that this child that had
just been brought into the temple was the Saviour of mankind. He was the one. And old Simeon
went up and he took the baby and he cradled that baby. And
he looked at Mary and Joseph, the young mother, and her husband,
and there he smiled as he looked at them, and he recognized that
this was the beginning of the revelation of God's plan and
purpose for the saving of sinners. He said, mine eyes have seen
thy salvation, because they had seen this little child, Jesus. A few years later, when the Lord
Jesus was performing his ministry, he went into a town called Jericho,
and there he met a man called Zacchaeus. And Zacchaeus was
a sinful man and a man who had a conscience for his sin when
the Lord spoke to him. And the Lord said to Zacchaeus,
today salvation has come to your house. David in the Old Testament,
he knew about salvation too and he knew what it was to find salvation
coming into his heart and into his life as God applied the blessings
of forgiveness to that man's soul. And David says in Psalm
35 verse 2, say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. What a lovely prayer for us to
pray. Lord, say to my soul, I am thy
salvation. I hope that's a prayer that we
all can pray. I hope that's a prayer that lies
heavily as a burden upon each one of us. Say to my soul, Lord,
I am thy salvation. It thrilled the apostles because
Peter could say, neither is there salvation in any other, for there
is none other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we
must be saved. Paul could say to the Romans,
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, the message of Christ,
for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. The Jew first and also the Greek. Salvation is a wonderful thing. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world to save sinners. I am a sinner and you are a sinner
and this is a great salvation that the Lord Jesus Christ has
effected. I trust we will all be able to
testify that we have tasted and seen that the salvation that
the Lord Jesus Christ has for sinners like us has been our
portion and our help. Here's something for the older
people to think about. The word salvation, I looked
it up and it is mentioned 164 times in scripture, the word
salvation, and it's from Genesis to Revelation. If you've got
one of these little computer programs on your laptop or your
computer or your telephone at home, look up the word salvation,
put it in the search box and look it up and just read through
The verses where salvation comes up on that list, it'll take you
an hour, there's 164 of them. But from Genesis to Revelation,
there it is, and they're beautiful, beautiful verses. The first time
it's used is in Genesis 49 and verse 18. Jacob says, I have
waited for thy salvation, O Lord. People think that salvation's
an easy thing, a simple thing, something that you can just reach
out your hand and grasp, something that you can lift up your hand
and take, something that is there to be accepted or rejected at
your good pleasure. Huh. If only they knew what salvation
was, how precious it is, how rare it is. Old Jacob was an
old, old man, and he could testify, I have waited for thy salvation,
O Lord. And all the way through the Scriptures
until you get to the book of Revelation, and the last occasion
in which that word is mentioned is in Revelation 19, verse 1.
There we read, After these things I heard a great voice of much
people in heaven, saying, Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honour
and power unto the Lord our God. What a wonderful God we have.
We are going to have an eternity stretching out before us in which
to praise the salvation of our God, to love him who first loved
us, to bless him who first blessed us, and to thank him for his
salvation who came and saved us from our sin. Amen. Thank you very