Who Needs a Savior? #2

God reached into time, as it were, and saved you by His great power. And that which you had no ability to effectuate on your own, God did on your behalf. God did it for you. God worked in your heart. God delivered a gift.

God granted you a gift beyond compare. Thanks for joining us on the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and today Don continues our series, Your Sin and God's Salvation, with part two of a message titled, Who Needs a Savior? Last time Don began looking at the universality and reality of sin. Each and every one of us was born spiritually dead in sin, lacking any natural will to worship God.

Today, Don will encourage you to keep that history firmly in view, informing your appreciation for the Lord's intervention on your behalf. Have your Bible open to Ephesians chapter 2, and let's join Don Green now in the Truth Pulpit. Look over at the book of James, if you would.

James chapter 2, beginning in verse 10. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not commit murder. Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. Think of those big pain windows that are in a store window, a storefront, and a rock goes through and shatters it. It only took one rock to shatter the whole window. That's what one sin does to your soul.

It shatters the whole thing. It's not that you're innocent of eight commandments and only guilty of two. If you're guilty of one, you have transgressed against the holy God of the universe.

And you're a transgressor of Him, a transgressor of His law. Everything else is just details in one sense, in that you can't balance off your sin by so-called good works. And the thing that we have to come to grips with, look over at James chapter 3 verse 2. One sin makes you guilty. And the problem for all of us is that we haven't committed just one.

We've committed many. James chapter 3 verse 2. Repeating the universality of sin and showing it in its complete reality. James 3 verse 2. For we all stumble in many ways. You're in trouble. My unsaved friend, you're in trouble. With God, not with me. I don't matter. You're in trouble with God.

And you know what? Your conscience right now agrees with everything that I'm saying. Your conscience says, yes, that's true.

You are guilty. Your conscience is telling you you're not outside of the realm of things here. You have no spiritual merit before God, and you are unable to do any spiritual good to change your condition or to earn His favor. Who needs a Savior?

You do. You need a Savior. And the good news is that that's why Christ came to earth. Turn over another book back to 1 Peter. If you're in James, turn over to 1 Peter chapter 3 if you would. 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 18. This is why we preach Christ crucified. This is why the gospel is so important.

This is why entertainment and politics and things don't matter inside the walls of the church. We deal with eternal realities and the certainty of eternal judgment and offer the forgiveness of sins to anyone who would turn to Christ. Look at 1 Peter 3 verse 18. Actually, start in verse 24. Chapter 2 verse 24.

1 Peter 2 verse 24. Where it says that He Himself, referring to Christ, bore our sins in His body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by His wounds you were healed. Christ, the sin-bearing sacrifice on the cross.

Christ, receiving the punishment that the sins of His people deserved, standing in their place as their substitute, receiving the stroke of God on His innocent soul, bearing the punishment that was to go to you. He bore our sins in His body on the cross. Look at chapter 3 verse 18. It's also very clear that Christ also died for sins.

Chapter 3 verse 18 of 1 Peter. Christ also died for sins once for all. The just for the unjust. The innocent Savior in the place of guilty sinners. The righteous Son of God in place of the guilty sons of men.

The just for the unjust. So that, watch how this fits with the idea of separation, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. The whole point of the sacrifice of Christ was to bridge this gap of separation between you and your God.

So that your sins, having been paid for at the cross, would no longer be a hindrance or a barrier to God receiving you into His kingdom. We say it many times in so many ways. Just like Jesus said, the sower goes out to sow and he throws the seed. And a lot of that seed will never take root. It falls on rocky ground. It falls on weedy ground. A bird comes and eats it.

And a lot of the seed just goes unused. Unsaved person. Non-Christian friend in the audience today. Are you going to squander more seed that's been thrown on your soul today? Are you going to say, I've heard this all before, and this is just one more time? Or are you going to humble yourself under the Word of God and say, I've heard this all before, but now, for the first time, this comes alive. For the first time, this is water to my soul. Now I see this is what I needed.

Now it's open and alive to me. Would you respond that way? You see, this church preaches these things, first of all, in obedience to Christ, because he sent us to go and make disciples of all the nations. That's why we do this.

In one sense, the humanity of it is secondary to the vertical responsibility. Christ said, go and make disciples. It doesn't matter if anyone likes what we say or not.

It's totally irrelevant. But there is also this dimension of love and care for your souls that cause us, corporately, to do what we do. We want you to go to heaven with us. We don't want you to be left behind. We don't want you to suffer eternally for the sins that you've been warned about here on earth.

The thought of that is just too staggering for us. And so we continue to speak. Jesus was crucified as a sin-bearing sacrifice to secure spiritual life for everyone who believes in him. Christ died to save sinners. And turn over to the Gospel of Luke 5. If Luke 5, if the conviction of sin grabs hold of you, and you have the sense, I am one who is unclean. I'm in big trouble. I'm going to hell.

Someone help me. Then understand that the words of Jesus are speaking to you here in Luke 5 verse 31. See the grace.

See the mercy. See the love with which he speaks in this passage. Jesus did not come to congratulate anyone on their righteousness. A point which he makes clear here in verse 31.

He says, It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. If you're convicted of sin, understand that that doesn't disqualify you from eternal life. That's the whole reason that Jesus came. Look at it.

Look at it again there in verse 32. Cling to this one hope. Abandon any sense, abandon any hope of your self-righteousness. Abandon any hope that you're good enough because you're not.

Abandon any self-justification. Stop making excuses, and narrow your hope, narrow your focus to this one great perfect plea. Jesus, in chapter 5 verse 32 of the Gospel of Luke, in your own words you said you have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Christ, here I am. Have mercy on me unto eternal life. Christ says that's why I came. Christ calls you out of your sin, where you're at right now. Come to me for eternal life.

Why would you turn away? Why would you roll your eyes in impatience at the one message that can save your eternal soul? The very impatience that sinners have with the gospel, the very resistance that they have illustrates how ripe they are for judgment. God comes and speaks and delivers the gospel in love, grace, and mercy. He says, I will receive you. I will give you eternal life. Just come to me. And sinners, as it were, figuratively speaking, sometimes literally fold their arms across their chest and say, I don't want this.

When will this be over? It would not be unrighteous of God on that great final day before you're cast into hell. It would not be unrighteous of God to remind you of the times that you sat under the preaching of the gospel with your figurative fingers in your ears and your arms folded across your chest and your resistant heart being displayed in your very body language against the gospel. That would not be unrighteous for God to remind you eternal life was offered to you and you would not have it.

What an awful destiny that would be. So I ask you again, won't you leave your life behind and come in repentance and saving faith to Christ? Nothing else matters, but that your soul would be saved. Those who love you, those who have prayed for you, those who have spoken the gospel to you would gladly lay down their own lives if it would only mean that you would come to faith in Christ.

They would gladly do that. Paul said, my prayer for them is for their salvation. I could almost wish myself accursed if it would result in the salvation of my kinsmen, those who are Jews according to the flesh. You see, turn back to Ephesians. Ephesians 2. And like I say, we'll look at these verses a little more in the future. But see, the whole context, the whole context of salvation is the grace and mercy and the love of God on your soul. Look at verse 4, where it says God being rich in mercy, God being great in love with which He loved us, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. Verse 8, by grace you have been saved through faith. It's the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one would boast. We are His workmanship, verse 10, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. In love He predestined us. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have in Him redemption according to the riches of His grace, chapter 1, which He lavished on us. Oh, beloved, the whole outpouring of the Gospel presentation to you is God taking, as it were, a great shell of blessing and cracking it open so that it would pour out and spread over your soul like sweet perfume. God brings sinners under the sound of the Gospel with the intention to bless them.

And those who walk away refusing it have no one to blame for their ultimate destruction except themselves. No one will point an accusing finger at God in this room and say, I never heard. You didn't show your love to me. No one ever told me.

You've been told. God loves you. God has mercy on sinners who come to Christ. God is gracious. Why would you turn away and lock the door to your own prison cell and throw away the key that alone could have you escape the bonds of eternal judgment? Why would you do that? On what righteous ground would you do that?

There is none. You cannot righteously reject the Gospel. You cannot righteously reject Christ. You cannot righteously reject the claims of one who poured out his lifeblood for your soul. You can't righteously do that. In the name of your own self-interest, why would you do that?

Why would you act as a judge on your own soul and send it to hell by refusing the Gospel? Why? Why? Why?

Why would you do that? Well, those of you who are Christians, let's gather around God's Word now. We can only talk so long to those who reject, those of us who are the saved, those of us who are the saints, those of us who are the objects of the redeeming love of Christ. Come back to Ephesians 2.

I want you to see it from your perspective, from our perspective. You can say this is from my perspective if you're a Christian, and see the sweetness of what is embedded in this text. I told you last time that Paul is talking about the fact that you were dead in your trespasses and sins to achieve a greater aim, to show you that there was a great power that saved you. Because you could not save yourself, because you could not even communicate with God in your own sin and unrighteousness, God reached into time, as it were, and saved you by His great power. And that which you had no ability to effectuate on your own, God did on your behalf. God did it for you. God worked in your heart. God delivered a gift.

God granted you a gift beyond compare. Look at it here in verse 2 with me. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. And skip up to verse 4 now, realizing that these are the words of God to His chosen people, to His church. This is what God has done for us, brother and sister in Christ. This is the greatness of the goodness of God expressed to you and me. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. God pierced through your own rebellion. God pierced through the fog of ignorance. God, for some of you, pierced through decades of conditioning in false religion.

Pierced through it all by a power that no human being has. He pierced through it all and brought you to saving faith, brought you to repentance, exercised His love and power on you in such a great persuasive way that you came to Christ and received the gift of eternal life from Him. Fellow brother and sister in Christ, there you were dead in trespasses and sins, separated from God and utterly unable to change your condition. There you were in the filth and squalor of your own sin and speaking from personal autobiographical experience. Right there God met you in grace. Right there God brought you to saving faith in Christ. Right there in your drunkenness. Right there in your immorality.

Right there in all of your ignorance. Right there God made you alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. It was then that God exercised His power to save you. It was then that He showed grace and mercy to you. Oh, beloved, it was then in your guilt, it was then in your sin, it was then in your spiritual condition of death and separation that God said, I will bless you. That God said, now is the time for my mercy to come to this soul. Now is the time for new life to come to that one. God exercised His spiritual power in mercy, grace, and love upon your soul and redeemed you and brought you out of certain judgment, brought you out of sin into the family of God where He intends to bless you with grace and mercy now and for the remainder of eternity.

It was then that He did that. Beloved, if it feels like your soul has grown a little bit cold, let me tell you ultimately what the root of that is. If you've grown cold and indifferent in your walk with God. Yes, you've forgotten about the grace of God.

But the surest ground to maintain a fresh, vibrant walk with God is to remember what you came from. To remember that you were thoroughly dead and thoroughly in rebellion. God had mercy on you when you did not deserve it.

And those who shave off the corners of human depravity are ultimately strangling the very air hose that gives life and oxygen to a healthy soul. Recognize the guilt from which you were delivered. Recognize the grace that delivered you. And you become a thankful, joyful, confident Christian.

God has cleansed your past so that you don't have to dwell on it anymore. His love never changes, and so fear is gone in the present. His mercy endures forever so that your future is secure in Him.

This is wonderful! It is so great to be a Christian! It is so magnificent to be a child of the living God and to recognize that you did not contribute to it, but that it was all blessing brought down from God above on your undeserving soul. You live because He loves. You received a gift of eternal life because He is the great giver of goodness. Beloved, let your heart take root there. Right there is your source of joy and confidence in the midst of your uncertain life, in the midst of changes, in the midst of things good and bad.

Right there, you were dead. God made you alive together in Christ. By grace, you have been saved. Let's praise Him together as we pray. Our Father, we honor You and we thank You for Your grace. And all I can do, Lord, is just cast all of this onto the power of Your Spirit, to apply it to the lost with conviction that would lead them to saving faith, to clarify, Father, and affirm with assurance in the hearts of those who believe that they belong to You and that they would rejoice in the greatness of Your love and mercy and grace. You're not a harsh, vindictive deity. You're a saving God.

You're not remote and inaccessible to Your children. Christ came to save us. You came to us.

And You're not hiding from us now. Oh, Father, take these things from Your Word and apply them with power to each and every heart. And we offer it to You now as we close, in Jesus' name. Amen. You were spiritually dead, and God had to raise you unto new life.

So far, it's been a spiritual resurrection, but someday, God will raise you physically from the grave, as He did Christ. Pastor Don Green will continue our series, Your Sin and God's Salvation, on our next broadcast. So plan now to be with us on The Truth Pulpit. But right now, here's Don with some exciting ministry news. Well, my friend, today I have an opportunity to offer you something for free that goes beyond what we've done on our radio broadcast. It's a 10-message CD album titled The Bible and Roman Catholicism. It's a series I recently completed at Truth Community Church, taking scripture and evaluating what Catholics teach and believe about the pope, about Mary, about the mass, and about the whole nature of salvation. It's a resource that you really need to have in your hands, either for yourself or for your friends and loved ones, to know how to interact with them, and it's available for free at the place that Bill's going to point you to right now. Just visit us at thetruthpulpit.com and click on Radio Offers to learn more. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you back here next time on The Truth Pulpit.