Christ's Mission: Salvation for Sinners

The apostle glories in his calling. He can think of nothing higher than this, the privilege of preaching the gospel, of being a herald of the glad tidings, an announcer, a proclaimer of the meaning of that which happened at Bethlehem there in that stable. Now, why does he glory in this? Well, here he tells us. [00:01:56]

This is not some idle gossip. This is not something which may be true or may not be true. We're all given to that, aren't we? We hear something, and it's rather striking, and we go and repeat it. And somebody says, yes, but are you sure it's true? It sounds very wonderful, but the question is, is it true? I've heard rumors before. Now, says the apostle, this isn't a rumor. This isn't idle gossip. [00:03:00]

What I'm preaching, says Paul, is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's not something that I've been told by another man. I'm not passing on a message that I've received secondhand. I'm not an apostle as the others are. They were all together and they were with the Lord. I wasn't. I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an injurious person at that time. I wasn't one of the twelve apostles. I wasn't with them. [00:05:04]

He was traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus to exterminate the Christian church there, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, hating the very name of Christ. And suddenly about noonday he saw that shining in the heavens above the brightest shining of the sun and the face. And he asked, Who art thou, Lord? And back came the answer, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. [00:05:39]

He came to people in sin and misery and shame and had a great and a wondrous message. Listen, he says, listen to what I have to tell you. Good news, gospel. It's not, I say, a new law. He didn't go around making fresh demands upon people. He didn't just go around preaching a certain bit of moralism and ethical teaching. He didn't go and tell people, just listen, if you put a great effort into it and pull yourselves together, at last you can save yourselves and lift up your world. That's not good news. [00:08:16]

There is nothing which so displays the glory of God as this gospel of Jesus Christ. Ah, we know that God's glory is to be seen in many ways. The psalmist tells us in the 19th Psalm, the heavens declare the glory of God, and they do. Look up in a starry night. Look at the sun and the moon and the stars at any time. Look at the mountains and the valleys, the rivers and the streams, the beauty of the flowers and the little lambs gambling in the field, the heavens and all creation. [00:09:53]

In other words, he is not just a philosopher going and propounding a new theory to an academic group of people who sit in a detached manner and look on and listen and enjoy it. No, no. This is a message which does something. It calls for a response. It is a faithful saying and worthy of. [00:12:43]

To be mastered, to be gripped by it, to be controlled by it, to yield yourself to it. Or if I may put it in a phrase, the faithfulness of the message, it is a faithful saying. Yes, the faithfulness of the message should lead to faith in it. Not a detached consideration, not an idle contemplation. Oh no, but a response, a full all acceptation. [00:14:10]

Oh, listen to him putting it in that immortal phrase to the Romans, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, why not? Well, he says, because it is the power of God, the dynamic of God and to salvation to everyone that believe it. It will turn the world upside down, it will turn sinners into saints, it will take a hopeless drunkard and turn him into someone who adorns the life of the church. It can come to a harlot and a prostitute and make of her a Madonna. [00:15:18]

What is it that makes a man respond to it in that way and give it all acceptation? Well, let me just note the things the apostle tells us here. The first thing is, our view of what happened there at Bethlehem this morning. Ah, yes, but our response to that event is determined by this. Our view of the babe. Who is this babe? Who is this person? [00:17:43]

He came as a part of God's great plan and purpose of salvation and of redemption. You needn't take my word for this. Listen to him. He said the Son of Man is come. Why? To seek and to save that which is lost. Same thing. Or listen to him again. The Son of Man, he says, is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. To save. [00:24:35]

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and he said, they that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. I came, he says, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The Pharisees didn't rejoice in him. Why? Well, because he made them feel that they were sinners, and they didn't like that. They never saw the need of salvation. The publicans and the harlots, he says, go crowding into the kingdom, and you remain outside. They knew that they were sinners. [00:30:24]