The Wonder of the Message: Jesus Came For You

There is a day yes when sin is going to be judged
But right now God is saying listen I've come to save you
I sent my son Jesus to be your savior

And I want you to think about this
Jesus came to give his life
Because there is a very real heaven and there's a very real hell
If heaven and hell weren't real why would Jesus go to the extreme that he went to to be crucified to shed his blood to give his life
Why
It's real
And he knows how desperate the situation is and how every one of us needs a savior

They responded to the message
Friend every one of us has to do the same thing
The truth is that Jesus came to be your savior
How will you respond to that
Are you willing to surrender your heart and your life to him
Are you willing to invite him in to be your savior to forgive you of your sins those places where you've missed the mark
So that ultimately you can have eternal life

And yet the angels are trusting these guys if you will with the most important message in all of human history
That a Savior has been born
And I think the reason why is because heaven wanted all of us to realize and understand that this good news is for everyone
For all of us
Even shepherds
Even the people that you kind of discount and maybe pass over and not even trust

So we've got these categories
Like we've got the good the bad the ugly and the really ugly
Right
You know the good
That's the category that I would put myself in
I'm good
You know I'm a decent person
I'm nice
But then you've got like serial killers down on the other end
And if we start comparing ourselves to them like I'm really good compared to that guy
But here's the problem
We're not called to compare ourselves to other people

I have no idea what this man was involved with that got him to the place in his life where a legion of demons now lived inside of him
But even in that state as he came to Jesus his desire was to be free
His desire was to be saved by Jesus
And what did Jesus do
He healed him
He drove out the demons drove him into a herd of pigs
And God set him free put him in his right mind
This message was for him

And so they left
They ran and they got him because he was sick and he couldn't walk and he's on a mat
And so they picked up his mat and they carried him to Jesus
And when they got back to the house the house was full
They couldn't get in
And so they went up on the roof and they tore the roof apart so they could lower their friend down in front of Jesus
And what happened
Jesus forgave him of his sin and healed his body

We know the story she did
She fought through the crowd and as Jesus walked by everybody was touching
Everybody was pushing
Everybody wanted to be close
But she in faith reached out just to touch the hem of his garment
And when she did Scripture says that power left Jesus' body
He immediately realized that power had left and he stops

The next thing again very simplistic but I want you to understand it
That Jesus came to forgive your sin
He came to make a way possible for the sin that you've committed to be forgiven
We talked about what sin is
It's missing the mark
And so all the times in your life when you've missed the mark all of that has to be forgiven somehow
Scripture is very clear that the penalty or the wages of sin is death

The next thing that I want you to see is he came to give you eternal life
Because once your sin is forgiven if you put your faith and trust in Jesus and you allow him to forgive you of your sins then understand what happens
Now you have access to heaven
Your sin is a barrier
Because God is holy
God is just
And sin can't be in his presence
And so that creates a huge problem because we've all sinned

We've looked at the wonder of waiting and how there was that 430 years of silence before the angel came and gave the message to Mary
430 years of waiting
And we've talked about what we can learn in the waiting and how we can trust God
And then we talked about the wonder of a promise
And we actually spent time looking at the Old Testament prophetic declarations about Jesus and about him coming

And what Paul is talking about here is just in our own self in our just human nature man we're all lost
We're all broken
We're all sinners
We are all sinners
We've all sinned
And I don't know for some if you're kind of new to church that may seem like a really harsh statement
I'm not trying to be mean
I'm just trying to let you know hey we're all in this together
Every one of us are in this same predicament if you will because we've all sinned

And so ultimately I guess what I'm trying to say to you is Jesus came to be your savior
Christmas is all about
That's the message that the angel was sharing with those shepherds that night
It wasn't just for them
It wasn't just for a list of people that we looked at out of the gospels
It's for you and I for today

But I want you to understand this message the wonder of this message the awe the amazement of this message is that it continues on
It doesn't stop in the Gospels but it just continues to move forward through history right up until this moment and this time
And I want you to understand and see that this message is even for you

And so there's just four quick statements that I want you to understand today
First one is this
Jesus came for you
And I know that's very simple and very basic but can we just every one of us across this room just for a moment
let the reality of that statement sink in to your spirit
This Christmas season can you just make it personal
Let it be personal
We're celebrating Christmas
We're celebrating that Jesus came

But after they were done it says they went out and they spread the news
They went out and they told everybody that they could find
How interesting that the shepherds the people who were not trustworthy the people that were known to be liars and to be dishonest were the ones that were carrying the message of the Savior to be born
And they were letting everybody know
And here's the interesting thing
Scripture says that they were so impacted by Jesus

And they actually stopped at a Samaritan town on the outskirts
There was a well
And Jesus sends the disciples into the town to get some food to eat
And he was going to sit and rest at the well
And it's there that he has the encounter that we call the woman at the well
She's out there by herself
And Jesus begins to have a conversation with her which is something first of all a Jewish man would not have a conversation with a woman that he didn't know let alone a Samaritan woman

I think it's interesting
And this is part of the wonder of the message
That the angels would go to the shepherds
I'm sure that night they you know they weren't like well you know we need to tell somebody Jesus was born
We got to get the word out
Who are we going to tell
It's late
Everybody's kind of you know in bed for the night already
How are we going to let the world know
And so they're looking around and like hey there's some shepherds over there
Let's go tell them

Because we also see as we look through the Gospels that the message was for religious leaders
Look at John chapter 3 if you will
So there there's a man by the name of Nicodemus
Nicodemus is a Pharisee
And not just a Pharisee but he's part of the Sanhedrin
The religious ruling party if you will over the nation of Israel
This man had power and prestige and authority
One of the religious leaders of the nation
And he has this meeting with Jesus
It's in John chapter 3

And so as we've looked at the different parts of it it's been a challenge for us
And so we've talked about the wonder of hope the hope that we have because Jesus came to be our Savior
And how that is an anchor for our souls
We know that we know that we know that we're on our way to heaven because our faith and trust is in him

Think of the pain
Think of the suffering
Think of all that Jesus was facing in that moment
His life is ebbing away
Every breath hurts
It's excruciating
You know I think about what I would have done in that moment probably
I'm like dude you had your chance
But right now this is about me
I'm in a little bit of pain
Can you recognize what I'm going through right now
Read the room buddy

Shepherds at this time in culture were they were known for being dishonest
They weren't the most trustworthy people
And they're kind of nomadic
They're kind of you know they live with the sheep
So even when they roll into town they don't smell the greatest and nobody wants to really be around them
And when you start talking with them you realize you know they like to exaggerate the truth and they're not honest people
And so no one really wanted to spend much time around shepherds
They were kind of the lowest of the low you know if you will
And so nobody believed anything they really had to say

And let's just be real
You could be the absolute nicest person who's ever lived on a planet
Sweet kind loving caring
But if you've just one time just one time in your entire life done something that was contrary to the heart and the will of God that's called sin

And somehow we've got to come to the realization that we've got to deal with our sin
This idea of sin it's an archery term
And it just simply means that you missed the mark
I want to give you just a visual example of this
You can throw that thread up there
There's an example on the big screen here
I think it's going on the sides in a moment
But it's like obviously if you're shooting at the target you want to hit the sinner
You want to hit the bullseye
And that's the goal of all of our lives

We also see in John 4 that it was for the Samaritans
Samaritans
That doesn't mean a whole lot to us today
But you've got to understand in that time in this culture the Samaritans were they were people that you did not talk to
You don't associate with them
They were they called them like a mixed breed
They were Jewish people that had intermarried with other nationalities
Something they weren't supposed to do
And so they were classified as Samaritans that had a whole area Samaria where they lived
And so in fact true strong Jewish people if they were traveling they wouldn't even walk through that area