He Came to Save

We’re going to look at another church word this morning. If you looked at the bulletin you already know what it is. We’ve looked at this word before. I’ve told you that ‘to save’ means ‘to rescue’. We won’t go over that this morning. Today, we’re going consider some grammar. We’re going to look at this verb in terms of its tenses. As you read through your Bible, you’ll notice that the verb ‘save’ shows up in three tenses. The first points us to the past to make the point that Jesus saved us from our sins. A second points us to the present: Jesus is saving us from our sins. And the last points us to the future, Jesus will save us from our sins. We’re going to look at each of these this morning. In this way you will have a better understanding of what the angel was telling not only Joseph but all of us.

Listen as I read Matthew 1.18-21.

Let’s start with the past tense. I’m pretty sure that you’ve heard these words from Paul: ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…’ Here, the Spirit is telling us about something that happened in our past. We were saved. Before this happened, we hated God and were far from Him. But then, we were changed. There are lots of ways of talking about this. Jesus uses the striking language of being born again. Theologians often use word ‘regeneration’ which is just a fancy way of saying ‘born again’. The hymn describes it as, ‘I once was lost but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.’ Something happened in our past. We were saved.

Some Christians know when this happened. They have a date. Some even know the time. They can pinpoint when the change occurred. For some of these, it was the first time that they ever heard the Gospel. For others, they had heard before, but this is the first time it made sense. These folk know when the change happened. There are, however, other Christians whose experience is different. The change didn’t happen in one striking moment. It was more gradual. And they will tell you that at some point they realized that a change had occurred but they could not tell you exactly when. They will say something like, ‘I know that I believe the Gospel now. I have entrusted myself to Jesus. But last year at this time, I would not have said that. Somewhere in between there was a change.’ If I recall correctly, C. S. Lewis described his own conversion in these sorts of terms. Then, there are those Christians who have loved Jesus for as long as they can remember. Their walk with Him might have been up and down, but they cannot remember a time when they did not look to Jesus as their Savior. The change occurred, but they have no memory of it. This was the experience of John the Baptist who leaped for joy in the womb when pregnant Mary greeted Elizabeth, his mother. He is rejoicing in his Savior. This is David’s experience also. He wrote, ‘On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God.’ There was a change. You can know that it happened because you can see the evidence of faith. But in these two situations, and others like it, the change happened before they were born.

What is key here, what binds these different experiences together, is that the Spirit acted in each. It is His part of redemption to apply the work of Jesus to a person’s life. He causes that person to be born again. It is at that point that a person becomes a child of God. It is at that point that a person is saved by Jesus. What is critical here is not whether someone said ‘the prayer’, walked the aisle or got baptized. What is critical is that the Spirit acted and another person was born again, another person was saved by Jesus. That’s saved in the past tense.

Now, we’re going to look at our word ‘save’ in terms of the present. So, Paul writes, ‘Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved …’ The rescue that Jesus brings includes some things that He does in the present. To be clear about what’s going on here, I need to remind you of a couple of things that happened when you were saved in the past. One thing that we hear lots about is that the penalty of sin has been dealt with. Jesus paid for your sins. He satisfied divine justice so that no Christian will ever be punished for his sins. But there is something else that also happened. When a person is born again, the power of sin is broken. So, Paul also writes, ‘But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.’ Part of what the Spirit does in His work of giving us a new life is to remove the shackles of sin and make us willing slaves of Jesus instead. We no longer are under sin’s control. We are no longer its slaves. The only thing that an unbeliever can do is sin – and that includes the nice people. And that makes sense when you remember that the unbeliever lives his life for himself and not for Jesus. He is under sin’s control. But we have been freed from that. The power of sin – its slavery – has been broken.

However, it has to be admitted that there are still many habits of sin that remain in us. We are not under any obligation to obey sin like we once were. We’ve been freed from that. But the habits remain. So, part of what Jesus’ rescue includes is the work of the Spirit dealing with these habitual sins. He is in the process of saving us from these sins. You are being saved from them so that you do them no longer. So, again from Paul, ‘For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.’ And then, elsewhere, ‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.’ Quite a list, no? And it’s not even close to being exhaustive. These sins are in the process of being put to death by the Spirit of Jesus. We are being saved.

Be careful here. You have been saved. And you are also being saved. While you are in the midst of this process of being saved, your standing with God is not in question. To put it plainly, your making it to heaven does not depend on how well or poorly you do in putting sin to death. And it’s a good thing too, since we will never do a very good job of it. I say this because some have misunderstood this, and it has resulted in a lot of fear and anxiety. ‘Am I doing well enough? Maybe I’m not and God is angry with me. I have to push to do better – or who knows what may happen.’ That’s not what the Gospel is about. Once a person is born again, he becomes God’s child. That’s a done deal. This process of putting sin to death, of being saved in the present tense, is important and something to work at, but not because your standing before God is in doubt. If what God thinks about you were in doubt, you could not do a good enough job of dealing with habitual sin to remove those doubts. Your ‘doing’ here would be worthless. That is, placing your hope in your doing well enough to satisfy God won’t work. Jesus saves us by grace. He does that by Himself. Settling what God thinks about you happened in your past. He is your Father, and you are His child. Pursuing this process in the present is important because you exist to make Jesus look good. But it’s also important because you also exist to enjoy your God. Neither of those goals will be met very well unless this process of putting sin to death, of being saved in the present tense, is faithfully pursued. So, again from last week, the point here is not that you need to be a perfect Christian. The point is that you need to be a growing Christian so that the changes in your life would be evident to all.

Let me say something now about how you pursue this process. The key is not what you do. The key is what Jesus does. Remember, He saves you from these sins. You don’t save yourself. Once again, I need to tell you that this doesn’t mean that you do nothing. We’re back to the same two words that I told you about last week: ‘Follow Me’. Jesus leads, you follow. As He leads, He will deal with these sins. So, last week I told you that one of the things that Jesus might call a believer to do is change his schedule so that he can get more sleep. Let’s look at this more closely. What might be the response to such a call? The Christian might say, ‘But Lord, there is so much that I need to do.’ Now, behind that there might be any number of sins. There might be pride. ‘What I do is too important. I must be sure that I can get it all done.’ There might be fear. ‘If I don’t take the time to deal with all of these things something may go terribly wrong. Then, what will I do?’ Jesus knows what goes on in our hearts. And that’s why He says to this Christian, ‘Change your schedule. Set your alarm for later.’

This is about more than sleep. What we have here is one of those times when Jesus says, ‘Turn right’, and our Christian friend is used to going straight. And that’s where the battle is. ‘Will I follow Jesus now? Do I trust Him on this issue?’ Let’s assume that this Christian answers, ‘Yes, I will follow Jesus’, and he resets his alarm. What follows? It could be lots of things. It could be that his pride or fear is no longer hidden but comes to the surface because there is less time in his day for his to-do list. Then, the Spirit points them out, and our friend sees them for what they are and repents. Or maybe life doesn’t crash. Maybe even with less time for the to-do list everything still works smoothly. A blessing from Jesus. But what was once a weak faith when it came to time management issues becomes a stronger faith. In all of this our friend is being saved. His sin is being put to death. And what did he do to accomplish this? He decided to follow Jesus. He trusted Him at key moments. As a result, he is being saved in the present, in the same way he was saved in the past, by repentance and faith as he follows Jesus.

This leaves our last verb tense: the future. Jesus said, ‘But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’ This aspect of Jesus’ rescue pops up in different contexts. This is from Paul. ‘Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.’ This verse reminds us that when Jesus returns there will be justice. And that, for many, means divine anger. There are few these days who understand how angry God is at our rebellion. For the most part, His rage against sin has been held back. But on that day there will be no holding back. On that day, God’s just anger will be unleashed, full force. You have no idea how destructive that anger will be. No idea. But, thanks be to God, you will not face it. And why is that? The answer is that you were saved. Something happened in your past. The Spirit acted. You were born again. That is bedrock. Notice, however, how Jesus put it in that verse I read. ‘But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’ This sounds conditional, doesn’t it? Being saved in the future depends on enduring in the present. Some people get a bit anxious when they hear this. ‘Is there something more I’m supposed to be doing? What is it? Tell me quickly!’ Well, there is something to be done. But it’s not something new or more. We are to be following Jesus. We endure the difficulties to the end by following Jesus.

It’s at this point that someone asks, ‘Does this mean that I can lose my salvation?’ In this context, this is a question without consequence. It doesn’t need to be asked. Why do I say that? Well, let’s suppose that the answer is, ‘Yes, you can lose your salvation’. What changes? Is there some extra ‘something’ that you had better do to secure your salvation? Can there be something more than following Jesus that we need to be saved? Let’s take the other said and say, instead, that the answer is, ‘No, you can’t lose your salvation’. Does that mean that you can stop following Jesus? The question, at least in this context, is not helpful and actually makes no difference in how we live.

The key point is the same, regardless of how you answer that question. Follow Jesus. And as you do that, you will return time and again to the familiar dynamic of repentance and faith. That’s the endurance that Jesus is talking about. It’s all about listening for His voice, hearing it, obeying it. Sadly, there are times when we won’t obey it. That leads to stumbling and falling into sin. But then, the Spirit points that sin out, and because of His kindness to us, we repent and come again to Jesus in faith. He picks us up, and, once again, we follow Jesus. And on it goes. It’s not nice and neat and clean. It’s messy and twisted. But through it all, Jesus saves us. It is only those who refuse to repent who do not endure to the end.

Let me close with this. Understanding what it means that Jesus has come to save us from our sins can get confusing. There are ins and outs, and all sorts of details and questions. But it all gets real simple if you just focus on this: Follow Jesus. You don’t need to understand all the questions, and you certainly don’t need to have all the answers. Just follow Jesus by repentance and faith. If you do that, it will be clear that you have been saved, that you are being saved and that you will be saved.