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THE GIFT OF JESUS AS OUR SAVIOUR

Three couch potatoes sprawled across the living room furniture one evening in front of the TV, when their favorite program—“CSI: Topeka”—was suddenly interrupted by a laundry-detergent commercial.

Up on the screen, a mother looked blissfully grateful for the box of Mud-B-Gone detergent she clutched in her arms, as—out in the street in front of the house—her young son stomped gleefully through the muddy puddles in his freshly laundered pants.

“Would you look at that?” remarked Couch Potato #1. “That kid has messed up his spanking-clean clothes. Good thing his mom has that detergent.”

“But hey,” added Couch Potato #2, “what good does it do if she cleans them again, if all he does is run right back out and stomp through the puddles again? What this kid needs is for somebody to make it so that he doesn’t even want to stomp in puddles again.”

Up on the TV screen, the Mud Puddle Kid continued to drench himself in muddy goo, as Couch Potato #3 put in his two cents’ worth. “It’s one thing to clean up the kid when he gets muddy,” he said. “And it’s another to fix it so he doesn’t even want to get muddy. But what would really solve everything is if somebody could take the mud puddles themselves away.”

The Three Couch Potatoes got into such an argument over who had the right solution that they ended up in the street in front of their own house, throwing mud at each other.

Sad to say, Christians sometimes get into the same kind of argument about salvation. Some say that when we get all covered with the mud of sin, we need God to forgive us and clean us up. Others say that this doesn’t do much good unless somehow, God can do something about our desire to keep sinning. And finally, some say that we can never be fully saved from sin until God takes sin itself away.

Well, my friends, as we close in on Christmas 2005, this week we’ve been looking at the Five Best Christmas Gifts to be found in the original Christmas story. And today’s best gift is found in Matthew chapter 1, verse 21: “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” (NKJV) In giving us Jesus, God gave us one of the greatest possible gifts—salvation from sin. That is the very meaning of the name Jesus.

Jesus—the One who saves His people from their sins.

And salvation includes everything the Three Couch Potatoes argued about. When we sin—when we choose our own way instead of God’s way—a built-in penalty follows. The final penalty for sin, the Bible says, is death. “The wages of sin,” Romans 6:23 says, “is death.”

But when Jesus paid that penalty for us on the cross—and died in our place—He earned the right to forgive us when we confess and repent of our sins. Like the Mud Puddle Kid, we can come to Him, and He will wash us clean again. “If we confess our sins,” the Bible says in 1 John 1:9, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

(NKJV) And Isaiah 1:18 says that when Jesus cleanses us from sin, we are as clean as newfallen snow: “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are like shall be as white as snow they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’”
It’s a wonderful thing to have all the guilt and mud of our sins washed away. What can possibly match the feeling of knowing that once we’re forgiven and cleansed, God sees us as if we had never sinned in the first place?

But despite all our best intentions and resolutions—despite our willpower and our sincere desire to not sin—in our human weakness we often find ourselves right back in the mud of sin again. Paul the apostle discovered how weak his own will was to keep him from sinning. Listen to his words in Romans chapter 7, verses 18 through 24: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

“I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Paul found what we all eventually find—that sin isn’t just the selfish things we do. It’s woven into the very fiber of our being. It’s a part of us. But remember today’s best Christmas gift.

Remember the name Jesus. He will save His people from their sins. From the penalty of sin? Oh, yes. But far more. Jesus also saves us from the power of sin—the hold it has over us. He not only deals with our sinful thoughts, words, actions, and motives, He also gets down much deeper and changes us from the inside out so we no longer even WANT to sin.

Sometimes theologians call what Jesus does to save us from sin’s penalty justification. It’s a word that means that Jesus forgives us, sets us right with God again, and makes us clean in His sight. Theologians also have a word for what Jesus does to save us from sin’s power. They call this sanctification. It’s the lifelong process Jesus uses to break the power of sin in our lives. It’s how He changes us from making our choices based on selfishness, to making them based on love.

Sanctification is how Jesus makes us into His own image, so that our character becomes more and more like His own.

When Paul cried out, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” he immediately added in Romans 7:25 the answer he had found. “I thank God,” he wrote in triumph, “through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Jesus saves us from sin. He saves us from its penalty—and from its power. But that’s not all. He will someday soon save us even from the presence of sin. He will, as the third TV couch potato suggested in our little parable, take away the very mud puddles of sin themselves.
When Jesus returns to this earth at His second coming, the Bible says that death will no longer exist, because death is a result of sin—and sin will no longer exist to cause death. Here’s how Paul put it in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15 and verses 54 and 55: “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”

No more death. No more sin. No more Hades, meaning the grave. After sin ends here on earth when Jesus returns, everything changes. Here’s what John saw life would be like after the second coming: “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

You wouldn’t be normal if you hadn’t thought of the gifts you’d like to receive this Christmas. Maybe you’ve dropped hints. Maybe you have hopes that you’ll receive some special item. Depending on what kind of year it’s been financially for you and your family, you may be hoping for anything from a new book or DVD to a widescreen plasma TV.

But in Jesus, God has a gift for you that’s priceless beyond all imagination—the gift of salvation from sin, entitling you to eternal life. Compared to living forever with Jesus in a perfect world soon to come, everything else is just toys and trinkets.

Jesus saves His people from their sins. But try saying it this way: “Jesus saves me from my sins.” From the penalty, the power, and the presence of sin in my life.

Guilt is a heavy load to carry around. Guilt over things you’ve said or done or thought. Guilt over sins you haven’t confessed. Guilt from knowing that there’s something standing between you and God. Jesus wants to take away that guilt—all of it. And He wants to take it away, not later, but now. Will you let Him? Will you ask Him?

Something that’s also a heavy load to carry is feeling powerless. Powerless to control the selfish behaviors and habits of your life. Powerless to change. Jesus wants to come into your life and give you power to change, power to break the control sin holds over you. He wants to save you from sin’s power—and He wants to do it, not later, but now. Will you let Him? Will you ask Him? Can anything you’ll receive this Christmas be a better gift than the gift of Jesus as your Saviour? Tomorrow, join me again as we consider the gift of Jesus as our Ruler. Until then, this is Lonnie Melashenko, reminding you that it’s always true, friend—God loves you!

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