Word of Salvation – Vol. 37 No. 40 – October 1992

 

Jesus Saves Sinners

 

Sermon by Rev. Bill Wiersma on Lord's Day 2

 

Dear fellow human beings,

The message for this evening/morning is that Jesus saves sinners.  This Message implies two things:

1.  That sinners need saving.

2.  That there are sinners to be saved.

And it is this second point that many people have difficulty with: namely, that there are sinners to be saved.

You see, nobody wants to be known as a sinner.  We find it offensive to be told, you are a sinner.  The natural man – that is the person without faith in God – does not think (does not want to think) of himself as a sinner.

Anyway, what is a sinner?

Who are sinners?

I suppose that everyone will have his own definition of what a sinner is.  At the same time there will be some basic ideas commonly associated with the words 'sinner' and 'sin'.  Everyone knows that sin is something wrong.  You don't have to go to church to know that.  And most would agree that a sinner is someone who does wrong.  In fact to qualify for the Title 'sinner' a person would have to do a lot of wrong, wouldn't they?

Perhaps we could agree that a sinner is one who is regarded as a hopeless case.  A person who does it all wrong.  A person who messes up his/her life and doesn't seem to be able (or even want) to do something about it.

Well, if that is what we understand by the word 'sinner' then it is no wonder that you are not keen to be told that you are such a person.

Who wants to think of themselves as a failure, in terms of trying to be good; a good person, a respectable person, a kind person?  Who wants to admit that their life is in danger of total collapse because they have lived it all wrong?

Nobody likes to admit that!   That's why the message of the Gospel is so offensive to people.  That's why Christians who preach the Gospel of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone, are hated.  For the Gospel, i.e. the Good News of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, assumes that all men are sinners; every man woman and child in this world needs saving.

Basic to the preaching of the Gospel is the truth and relevance of God's law.  God's law is His will for our lives.

In His law God tells us how He wants us to behave.  God has a right to tell us that, because He has created us – He has made us.

This is another very basic presupposition of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That God exists: a personal God who has made all things and who is distinct from His creation.  God is not part of His creation, even though He is closely involved with the existence and life of His creatures.  There is the God who has made us who has a claim on our life.

But men in their pride have rejected this claim of God.  Many people, in fact more and more people in our society, believe that they can exist and function without God and in their temerity they say, there is no God, we don't need God, we don't want God.

But does that get rid of God?  Of course not!   Men can say all they like – it does not alter the truth.  Those of you who are familiar with a bit of history know that for years men, religious men, said that the earth was flat.  That did not make the earth flat, did it?

And just because there are some people foolish enough to say, there is not God, that will not make God go away.  God does not cease to exist just because men want to be rid of God.  And that desire is not something new.  We might think that we live in days which require new thought.  Well, you read the Psalms.  "The fool says in his heart, there is no God.'  And 'why do the nations rage and the peoples imagine vain things...?  The One enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.'

GOD IS...!

That is the most fundamental truth.  A truth which somehow everybody knows, even when they have been brought up to be atheists.  They tell me that in Russia young people were going to church again (before the breakdown of communism) because they knew that there is more to life than their atheist teachers and artists wanted them to think.

God is.  God has made us.  God has a rightful claim on our life.  And God has told us how he wants us to live.

God's law tells us that God meant mankind to live in harmony with God and with each other.  That was God's universal intention.  That is His will for all mankind.

You see, it is important that we realise that there is really only one God.  There is not one God for the west and another for the east; one God for the poor another for the rich, one for the simple and another for the intelligent.  There is One God who has created us all and whose commandment applies to all men.

'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.  And you shall love your neighbour as yourself.'  That is God's will.

Now, it is true that this command is spoken to God's covenant people, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.  But surely, it is a universal command applying to all mankind, because it is the heart and spirit of all God's commandments.

This command, to love God and your fellow creatures, is an expression of the very character of God himself.  The message of both the law and the Gospel is that God is love.  The law tells us that the image of God in which we were created to live, the image in which we are meant to function, is love.  It is in love that it is to be seen that we are the children of God.

In His law God says, I want you to be like me because I have created you to be like me.  I want you to love because I am love.

The Gospel tells us what God in His love has done and is doing to restore that love in our hearts and in our relationships through Jesus Christ and his Spirit.

It is God's intent, and it has always been His intent, that we should love God with all our being and that we should love our neighbour as ourselves.

That is the fundamental law of God for our lives.  That will of God is spelled out in all kinds of commandments which teach us what is truly loving and helpful, and what is not.

So we find in the Ten Commandments that trying to make images of God is not loving or helpful in our relationship with God.  We are told that disrespect for our neighbour is not an expression of love, nor is stealing, or sex outside a marriage relationship.

The heart of all the commandments is love in our relationship with God and with the neighbour.  And it is by this heart command that God judges whether we are sinners or not.  It is by this command of love to God and love to our neighbour that we must answer the question: what is sin and what is a sinner?

And so the question comes to each one of us, to you too: Do you love God?  With all your heart, with your whole being?  Do you love your neighbour?  As yourself?  Be honest now.  Is your life characterised by love?

I have just finished reading a book which was written by a man who was brought up as a Hindu guru.  A man who from an early age daily meditated for hours, who practised all sorts of self-discipline.  He was seen as a holy man, a man utterly dedicated to become a better person.  He was a very religious man!

But in his book he tells how he came to see what his heart was really like.  He came to see his pride and selfishness in all he did.

He saw the hatred and contempt with which he treated others, especially his devout and supportive aunt.  He saw that for all his attempts to be better he was a hating and spiteful man: a religious, and yet a hating and spiteful man.  He discovered the truth of the sinfulness of the human heart.

'By nature we are inclined to hate God and our neighbour.'  Oh, we know we should not.  We know we should love.  But do we?  It is not what we know but what we do with God's law that makes us what we are.  We may try to be good.  We may even say to ourselves, from now on I shall do my best to be more caring – less grating more forgiving.  But on our own, we can't.  Before we know it, our pride is hurt and our anger is red hot.  And inwardly we despise our neighbour and wish our neighbour out of our life.

With His command, to love your neighbour – at home, in the street, at work or wherever you meet him – God shows us our predicament.  And it is a hard pill to swallow.  God shows us our heart.  And what a painful experience that can be.  To discover that in spite of all our trying to be good, we can be such hateful people, such arrogant people who always tend to think of ourselves as better than others.  Who haven't got time for others.  And who can get ourselves all worked up about how stupid other people can be.  How uncaring they can be.  And, oh! we are so good!   While we despise out neighbour and wish they would finish up in the lake.  How we can wish people out of our life; to stop bothering us.

And God says: You shall love your neighbour as yourself because I your God, your Creator, who created you to love Me above everything else, I have created you to live in love.  Without love there is no life.  We know that.  We know it in our own homes, do we not?  With the very people we love.  They only have to say one thing wrong and the air is filled with tension and hate.  One moment peace and quiet, the next you can cut the air with a knife.  This happens because I am inclined to hate God and my neighbour.  I do not want God to be the Lord and Master over my life.

I want myself to be the boss,
and everyone else to dance to my tune,
to consider my wishes,
and to conform to my way.

Even with all our religion we can be judgemental, spiteful and destructive people.

How painful it can be to hear it.  We can hate the person who shows us the hatred of our own heart.  It is hard to take when someone points the finger and says: You are a sinner!   We are so ready to come up with every excuse under the sun, however ridiculous it may be, and say: But I am not!   How hard it is to admit that your heart is in a mess.  Your relationship with God and therefore your relationship with your neighbour is in a mess.

Amazing, isn't it, that the law of God is not, in the first place, an ethical standard?  Rather, it is a commandment which speaks about a heart relationship.  And if that heart relationship is wrong, then everything else becomes tense and twisted.

It is not until you see this in yourself, and you admit that your relationship with God and with your neighbour is in a mess, that you will cry out: Jesus: please save me!

AMEN