1.
Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our
Redeemer. Amen. Today
as we continue our sermon series on the basics of the Christian faith as we confess
it as Lutherans we’re looking at “The
Trinity We Profess: The Son Who
Redeems,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
The story is told of a father in
Spain and his teenage son who were at odds.
The relationship became so strained that the son ran away from home. The father began a cross country search for
his son. Finally, in a last attempt to
find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper, “Dear Paco, meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you.
Your father.” The next day at
noon 800 “Pacos” showed up in front of the newspaper office. All were seeking forgiveness and love from
their fathers. Is your name Paco? Often you and I have been rebellious sons and
daughters, prodigals, running away from God’s love. Even those of us who regularly spend time in
God’s house sometimes rebel. We run away
from home in our hearts. But our
rebellion doesn’t stop our Heavenly Father, because it’s His nature to seek and
save the lost.
3.
Some people have said that believing
in Christ is the best way to attain eternal life. The Heavenly Father’s goal is the same as the
goal Paco’s father had in mind--God wants a personal relationship with us. “God is love,” the Bible says. He’s chosen to love human beings and He wants
us to have the joy of returning love to Him.
That relationship of love, founded in the forgiveness Christ has earned,
love freely given, received, and freely returned is what the Bible calls
eternal life. Those that God has drawn
to Himself by grace and given the gift of faith have eternal life. The Bible says, “by grace you have been saved through faith.” It’s already happened. We’ve already received eternal life.
(Ephesians 2)
4.
But, in another sense salvation is a
process going on in our lives right now as we become more like Jesus, as we
receive more of God’s grace and as His love transforms us little by little so
that we’re better able to love Him and to love each other. The Bible tells us in 1 Cor. 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness
to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it’s the power of
God.” We are being saved. Eternal life is at work within us. This process will continue until the day we
go home to live with our God forever.
That’s the day when we’ll receive the fullness of salvation. Eternal life will be fully ours. The Bible says we’ll be saved. Remember our Savior’s promise in Mark
16:16? “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”
5.
Eternal life will be ours in heaven
to be sure. But it’s also ours in a very
real sense right now. Our salvation will
be complete when we see our Lord Jesus face to face. But this process of salvation is at work in
us even now. This brings us to our first
question, “Is believing in Jesus the best
way to attain eternal life?” How
does this eternal life come to us? Maybe
you’ve hear some people say something like, “All
roads go up the mountain and they all get to the top.” Or, “All
religions are essentially the same.” Or, “One religion is as good as another.”
But, my friends the Bible is absolutely clear when it speaks of
Jesus that He is the only way to salvation, the ONLY way to heaven. Acts 4:12 says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under
heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
6.
But, some people might say that
believing that Jesus is the only way to heaven is a narrow-minded point of
view. Many have bought into the life of
universalism. That’s the idea that all
people will be saved regardless of what they believe. It sounds so “fair” and “logical.” But, is it?
Isn’t it ironic then that the people who profess the belief that one
religion is as good as another select their one doctor with great care! They abandon their non-dogmatic ideals when
the good of their physical body is at stake.
Is universalism really non-dogmatic, really non rigid? Not at all.
There’s no such thing as a truly nondogmatic position. No person is without having a certain set of
beliefs that they hold to be true. No
one is totally objective. Even the
person committed to nothing is narrow-minded in that viewpoint. The person who shifts moral values all the
time is rigid in that approach to life.
The Christian isn’t the only “exclusivistic” individual. Others aren’t more free, more enlightened,
and open-minded in their beliefs.
7.
In fact, when we say to our friends
that “Christ is the only way to salvation,” we’re not being narrow minded. We’re instead speaking for a God who is
narrow. Here are Jesus’ own words in
Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter by the narrow
gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and
those who enter by it are many. For the
gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it
are few.” God has revealed Himself
in Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation.
If there’s another way, we don’t know about it. Without Jesus, God’s Son, we don’t have
eternal life. God doesn’t bind Himself,
He’s bound us.
8.
With this being true, what can we
say to those who say that this is unfair of God? How do we answer those who ask how God can
condemn to eternal death those who “never had a chance”--the billions who have
never heard of Jesus? First, we do
whatever we to get the Word out to those who don’t know Christ, “How shall they hear without a
preacher?” The Apostle Paul asks in
Romans 10:14. We need to repent daily of
our lack of concern for the lost. Claiming
the forgiveness that is ours in Christ, we pray, give and work to see to it
that workers are sent into God’s harvest field.
We also look for ways to be faithful witnesses ourselves--in our
families, workplaces, and communities.
By our words and our deeds we call our non-Christian friends to “repent and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark
1:15). We proclaim the truth that “we shall all stand before the judgment seat
of Christ.” (Romans 14:10). But then
like John the Baptist we point them to Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John
1:29).
9.
We say to those who continue to
doubt, “I don’t have to answer for
God. But you will answer to Him. So join us as we come before His throne of
grace while there is still time. Thank
Him for the salvation He gives in Jesus.
Join us in sharing His love with all the world.” Will they listen to us? Some will.
Some won’t. But we continue to
intercede for our friends whether they come to faith or not. And we continue to speak the truth to them
with all the power and all the winsomeness the Holy Spirit provides. He’s the one who convicts hearts of the truth
of Jesus. He’s the one who leads people
to faith in Jesus as the only way of salvation.
As we continue to witness and as we see the Holy Spirit use our weak
words to speak His Word to the hearts of others, we lose the attitude that
somehow we’re better than others because “we have the truth.” We become more humble and thankful to God for
bringing us to faith in Jesus. And we
become more concerned about those who are still trapped in eternal death. We become faithful ambassadors of our Lord.
10.
Some
people wonder if Jesus was more God than man, or more divine than human? Even as we say that Jesus is the only way of
salvation, we find ourselves wondering all kinds of mysteries. Mystery is the word the Bible uses to
describe the truths about God we would never have guessed on our own--He’s
revealed them to us. If He hadn’t, we
never would have grasped them. As we
think about the salvation won for us by Jesus, we confront what the Bible calls
the great “mystery of godliness: God was
manifest in the flesh.” (1 Tim. 3:16).
The word manifest means revealed or shown. Human beings had sinned. We owed a debt so great we could never dream
of paying it back. And so God became a
human being, someone who could take our place and pay the penalty we owed. A mere human being couldn’t conquer
Satan. Or death or hell. So God remained God, in the person of Jesus
Christ. Was Jesus God? Or human?
Both. Christ was and still is fully
God and fully man.
11.
But,
some people believe that Jesus is our helper and guide through life, just an
example to demonstrate for us what the Christian life is like. Many people in our world would be willing to
accept the idea that Jesus was a “good man” a “great teacher.” Jesus was these things. But, He was much, much more. Jesus isn’t just our “example.” He’s our prototype. Because Jesus was true God and true man,
because He died for you and rose again from the dead, because He lives forever,
we now live in God’s forgiveness. And we
will live with our heavenly Father forever when our life on this earth
ends. Jesus is our prototype. Listen to what John the Apostle says about
this in 1 John 3:2, “Dear friends, now we
are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be
like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
12.
Jesus
isn’t simply “our assistant” in this process of sanctification, of becoming
like Him. No, He actually lives in
us. “Christ in me”--Paul uses this
phrase in the New Testament in Gal. 2:20 and Col. 1:27. His life and power are at work in us even
now. The Holy Spirit is at work, using
His means of grace so that more and more we serve God and the others around us. None of us can fully understand the great
mystery of God’s love for us in sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross for
our sins! But that mystery changes us,
that love transforms us so that we become “little Christs.”
13.
We
know Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins, but did Jesus descend
into hell to take the eternal punishment we deserved? On the cross Jesus suffered our punishment in
our place. There he struggled in mighty
combat with the nightmare of hell itself.
He who was from all eternity true God was in a way we can’t comprehend
abandoned by God--My God, My God why have
You forsaken Me? Jesus cried. And heaven was silent. But, the story doesn’t end there. Our Savior Jesus spoke one last word, a word
that’s forever silenced Satan’s accusations against us, “It is finished.” Jesus
shouted and He died. And He descended
into the jaws of hell to snatch the keys of death away from Satan. Then our Savior rose from the dead and
brought with Him in that resurrection each of us. We died with Jesus in our baptism and we rose
with Jesus in our baptism. We live with
Jesus because of our baptism. No wonder
the hymn writer shouted these words of praise, “Mighty Victim from the sky, Hell’s fierce pow’rs beneath you lie; You
have conquered in the fight, You have brought us life and light. Alleluia!
Amen.
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