Christopher: It is insanity for a Christian to hide sin from the one who saves, from the one who saves. So throw open every room in your soul, invite his eyes into every corner of your life and cast yourself upon the one whose name is Yahweh Saves.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher: So in that song that we just sang, and if you are under 12 years old, you need to pay special attention today because I'm gonna be largely talking to you. In that song that we just sang, it's we sang Emmanuel Emmanuel over and over again. Does anyone know kids what Emmanuel means? Any of you kids know what Emmanuel means? I'll tell you.
Don't worry, but I wanna see if you know. It means it means God with us. God with us. So when when we say, oh come, oh come Emmanuel, we're talking about Jesus, and one of Jesus' names is God with us. God being with us.
And think about when someone is with you. When someone is with you, it changes everything, doesn't it? If you're going somewhere, if you're in some place like your room or your house or the church and you're by yourself, you feel one way. Things are one way, but if someone is with you, like your daddy or your mommy or your grandpa or someone, if somebody It changes all that it's like. It changes everything about it, and Jesus is called Emmanuel, which means God is with us.
God is with us. So that's what As we think about Advent, as we think about Christmas, as we think about the time that we're going into, the promise of this time is that God is with us. God is with us. So let me move this back here so I can aim at you all. God is with us, and he's come to be with us in Jesus, And he's with us especially as someone who saves us because that's the other thing.
Jesus' name, did you know that Jesus' name means something? People have names that mean things. Reverence, your name means something. Phineas your name means something. Wicklow others your names mean things and Jesus's name means something.
Anyone know what it means? Kids, any of you kids know what Jesus means? I bet you do. Maybe it's just a little hard to say it here in this situation. Jesus means the Lord saves or Yahweh saves.
Jesus' name means God, Yahweh, that's God's special name, saves. That's what his name means. Jesus means Yahweh saves. So let me read you a part here in Matthew's gospel that tells us about that, about his name. In Matthew chapter one verse 21 it says this, She, talking about Mary, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, which means Yahweh saves, and this is why, because he will save his people from their sins.
Call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Now let me pray and I'll talk about that a little bit, and then we'll be done this morning, but I wanna talk about what it means that Jesus' name means Yahweh saves or God saves his people. Let me pray. Father, again, you've gathered us here this morning who are here. You've gathered those on the other side of the camera who are there, and you have purposes for this.
And so Lord, I pray that I would be able to speak your word clearly for those that you've gathered, and that more than that, Lord, far more than that, that your spirit would anoint what is said so that the hearts, the minds, the lives that hear these words over the next few minutes would be shaped by them. Father that you would truly make this moment now effective for saving, for healing, and for lifting up. And I ask it in Jesus name, amen. So Jesus's name means Yahweh saves or God saves. And it specifically means what?
He will save his people from their sins, which means sin is the thing we need to be saved from. If you're out drowning in the water and you say, Save me, you mean save me from drowning. If a bear's chasing you and you say, Save me, you mean save me from the bear. When Jesus comes to save, the thing that he saves us from is sin, and what is sin? Well, sin is what divides us from God.
Sin is when our heart says, I'll go my way instead of your way, Lord. When our heart says, I'm going to do what I want to do instead of obeying you, instead of trusting you, instead of following you, and when we do that, and all of us do this, but when we do that, we're separating ourselves from God. We're like putting a wall between our heart and God, and that sin is what we need to be saved from. Sin is what divides us from God. Sin is like poison sprinkled all over the food of our life, and whether it's really good food that you love or food that you don't enjoy, it doesn't really matter.
It's all poison. So if we have sin that is not forgiven, whether we're living a life that is full of blessing and things we enjoy, or whether we're living a hard life, it doesn't matter, because if there is unforgiven sin, it's like there's a poison sprinkled over the whole of our life that's separating us from the Lord, and if our sin is forgiven, that poison is taken away so that whether we're eating something we really enjoy or something we don't really enjoy, still there's no poison here. It's good for us. It's pointing us to God. If sin is removed, all of our life situation is moving toward God, is moving in a good direction, is healthy ultimately, not poisoned.
So sin is the issue to be dealt with, to be saved from, and it's a situation that all of us are in, and every kid, every child still has this, and we have it, adults. We need to be saved from sin, and Jesus is the one who saves. How does he save? How does Jesus save? Well remember right here in the beginning of Matthew it says Jesus's name means Yahweh saves from sin.
He saves his people from their sin. Call him Jesus because he will save his people from their sin. Well just at the end of the gospel, Jesus is on the cross, and he's dying on the cross, and over his head there's a piece of wood, and on that piece of wood this is written. It says this, this is Jesus, the king of the Jews. So Jesus is dying on the cross.
Remember he has a crown of thorns on his head because our sin is like thorns. Our sin gets the curse of thorns, and Jesus is wearing, it's like he's wearing my sin on his head, and he's dying, and over his head it says this, this is Jesus. And do you remember what Jesus means? Yahweh saves. God saves.
So on the cross it says, this is God saving you. This is Yahweh saves. What does it look like when God comes and saves us from our sin? It looks like Jesus when he's on the cross, because he comes and he takes those thorns. We're like all tangled up in these thorns, and he comes and he pulls those thorns up out of us, and he puts them on his own head, and he goes to the cross and dies in our place, and that word over his head says, This is Yahweh saving you.
This is God saving you. He's saving us by bearing our sins away, and because he does that, he's also able to save us from the power of sin in our life. So he takes our sins away on the cross. He dies and takes them to the grave, and rises so that they are dealt with and forgiven, and if that's happened to our sin, guess what that means? When I'm in the midst of struggling with sin now, I can say, Jesus, save me from this sin.
You saved me by forgiving me. The destructive power of this sin is taken away, but now, Lord, also take the sin itself out of my life. Get rid of this. So the sin of lying, that's a sin. If I'm trusting Christ, he took all the thorns of my lying, and he took them away.
He died under their punishment. I'm forgiven. But now also when I'm tempted to lie, when I'm tempted to twist things a little bit, I can say, Jesus, save me from this. Save me from right now my tilting toward lying, or my inclination toward being angry right now, or toward wanting a thing I know I shouldn't want, or pursuing a thing I know I shouldn't pursue. We can say, Jesus, you died for this sin.
It's forgiven. Now save me from its power right now, right now in the midst of my life. He saves us from our sin. And then notice something else very amazing here. Remember in the beginning of Matthew it says Jesus's name is Yahweh saves, or God saves, because he will save his people from their sin.
So Jesus's name means God saves. Why? Because Jesus will save us from our sin, which means right there built into Jesus' name, it's telling us this is the Lord. This is God. This is Yahweh coming to save us from our sins.
What Jesus does shows us God himself saving us from our sins. That's what God is like. And so when Jesus goes to the cross, he's showing us how God saves his people. Now I wanna tell you one more thing before we're done, because what Jesus is doing on the cross, he is showing us who God is, the name of God, because he is on the cross. Jesus is God saving his people.
Now there's another place we see what God is like, and that comes earlier in the Bible in the book of Exodus. Now you guys probably know about Moses. You've heard of Moses. You know, he takes his people out of Egypt, and they go through the Red Sea, and then Moses goes up on the mountain to see the Lord, and while he's on the mountain, there's fire all around him, and light all around him, and God comes down and speaks, and this is what Moses says when he's surrounded by the glory of God. He says this, Please show me your glory.
Let me see your power. Let me see how good you are. Let me see your beauty and your excellence. Show me your glory. And this is what the Lord says to him.
The Lord says, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you my name, my name, Yahweh. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and show mercy to whom I will show mercy. So Moses says, show me your excellence, your glory, your power, your goodness. Show me how great you are. And the Lord says, I'll tell you what my name is because my name is what holds all my glory, because God's name is his character.
It's who he is. It's what he's like. His name has all of what he's like in it. So the Lord says, If you wanna know my glory, Moses, then let me tell you my name. Let me tell you what I'm like.
And this is what the Lord says. He comes down in front of Moses, all shining in fire and light, and Moses can't even look. There's so much glory, and this strong voice that shakes the mountain says this, Yahweh, Yahweh. Remember that's God's special name. Yahweh, Yahweh, a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and overflowing in steadfast love and faithfulness, Keeping steadfast love for thousands and, listen to this, this is what the Lord does, and forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.
Those are all words for sin. Forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. But who will by no means clear the guilty. He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. So that's the Lord's name, and at the very heart of that name, do you hear what's there?
Forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. So the beauty of God, the glory of God, the power and excellence of God, at the center of it is the fact that he is the one who forgives his people. He's the one who overcomes our sin and brings us to himself. He's the one who reaches down into our pit of condemnation and brings us up like the shepherd who goes down into the pit and puts his hands through the thorns and gets his hands all cut, reaching the little lamb that's in there, and brings the lamb out to himself. That, forgiving, that's what is at the very heart of what God is like as far as what he says here to Moses.
God says, You want to know what I'm like? I am overflowing in mercy, and I forgive every sin, but then he says something that might sound confusing because he says, I forgive every sin, but I don't clear the guilty, which means I don't let people just go. I don't just dismiss sin as if it's not important. I bring real punishment. If someone's guilty, there's going to be punishment.
And you might ask yourself, how can it be that God's name has these two things at the center? He forgives all our sin, but he never clears the guilty. He never says, oh, it's fine. Just go on your way. How is it that these two things are at the center of God's name?
And the answer to that is that these two things come together when Jesus goes to the cross, because when Jesus goes to the cross, he's showing us exactly who this God is. He is, remember, Yahweh saving us, and he brings them together, because at the cross, what's happening? What's happening at the cross? Jesus is forgiving your sins, Christian. Jesus is bearing the punishment for your sins.
He is dying the death we deserve. Jesus is taking our sin down into death. We are being forgiven at the cross, Christian. What else is happening at the cross? We are being punished at the cross.
We're being crushed at the cross. Me, I'm a sinner, and when I At the cross, what's happening is Jesus is forgiving me, but I am in Jesus being crushed at the same time. Why is Jesus dying? Because his people deserve death. Why does Jesus have thorns on his head?
Because I have the thorns of sin in my life. And so when Jesus is dying on the cross, he is God forgiving me even as he is me being crushed by God. He's me being punished by God. My sin, your sin, the sin that you've committed, that I've committed, that is being taken away at the cross, and you as a sinner, all your ugliness, and dirtiness, and sinfulness, all that stuff, you are really being destroyed, being punished, dying with Jesus on the cross so that when he goes down into death, our condemnation is done. God can say, I did not clear the guilty.
They were condemned in my son, and when they went down When he goes down into the grave, our death is done. Our condemnation is done, and when he rises up from the grave, we are in him, forgiven, beloved, hidden in God, and so in Christ God does not forgive sin, or completely forgive sin, and does not clear the guilty. So when you look at the cross, here's what you see. Look at Jesus hanging on the cross with the thorns over his head dying in our place, and this is the truth of that moment. Here, here at the cross is Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
Look at him at the cross. See him on the cross. There is the graciousness. There is Yahweh slow to anger. How slow to anger that he's bearing all of this in our place.
How gracious, how merciful. Here is Yahweh keeping steadfast love for thousands. Here is Yahweh forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. And here is Yahweh by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and children's children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate him. Here is Yahweh doing all of this in Christ on the cross.
So he is our hope. He is our hope. So as we move into Christmastime, as we move into Christmastime, we're moving into the coming of the one whose name is Yahweh saves. So believe his name. Depend upon his name.
Cast yourself onto his name. So this is the first thing to say. First thing is we're closing, the first thing for us to take from us. Jesus took your sins, Christian, and he saves you from your sin. So it's madness to hide anything from him.
It's madness to hide sin from the one who has borne it all, carried it all, and saves us from it all. If you're drowning, it's insane to pretend like you're still swimming and go wave at the coast guard and say, No, I'm fine. No, I'm fine. I'm fine. You're drowning.
This is the one who saves you. Be clear about it. So it is insanity for a Christian to hide sin from the one who saves, from the one who saves. So throw open every room in your soul, invite his eyes into every corner of your life, and cast yourself upon the one whose name is Yahweh Saves. He saves you.
He saves you. He doesn't hold that sin over your head and say, Really? Really? He sees it and he says, Let me save you from that. Let me save you from that.
So the first thing is live in repentance before him. Hide nothing before him, and have those in your life before whom you hide nothing, who are the eyes of Christ as it were looking upon you and telling you You're forgiven of this. But then secondly, press into his name as it's made true in his death and resurrection, and don't be content just to say, I'm forgiven, I'm forgiven, but be saved from the power of sin in your life. May we press into him and say, Lord, let your name rule over the whole kingdom of my life so that the besetting sins of my life are breaking down. The fortresses that were built by sin in my life are not getting stronger, but they're breaking down.
The big strong castle of lying, or the strong castle of anger, or the strong castle of envy, or rivalry, or lust, or lethargy, or lovelessness, these castles, these fortresses of sin that were built throughout our lives, let us see them being torn down, broken down, broke open, and emptied of their captives because Christ saves. So let's go to him in the midst of sin's approach and say, Jesus, save me. Save me from this besetting despair. Save me from this besetting envy. Save me from this crippling lust or life shattering deception.
Save me from my sinning. Not just forgive me, praise God we're forgiven. Save me from the acted out sin, and know that he will do it. He will do it. It's his name.
It's his name. It's his name, and the resurrection declares that it's true. The resurrection of the crucified Jesus declares you are saved from your sin, and he is saving you, and he will save you from your sin. So bring it to him. Let us be like the woman.
Remember, She had this problem. She was bleeding for twelve years, and no one could help her, and she's just a mess. She's completely unclean in that culture, and she just gets it in her head, If I can just get to Jesus, I'll be all right. And so she brings the whole mess of her life and falls down in front of him and reaches out and just touches him, and she's saved. She's healed.
So let us do that. Bring the whole confused mess to Christ. Throw it at his feet, and say, Save me, Lord. Save me, Lord, and he will do it. He has done it.
He is doing it Christian, and he will surely do it. So let me pray as we remember the one who saves us, and then maybe we can sing a final song. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank you that you don't leave us in our sin, and that Jesus' name isn't the one who helps us get out of sin.
He's not the one who gives us a good counsel about how to get out of sin. He's not the one who equips us to be strong, to fight our own sin ultimately. Ultimately, his name is the one who saves, saves us. We need a savior. We need a savior.
From the youngest to the oldest, we need a savior, and you have given a savior. Father, may we lay hold of him. May we trust in him. May we trust that he saves us from our sin for ourselves, and Lord, those in our lives that we don't have any control over, our children, our loved ones, our parents, our friends, our family, may we put them in his hands. He saves, he saves.
And Jesus, we pray that you would show that name to be true. You who came as one of us, who lived as one of us, who died as one of us and rose again before us. Lord Jesus, save your people here at Kingstree and in your church abroad. Save your people from their sins. Father, we pray all these things in the name of our Lord, in the name of our king and our God and our savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of god and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.