November 30, 2008

• First Sunday of Advent: The most scandalous bailout ever

  
  

  BAILOUT
  

  

  You've seen it all over the news. You've heard it day in and day out. It seems that a day doesn't pass that we don't hear the word "bailout" or that we don't hear about yet another new bailout, or another company coming to Washington asking for a new bailout.

  In fact, did you know that "bailout" has been named the 2008 word of the year?

  You may have gotten sick of the seemingly unending bailouts. It's certainly easy for many of us to think it's not fair. We think, "These companies have gotten themselves into dire straights, so they ought to get themselves out." "They made their beds, so now they can go ahead and sleep in them!" We think it's not fair that these companies should get millions and millions of dollars in bailouts..."After all," we ask, "what are we getting? Could I really go to Washington, D.C. and get a bailout?"

  Yet we have to consider that's just what God the Father did for us...

   the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world
  I John 4:14.

  The Father, Son and Spirit had a much bigger and a much more shocking and scandalous bailout planned for us, much more extensive than any bailout Washington could conceive of...

  Thou shalt call his name JESUS:
  for he shall save his people from their sins
  Matthew 1:21b.

  Because of the sin of Adam, sin and death has spread through the entire human race.

  All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

  All the world stands guilty before God, no exceptions.

  A holy God cannot abide sin in His presence.

  Our sin separates us from God.

  The wages of sin is death.

  We are sons of disobedience and children of wrath.

  We all rightly are under condemnation.

  We are powerless and helpless to save ourselves because we are spiritually dead in our sins and transgressions.

  We are in dire need of a bailout.

  We need a Savior.

  But thanks be to God, in His rich mercy and grace, God had a glorious bailout for planned for us well before the foundation of the world since He knew we would be unable to save ourselves.

   the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world
  I John 4:14.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

  While we were yet sinners, while we were dead in sins and transgressions, Christ died for us.

  While we were yet sinners, while we were powerless and helpless to save ourselves, Christ died for us.

  While we were yet sinners, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting our sins against us.

  While we were yet sinners, God was preparing a bailout none of us deserve.

  While we were yet sinners, God was making provision for a great salvation through His Son, the Savior JESUS.

   the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world
  I John 4:14.

  Apart from trusting in God's provision of a Savior, apart from believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, we remain captive to sin, Satan and death with no hope of release. No different than if we were locked away in prison with no key to get out. And Satan was loving that: we were his dupes, imprisoned in his kingdom of darkness, enslaved to sin and ungodliness. It's all we could do. We had no power to do otherwise. It was as if we were locked away in debtors' prison with no way to work off our debt and no one to pay our debt for us. While we were in bondage to sin, Satan and death, there was no way we could ever pay off the debt we owed to God since the sin debt we owe God is infinite. Apart from Christ, we were without hope. So there we sat in our prison, languishing, spiritually dead and separated from God, unable to free ourselves from the slavery of sin and death.

  But praise be to God! Our God has provided a bailout! God sent His Son to give us repentance and forgiveness of sins. When we trust in Christ as our Savior, He sets us free from the power of sin, Satan and death. God has made a way of salvation for us. In Jesus Christ, He paid the sin debt we could never pay. He sets us free so we are no longer under the curse of sin and death. He declares us righteous and not guilty. He wipes the slate clean and credits Christ's righteousness to our account. Talk about a bailout of infinite proportions!

  But wait, how can a holy God save us from our sins? How can a holy God bailout an infinitely sinful people and forgive us of all our sins and set us free from the bondage of sin, Satan and death?

  Sinful men certainly don't deserve such a bailout. We can't buy it or negotiate for it. We have no equity or spiritual collateral, so to speak, for, after all, we are spiritually bankrupt. We have nothing to offer God but our wretchedness and depravity.

  Someone had to take the punishment we deserved for our sin. Since God is holy He is just in requiring sin to be punished; in fact, it would go against God's holy, righteous and just character to allow sin to go unpunished. Now here is what makes the bailout so scandalous. The very God we have offended died for our offenses. Instead of punishing us as we deserve, God sent His only begotten Son Jesus to take the punishment for us, to die in our place. And Jesus willingly offered Himself up as a sacrifice in our place to atone for our sins. When we believe on Christ as our Savior, we are no longer under condemnation, but are now freely justified, declared not guilty. God is completely just and righteous in passing over our sins because Christ bore them for us. Therefore God is just to forgive us our sins because He is the justifier of all who believe in His Son as the Savior of the world. God Himself provided the atoning sacrifice for our sins in His very own Son.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the curse of the law.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ was wounded for our transgressions.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ was crushed for our iniquities.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ's soul was made an offering for sin.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ became an atoning sacrifice for us by shedding His blood.

  While we were yet sinners, Christ the righteous One died for the unrighteous.

  Why would God do this for us? Why would the Father ever send His Son to be the Savior of the world?

  Yes, it is true that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son that whoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

  But there are other reasons. First, remember that God desires that in all things His Son has the preeminence and that He might reconcile all things to Himself (see Colossians 1), including redeeming a people to Himself. Second, God will not share His glory with another, and all things that have been created and by Him, for Him, to Him and through Him, all to His glory forever. So by sending His Son to be the Savior of the world God accomplishes all these things. We often think that salvation is all about us, and we focus on God's love for us, but let us now forget our salvation is really all about God and His working all things according to the counsel of His will in order to accomplish His great and glorious plan to lift up His Son, to reconcile all things to Himself (which went awry when sin and death entered the world) and to glorify Himself. The unmerited and free gift of salvation which He bestows on those He chooses is all to His praise, honor and glory and is all working to accomplish His purposes. Salvation is all of God and none of us, so God alone gets all the praise, honor and glory. God's redeeming a people to Himself, adopting us and sons and daughters is to the praise of His glorious grace. When God showers mercy and grace on those who once were children of wrath, when a holy God redeems a sinful and rebellious people to Himself through His Son, we can begin to see how truly glorious, wondrous and amazing our God is. For none of us deserve His gift of salvation. We are merely poor beggars who have received a bailout all by His grace and all to His glory. How wonderful it is that God chooses to give the Kingdom of God to the poor in spirit. How amazing that

  
   the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world
  I John 4:14.

  As much as we may consider the Washington bailouts as unfair, consider this: the sinless, spotless Lamb without blemish took our sin in our place, so we might be forgiven all our sins and reconciled to God. Jesus Christ became sin for us, He took all our sin, guilt and shame, all our debt, He took the punishment we deserved, so we might receive His righteousness and eternal life with Him. What was fair about that?

  A life you cannot define
  A purpose that's benign
  They need to see and believe
  Be led to the rugged tree
  
  The one on which He cried not for His pain but for our debt
  The very same tree that He conquered death
  It was an unfair deal on the part of Christ
  He got my sin I got eternal life
  
  (From "Breath of God"[1])

  Indeed, it was an unfair deal on the part of Christ. For Christ to take our sin and for us to get eternal life. That's a bailout infinitely more stunning and scandalous that all the Washington bailouts combined!

  At Christmas time, when many people see the Babe in the manger, they think of Jesus as a nice man, a moral teacher, an godly example, or even a prophet, but God reminds us these things about Jesus:

  Thou shalt call his name JESUS:
  for he shall save his people from their sins
  Matthew 1:21b
  

   the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world
  I John 4:14

  Why would His name be called JESUS if we didn't need saving from our sins? After all, the name JESUS means "Savior." People like to hear about Jesus, but they don't like to hear about sin, particularly their own sin. They don't like to hear about Jesus as the Savior of the world since they feel they don't need saving from anything since they are blind to their sin, and in fact, they will persist in denying they have a problem with sin.

  Why would the Father His Son to be the send to be the Savior of the world if the world didn't need saving? If the world was doing all right with God, why would God send His Son to be Savior?

  Jesus Himself tells us that all who do not believe in Him are condemned already. The world apart from Christ is lost in sin and condemned to eternal damnation. As much as most do not like to admit it, the world has a problem with sin. That is why the Father sent His Son. That is why His name is JESUS.

  That Jesus whom we like to picture as a Babe in the manger, that Jesus was not only a nice man, but He was God incarnate, who took on human flesh to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. He came to be the Savior of the world. He came to die on the cross, to save us from our sins, to atone for our sins and reconcile us to God. The Babe who lay in the manger became to be a bloody sacrifice for us thirty-three years later.

  Thou shalt call his name JESUS:
  for he shall save his people from their sins
  Matthew 1:21b
  
   the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world
  I John 4:14.

  

  When you see, picture, read about, hear about or sing about the Babe in the manger this Christmas, remember that Jesus got an unfair deal. Remember the bailout He provided for you. He came to provide the most scandalous and shocking bailout in all history, all because He loved us. God Himself came to earth to die for sinful men.

  For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8.

  He came not to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. He came to seek and save that which was lost. He came to save us from our sins.He came to give Himself as a sin offering in our place so we might receive forgiveness of sins and have fellowship with God. The Babe came to lay down His life on the cross in our place. He didn't come to make us feel sentimental, warm and fuzzy. He came to redeem us from the power of sin and death and from the curse of the law. And He came to set us free from sin so we might no longer live to ourselves but serve the living God.

  

  Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3:19-26.

  To believers in Jesus Christ:

  So, for those of us who have believed in Jesus Christ as our Savior, when we hear the word bailout, or hear of yet another government bailout, let us remember that we have received an even more scandalous bailout. For those of us who we have already freely received the gift of God's salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, those Washington bailouts are a wonderful reminder of the abundant and undeserved love, grace and mercy God showed us while we were yet sinners. Each and every bailout ought to remind us of God's great mercy and grace poured out for us through Christ's blood.

  Too often we forget that our salvation is totally undeserved; we forget it is all of God, all of grace and not of us. Apart from God's love for us in Christ Jesus we would still be dead in our sins, under condemnation and eternally separated from God, without hope in the world. We would still be enslaved to sin, Satan and death. Nothing in us merited that He save us. But only through His mercy have we received salvation from our sins. Let us remember that God has mercy on whomever He will have mercy and compassion on whomever He will have compassion. Let us never take such a great salvation for granted. Brothers and sisters, when was the last time you rejoiced with exceeding great joy for His gift of salvation through the Savior JESUS? Rejoiced that He has adopted you into His family and made you a child of God? Stood amazed and trembled at such a God in Whom mercy and righteousness and grace and truth meet perfectly and Who was made manifest to us through His Son Jesus?
  
  To the unbeliever:

  For those of you have not trusted in Christ as your Savior, do you see your sin? Do you see the holiness of God and how you can never be good enough to stand before Him? Do you understand that you can never save yourself by your own good works? Do you see you are in need of God's bailout? What are you trusting in to save yourself?

  He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Luke 18:10-15.

  What are you trusting in today? So long as your are trusting in yourself like the Pharisee, so long as you are trusting in your own ingenuity, in your own good deeds, in your own righteousness, your own intellect, you will never be justified before God. You are already under condemnation and will remain condemned and separated from Him so long as you do not trust in Christ.

  God calls all our righteousness filthy rags. No matter how "good" we are, we can never be good enough. One sin separates us from a holy God. Some say that they're not so bad, but the Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The glory of God is total perfection and absolute holiness. We all fall short of that. That is why we need a Savior. That is why God sent JESUS.

  When we try to minimize our sins, to rationalize them or excuse them, when we say our sins are not so many or not so bad, that is because we are comparing our sins with the sins of other people. But when we compare our sins to a holy God, we can see that there is simply no comparison. It is too easy for us to make our own list of sins and begin to rank sin, so our sin doesn't look so bad, but all sin is rebellion against God: from the smallest white lie to the most promiscuous act of sexual immorality. And all sin must be punished by God. And apart from receiving God's gift of salvation you will remain in and die in your sins and remain eternally separated from God.

  When we look at sin as rebellion against God, we can no longer rank sins as little and big. Remember what we might consider a "small sin," eating a piece fruit, is what caused Adam and Eve to come under the curse and be banished from the garden of Eden. One bite of the fruit. Not a big sin to us in the big scheme of things. But the point is is that sin is rebellion and disobedience against God. Even one sin separates you from God and puts you in need of HIs saving grace, in need of the Savior JESUS.

  Has God been pricking your heart? Has He been showing you that you can no longer trust in yourself? Are you ready to come humbly to God by faith like the tax collector? Is God showing you that you are totally unworthy and undeserving of His salvation? But at the same time do you hear Him calling you, do you see Him extending His arms of mercy to you through Jesus Christ? Lost sinner, he has provided the way of salvation you can never provide for yourself. Are you ready to appeal to God for His mercy and grace not because of your own merit but because of what Christ has done for you by dying in your place?

  God has provided the only way of salvation through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other name under heaven by which you can be saved.

  If you are ready to admit that Jesus Christ is the only way you can be saved, the only way you can approach a holy God, then come to Him today, throw yourself at His feet and appeal to Him for mercy by means of Christ's blood which was shed on the cross. He has promised that all who come to Him He will not cast out. Are you ready to confess that you no longer can trust in yourself but only in the work of Christ for you? Are you ready to receive His bailout? Are you ready to admit your neediness and spiritual destitution. Are you ready to tell Him, "I am in need of your bailout. I have sinned against you and I see my sin as rebellion against you. By faith I am no longer trusting in myself but I am trusting in Christ's work on the cross so I might receive from You the gift of repentance and remission of sins that You provided through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ because I know my righteousness is filthy rags"? Jesus came to be the Savior of the world, to save His people from their sins. He has offered His salvation full, rich and free. Will you accept this great salvation He wrought for you in Christ?

  It was an unfair deal on the part of Christ
  He got my sin I got eternal life

  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. II Corinthians 5:18-21, ESV.

   the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world
  I John 4:14.

  Thou shalt call his name JESUS:
  for he shall save his people from their sins.
  Matthew 1:21b

  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:12.

  You may also be interested in:

  • Dealing with sin & guilt: Are you wearing the Garment only God can provide?
  • Bible Reading: Jeremiah 23--THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
  • the Father's Valentine
  • Thanksgiving to God that salvation is all of grace (the gift you can't buy today or any day)
  • Bible Reading: Lamentations 1:12-Is His Sacrifice nothing to you?
  • Dealing with past sins & guilt: Godly guilt leads us to declare spiritual bankruptcy & run home
  • Things to Look for in a Church, #7: "A Broken People"
  • Bible Reading: Luke--God's Kingdom Economy: Losers Who Win, or Grace Is Amazing Only to Those Who See Themselves as Wretched
  • God's Kingdom Economy: "The Economy of Mercy" Includes 'Losers Who Win'

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  Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

  Scripture quotations marked "ESV" are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Lyrics are subject to US Copyright Laws and are the property of their respective authors, artists and labels. Commercial use prohibited.

  [1] "Breath of God," Words by Shane Barnard/Music by Shane Barnard and Caleb Carruth. ©2002 True Bliss Music/Waiting Room Music/River Oaks Music Co.

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