Christ Jesus Came Into the World to Save Sinners

Now, if you have a Bible, we're going to read in 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy, and chapter 1. Such a privilege to be here, and there's no thing lies so close to my heart as what I'm about to do, just following up with another message in the gospel. I come from Ireland. Most of you know that.

It's a unique little part of the world. We built the Titanic, and it sank, but it was nothing to do with us. It was all right whenever it left.

You can blame somebody else for that. We have a place called the Giant's Causeway. There's no place like it in the world.

If you ever travel, you've got to come and see it. There's so many things about Ireland that are unique. If you've never been, you make sure you get there.

Let me tell you something about Ireland, and about not just the whole of the island, but about a particular place, a place you've probably never heard of unless you've heard of me, the strange person that comes from it. It's a place called Macrafelt, a little town. The thing that is remarkable about Macrafelt is this.

You can get saved in it, because I did. As a little boy of eight, in my bedroom, in that town in Ireland, I had my sins forgiven. I started for heaven, and that is what makes Ireland and that hometown the place where I entered the world in the hospital, and the place where I received salvation and the assurance from heaven just about a mile from the hospital.

That's what makes that the most precious place to me in this whole planet. And while you don't have any Giant's Causeways, and you've never built a ship like the Titanic, I can tell you this in Garnavello, in Iowa, you can be saved right here and right now through believing the Word of God. You have within your heart, within your mind, words that can deliver you this very moment from sin, can save you from hell and bring you to heaven if you would only trust in Jesus Christ.

That's what you've heard, but what are you going to do with it? That's your choice. Let's read from the Bible, 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15. I'll read it in my Bible first of all.

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Now, let me read it to you the way it's in Matthew's Bible. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them. The words that I want to speak about are just nine in number. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

It's a very simple message. The children here already know it, I'm sure. I think you're probably still allowed to do it.

Hands up if you know this verse. Come on. Off by heart.

Yeah, good. You already know the words that can deliver you. You already know the way to heaven.

Hands up who knows the theory behind the splitting of the atom. Didn't think so. Hands up who knows how to integrate by parts.

One or two. Hands up who knows off by heart the second law of thermodynamics. Hooke's law.

Just a few. As I look around, these things are essential to the running of our modern world, and it's good that people know them. Because people know these things, we can fly in a plane.

Because people know these things, if we get sick, we can get treated. There's such things as EpiPens and emergency departments. I'm glad people know the answers to the questions.

I don't even have a clue what the questions are, never mind the answers. But this one thing I know, every child in this auditorium knows the way to heaven. The words that tell you that are just nine in number.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That is the way to heaven. There is no other way.

And let us just for a few moments think of the simple words that are presented to us. We break them into three. Christ Jesus came.

And as I look at those first three words, I think to myself, the verse begins in heaven, because that's where he came from. So here is a verse that begins in heaven, for everything that is worthwhile knowing comes from heaven. Christ Jesus came.

We go to the end. The last three words, to save sinners. There's many a person has put up their face, an advertisement, and they're offering a service.

We were remarking that as we were driving in and out to downtown Chicago earlier this week, I think three out of four billboards were offering legal services, and the people on them were claiming to be the best in the business. Now there can only be one best, so I don't know who was telling a lie. But they all looked smart.

They all looked suave. They all looked sharp. They could get you top dollar.

And then the others, well, somebody that was offering to make you look beautiful, well, they would turn me down as soon as I went through the door. You would know that. There's only so much you can do.

And everybody said, look to me, I'm the answer. The answer for what? Beauty? Money? Wealth? Riches? A good truck that'll never break down? What did Christ Jesus come to do? He came to save sinners. Because that verse, that part of the verse reminds me of another place.

It reminds me of hell. That's where he came to save us from. The verse begins in heaven, where he came from.

The verse takes us to think about hell, where we are going to if we are not saved. Now let's be honest, boys and girls and older friends. If you and I live and die in our sins and are unforgiven, we deserve to be in hell and we will be there.

Make no mistake about it. So the verse begins in heaven. It ends by thinking about hell and how we need to be saved from hell.

But in between is earth, planet earth. Christ Jesus came into the world. That's us.

And that's why I began the way I began, because Macrophel is in the earth. It's part of this globe. It's a place you've never heard of and probably you'll never visit.

Matthew has. That's how we became friends. There was no one else in Ireland at that stage that he could find that could make a proper coffee.

And so he came to our house and the irony is he doesn't drink coffee anymore. But there it is. That's how our friendship struck up.

But he knows where Macrophel is, but the rest of you probably will live and die and you'll be happy and you'll never be there. But for me, that's the place where I started for heaven. But you don't need to go to Macrophel.

You can start for heaven anywhere in the world. Now, there's something we have to stop and think about. Because the Lord Jesus said one day, he said to a man that was paralyzed, your sins are forgiven.

And then the people, they were all a little bit annoyed about that because surely it's only God can forgive sins. And they were half right and they were totally wrong. Do you ever get to a point where you're half right, but really you're completely wrong? They were half right in this.

It is only God that can forgive sins. You realize that. I hope you boys and girls understand this and you teenagers understand that you need God's forgiveness because it's his glory that you come short of.

It's his commandments that you have broken. You are a criminal because you have broken the law of God. And you need God's forgiveness.

You see, sometimes as I'm speaking to children, I ask them to imagine them practicing football. It'll work for you guys because even though you've got the wrong shape of inflated thing, it's still called football, even though you use your hands. But there it is.

You'll catch on someday. But anyway, what you guys called soccer, we call foot. But it'll work either way.

You're practicing, practicing your kicks. And there it is. You've got it all lined up and you come and you kick that ball with all your might.

And to your horror, it slices off to the left and through the neighbor's window. It's not so good. The thing I didn't tell you was that you're living here between two houses and in this house over here, there's this little old lady.

Everybody calls her Granny Smith. She's an absolutely lovely little lady. When she goes down to the shop, she comes back with candy and she gives it to you.

She is such a dear. Everybody loves her. But on this other side, there's a man, he's called Mr. Green.

I hope there's nobody here called Mr. Green, but he's Mr. Green and he's a grumpy old, old being. And he never comes out. And if he comes out, he's shouting about you, making too much noise and all that kind of thing.

And nobody likes him. So anyway, going back to our story, you've kicked the ball and it's gone sailing through the window and you come running up and you're knocking on the door. And this little old lady, this lovely little lady that everybody loves, she comes to the door and she sees you crying.

What's wrong? I'm awfully sorry. I'm awfully sorry. I broke the window.

I broke the window. It's all right. It's all right.

Looking around, she doesn't see any window broken, but whatever it is, it's okay. I forgive you. And then she said, which window did you break? That window.

Oh, but that's not my window. That's Mr. Green's window. If it was my window, I could forgive you, gladly forgive you.

What is it? A bit of glass. We'll get it fixed. But you need to go to Mr. Green's door and get him to forgive you because you broke his window.

Can you imagine what it'd be like to ring his doorbell? Can I tell you that you need the forgiveness that God gives you? Not just mom and dad to forgive you, because it's only God that can forgive sins. You've broken His law. But I can tell you this, that when you approach to God, you will discover He's already coming your way.

He wants to forgive you because only God can forgive sins, and God gave His Son to die on the cross that your sin can be forgiven. And the Lord Jesus, He says, now your sins are forgiven. And they say, but it's only God can forgive sins.

And they're half right, as I said, but they're completely wrong because they failed to recognize that the one that said it is God. He's the Son of God, and He can forgive sins. And He came into the world not only to live, but to die, to shed His blood at the cross, to pay for the price.

You see, if it had been Mrs. Granny Smith's, whatever we called her, if it had been her window and she was so ever happy to forgive, she still would have had to pay for it. And God was prepared to pay the price to forgive your sins. And the Son of God who forgave that man his sins was going to the cross to bear them, as He went to the cross to bear my sins as well.

But the Lord Jesus, He said something on that day that we need to remember. He says, the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. That power does not reach to hell.

If you leave this earth, this life, and your sins are not forgiven, then you'll never be forgiven. Between heaven and hell is this world. And somewhere in this world, whether it's Garnavello tonight or somewhere else, you need a place where you trust in Christ as your Savior.

Because Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Let's look at the first three words again. Christ Jesus came.

It tells us so much, doesn't it? And this is the way God works. He just takes nine English words and He tells us so much within these words. And we get up here and we spend about half an hour, we go through these things, because we're trying to tell you all that's within nine words.

There's so much there. And when we're done, there's more to tell you. Christ.

That's the word of promise. The first part of our Bible was full of promise after promise. The very first day that sin entered the world, God made a promise that He was going to send a Savior.

And that Savior would suffer. He would defeat the power of the devil and He would save us from the curse of sin. But He was going to have to suffer to do it.

And that was the first day. And many days after that, over the hundreds and thousands of years before Christ came, God gave promise after promise after promise. He told the place He would be born, the kind of mother that He would have.

He told all manner of things. God keeps His word. God never breaks a promise.

And this one who came, He's Christ. He's the promised one. And God has kept His promise.

Jesus. The promise of God, the promise that brings salvation, is not a way. It's not God telling you 12 steps or 5 steps or 3 steps even, and you go through this routine and then you get it.

No, not at all. The promise of God is a person. Christ, Jesus, and boys and girls and older friends today, what you need is not religion.

It's a living link in relationship with Jesus, who's the promised Savior. That's what Jesus means. Call His name Jesus, for He shall save.

And when they called Him Savior, they called Him by His name. There's only one can save you from your sin. There's only one that can lift you out of the danger of being in hell.

Look closely, His hands are marked with nails. His side still wears the mark of the spear where His blood flowed to save you and I. That's the Savior. Christ, Jesus, the promise is a person.

Kim, when Mary held in her arms that little baby, he was a real baby. He felt cold, so she wrapped him. He felt what it was, and all babies do this, I've discovered.

I don't remember it because that's kind of the way it goes. You don't remember the first few years of your life. None of us do, although our moms usually tell us the embarrassing bits later on.

And of course today with all these modern phones, every child has got maybe 10, 20 pictures of every day of their life. That's kind of the way it goes, at least for the firstborn. After a while, it maybe tapers off a bit, but that's just the way it is.

Look, picture number one, picture number 20 of day number three. We don't remember those days, but when you look at the little one that just is born, there's this sense of exposure. They've been in the warm embrace of a mother's womb, and now they're exposed.

He felt that too, and so he was wrapped tightly with those swaddling bands. He got hungry, and so he was fed. In every human sense, he was helpless, and so he was cared for.

He was real. As real a human as you and I. And yet he was different, because he came. We didn't come into the world.

I was born in this world. I'm part of it. But he came.

Speaks as a bigger word, I know, but I'll use it anyway because it just follows along. Christ, the promise. Jesus, the person came.

He's the preexistent Son of God. He is a man, but not merely a man. He is the Son of God who created the universe.

I've been talking about creation just a little, and there's so much more I should be saying, but it's such a wonderful thing to think that all of the creation that we see around us, it came from the spoken word of Jesus Christ, who was there lying in the arms of Mary as if he were a helpless child. He came. And nothing less than a true human, and nothing less than God himself, becoming man, could save me from going down to hell.

No human could save me, but Christ Jesus can. And he has. Let's go to the other end.

So, it begins in heaven with the promised one, the person coming into our world, and then we go to the last bit to save sinners. There's kind of, I suppose, three different categories of being lost. There's being lost and not knowing it.

There's being lost and knowing it. And then there's being lost without any hope. Way back in Ireland, it was a beautiful day one summer.

Doesn't often happen, but it did happen. And so, we went to the ocean, my dad and his brother and the families. And my uncle had a little 14-foot dinghy.

I don't know what you call them here. A little fiberglass boat. Just a little pleasure boat with an outboard motor.

Nothing too powerful, but enough to get out into the ocean. And where we live, it is ocean. It's North Atlantic.

And they went. It was flat calm, not a ripple. Beautiful weather.

They asked me if I wanted to go, but I was imagining what it would be like to be three or four hours out there just dropping a line into the sea. And I thought, no, I could think of better things to do with my day. And so, we headed for the beach.

But my dad and his brother and my cousin, they were out there on the water, and they were enjoying the day. Then came the point where they were the first category I've mentioned. They were lost, and they didn't know it.

Because slowly and silently, that beautiful day turned into a hazard. And all around them, there was a sea mist that was deepening and thickening. So that when, at last, they discovered that they were lost, they realized that they had to be lost, and they didn't know it.

They were just sitting there calm, dropping the line, bringing it up, bringing in the odd fish. But now, all of a sudden, terror struck them. They had no idea which way was land, none whatsoever.

That was before the invention of mobile phones. Yeah, I lived in that era. I am that dinosaur.

I do remember getting the first flip phone. Somebody's gone back to them of recent times. But there's quite a number of us here, yes.

And you remember the first cordless phones. They were some invention. And then the first mobile phones.

Well, they didn't have those things. And so, they're out there on the water, flat, calm, and they have no idea of direction. You take the wrong turning, the next stop is Iceland, if you make it, then the North Pole.

And no matter how calm the ocean is, you're not going to last out there, not on a 14-foot little boat. They were lost. They had been lost, and they didn't know it.

They are now lost, and they know it. The danger is that they would have gone down lost without a hope. Where are you in all of this? Because if you have never been forgiven, if you have never been saved, you are lost.

You could be here lost and not know it. It's never really struck you that I am a sinner and I personally am going to hell. Or you could be here and you've wakened up to the fact that I've got to meet, and I'm afraid of meeting God.

Make sure, as we have been hearing, you don't leave it too long, don't leave it too late. Because Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, to save them from being lost without a hope and lost forever. What my dad, my uncle, they wanted to listen to hear if they could hear anything.

They thought they could hear a sound. They looked in every direction to see if they could see something. They thought they could see a light.

And through a sound and a light, they eventually began to see a little more clearly. And they made their way toward the land in safety. Is there anything you can hear? Is there anything you can see? Thank God there is.

The light of the gospel, the Word of God that can direct you to the Lord Jesus Christ who came into the world to save sinners. And listen to what it says in that little bit in the middle. The world is a place that you can be saved, and the world is the place that he came to.

The big door that swings and will swing one day and take us from time out into eternity. Thank God in the first place it swung our way, and it swung from eternity into time, and Christ Jesus came our way so that we could follow him in his steps back to heaven. He came, he didn't just come to the world.

He didn't stand over the world and tell the world how to be saved. He came so close that they could spit in his face, and that's what they did. He came so near us, they could reach out with their hand and slap him and beat him, and that's what they did.

He came long enough for them to take him and whip him and strip him and nail him naked to a cross, and that's what they did. And when they'd done it all, he willingly accepted from my God the judgment, the punishment of all of my sin and the sin of the world. He died that we could live.

He came into the world to save sinners. What are you going to do with the word? The word, as we have been hearing from Matthew, that can deliver us. Listen to what it says.

Number one, it's trustworthy. It's true. It's true.

What I've told you is true. It's fact. And it is trustworthy in this, that it is worthy or deserving of our trust.

If you trust in the word of God and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, this very moment you will be saved. And the last thing we discover is that it's tried. It's tried.

I don't know if you've ever seen bridges that look kind of flimsy, and you're maybe worried whether you should step on them or whether you should drive over them. And then there's maybe a big person comes along, and they just march on over. You think, well, it's got to be okay, because it took them.

Or maybe you've pulled over to the side in your truck, and there's a big semi comes along with a full load and just trundles right over that bridge. And you say, well, it's okay. It took that semi, so it's going to take me.

That's what Paul is saying. I'm the worst of sinners, and he saved me. There's not a boy, there's not a girl in this building that's good enough to get to heaven without salvation.

And there's not a person in this building that's bad enough that Christ can't save you. The very worst of sinners is already saved, already in heaven. And if he could save the likes of Saul, who had the blood of Christians in his hands, who hated the name of Jesus and forced people to blaspheme, Paul says, if he can save me, he can save you.

And he can save you, because Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Trust him, and he'll save you. Let's pray.

Father, we thank Thee for Thy Son. What a beautiful name is the name of Jesus. We thank Thee that they nailed it to the cross, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

We thank Thee it's the only name that can save, for there's no name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved but that name of Jesus Christ. We thank Thee we can tell boys and girls and older friends there is salvation alone in Him, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. What certain day.

And so we give thanks and pray for those that have listened. Bless us now as we part, but may it be that this day would be a day of gladness, when in Garnavello some person or persons would trust their souls to Jesus Christ and be saved and be sure of it. We give thanks in his precious name.

Amen.