You Shall Call His Name Jesus

We're going to be looking at the story when the angel appears to Joseph in a dream and that he tells him, he says that your wife can conceive a child, give birth to a child that he will call his name Jesus. And then he's going to say for he will save his people from their sins. So that's Matthew 121. We're going to read through that today and we're going to just talk about the significance of the name of Jesus.

That he says you will call his name Jesus. So a lot of times we just, you know, we flippantly use the name Jesus. And frankly, at the time of Jewish culture in the first century, Jesus was a common name. Matter of fact, Josephus, the theologian says that there was probably 12 known people at that time with the name Jesus that were written about.

So, and obviously there were more than that, but there was 12 people that were written about that had the name Jesus. So it wasn't like we don't really, I guess I see a lot of boxers with the name Jesus, right? But in English, we don't really call people Jesus. So it's not a common name anymore.

It was pretty common then. So if you think about, they designated, if you think about where Jesus came from, they called him Jesus of Nazareth. So that it gives a little indication that this isn't Jesus from Frostburg, this is Jesus from Nazareth. So kind of identify what Jesus are talking about.

And but when you named a baby at that time, and still a little bit today, but really in that culture, names meant something. Names, well, we're significant. Names identified destiny, they identified purpose, they identified, they assigned nature to the child. And so that when you called a baby something, you were really prophesying the destiny of that child.

And the angel says that you'll call his name Jesus. There's a message in there. There's an announcement of something that comes with that name. So I want to look at three things today.

That what we're going to find out is the name of Jesus really announces and attests to what his mission was. That he's coming with a mission. That he has a purpose in coming to the earth. And so we're going to look at three things today.

We're going to look at the promise, first of all. And after we look at the promise, we're going to look at the point and then we're going to look at the problem. So the promise, the point and the problem really are our three topics today and I'll get a little bit more into those as we go. But I want to start out by reading Matthew chapter one.

If you have your Bibles, we're going to start there. Matthew one and we're going to read verses 18 through 25. And if you have anybody like reading the Christmas story like I do, like it's just kind of fun. We shouldn't really just wait till this time of the year, but I always get excited to read the Christmas story.

So says in verse 18, it says, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows after his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph and they came together. She was found with a child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example was minded to put her away secret. And if you remember in that culture, there was a betrothal was kind of like the period.

It was equivalent to marriage, but it wasn't official yet. And so they're in this betrothal period. And so he finds out, you know, he finds out his wife's got pregnant. He's not been with her.

And so he really loves her. He's a good man. He says, I'm just going to kind of like put her away secretly and not tell anybody because I don't want to damage her reputation. And says, while he thought about these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you, marry your wife.

For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. So all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying, behold the virgin shall be with child and shall bear son and they shall call his name in manual, which is translated God with us. Then Joseph being aroused from his sleep did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took him his wife and did not know her until she brought forth her firstborn son.

And he called his name Jesus and he called his name Jesus. There's a whole out there we could talk about Joseph being a just man obedient man. I mean, probably we could stop right today and say that he did exactly what the angel told him to do, that the angel gives him the word of the Lord and he obeyed it. And so he says, your wife, don't be afraid, that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

This thing is God ordained. This is, she didn't fool around. This is a supernatural event. And he said, she's going to give birth to a son and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Very similar to what Gabriel told Mary. If you read over in Luke chapter one, he told her the same thing. He said, you're going to conceive a child. It's going to be of the Holy Spirit.

You're going to name him Jesus. So very similar. We have the angel of the Lord telling Joseph in a dream and we have Gabriel telling Mary face to face that you're going to have a son and we're going to call him Jesus. Well, the name Jesus is significant.

I realize it was a common name, but it has meaning to it. There's meaning to the name. The name Jesus means Jehovah is salvation. Jehovah is salvation is the meaning of the name.

It's the same name in the Old Testament. Does anybody just, we'll do a little trivia. Does anybody know the name of Jesus? What name it came from in the Old Testament?

Joshua, right? Joshua also means Jehovah is salvation. We have the Hebrew word Joshua, Yahoshua, which when gets translated to Greek becomes Jesus. I can't remember what it is now, but then we translate it in English and it becomes Jesus.

You have Joshua in the Old Testament and Jesus in the new. They're essentially the same name. They both mean Jehovah is salvation. As you think about Joshua, do you remember when Moses died if the Joshua takes over?

Joshua takes the people into the Promised Land. In the same way that Joshua leads the people to defeat the Canaanites and all the enemies, that that's a type and a shadow of Jesus who would one day come and deliver us from sin and everything that's the result of sin. We have this picture in the Old Testament. Matter of fact, there's probably nobody in here that still reads the King James.

Oh, a couple. Okay. If you read the King James and if you're reading in Hebrews chapter 4, I think it's around maybe 13 or 14 somewhere, but it says, the King James says this, if Jesus had given them rest, then he wouldn't have spoken of another day. I don't want to say they mistranslated it, but it becomes confusing because every other newer translation says Joshua had given them rest.

So it's really referring back to Joshua in the Old Testament, but because the name is the same, the early manuscripts translated that as Jesus. But names are synonymous. The name Jehovah, Jehovah, the existing one, the proper name of God that he is salvation. We heard Whitney say this morning, we talked about, she was prophesied about Jehovah-Jira, that he's our provider, Jehovah-Shalom, he's our peace.

We have Jehovah-Rapha, that he's our healer, over the city of our righteousness. But this is Jehovah is salvation. So salvation, and we're going to dig into that a little bit more when we get into the first point. But he goes on to define that, he says, you're going to call his name Jesus, which means Jehovah is salvation because, or for, go to the next slide, there's a reason.

So we're going to call in this because of a reason. And I'm sending him for a purpose. And the purpose is this, for he shall save or he will save his people from their sins. That's the purpose.

Like he was sent to do it on a mission. God sends his son on a mission because people needed to be saved. And from this is where we're going to get our three points a day. The first point is this, the promise, go back to the, go back to that slide.

The promise is this, he will save. That's the promise. There's a promise in there that his mission will be successful. It's not going to fail that he will save.

And then the second point is this, it's the point of his mission, his people. So I don't mean point as in purpose, but I mean point as in target or objective, that he comes for a purpose, he comes with his objective and the objective of our people. And finally is this, is the problem or the problem that predicated or the problem that necessitated his needing to come on a mission is sin. That there was a sin problem.

It's a universal problem. And if it hadn't been for the sin of Adam, we wouldn't even really have needed a Savior. But we do. But we do.

And God knew that. God knew that even in advance of, I believe of creating Adam. So he will save his people from their sins. So number one is this, the promise.

He will save. I love this because the verb tense is in the indicative mood, which means this. It's a statement of fact. It's not that, oh well, you know what, he'll come down to earth and he's going to live for 33 years and you know what, he might save you.

He's having a good day. If he's feeling good about himself, well, he may do it. No, it's a statement of fact, which means there's a certainty to the success of his mission. It's not that he might save, it's not that he could save, it's not that if you do enough good, whatever, it's that he will save.

It's going to happen. It's a certainty. There's a certainty that when God sends him, it's not a question mark. It's an exclamation point.

It's a certainty. The word save, we talk about it a lot because it's an all-encompassing word. The word sozo in the Greek, you know, a lot of times we think of save as this. Next slide.

Let's get, at the very end, is what we typically think of. To deliver from the penalties of judgment. That's one aspect of salvation. When we're saved, we're delivered from the penalty of sin.

But there is a penalty for our sin and the Bible says that penalty is death and that salvation rescues me, delivers me from the penalty of judgment. But there's other aspects to salvation. He came to save us from sin, but sin has many ramifications. There's disease that's the result of sin.

There's lack that's the result of sin. There's brokenness that's the result of sin. So all the things, there's demonic oppression as the result of sin. So anything that's encompassed in the sin problem, Jesus came to take care of.

He says this, it says to keep safe or sound, to rescue from injury or peril, to preserve from danger or destruction, to make well, to heal, to restore to health, to make whole. So anytime we talk about being saved, it's just not making Jesus the Lord of your life. It's just not having your sins forgiven, but it encompasses healing. It encompasses deliverance, it encompasses being preserved and kept safe and rescued.

All those things are included. He will do it. You know, how many times do you say, won't he do it? Ever made that post?

Like God does something? Won't he do it? But then we forget the next time something happens. Well, I don't know if he's going to do it this time.

See there's a certainty. It's not that he did it once and he might do it again. He will do it. He will heal.

He will save. He will deliver. He will set free. He will rescue.

He will preserve. He will do it. It's certain. But that phrase starts out with he.

He will. He will save. Jesus said in John 14, 6, he says, you know, Phil says, well, how do we know the way? He says, I am the way.

I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the Father by me.

There's only one way. There's not multiple ways to God. You know, Kristin and I were recently in a Muslim country just two weeks ago. I think 98% Muslim.

We're preaching the gospel of Jesus. I don't know if I'm not going to talk about that we took some flak when we got back on social media for doing that. So much so that somebody said that we're teaching something or preaching something that's irrelevant to that culture. Well, I want to tell you this.

It is relevant because there's only one way to the Father. It never stops being relevant. I don't care if you're a Muslim. I don't care if you're Hindu.

I don't care if you're atheist. That's what you are. But I want to tell you this. There's only one way to the Father.

In his name, he will save and his name is Jesus. He will do it. Not Buddha, not Muhammad, not Confucius, not you. You can't do it.

Not your religion, not your sincerity. See too often we believe that Jesus saved me the day that I said, yes, and then I'm saving myself the rest of my life. So many people live in uncertainty because they think he did it. Now I got to do it.

No, he saved me. He's saving me and he will save me. It's him. The moment that I start putting the emphasis on me, uncertain, like the enemy just like that's an open door because you can't do it.

So you can't save yourself and you can't maintain your salvation. For some reason we think that we put faith in Jesus to save us and then all of a sudden that we somehow maintain that. It's faith on day one, it's faith on day 10,000. I trust in him.

He does the saving. What I've talked about earlier about Peter when he's talking to the Jewish leaders and he says, you men of Israel, you know this day that it was by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who you crucified, who God raised from the dead that by him this man stands before you hold today. And then in verse, he goes on in the next slide in verse 12, Acts 4, 12, it says, nor. So he says, this man was healed because of the name of Jesus.

And not only was he healed, but beyond that, he says, nor is there salvation in any other. Neither is there any name under heaven given among men by which we must, must be saved. It's not a, it's not a if you want to, you must be saved and you can only be saved through the name of Jesus. See sometimes God physically heals people to awaken you to the realization that he can also forgive sins.

So it's just like when they brought the guy that was paralyzed in the Bible, it said that they brought this guy and they carried him, there was four people carrying him, he's lame, he's paralyzed and they couldn't get to Jesus so they let him down through the roof and they put him in the midst. So here's Jesus teaching in the house and he put this guy in the midst and he's paralyzed and Jesus doesn't heal him. He says, man, your sins are forgiven. We didn't come here to get our sins forgiven, we can't get healed.

And he realizes they're questioning and he says, what's easier to do? He says, is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or is it easier to say rise and walk? And what's easier to do, it's easier for Jesus to say rise and walk because it can be validated immediately. If he says rise and walk, the guy either does or doesn't.

If he says your sins are forgiven, how do you know if it happens or not? So it's easier to say your sins are forgiven because you can't validate it. So he said, show that you know the Son of the Man has authority on earth that first gives sins, I say to you rise and walk and it says immediately the man stood up. So what Jesus is saying, if I have power and authority to do the more difficult thing, certainly I have the authority to do the lesser thing.

And so you can have confidence when he says you're forgiven, when he says you're saved that you're saved because he did it, he will save. Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 2, I think it's verse 15, he says there's one God and there's one mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus. Anybody ever got a marriage counseling? Other than me?

Oh, like everybody, right? Who hasn't gone to marriage counseling? Sometimes you need a mediator. You need a mediator means a go between.

It's a person that goes between that will restore friendship or peace between a relationship. And he said there was a time when we were at odds with God. We were the enemies of God, the Bible says. We're at enmity with God.

And Jesus is the only mediator. He's the only go between, that can go between us, sinful man and God, a holy God, and mediate the two and bring us back into harmony. Paul says that God was in Christ Jesus reconciling the world back to himself, not imputing the sin to them. He said that God was in Christ bringing the world back to him, that he used Jesus, the one and only person that could accurately and legally and legitimately reconcile us back to God.

He did it. There's one mediator. His name is Jesus. He will say that.

He will save. He will save. It's a done deal. It's a done deal.

Number two is this. The point. I keep going. I know what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a water. I keep thinking, what am I looking for? I need a drink. Excuse me a second.

The point, the object, right? There's an object. So he will save and who's he going to save? People.

He didn't come to save the whales. He didn't come to save the rainforest. He didn't come to save the planet. He did all these things.

We're trying to save all these things. But there was one objective. People. He came to save people.

He didn't come to fix all these other things. He entrusted us the responsibility to preserve and manage those. But he came to save people. People were on his heart.

You were on his heart. He wants everyone to accept him. Paul says God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He wants everybody to be saved.

He loves people. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. It's people.

When another part of the Christmas story, if you remember John the Baptist father, Zacharias. If you remember Zacharias, he's a priest. He goes in. It's the time of prayer.

He gets this once in a lifetime opportunity to burn incense in the holy place. And as he runs into an angel, and that's a whole other story, but the angel says, don't fear your prayers heard. He says, you know, you're going to have a baby and he and his wife were both beyond age of kids. And because he didn't believe the angel says until he thinks they're fulfilled, you're not going to be able to speak.

Right? So he loses his voice. Well, after John the Baptist is born and on the day of the eighth day, they take him to the temple that they present him to the temple and they name him, on the day that he gets named, Zacharias' mouth comes open. And he begins to prophesy about Christ and he prophesies about his son, John the Baptist.

But in Luke chapter one, I think it's verse 68 to have it up here, he says something very similar. This is Zacharias. Now imagine this. He hasn't spoke for nine months.

He hasn't spoke for nine months. What would you say if you hadn't spoke for nine months? You probably like, cuss somebody out, you'd be mad at God, you'd have a bad attitude, you'd be complaining and murmuring, but not him. The first thing I said, he began to glorify God immediately.

And here's what he prophesies. He says, blessed is the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed who is people, people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. He goes on and says a lot more things. But he says, God has visited and redeemed his people.

See, Jesus has a point, he has a objective. It's to save people. And he does that through what's called redemption. sales, Zacharias says he's redeemed.

The apostle Paul picks up on this in Galatians chapter four. He says, when the fullness of time came, Galatians chapter four, verse four, five, so when the fullness of time of God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem those who are under the law that they might receive the adoption of what? Sons. He's redeeming us that we might become sons and daughters.

It's about relationship. It's about reconnecting us with the Father. I love this word redeem ex-agarazzo in the Greek. It means to buy out of.

It just doesn't mean to purchase. It means to buy out of. See, if you think about it, we were in, Paul says we were slaves to sin. We were in the slave market of sin, so to speak.

If you'd imagine each one of us at one time are standing in this slave market and we're all slaves and the slave master is sin himself, the nature of sin. No one that's a slave can buy another slave out. We were just in Pakistan. We visited a place where women and children are indentured into slavery to make bricks because they have an insurmountable debt that they can't pay.

They can't buy themselves out because they don't have the money nor can they buy their neighbor out because they don't have money for them either. And so we're all in the situation to where we're in the same mess and not only can we not get ourselves out, but we can't get anybody else out. It takes somebody outside of the slave market to buy us, he's not buying us in the market, he's buying us out of the market. And he buys us out of slavery and into sonship.

He's bringing us out so he can bring us in. And it's about connecting us with the Father. It's about bringing us back to our position as sons and daughters. He came to save people.

Paul says in Titus, he says, not only you people, but you're his special people. You know anybody that's special? Grace? You're special.

Your mother will call you special. Yeah, not in a good way, right? Sometimes special can be a bad thing. Oh, she's special, all right?

But that's not how God says it. God says it's a term, like for him, the other word in the Bible is peculiar. I like special better because we all know some peculiar people too. But you're a people that are his special people.

You're his peculiar people. You're identified with him. And he came to save you and make you part of his family. It says in Hebrews chapter 8, sometimes my mom asked me the other day, so she said, I told her to give her a shout.

But she said, I was telling her about the message. It wasn't his people, the Jews. And I said, yes. But thank God we were grafted in.

Thank God that we, because of the faith that we become children of Abraham and that we become grafted into his people. And God for the new covenant of grace, the right, Paul says in Hebrews, he says, if the old covenant or the first covenant hadn't been without fault, he never would have sought for a new one. But he said finding fault with them, meaning the people, because the point was they couldn't keep it. Like this old covenant had all these rules and regulations and the problem wasn't with the law.

The problem was we can keep the law. And so he said, you know what? We need a new covenant. And because of the new covenant, all the responsibility falls on God.

He says, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel in those days. I will. Notice all the I wills. I will put my laws in their mind.

I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God. And guess what we get to do? We get to be what?

It's people. I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to obey. I didn't have to do everything right.

I didn't have to keep the law. I just had to believe. And he does it all. This new covenant of grace is what's, it's a one-party agreement.

He made an agreement with himself. It's based on his faithfulness. He keeps it on my behalf. And all I got to do is trust in him.

And I become his people. We are his peeps. We're his peeps. Say that.

I'm his peep. I'm a special peep. I'm a special peep. I'm a peculiar peep because I belong to him.

I'm a son and a daughter because he came to save me. He came to save you. He will save his people. Here we get to the problem.

This is what necessitated him to have to come. Sin. Sin. He will save his people from what?

From their sins. He will save people from sin. See, sin is what has separated us from God. And believe it or not, I love to say this because it always gets people mad.

I'm going to say it again. I'll get to it. When Adam sinned, death was the result. See when it says, God said Adam says, in the day that you eat of the tree in the midst of the garden, so you meet every tree except the tree, the knowledge of good and evil, says in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die.

Now did Adam die right away? Not physically because he lived nine hundred and thirty years. But he died spiritually immediately. So anytime that you see the word death in the Bible, death really just means separation.

It means to be separated from. So that Adam is one with God until he sins. And when he sins, death takes place. In other words, he's separated.

It says in Romans 5, 12, it says, by one man sin entered the world and death by sin and death passed upon all men. So you were born with a condition that you were born separated from God. It said Adam sin brought in death and that death infected everybody. And it says, because of that, all have sinned.

And here's what I want you to know is that you're not a sinner because you sin. You're not a sinner because you sinned. You are a sinner because Adam sinned. Romans 5, 19 said this, it says, by the disobedience of one man, many were made what?

Sinners. So you are a sinner because you inherited the nature of Adam, not because of the individual acts of sin that you commit. You're a sinner because you were born that way. And the only way you can become not a sinner is to be born again.

So you were born this way. And the only way to reverse it is to be born anew, born from above, born again. It says in John chapter 3, it says, by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, but by the obedience of one man, who's that? Jesus.

He's the capital M. It wasn't because of your good works that you're made righteous. It's because of one man. Jesus, Jehovah is salvation because of his obedience.

You're made righteous, which means that you can stand before a holy God. People came in the eye and not have a bit of guilt, shame that you're completely innocent, guiltless and fallest before God because of what Jesus did. How did he do that? See, he didn't, he never had sin.

Sin requires death. So what Jesus did, it says in Corinthians 5, 21, it says, he who knew no sin was made sin for me. He was made sin for you so that you might become the righteousness of God in him. See, one man's sin made you a sinner.

Another man's obedience will make you righteous if you receive it. Remember when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, he says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him, shall inherit eternal life. That's John 13 to 15. I'm sorry, John 3, 14, 15.

Everyone knows John 3, 16. It says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him shall have eternal life. Do you remember the story of Moses and the serpent in the wilderness? It's the people who are complaining.

They're murmuring, they're complaining, they're mad at God, they're mad at Moses. And God releases these fiery serpents. And these serpents begin to bite everybody. Some people begin to die, some people get very sick, and they go to Moses and they say, Moses prayed to God on our behalf that he'll remove the snakes.

God doesn't remove the snakes. He says, I want you to do this. I want you to take a serpent and I want you to put the serpent on a pole, and I want you to put the pole where everybody can see it, and whoever looks at the pole will live. Live.

If you don't look, you die. If you look, you live. It says that Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. The serpent represents sin, which Jesus became.

The serpent was made of bronze, which represents judgment. Bronze in the Old Testament, think of the braise and altar, the altar of judgment. Bronze means judgment. So here's the snake on a pole that's made of bronze that represents judgment, so that when Jesus hangs on the tree, he is taking the sin of all humanity into himself.

He was made sin for us. And then God releases all of his judgment on Jesus for you. Jesus dies, goes to hell, is raised to life, comes back again, and then imparts to you when you receive his righteousness. That's how he does it.

Because sin salted us from God. See, a lot of people get hung up on forgiveness. Go to the next slide. That's all you got to do?

Let's read this. Everyone who believes in him receives what? Forgiveness of sins. Everyone who believes in him receives what?

Forgiveness of sins. Do you realize that nowhere after the resurrection of Jesus Christ are we ever told or instructed to ask for forgiveness? It's not in the Bible. It is not in the Bible.

We receive forgiveness. How do we receive it? Everyone who believes in him receives what? Forgiveness.

For some reason we think we lose the forgiveness that we received. See when I say yes to Jesus, when I put my faith in him, the transaction is complete, and he puts his righteousness on my account, and all my sins are completely and utterly forgiven for all time. They're actually in reality in the spirit realm. They've already been forgiven.

He's forgiven every sin that ever was committed, is being committed today, wherever will be committed in the future until he comes back. Every sin was put on the body of Jesus. See when you receive his forgiveness, it's a totality. It's a perpetual forgiveness.

Think about it under the old covenant. What did they have to slaughter to have a tournament? A lamb, right? A lamb.

It says you need to find a lamb that has no blemish. It's got to be a spotless lamb and a lamb of the first year. The length, now how long did that atonement last? It last one year.

How old was the lamb? One year. The length of the efficacy of the atonement only mirrored the age of the lamb. Jesus, the eternal lamb of God, who forever was and forever will be, when he died and made payment with his blood, the efficacy of his blood is not for one year.

It's not for 10 years. It's not for 100 years. It's for eternity because he was not a one year old. He was the eternal lamb of God, revelation that was slain before the foundation of the earth.

That's why it says it says that he has obtained for us an eternal redemption, an eternal forgiveness. See, Paul says in Ephesians 1, next slide, it says this, Ephesians 1, 7, it says, in him we have. We're not trying to get. What do we have?

We have redemption through his blood. What's that? Remember we talked about to redeem his to buy out, right? The price he paid was, it says that we have not been redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold, but we've been redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the precious blood of the lamb.

Jesus said, I didn't come to be served, but I came to serve and to give my life a ransom, a payment for many. I came to give my life to ransom you. He says we have that through his blood. And then Paul defines what that means.

He says we have redemption and then he says what is it? The forgiveness of sins. And then he tells us how great the forgiveness is. According to the riches of what?

His grace. So the wealth that the abundance of the grace of God is the measurement to the degree to which I'm forgiven. How big is his grace? I don't know.

It's a redundant question because it's so great you can't comprehend it. You can't compute it. You can't put a numerical value on it. To the degree that his grace is abundant is the degree to which God forgives your sin.

You can't have sinned too much. Paul said that Jesus Christ came to earth to save sinners of whom I am chief. Paul said the way that we calculate sin on a human level, I've done more things than anybody ever will. I persecuted the church.

I killed Christians. I put them in jail. Beat them up. I've done all that you could ever do and God still forgave me.

He said he did that so you'd know that he'd forgive you too. See, we have forgiveness. So what happens a lot of times is when God forgives us, we have it, right? It says we have what?

Then we go to ask God, we go to ask for forgiveness. We're asking God to give us what we already have. See under the new covenant it says, if you confess your sin, don't say to ask forgiveness, confess. Confess just means to agree with.

God, I agree what it did was wrong, but I thank you that I've already been forgiven. I have forgiveness in proportion to the riches of his grace. People go on to the Colossians church a little bit deeper. He says this in Colossians chapter 2.

He says that you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive. So at the time that that's spiritually speaking, when God raised Jesus from the dead, you were raised with him and it said, having forgiven some of your sins. All of them, everyone, past sins, present sins, future sins, little sins, known sins, unknown sins. See, some people live their entire Christian life from the time they get saved, their whole Christian walk begins trying to stay right with God.

People never do it on your own. You'll exhaust yourself because there's things that are sin that we don't even think about. See, we think of sin as all the bad stuff, right? Adultery, murder, lying, the bad things.

But the Bible said that sin is more than that. Sin is when you know something good to do and you don't do it. Anybody knows something good they should be doing right now. Are you doing it?

You're living in sin. Imagine that. The Bible says Paul says in Romans chapter 14, he says, anything that's not of faith is sin. Any time you do something with a little down your mind, sin.

Anyone that because of the liberty that Jesus has given you, you have liberty to do certain things. But if you cause a brother to stumble, you sin against the brother and Christ it says in 1 Corinthians. So that you can actually do something that you have complete liberty to do, cause somebody to stumble, you don't even know about, and you sin. My gosh, how could you ever cover them all?

You can't. But you can receive forgiveness by faith and recognize that Jesus has already taken care of it all. Not as an excuse to sin. But see, the greater your revelation is of how much you've been forgiven.

What did Jesus tell the woman that broke in Luke 7? He says, to whom is forgiven much? That person loves much. So the greater your revelation of forgiveness, you don't sin more.

You actually love more. You actually live a whole year life knowing you're forgiven. It's an amazing counterintuitive revelation that God has for us, the plan of salvation. That Jesus will save.

He will save. It's a promise. If you don't question it, he'll do it. He will save his people.

You are the focus. You're the object of his love. His love was for sinners. Paul says that he demonstrated his love to us in that while we were still sinners.

He died for us. Had nothing to do with you, but everything to do with his love for you. And that he will save his people from sin. When a whole different message in that, but you're saved from the presence of sin and you're like it's not there, or saved from the dominion sin.

It has no longer power over you. You're saved from the label of sin. Because when you accept Jesus, you're no longer a sin or you're now a son. You're a saint.

You're righteous. The old label that you used to have is gone. So that he saves you from all of that. And he does it for free.

He'll pay a thing. He says, anyone that believes in him will receive the forgiveness of sins. That's the story of Christmas. That's the gospel.

That's the good news. Like that Jesus came to save us. And he did it willingly and he did it on his own. And all we have to do is say yes to him.

Let's pray.