An Extraordinary Saviour

An excerpt from the sermon at a baptismal service 12/15/13.

We get bogged down in the daily workings of life that we miss the wonderfully obvious, that this world, even in its broken state, is a pretty wild place. We are on a rock that is spinning 1,000 miles an hour hurling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour. That sun that we journey around every year, gives us heat and gives us light, in which trees turn into oxygen, in which we breathe out laughter at a nine month old learning experimentally about gravity. We see these things, but don’t see them.

This world and this life is wonderfully extraordinary and is all around us and we miss it staring at our phones, or becoming so preoccupied with things that don’t matter. Our problem is much deeper than not paying attention, though that is a big problem. Our problem goes all the way down into the core. Some of you listened to me preach this morning and heard a message of the gospel, and it was established in your heart. Some of you were daydreaming and haven’t the foggiest idea what I was preaching. Some of you listened and heard me, but did not hear what I was saying, you did not perceive the Words, you heard the concept, but did not perceive. Hearts have grown dull, and you have ears they can barely hear, and have closed your eyes; lest you should see with your eyes and hear with your ears and understand with your heart and turn from your sin unto the Saviour and be healed.

We are about to witness a baptism, and I wonder what you will see? When John Baptized, some saw a religious symbol, and nothing more. Some saw a wild man dunking people under the water, and nothing more. Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive. But those who were truly saved and truly waiting for the coming of Messiah saw something more.

Baptism tells the story of such a miracle that goes unnoticed and forgotten, even by those people who have experienced it. Baptism paints a picture for those with eyes to see the most beautiful tale of love, heroism, and devotion the world will ever know. Baptism tells the story of death and sacrifice. Justice and mercy. Burial and repentance. Resurrection and newness of life. Baptism does not save, baptism speaks.

The miracle of regeneration, where a human spirit, that cannot live, is given life to really live for the first time is put on full display. The miracle of dead bodies coming out of their tombs and walking about. The miracle of new creations, new creatures having been born again and seen the kingdom of God. The story of a Man, who called a dead man from his grave, and that man answered and obeyed and hopped out of the tomb. The story of this Man who entered into the world, but was bigger than the world itself, and died at the hands of wicked men (though they did not take His life from Him) and He laid down His life voluntarily as a sacrifice to present sinners blameless before God. Whose dead body was made alive again and walked out of the tomb securing the death of death by the death of Christ.

You have heard this story, but have you really heard it? Have you really believed it? Has it been confirmed in your soul that Jesus died and rose again? Will you see a woman getting wet in the front of a church, or will you see a picture of Jesus dying and rising out of the tomb? Will you see a women getting wet, or will you see a woman who was made alive by grace? Who God has quickened from the dead, from death to life to the spiritually dead. A picture of the new birth, and walking in newness of life.

What will you see?

Will you see the gospel?

Will you see the working of Grace?

Will you believe what we will show you?

This is the gospel of grace. All have sinned and come short of the perfect standard that God has demanded from His creation. From birth, our hearts are bent and broken towards sinfulness. Even our best efforts are tainted by sin. We have fallen from God and are guilty having broken His commandments. We are a sinful people estranged from a Holy God and we have no way to fix what is broken. We can’t do better, we can’t repair the past. We are guilty before God and deserving to be punished and to go where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

But listen to me, really listen because I want to tell you how awesome God is. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, came into this Earth that He might seek and save those lost souls to whom the Father had given Him. He didn’t look for good people because there were not any good people. All were ruined and thrust into sin. But Jesus, born of a virgin, the Word made flesh, lived a life of perfection, obedient to every law of God. Jesus did what Adam could not do, He was born perfect and stayed that way. Never the slightest hint of sin from the Lord, a perfect man who lived for the purpose that when the fullness of time had arrived, He would offer Himself to God, a sacrifice for sins.

When the hour had come, Jesus was taken to Golgotha and nailed to a cross. The father had taken the sins of the elect and laid them on the sinless Saviour. The Son bore the wrath and the punishment and paid the penalty completely for the sins that we committed. When God’s wrath was satisfied, Jesus gave up the ghost.

After three days and three nights, Jesus rose from the dead, alive. Not a spirit, not a ghost, but bodily arose and walked about walking in newness of life. This is the good news, for if you repent of your sins, if you trust in what Jesus did, and trust that this testimony is true and cry out to God to save you knowing He is the only true and sufficient perfect Saviour, then you will have life and life eternal. By God’s grace, die to self, and are born again, raised to walk in newness of life, to follow your Lord and your Saviour, all the days of your life.

This is an extraordinary world. Only because we have an extraordinarily awesome Saviour.