Jesus Came To Save to The Uttermost: Part 1

Jesus Came To Save to The Uttermost: The Gospel Invitation in John 3

What I'd like to do is speak to you and do a two-part series on these wonderful verses. And just two verses we're going to look at. I'd like to speak to you about Jesus came to save to the uttermost.

He came to save to the uttermost. Aren't you glad? He's a great Savior as we sung this morning. It's all focused on His death, His person, His life, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, and soon He's to come back again.

So we continue our study through the Gospel of John. And by the help of God, we have worked our way up to this point, John chapter 3. So please turn with me, if you have your Bibles, to John chapter 3.

Our text is actually verse 17 and 18. We're just looking at two verses because there's a lot here. But what I would like to do is begin to read at verse... start beginning with verse 14 to read to verse 21.

Because that is within that paragraph and that section that our Lord is addressing Nicodemus, a very religious man. And there is much truth here that is given within the context of these two verses of what we're going to be looking at.

So since these verses are in the major heading of what our Lord is teaching Nicodemus, let us look at that. Hear God's living word this morning. Chapter 3 of John, beginning with verse 14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, and that they have been done in God.

Let's stop right there at this part, and please bow with me in a moment of prayer, as we seek our Lord's blessing in His face, as we look into this wonderful text this morning. Our Father and our great God, Lord of heaven, Lord of earth, we do thank you for your holy word, first and foremost.

This is the revelation from heaven. This is the truth, that your word contains to save us, for it has the power to do so to the uttermost. It has the power to sanctify us, and continue to sanctify us, and keep us, and preserve us, to the end of our journey here on this earth, until we are ushered into glory.

Lord, I pray that you guide us, and lead us, and teach us, as we look into this text. Help me, Lord, to speak your words of truth and love. I pray, knowing that all we need for salvation, and sanctification, is Jesus Christ alone.

He is sufficient. He is a sufficient Savior. For in your one and only Son, there is victory over sin, even in our failings. There is victory over death, hell, and the grave, in which the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished, through His death, burial, and resurrection.

For in Him is our only hope. He is our living hope of eternal life. So, Father, I pray, open each one of our eyes, take the scales off our eyes, that we would see Jesus only, and open our ears, that we would only hear Jesus.

Open our hearts, that we may be changed more into His loveliness and likeness. And Father, we would be careful to give you the honor and the glory, and we ask this in your Son's name, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

The Mission of Christ: Not to Condemn but to Save

Although God, in His great love, has graciously offered up, and has given His Son, and given to the world salvation, through the person of Christ, John 3 .16, as we looked at last Lord's Day, and that wonderful verse that just burns brightly, as like a burning bush, a golden text, we called it.

For God so loved the world, that He gave us one and only Son, His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. This great salvation, is not appropriated, except by penitent believing, and active faith, in which the Holy Spirit gives unto us.

And it's all in Christ alone, and no one else. Jesus Christ in Him alone. The lost are already condemned, because they have not believed in, and literally the Greek puts that, believed into. Just not in, but into.

The name of the only begotten Son of God. Now let me first give you, on the whole set here in this introduction, the backdrop of what makes the gospel so sweet and beautiful. And it's really the bad news, but it's the truth.

And God never withholds the truth, but this is exactly what the scriptures give to us, to make the good news so sweet, and make the good news the good news. While the final sentencing of judgment, of those who reject Jesus Christ, is still future tense.

John chapter 5, you don't have to turn there, but I'll read it to you. Beginning with verse 26 to 29, the Lord Jesus Christ says this, concerning judgment. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son, to have life in Himself.

And has given Him authority, to execute judgment. Also, because He is the Son of Man. And then Jesus says this, do not marvel, don't be surprised, at this,.

For the hour is coming.

The hour is coming. Let me put a footnote here. This will happen at the second coming of Jesus Christ. This is yet to come. In which all, now hear that, not some, all who are in the graves, will hear His voice, and come forth.

Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, speaking of actually those who are believers, will be judged according to their works in Him. And those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

This is the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, concerning judgment. This judgment is yet to come, and it's a judgment of unbelievers, that the believers will be judged, at the great resurrection morning, according to their works in Christ.

We will be all judged and brought before the bar of God, and for the point of conversion, of all that we have done, the good works, the bad works, no matter what it is, will be brought. There is no condemnation to the believer, because there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

So, we do not have to, as a believer in Jesus Christ, does not have to fear the condemnation, or the frown, or the wrath of God. But yet, the believer will have this to fear. Because the believer will stand, as you read in Revelation chapter 20, 19 and 20, specifically to 19.

There is the great white throne judgment,.

That all unbelievers,.

And that means every single person, that is the rejected Jesus Christ, will stand before the great white throne judgment, and give an account of every single deed that they have ever done, from the point of their birth, until all the way to the point of their death.

Now, some of you might be thinking,.

What about babies?

Well, we know that babies are ushered right into heaven. God takes them on. But to those who reach to the moment, the time of accountability, which I personally don't know, I don't think any of us knows, only but God, some would say somewhere in the teenage years, where they come to a point of reason,.

Maybe earlier,.

Where children understand the gospel, only God knows this. But from that time, all unbelievers at the judgment, there will be a consummation, of what has already really begun. Now, in saying that, let me ask you a question.

Do you know when the verdict is made for your life? Is it future tense? Even though there is a future, good judgment, but do you really know when the verdict was made.

For your life?

Do you really know.

When the hammer of God's gavel.

Fell down.

And pronounced guilty? The question is this, that's the question, but the answer is this, when you and I arrived on planet Earth, to that point of accountability, but yet we're born, even a bape is born with a sin nature, and a bent to rebel against God, because of Adam's fall.

You and I have arrived on this planet as unbelievers, not believing in Jesus Christ. The gavel fell, the verdict was already rendered, and the sentence was already passed, and it's already been passed.

There's no one counting your record to see if your good outweighs your bad deeds, even though God will bring that to account on the day of judgment. But oh yes, God knows everything, because He's all-knowing, all-wise God, and everything about you, nothing gets by the eye of God.

And He's well aware of the record.

Of our crimes, your crimes, against Him,.

And the laws that we have broken, and the rebellions that we have caused against Him. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the verdict, because the verdict has already really been passed. It's already been passed.

The divine judgment has already governed the judgment.

He's ruled it.

The gavel has already come down, and you and I have been condemned and sentenced to hell already. Now you don't hear a lot of that in churches today. You don't even hear it very often at all. But Jesus spoke more outside of the kingdom of God about the doctrine of hell than any other doctrine.

And we believe in preaching the whole counsel of God here, so you will hear that. Now, another footnote. Now this is the truth, that our Lord Jesus Christ is actually teaching this religious man, Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees, who came to Jesus by night, in this context.

What Jesus is teaching here in verse 17 and 18, and all the way down through verse 21, is He's contrasting light and darkness. There's a contrast. He's contrasting true belief and unbelief. He's contrasting salvation, not condemnation, to the believer, and condemnation, not salvation, to the non-believer.

Now what we see in these two verses, in verse 17 and 18, is this great and glorious truth. First of all, is that we are told the reason why God sent His only one and only Son. Verse 16 has emphasized that.

It's a great implication. But yeah, verse 17 is a carryover of what is being said. So second, we are also told that each person can receive eternal salvation through Jesus Christ, and what Jesus has accomplished for us in His death, His burial, and His resurrection.

So let's look at the first point. Let us look at the reason Jesus came. The reason Jesus came is found in verse 17. It tells us why God sent forth His Son. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

It's incredible that our Lord Jesus brings this to our attention because the good news is really, this is what His mission is all about. He comes to save to the uttermost. Jesus explains to Nicodemus, this very, very religious man, in this context that He was sent not to condemn the world,.

But to save. He's a Savior.

That's His nature.

That's God's nature.

And God is unchanging in that. The Father sent Him to die. That was why He was born. He was born to die on the cross as the sacrifice, the Lamb of God, on behalf of sinful men. 2 Corinthians 5 .21. We love this verse so much, and you'll hear it quoted quite often here.

He made Him.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, says the Apostle Paul, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, now notice that very carefully.

That doesn't mean He was sinful. It says in the likeness of sinful flesh. We are sinful flesh. Jesus comes as a man, as fully man and fully God. And yet He was without sin, and He is the only person that has ever lived, that lived a completely, totally perfect life without sin whatsoever.

Not one thought of evil, not one thought of bad, not one bad motive. All of His motive was holy love. His whole entire life was one perfect life. So God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin.

God condemns sin in the flesh. You know, if you think about that for a second, it shows you how much God hates sin. He hates it, and folks, we cannot comprehend this. That the second person of the Trinity, one God, three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The second person of the Trinity had a mission, and this was all planned. The plan of salvation, as we sung about this morning, was drew up in the eons of eternity past, in a covenant between the Father and the Son, that the Son would go to this world in which He knew already that it would fall.

He knew this beforehand. The plan was already drawn up. So the plan of salvation was drawn, but Jesus, and by the way, in creation and redemption, three persons of the one triune God is part of creation.

The Father, the Son, the Spirit. So therefore, in salvation, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all play a tremendous part in accomplishing salvation. Romans 8 .3, and just as a supreme proof of Abraham's love for God, was his willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in Genesis 22.

But on the far, far grander scale, the Father's offering, Abraham, the Father of our faith, offered up his son. But see, on the far, far grander scale, the Father offered up His own son. As Brother Ben mentioned, there's tides and shadows, but now the reality is Jesus Christ.

And Jesus is that unspeakable gift. His one and only Son. The supreme manifestation of His great and His infinite love for lost sinners. It's really incomprehensible to us, but this is why Jesus came.

To be a Savior for sinners. He came to seek and save the lost, and call them to repentance. Jesus Christ, who being in the form of God, Paul says, and Philippians 2, did not consider robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond slave, and coming in the likeness of man, and being found in appearance as a man.

Appearance as a man. He humbled Himself. He humbled Himself. And became obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross. This was His great condescension. This was His great humiliation. We're coming into the Christmas season very soon, but we'll be focused on the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He came into the world, and when He came and entered, and was born into the feeding trough. Could you imagine? People would think that the Messiah, the Son of God, the King was going to come, but He did not come and was not born in king's palaces.

He was born in a feeding trough. A feeding trough with animals surrounding them. A lonely place. A cold place. Cold and dark. This is how Christ entered into the world. And that was the point of humiliation.

His humiliation, and all through His life, He said, The foxes have holes, the birds have nests, but the Son of Man does not have a place to lay His head. He lived as a homeless, lonely person, but yet, as the Messiah, and the King of kings, and the Lord of lords incarnate, and the Son of Man.

And He goes to the point of His ultimate humiliation, to the point of death, to the death of a cross. Folks, the crucifixion was the cruelest in that time period. Actually, the Romans, if I'm not mistaken here, the Romans patterned it from the Syrians.

And it was cruel, it was barbaric, it was inhumane. They hung people on a cross in total shame and nakedness. And it was the most excruciating, most shameful death, most degrading, most humiliating death that was ever devised by depraved men.

It was a slow death. The slowest death that you can imagine, until they would suffer for hours until the heart bursted. And they died and breathed their last. But they did it, and they hung that person, and that criminal, on a cross, for rightly so, because of the deeds that they committed.

And as you well know, Jesus hung in the middle between that day, between two thieves. And those two thieves represent all of mankind, by the way. If you notice the story, one rejects Christ, mocks Christ, does not fear God.

The other comes to Him and says, Lord, remember me when you come into that kingdom. And Jesus said, this day, you will be with me in paradise. It was a long, long confession of all of his sins. He came, and basically what he was saying, Lord, have mercy upon me.

That's what he was saying. So, the death of a cross was the most cruelest of all deaths. And here God the Father and God the Son had planned this in eternity past, folks, before the foundation of the world, that was even before the world was created, before things set in motion, before the stars were created.

This was already planned in the great mind of God. Ephesians 1 .4 -6 says this, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy.

See, your sanctification has already been ordained of God. Your perseverance to those who truly believe will persevere. And then He says this, and you will be without blame before Him in love, having predestined us.

That means He has marked you out to be His son and daughter to the adoption. That's how we know that, because we are adopted as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself. He's reconciled us according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.

And Paul just burst out to the praise of the glory of His grace, and he's worshiping God because of God's plan of salvation, by which He made us accepted. Listen to those wonderful words. He has made us accepted in the Beloved.

Nothing we have done. Again, Edwards said it right, there's nothing you and I contribute to our salvation except for the sin that made it necessary. There's absolutely nothing there we can glory of. Nothing.

Because all the glory belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, because we cannot earn salvation, we cannot gain salvation, we cannot gain eternal life within ourselves, because there's nothing within ourselves that's good.

It's outside of ourselves. It's all in Jesus Christ. It's the sovereign grace of God that brings salvation to sinners. It's His great love by His Holy Spirit, through His Holy Spirit, and through the mediation of His Son that has reconciled us to the Father.

1 Timothy 1 .15, this is a faithful saying, Paul says, and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came, listen to that, He came into the world to save sinners. And listen to what Paul says here, the Apostle Paul, of whom I am chief.

He says, I'm the chiefest of sinners. And yet, God set His heart on him.

That was a terrorist,.

Persecuting the church of God. Stopped him in his tracks. He wasn't looking for God. He wasn't seeking God. Matter of fact, he thought he was the most religious man on the face of the earth at that time.

And he thought what he was doing was God's service and killing Christians. He really thought, like a lot of the terrorists today, it's for a holy cause, they think, but they are deceived. And Paul was, at that time, Saul of Tarsus was deceived.

Until Jesus Christ knocked him off his horse, and he came to his face, and he saw the brightness of his glory, and he was blinded. And the first thing he said,.

Lord.

When he came. And he says, who are you?

And Jesus responded,.

I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecute. You get that? He was persecuting the church. That means he was persecuting Christ. Because the body of Christ is one with the head. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

Isn't that wonderful? He came to save us. To deliver us. We're going to look into that. What the word of God says about that. It's more than just a ticket to salvation, folks. By the way, it's far, far more than fire insurance.

And a salvation ticket. He saves to the uttermost. And let's look at it. 1 Timothy 2, 5 -6.

Another great verse.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. What did He do?

Who gave.

Again and again, we see God gave. God gave. Who gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. That follows up with Titus 3, 4 -7. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior. Notice that.

Savior.

He's our Savior. Toward man appeared not only by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to the mercy, the compassion that He saved us through the washing and the regeneration of the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He has poured out on us abundantly through Christ Jesus our Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Then the Apostle John in 1 John 4 -14. And we have seen and testified that the Father sent the Son as the Savior of the world. Acts 4 -12. Nor is there salvation in any other. No other salvation, folks.

Jesus is it. There's not two saviors. There's only one Savior. And Christ is it. And then He says this. For there is no other name. No other name. Under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved.

We must be saved. As Jesus says, you must be born again. That mighty and glorious name of Jesus. Matthew 1 -21. And she, speaking of Mary, will bring forth a son. And you shall call his name Jesus. You know what Jesus means?

Jehovah saves.

Joshua.

Jehovah saves.

For He will save His people from their sins. That's what He came to do. I'd like to ask people, if you're saved, what do you save from? What do you save from? Are you saved from yourself? Your self-life?

See, Jesus saves us from our self-life. Jesus says to follow Him, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Me. That's the gospel. He comes to save His people from their sins. From their sins.

And also, let me make a footnote here. Not in their sins. From their sins. It makes me cringe, beloved, in this old world we live in. And I know people to pray, but it still hurts me and cringes at me.

And I did it once myself too. So I'm not without fault on this. But using the name of the Lord in vain. How many times do we hear not only, God this and God that and God this, but we hear Jesus Christ's name spoken in an unworthy manner of disdain and flippancy.

I'd say something and that person would say, the Lord's name there in vain. Using the name of Jesus. And I'm thinking, that's the only name under heaven.

Whereby you must be saved.

And you take it in vain? We've all done it, haven't we? But now we know, as God has given us a new heart, that name is precious to us. It's like precious ointment. It's a precious name. There's no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved.

And knowing that this is the only name under heaven given among men, we must be saved. Oh beloved, salvation is given through that name. It's through that name we call on God. Through that name it ushers us into the presence of God.

And I would commend you and suggest to you, if you hear someone say that name in a flippant way, lovingly say, let's pause here for a second. Do you realize what you've said? I told this guy years ago, let me give you a small illustration.

He would go around and say the Lord's name like that. He was my boss, by the way. In the grocery store. And we called him Stompy. He would go around and stomp his foot like this. I mean, constantly stomping.

He was all the time just frivolously moving about. And he was doing his job. In a sense, he was very active in doing his job. But under his breath all the time, using God's name, God's name, God's name.

Finally, I came to him. I said, boss, can I speak to you just a few minutes about this? Now I know with him, I can't change this man's heart. We can't be the Holy Spirit, right? But we can testify to the grace of God in a loving way.

And I said, I'd like to challenge you, boss. You know, you use God's name quite often. And it's not in the right way. Matter of fact, it's done in such a vain, flippant way. I said, did you ever think about just take God's name, the living God, by the way, out of what you're saying, and just put Buddha's name there?

Or Confucius, or another false god.

I said, that's fine.

But don't put the name of the holy living God. And sure enough, one day I saw him, after I talked to him a few days after that, and here comes Stompy. Just stomping. And he got mad. He was mad about something.

And he said, oh, Buddha.

Oh, Buddha. Oh, Buddha.

Well, anyway, I know I can't change the man's heart, but at least I pray there was a small impact there. So you're a light. And didn't Jesus say that you are the light of the world? Shine in the dark, dark place where you are.

Shine. And we want Jesus to shine through us.

It's not about us.

It's about Jesus.

That's what Jesus is talking about. You just don't confess Him to come to an altar and say a sinner's prayer. He says, you confess me before men. I'll confess you before the Father. That confession is all through our life.

And that means evangelism, folks. We are to evangelize and tell people the good news of the gospel. Well, that wasn't in my notes, but I thought I'd swing that in there. Romans 10, 13,. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

That's a promise of God. But we also need to realize what it means to call on the name of God. That calling on God is repenting. Because the Lord Jesus says, repent and believe the gospel. Repent, or you will all likewise perish.

John the Baptist preached, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus preached, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. We need to tell people lovingly, look, you must repent or you will likewise perish.

And folks, I understand how difficult that is because people don't want to hear that. That's a very hard word, and it will offend them. Absolutely, it's offensive, isn't it? But we must do it in the love of God and care for their souls.

And if we have a hard time caring for their souls, just read the scriptures, get on your face before God, and ask God to give you a burden, and He will. And by the way, He'll give you His burden. The call upon the name of the Lord is to repent and believe the gospel.

So God the Father sent Jesus. The greatest gift He had, His own Son, His one and unique only Son, to justify us, to redeem us. God sent Him to live a perfect life, to fulfill the law so that we would be the righteousness of God in Him, that we would be clothed in His righteousness, to live a life of victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Not perfectly, but yet with the remaining sin, we continue to practice righteousness and not to practice sinning. Jesus is our substitute, the Lamb of God, to pay a debt that we could never pay. That's what the word ransom means, to redeem us from the slave market of sin and purchase us as His very own people, to adopt us in the kingdom of God and the kingdom of His own dear Son, to cleanse us from our sins, to wash us from our sins, and to continue in Him, to abide in Him, to love Him, to love each other, to live for Him in holiness and love.

Isn't it wonderful? He's translated us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. So the Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. And again, for what purpose? For what purpose? Well, we've seen first of all in Matthew 1 .21, to save His people from their sins.

I think that's a great purpose, isn't it? He saves us from our sin. But He also saves us from the wrath to come. God's wrath. People say, yeah, but doesn't He save us from hell? That's actually what hell is, folks.

It is the wrath of God that will be poured out on people's souls throughout all eternity to those who reject Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus took when He died on the cross in those three hours of darkness, when He cried out to the Father and said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

He leans upon Psalm 22 there and He's quoting Scripture and yet He's taken to hell. The wrath of God. We cannot comprehend, folks. I like what G. Campbell Morgan said. He said, I actually have some of his writings and books.

He was a great preacher. He was the preacher that actually preceded, was before Martin Lloyd-Jones and that wonderful church in England. And I came to that verse and I looked at the commentary that Jesus was quoting that on the cross from Psalm 22 and I love, probably the best commentary I've ever read on that verse was G. Campbell Morgan because he had such reverence for the Word of God and the Bible says we're to fear God and tremble before His Word and you see, G. Campbell Morgan knew how to do that.

He had the heart. And by the way, he was a convert of D .O. Moody. Moody, that was one of Moody's men that he converted to Christ. He won him. Jesus saved him but Moody went after him and Jesus, of course, went after him before Moody but Moody was...

But this is what G. Campbell Morgan said about that verse. He said, you know, he said, how can I say anything because anything that I say is not going to come up to what is really meant in this verse.

He said, so therefore, I take off the shoes of my heart and I worship right here because it's so deep, it's too deep. All I can do is worship. All I can do is worship. For God so loved the world. For God did not send His Son into the world.

Notice, verse 17 begins the way verse 16 began. For God, for God, verse 17. Verse 16, for God so loved the world.

So loved the world.

Then in verse 17, for God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world but that the world through Him might be saved. So, in the first advent, Jesus Christ comes to be our Savior. At the second advent, He will come as the judge of all the earth.

Have you ever thought of this? There's only one planet earth and there is. There's a lot of people trying to say there's life on other planets and they're giving more time, wasting all this time trying to find life on other planets.

But this planet earth is what God has honed in on. And this is one planet earth. There's only one humanity right here on this earth and there's only one Savior, one God, one Father of all, in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and has determined to send His love on this world.

Now think of this. He did not choose angels. Why not bring up angels here? Because angels are an important part of the gospel and being messengers. They're messengers. They're fiery ministers. They're ministers of fire.

And they're chosen. If you notice, Michael comes to Mary and he comes to Zechariah and the temple and throughout the Old Testament you see messengers are sent to do God's bidding. They're servants of God.

But there are a portion of angels that fell. As Brother Keith mentioned about this morning, a lucifer fell like lightning and there was a third of the angels that followed. God cast them out of heaven.

And where do you think they went? Well, some of them are here on this earth and they're fallen angels. That's where the demon spirits come from. That's right. They're real. But there's also some that God did chosen His sovereignty to lock up in chains into darkness of perdition.