Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

You Will Name Him Jesus

by Dave Wilkinson

Matthew 1: 18-21

December 17, 2000

It wasn't just a desperate attempt at vacation fun that caused my brother, my sister and me to try to hold our breath all the way through Des Moines Iowa one hot summer day in the mid 1950's. It was our mother and her exercise of what she would have called reasonable caution.

The problem was that there was a polio outbreak in Des Moines. We had to go through town if we were to make it from California to Indiana. There were no Interstates. So we had to try to hold our breath. The windows were up no auto air conditioning but the windows were up and we held our breath to take in the bare minimum of deadly Des Moines air.

I really don't blame my mother for trying. Polio was a crippler and a killer. So you can imagine how relieved we all were when Dr. Jonas Salk developed his polio vaccine.

When I was in 4th or 5th grade, the students in our school were called together and each given a sugar cube with pink syrup on it. It was serum that had been developed by Dr. Salk to keep us from getting polio.

Now, with our experience in Des Moines, did we turn up our noses and say, "I don't really think I want to avoid polio this way. I'm going to wait until another way comes along?" That would have been crazy.

That's the sense in which we have to see what God has done for us in Christ -- as the best news we're ever going to get for our lives and our futures -- and as an offer we would be crazy to refuse.

This is the third Sunday of Advent -- the four week time of preparation for Christmas. Advent means coming. The season signifies the long years of waiting for the fulfillment of God's promise in Jesus.

When you read the Old Testament, you are absolutely gripped by the feeling that something is going to happen! Someone is coming!

As early as the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, we find the promise of God that there will be a "seed of the woman" who will crush the head of the serpent. All of the prophets speak of him. The Passover and the rituals of sacrifice point to Him. All of the longings, yearnings and dreams are directed toward the Anointed One of God who will save His people.

The Book of Job may well have the oldest roots in the Bible. It reflects a very ancient tradition. And in it, Job sits in the ruin of his life and declares: "I know that my Redeemer lives and that at last He will stand upon the earth. Even though my skin is flayed from my body, yet without my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall see and not another." When you leave the Old Testament, Job's redeemer has not yet arrived. Four hundred years are still to elapse. But one of the first thing the New Testament tells us is that the angels appeared to shepherds in the fields around Bethlehem and sang a song of hope to them -- "Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord."

One of the great themes of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is that the inside of something can be greater than the outside. This is what we find as we approach the stable in Bethlehem -- that the child in the manger is the One Paul calls the "Power of God for salvation for all who believe." The Miracle of Christmas was that God's eternal plan for the ages and plan for our own lives could be contained in a stable, in a trough for the feeding of animals.

In the Old Testament, written over a 1,500 year period, there are over three-hundred separate references to the coming Messiah or Christ. All of these were fulfilled in Jesus.

These promises show us two things. First, they show that the coming of Jesus was not an afterthought or an attempt to make the best of a bad situation. Rather, Jesus is the "Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world."

The second thing the Old Testament shows us is that God keeps His promises. God's faithfulness is the foundation of our faith -- our ability to trust that God will do what He says He will do --our faith that Christ is coming again for that is also promised and prophesied.

During the previous Sundays of Advent, we have looked at Matthews's account of the birth of Jesus Christ. We see how God prepared the way in the story of Israel through the genealogy of verses 1-18. We saw how God spoke to Joseph to tell him that the child Mary was expecting was in her by the Holy Spirit that he was not to be in anyway afraid to make Mary his wife.

Now, today, we read that an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream to tell him, "Name the child Jesus-or "Ya-Sus"- Yahweh saves -- because He Himself will save His people from their sins." Jesus is to be that rare person whose name means exactly what it says. "God-Saves " is not only Jesus' name. It is His perfect description.

Why was that baby called "God saves us?" I want to give three answers to that.

First, he was called GOD saves us, because He was from and is God.

Second, he was called God SAVES Us because we needed saving.

Third, he was called GOD Saves Us because WE can't save ourselves.

The problem from which Jesus saves His people is also important. The angel told Joseph that He saves us from our sins.

That expression is so familiar to us by now that we don't see how contrary it was to the popular messianic expectation of first century Jews. Moses had given people political salvation from their oppressors. The second Moses the coming Messiah was expected to do the same. It was a well-worn rabbinic principle that "as the first deliverer, so shall the second be." His work will be the same work. So the fact that we are not told here that Jesus "shall save His people from their enemies" came as a great disappointment to many oppressed people.

There had been three great bondages in Israel's history -- the Egyptian, the Babylonian, and now the Roman. A Messiah who came now and did not deliver the people politically could hardly be considered a serious or full-blooded Messiah. A liberator who came only to save from sins and not from sinners seemed inadequate. A Messiah who did not save His people politically and economically must have struck a serious Jew as an ineffective messiah. But Jesus' central mission is to save His people not from other people's sins but from their own.

The unmistakable focus of Jesus' work is first to liberate His people from their own evil. Jesus will not rivet His people's attention on an external enemy, as most liberators and liberation movements have done from the Maccabees to the Marxists. Rather, Jesus focuses on His own people, His church, and on our sins.

But that would strike many first century Jews including Jesus' disciples as grossly inadequate especially when Jesus had all the signs of the hero they wanted. People sometimes think of Jesus as somehow pale and weak. But that's not how the people who knew Him saw Him.

Jesus was accepted and admired by tough and rugged fishermen. Women followed Him wherever He went. Mark's gospel tells us that the mass of people listened to Him with delight. No wonder the religious establishment responded with fear and hatred. There were many who were prepared to proclaim Him king. His popularity was so great that it was in the dark of night in a secluded place that the soldiers came to arrest Him. If they had tried to arrest Him the broad daylight as He taught in the temple, there would have been a riot.

Jesus possessed all the qualifications to be the political, military messiah the people wanted including Jesus' own disciples. It is fascinating that even after the resurrection they ask Jesus, "are You, at this time, going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?" They are in effect saying, "the crucifixion and resurrection were an interesting side road, Jesus, but when are you going to get about the main Messiah work of kicking out the Romans?" Their political expectations were so strong that even after the resurrection the Disciples didn't understand what Jesus had actually done until they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Then they finally understood what the angel meant when he told Joseph, "you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins."

You know, the angels in the Bible are very different from the angels of the New Age. They have a very different message. The angels of the New Age that people claim to contact, tell you that you are a god or goddess and should move to Ojai. They teach you that every religion is true, and that you can find the truth within by meditation and New Age practices. They tell you that Jesus is only one of many saviors.

But real angels, God's angels, aren't like that. The angels who announced the birth of Jesus said that He was the Savior of the world. "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." He won't bring you self-gratification and give you everything you want. But he will meet your greatest need which is forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with your Creator. The angel announced Jesus as the only way to God -- the only one who could save us from sin, death and judgement.

He was called GOD saves us, because He was from and was God.

He was called God SAVES Us because we needed saving.

He was called GOD Saves Us because WE can't save ourselves.

We cannot save ourselves. We cannot establish peace with God by our own efforts. Being a Christian is not a matter of making all the right moves, earning biblical brownie points or spiritual merit badges. Being a Christian is a matter of faith, personal faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. We are saved by faith.

Trusting Jesus means that we trust Him to be faithful. We trust Him to do as He has promised. God has promised in Romans 3:22 and 24 to "put people right, through their faith in Jesus Christ." God has promised to put us into a good and healthy relationship with Himself. He has promised to give us peace with Himself, rather than tension and separation. And we know that He will do what He promised or He would make His own work in Jesus of no value.

But in fact, Jesus did His job. He accomplished what He came to do.

Jesus has done His job.

The issue for us today is to make sure that we are a part of the "His People" who are to be saved. Just being around His people doesn't do it. In the words of scripture, we must personally put on Jesus.

Bob Vernon, former deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, told a true story that probably touched the lives of some of you here. A motorcycle officer spotted a red pickup truck speeding past an intersection without even slowing for the stop sign. As the office turned on his flashing lights and pulled up behind the slowing truck, he thought. "This fellow is probably late for work." Unknown to the officer, the driver of the pickup had just robbed an all- night grocery store. On the seat beside the driver was the paper bag with the money and the gun he had used. The driver thought, "The cops know already." He was scared. He rested his hand on the gun. The truck pulled to the side of the roadway and stopped. The officer parked his motorcycle and approached the driver's side of the pickup. He was relaxed, "Good morning sir. May I see your " He didn't even get to finish his sentence. The driver stuck his arm out of the truck and fired his weapon. The barrel of the gun was only two inches away from the officer. The bullet hit the officer in the center of his chest. He was knocked to the ground seven feet away.

For a few moments, all was quiet. Then, to the horror of the gunman, the officer slowly stood to his feet. The driver couldn't believe it, "This guy must be Clark Kent." In shock, the policeman slowly began to brush the dirt from his uniform. After two or three seconds, the officer regained his wits, pulled his service revolver, and fired two rounds into the side of the truck. The first round went through the open window and destroyed the windshield. The second round went through the side of the door and ripped into the driver'' left leg. "Don't shoot," screamed the terrified robber, throwing the gun and the bag of money out of the window. The officer's life had been spared because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

But then, Vernon continues: "A few weeks later another officer and his partner went to serve a search warrant on a well-known drug dealer in the city of Inglewood. As his partner knocked, the officer yelled out "Police!" and started to kick down the door. From inside the shabby apartment, four slugs were fired through the door. One found its mark. The impact was almost exactly where the motorcycle officer had been hit only a few weeks before squarely in the center of the chest.

This officer was 27 years old. He left a wife, three children and a bulletproof vest in the trunk of his car parked 30 feet from where he fell."

Vernon writes: "Every police officer in Los Angeles believes in bulletproof vests. They work! I doubt you could find a policeman anywhere who doesn't believe vests save lives. But that is not enough. An officer must do more than believe in vests. He must take his belief to the point of personal commitment. He must be willing to wear the vest, and wear it at all times -- even when it is hot and uncomfortable.

In the same way, it is not just enough to believe that a man named Jesus was born in Bethlehem, was crucified on a cross and rose from the dead 2,000 years ago. You must take your belief to a point of commitment, to the point of "putting on" the risen Christ, receiving Him as your Savior and Lord. Just because it's available doesn't mean you have put it on.

Just because the wonderful, liberating cure is put in front of you doesn't mean that you have taken it into yourself.

You must. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There is no way out except through me."