Allen Jackson - We Need a Savior - Part 1
I want to take a couple of weeks and just talk to you about Jesus. You know, at the end of the day, he's my best friend and at the end of the day I want my life to bring honor and glory to him. And I don't have a better topic. And for this week I want to talk to you very specifically about one aspect of Jesus and how we understand him, and that's our need for a Savior. Folks, we need a Savior. But I have a prayer this weekend. It's beyond just collecting information or reading Scripture verses. I'm asking God to give us a revelation of himself. A revelation is more than just information that you accumulate. It's more than assimilating facts or gaining insight. I'm an advocate for learning and studying and memorizing and all of those things.
They bear great fruit in your life, but a revelation is something deeper than that. It's more than just an intellectual insight. It's something that happens in the core of your being, something you know. It's beyond facts. It's something you don't lose. We need a revelation of God as our Savior. And I want to unpack that idea with you a little bit from Scripture. It takes God to help us with that. Without God's help, the idea is a little offensive. Without God's help, we imagine we can fix it. If we'll just try a little harder and be a little more focused and cooperate a little more fully and correct the mistakes from our last run at the hill, surely we can do it this time. And the idea is particularly offensive to those of us that are religious.
You know, in Jesus's day, when he spoke to the religious leaders, the people you would have expected to be most receptive to his message, he said, "You can know the truth, and the truth will set you free". And it says they were offended and they said, "We've never been slaves of anybody. We're children of Abraham". They were offended at the invitation. And Jesus finally said to them, "You know, God can make children of Abraham out of the rocks. So you might choose the humility button". And we're the 21st century addition to that. We think the world would be better if the people who don't come to church would change. Come on. I mean, I didn't call your name yet, but we kind of live with that idea that the world would be a lot better place if those people that aren't like us would just be more like us.
And while there might be some note of truth in that, the reality is the world will be a much better place if you and I will become the people of God. If God would give us a revelation of himself, the world would change. So we're not pointing a finger at anyone else today. We're looking in the mirror, saying, "God, help us". And I want to just walk toward this idea with you from a variety of vantage points or perspectives that we need a Savior. Let's start in 2 Samuel 22. King David is writing at a very significant juncture in his own life. Says, "David sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said, 'The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge, and my Savior.'"
David at this point of triumph in his life of an ultimate victory over all the things that had stood in opposition to him gives us a litany of statements into his perspective of God, and they're noteworthy. He says that God is a rock, a fortress, a deliverer. He's a place of refuge, a shield, an expression of salvation, a stronghold, but ultimately he said, "God is my Savior". He repeats it in verse 47, said, "The Lord lives. Praise be to my Rock. Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior". David isn't celebrating his strength, his strategic genius, his military acumen, the support of the mighty men who have watched over him. None of those things. He's saying, "God, you alone are my Savior".
I would remind you that our faith is not fundamentally about a moral code. Our faith is not a set of rules. Our faith is grounded in this notion that God is our Savior. That Almighty God, the creator of heaven and earth is involved in the unfolding of human history and he is the salvation of humanity. We have no salvation apart from him. He is our rock. He is our stronghold. He is our deliverer. David reminds us of that. We need a Savior. That's an offensive line in many places. And so often in the church, we say, "Yes, yeah, I know, pastor. I needed a Savior. I was lost and I came to faith and I made a profession of faith. I said the sinner's prayer". However you label that entry point of conversion, salvation, I believe in that, I don't want to diminish it, but your need for a Savior doesn't terminate when you recite that prayer. I need to know the saving power of God every day of my existence. God is my Savior today, just as certainly as the day I said that prayer for the first time.
See, the need of humanity, the observation of humanity is there's something broken. There's something broken in our condition. We are powerless to resolve it in ourselves. The hubris of humanity, the arrogance. Without shame or embarrassment, we will stand in the public square and then say, "This time we're going to work together better. We're going to link arms and cooperate. We'll treat one another with justice and integrity and fairness and we're going to work together and solve our problems and triumph together". Completely ignoring millennia of history and evidence that we don't do that. We have not done that. We need a Savior. The solution to the problems of humanity are rooted in Almighty God the creator of heaven and earth. There's no solution apart from him. David reminds us of that. Now, here's the challenge. The people of God carry that message, and we forget.
In Psalm 106 in verse 23 says, "They forgot God their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt". He's speaking of the Hebrew people. The greatest story of deliverance in all of Scripture is the Exodus event, the delivery from Egyptian slavery of the Hebrew people, the plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, the provision of food and water in the desert. With the exception of the Jesus narrative, it's the greatest story of deliverance in all of the Bible. And the Psalmist says we forgot. Now, it's not a single passage in Scripture. Look at Isaiah 17. Says, "You have forgotten God your Savior; you've not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines, though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain".
The outcome of the passage is tragic, but it begins with this statement: "You have forgotten God your Savior". They haven't forgotten a theological position. These are the people of God. Their family album, their high school annual is populated with the pictures of God's involvement. They have daily sacrifices. They have a temple in Jerusalem. They have annual holidays. They're celebrating God's presence, but they have reoriented their lives. They have forgotten that God is their Savior. Is it possible that we might forget? Could we fill churches and have religious surfaces and carry bibles and sing songs but forget that God is our Savior?
You see, this challenge isn't just a fallacy or a weakness of the godless or the ungodly. The prophet is speaking to the covenant people of God. And I believe the message is most relevant for American Christendom today, not to people beyond the church. We have forgotten that who our Savior is. He is Almighty God. He is our hope and our rock. Even those with a rich history of godly involvement can forget that God is their Savior. We can rely on our pedigree and our generational correctness and imagine that the story we can tell about our past is sufficient to inform our future, and yet we have to make a choice. Isaiah reminds us of another component of this. He says, "There's no Savior besides me".
Look at Isaiah 43 in verse 3. "I am the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, your Savior; I have given Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in your place". Verse 11, "I, even I, am the Lord, and there is no savior besides Me. No savior besides Me". There is no plan B. In the New Testament, Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me". We're told today that's naive, maybe even bigoted language. Folks, the Bible doesn't present many alternatives. Jesus said, "If anyone enters other than through me, they're a pretender, a deceiver". Is it possible that we could forget that there is no savior beside the Lord?
Look at Hosea 13. "I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me". In the plainest of language, there is no substitute for God. We need God. We are better with Jesus in our lives than without him. Jesus is not a limit. He won't diminish your life or somehow subtract from your joy or your fulfillment or your contentment. He will expand the opportunities of your life. We want to be unrepentant, unapologetic, unrelenting advocates for Jesus of Nazareth. He makes life better. It's an important message in the church.
I want to suggest to you God has a plan for our health care. God has a plan for our well-being. I'm not opposed to doctors and the medical community and all they provide. I'm thrilled that we have access to those things and for the people that train and work so diligently to make that available. God bless them. I'm not opposed to them. It's not an either or a solution, but ultimately God is the one that we trust for our well-being. God has a plan for our social security. God secures our future. It's the truth. God has a plan for justice in our lives. He is a just God. And any justice that touches our lives comes from the throne of Almighty God, not from another institution or organization. Institutions and organizations are only just to the degree that they tolerate godliness and godly people. Humanity is not just in and of ourselves.
You know, it's easy to lose sight of this stuff. The messaging that comes at us is unrelenting. Our own orientation is easily diverted. I know this from my own life. I'm not talking to you about something I don't know about. I have to come back to this and be reminded. It's been a while. We were building three crosses in the spaces that went with them. It was a pretty good construction project at the time. And there were a lot of permissions that had to be secured from the county, from the city, from the state. At the federal level there were some. There were, TVA was involved. I mean, there were all kinds of... at one point they handed me over 100 meetings that they said I would be required to attend in securing the permissions we needed to go through with the project. What a blessing. I got to sit in meetings on storm water runoff, on the kind of silt fences that we would need for the project. Yay, God. And somewhere in the process, I lost the love of the Lord. It seemed to me that everything that was happening wasn't just really right or just or fair, and I got mad.
Now, I have some church words for mad. You know, I was frustrated. I was a bit agitated. I was a bit unsettled. I wasn't any of those things. By this point, I was mad. I wanted to get the responsible people in front of my truck and drive over them, and then I wanted to back up to be sure I had the tires aligned right and just rock back and forth. I didn't want to do permanent damage. I just wanted them to feel the desire to cry out to the Lord for mercy. And I was on the way to town for another one of my wonderful meetings and I was talking to the Lord. It was just me in the car. So I had the volume knob up and I was intense. I was making my final argument to the Lord. "This isn't right. You know this isn't right. It's your church. It's not my church. They're your people. Have you seen your people? Have you been watching"?
I mean, I was telling the Lord. And right at my closing, it was a good one. I mean, I was righteously indignant. I was mad. "God, this is not fair. It's not just". And I heard the spirit of God in me saying, "Who are you trusting for justice"? And I was on a roll. I had the momentum. I wasn't going to yield the floor. I said, "Well, I'm trusting the governm..." And it almost came all the way out of my mouth, and I realized what I was saying, and I got quiet and I said, "Lord, I'm sorry. You're the only source of justice in my life, and I trust you". And I laid all that anger and resentment down. I said, "God, it's your project. They're your people. That is your church. If it happens, you'll make it happen. It's you, Lord".
See, there is no savior besides God. He secures our future. He watches over it. That's what David understood. He said, "God is my rock. He is my Savior". He's even our Savior in times of distress when we don't like the circumstances. See, when you don't like your circumstances, it's easy to get mad at God, to be embittered, to complain, but sometimes even in those seasons of distress, we see the salvation of God in new ways. If you only got your way every day, you wouldn't even know God as your Savior. Look with me in your notes at Jeremiah 14. Jeremiah is got a tough job. He's a prophet in Israel. You think, "Well, that would be a pretty exalted office". But, you know, the prophet's job is to give the god-perspective to the people.
And the message God gives Jeremiah is, "Tell the people I'm going to punish them". "Oh, gee. Couldn't I tell them we're going to have a party. Hoedown. Free cotton candy for everybody". That's not what Jeremiah got to say. Jeremiah had to say, "You're going into exile, and your houses are going to be destroyed". They didn't like the message. They put him in prison. They threw him in a pit. He suffered for the message he delivered. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of false prophets that said, "Don't listen to Jeremiah. He's just a buzz kill. He's a downer. Don't pay any attention to him. He doesn't know what he's talking about". Then God said, "Jeremiah, you say what I've told you". It's a tough job. Do you have any imagination that sometimes standing up for the Lord everybody might not cheer?
See, I think we're all willing to be Jesus's advocates if we can get the novation, but sometimes we have to stand up for Jesus when it's not fun. I don't mean to diminish or belittle. Sometimes just owning the truth is awkward. Folks, we've got to be the church, not just when it's convenient and comfortable. A doctor is no good to you if he only tells you good news. A doctor is absolutely no good to you if he only tells you what you want to hear. You need them to tell you the truth. And the church is only valuable if we own the whole truth of the Lord. But look at what Jeremiah said.
Jeremiah 14 said, "Although our sins testify against us, O Lord, do something for the sake of your name. For our backsliding is great, and we have sinned against you. Hope of Israel, its Savior in times of distress, why are you like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays only a night? Why are you like a man taken by surprise, like a warrior powerless to save? You're among us, O Lord, and we bear your name; do not forsake us". What a marvelous prayer. He said, "You're our Savior in times of distress". If you're in a season of distress, don't be angry at God or turn your back on him or threaten him. Say, "Lord, you are my Savior, even in this circumstance". You'll get a revelation of him in a new way. You'll know his power in a new way. You'll know his strength in a new way.
Say, "I didn't volunteer for this. I didn't want this". I understand. God is faithful. It's really a passage that's an expression of the mercy of God. He's our Savior in times of distress. Even if the distress has been contributed to by our own choices, he's still our Savior. Isn't that good to know? That's such a beautiful prayer. I think we ought to pray it together. You know, one of the best ways to learn to pray is to pray the Scripture, pray what the Scripture says about you. I think that's an accurate description of our own culture these days. Can we read that together as a prayer? Would you do that with me?
Let's start in verse 7. "Although our sins testify against us, O Lord, do something for the sake of your name. For our backsliding is great; we have sinned against you. O hope of Israel, its Savior in times of distress, why are you like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays only a night? Why are you like a man taken by surprise, like a warrior powerless to save? You are among us, O Lord, and we bear your name; do not forsake us". What a marvelous prayer.
Now, I want to change direction just slightly. The New Testament tells us that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Did you know that? It's a little offensive to say that in public. We're a little timid or a little reluctant. We've kind of been bullied into being silent on that point, but the Scripture is clear Jesus is the Savior of the world. He didn't come with a new idea. He came as the fulfillment of the idea that was launched in Genesis, and it'll be brought to a completion, a conclusion when he comes back to the earth. He's coming back as the Savior of the world. I hope you know Jesus. I'm not talking about sitting in church or keeping a set of rules. I'm talking about making Jesus your friend, living every day to please him. I'm going to edit your outline a little bit. You'll be glad you'll get to the restaurant ahead of the Baptist, maybe.
But I want to skip down to your outline in Roman numeral two to letter C where there's John chapter 4, and we're going to step into a scenario in Jesus's ministry. If you're doing the Bible reading with us, we just read this chapter this past week. John chapter 4, Jesus has an encounter with a Samaritan woman. Samaria is a region of Israel. If you know the geography of Israel, it's at the end of the Mediterranean and by the Mediterranean, there's a coastal plain, a flat land, and on the other border of Israel, on the eastern border is the Jordan Valley, but between the Jordan Valley and the coastal plain by the Mediterranean are the mountains of Israel, the highland, and it's in those mountains of Israel where Samaria is. So if you're going to go from the northern part of Israel to the southern part, the most direct route is through Samaria, and the people who live there are the Samaritans.
Now, it's relevant to me 'cause about 10 days ago I was in Samaria. In fact, I was standing in the place where this little region where this incident took place, by Jacob's Well. It's biblical labels. It's Shechem. In modern day Israel, it's Nablus. But Jacob's Well has been a part of the Jewish history in the land of Israel for about three millennia. That's a long time. In fact, while I was in Israel a couple of weeks ago, UNESCO, the United Nations voted officially a position that the Jewish people did not have a historic connection to the land of Israel. You can't fix stupid. Not a really good word for church, I understand, but an accurate description of that assertion. But Jacob's Well... what you need to know about the Samaritans was there was an ethnic conflict that the Samaritans and the Jews didn't get along. They were enemies.
In fact, if you were Jewish and you sat at the table, if you shared a meal with a Samaritan, you were unclean. They didn't even talk to one another. Well, Jesus is traveling through Samaria, he stops in this village, and he wants a drink of water at this well. And this whole scenario bubbles out of that interaction. I want to start, if you got John 4, just look at verse 42. The people in this village where this woman that Jesus has interacted with say to her, "We no longer believe just because of what you said. We have heard for ourselves and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world". There's something ironic in this. The Samaritans, who are enemies of the Jewish people, are acknowledging Jesus as the Savior of the world. A few weeks forward in Jerusalem, they're going to say, "Crucify him". At least some of the inhabitants of the city will, but the Samaritans in this village are saying he's the Savior of the world.
If you're watching the world around us and you're not grieving for the spiritual condition of our generation, you're not paying careful enough attention. We are watching a tug of war between good and evil, and we have a role to play. Let's pray:
Father, give us the discernment to recognize what you're doing and the courage and the boldness to stand for the truth. Forgive us for our ambivalence. We choose you with our whole hearts in Jesus's name. Amen.