Beloved in the Lord Jesus, did you ever notice that in some people's lives, a single word can light them up? You've got their attention right away because that one word is something very meaningful to them. So if you think of somebody who lives for gain, who lives for money, for riches, for wealth, You just get on the subject of investments, of money, and you've got their attention. They are right with you. If you know someone who's athletically inclined, whether it's by participating in athletics or by observing them, you just mention a couple famous people or something that interests them, you've got their attention. The same is true about people's names. Somebody that's really special to you, you hear that name and, boy, your attention's right there. Could be your spouse's name, could be a child that you've lost. That name is just held in your memory with reverence, with awe. Well, there's one word, one name, that has meant more to more people than any other in history. And you know what that name is, the precious name of Jesus. And it's really impossible to put into words what the name of the Lord Jesus means to believers. You think of, for example, what Solomon wrote in Song of Solomon, when he says that the name is as ointment poured forth. It's that name that we listen for in sermons. It's that name that we search for in books that we're reading. It's the name that we stammer forth in our prayers and in our supplications. It's that name that when somebody mentions it, they have our attention. And so as we begin a new section of the Heidelberg Catechism, the subjects in this section, this large section is dedicated to our Lord Jesus Christ, beautifully. And we're going to begin today with just a very simple focus, one single word, and that is Jesus. Our text is a very well-known verse. It's Matthew 1, 21. It parallels a passage in Luke where the angel says to Mary that his name, her son's firstborn, would be Jesus, to Joseph. We read the angel saying, verse 21, she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And our focus in the catechism is on question and answer 29 on page 39 in the back of our songbook. It's a simple question and a simple answer. Why is the Son of God called Jesus, that is, a savior? And the answer, because he saves us. and delivers us from our sins. And likewise, because we ought not to seek, neither can find salvation in any other. So our theme is simply Jesus. We're going to consider in the first place his name, in the second place his salvation, and then thirdly, his love. Jesus, his name, his salvation, and his love. Children, where did the name Jesus come from? was the first person who was named Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, so-called, Mary's son. Already in the Old Testament there were these many glimmers that there would come this Savior with this name. So you remember, children, Joshua. the great leader of the people of Israel after Moses, brings the people in to the land of Canaan, you know, fights many battles on behalf of the Lord, a man who was very faithful. Well, his name, Joshua, is really the Hebrew equivalent to the same New Testament name of Jesus. So there's one little glimmer of foretelling. And then we have the same name spelled slightly differently means the same. In Deuteronomy, Joshua also was called Hoshea by the Lord. And if that sounds familiar, that makes us think of the Old Testament prophet later in Israel's history, Hosea. All of those names mean salvation. Same, there was a king in 2 Kings 15 who was named Hosea, unfortunately. He, from the testimony of scripture, was not God-fearing. But nevertheless, that name keeps reappearing in different forms. It's as though God couldn't wait to reveal his son to the world, and so kept dropping hints about this name. And so these prophets, particularly Hosea, toward the end of the Old Testament, even though Israel had become unfaithful to the Lord so many times, the Lord, through Hosea, reminded the people of Israel, I will not be unfaithful to you. And so it's not surprising to find that one of the main themes of the Old Testament, we would say an overarching theme that covers so much ground, is the theme of salvation. After God's beautiful creation, you know what happened, children? God and man were communing together, and then we broke that communion through sin. We call it the fall. But God, even though Adam and Eve rejected Him in favor of Satan, God continued on with His mercy. You remember how He gave them that first promise, and then He clothed them. And as you just leaf through the Old Testament, you see the same theme time and again. Unfaithful man, faithful God. Israel, the people of God, the pre-flood saints, this one, that one, turning away from the Lord, God comes to them and restores them. And you know, children, God didn't have to do any of that. God is a just God. That means He follows His standards exactly. And if He wanted to, He could send all of us to hell tonight if it wasn't for His grace. And yet, from the very first sin and throughout history, he shows himself time and again, also in our lives, merciful. He sought out the fearful, the ashamed, the disobedient, the obstinate. God would one day send someone who would be greater than any prophet, greater than every king, the priest of all priests, who would destroy the works of the devil, who would destroy the devil's power himself and who would initiate that salvation which cannot be disannulled. God will save his people. That's the golden thread that's woven through all of the Old Testament scriptures. And We can honestly say his Old Testament people were not a very special people. In fact, they were very not special. Other nations were the same as them, unfaithful. And yet, we could say in a certain sense the people of God were less worthy than the nations around them because they knew better. God had revealed things about himself to them just as he has to us. but it was God who sovereignly separated them from the nations. It was God who delivered them. It was the God who would bring them salvation. Man ruins himself, God rescues, God redeems, God pursues. It's the same story all of us who are believers have experienced in our own lives. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. So all of these little signs in the Old Testament, the threads of gold salvation, the names that mean the same as Jesus, they were all pointing to the same moment in time, the prophecies, the promises, the sacrifices, the types and shadows. It's as though you're looking at a picture and it's become clearer and clearer and clearer until finally it becomes crystal clear in the person of this child conceived in the womb of a humble Israelite woman, a virgin named Mary. The God, boys and girls, who created everything that is, including you and me, came into this world in the human nature as an infant. And you'll notice that God the Father, Jesus' Father, the Son's Father, He didn't give the naming, the privilege of naming Jesus, He didn't leave it up to Mary, He didn't leave it up to Joseph, He named Him. And we've probably talked about this before, but maybe you've forgotten, especially in Bible times, naming someone was just more significant than just attaching a name to a person. Naming someone showed a kind of ownership, a kind of authority. So even though your parents named you when you were born, they didn't say, well, what would you like to be called? You're too little to answer that question. So they gave you a name, and that name has stuck with you. But the thing is, That name meant there's a relationship between you and your parents. Did you happen to notice that your last name is the same as the last name of your parents? There's a reason for that. You belong to them, at least for now. Now, ladies, when you might get married, you might take on a different name. What name? The name of your husband. Why? Because the two of you are now joined into one new family. God the Father named Jesus his name. Thou shalt call his name Jesus. He will be called salvation because he will save. He is salvation. He's not going to save everyone. The angel didn't say that. He said he will save his people. He's not going to save his people from every situation. No. The angel said, God said he will save his people from their sins. Same message to Mary in Luke 1.31. So Jesus was named at birth. Jesus was named again on the eighth day, when he was brought to the temple, when he was circumcised. It was a God-given name. The name Christ, Jesus Christ, the name Christ is more of a title. It's a title that means anointed. It was the one who the Father anointed to be the Savior. anointed by the Holy Spirit at Jesus' baptism more fully to be our teacher, to be our sacrificial king, to be our, I'm sorry, sacrificial priest and our king. And just consider that throughout his entire time on earth, every day of his life, even now in resurrected glory, he's always going to keep that name. If we would be privileged to meet the Lord in glory, His name is Jesus, as though to remind us of the blessed purpose for which He put on that human body and keeps that human body. It explains not only His purpose, but His desire, not only His desire, but His work, His place in our lives, the lives of saved sinner. But that name also reveals the heart of His heavenly Father. The Heavenly Father is enthroned above with Jesus at his right hand. The Heavenly Father, you know, we often talk about Jesus' intercession, how he prays for us, his people. Well, who is he praying to? The one beside him. The Father's ear is open to his Son as he prays on our behalf. And so the name Jesus tells us just as much about the Father as it does about the Lord Jesus. It also tells us about the work of the Holy Spirit. Each of the persons of the Trinity fully involved in the work of salvation, the Father in His eternal love sending the Son on our behalf, the Son taking upon Him this tremendous work of salvation and accomplishing it, the Holy Spirit, revealing this salvation through the Word of God which He inspired, opening our eyes spiritually so that we might know this salvation personally, so that we would desire this Savior, so that we would have what our fathers would call a saving interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. But my question to you and me is, is that name precious to you? Remember how we started, children. to the man of wealth, just mention the word money, gold, silver, riches, you got his attention. You mention a name of a loved one, maybe somebody who passed away that you really were close to, mention that name, you got their attention. The person who's inclined to physical, you know, for sporting activities, you mention a famous name, you mention an activity, you mention a skill, you got their attention. What about Jesus? What does that name mean to you? How that name should, as soon as it hits our ear, it should fill us with joy. It should fill us with awe, with amazement, God's provision, God's love. We ought to run to Him, we ought to flee to Him. The name of Jesus, like the psalmist talked about, should be like a high tower, it should be like a fortress, a place to which we run, a person in whom we confide, and we shelter, and we find rest. Proverbs 18.10, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and are safe. I remember a certain elder I served with up in Ontario. He would often use that beautiful expression, refuge taking faith. What a beautiful thing. You know, it's storming out. Let's say we got a big storm. You're out in the field playing. What do you do? You look for shelter. What do we do during the storms of life? We look for shelter. Where do we find it? Jesus Christ, the name of Jesus. Now, let's always then use this name with tenderness, let's use it with purpose, let's use it with reverence. God forbid we should ever use it as a curse word or a swear word, how awful that is, but you know, we can also abuse the name of Jesus by using it thoughtlessly, just letting it roll off our tongue as if it's just some other thing to say, like how many times don't you and I pray and we use that name and we're not even thinking. about who it is we're saying. So let's not do that. Why is the Son of God called Jesus that is a Savior? Because he saves us and delivers us from our sins. Well, let's consider that in our second thought, that salvation that he brings. Now, we understand salvation in a couple of different ways in Scripture, but then we're going to subdivide the one way into many. So the couple of different ways, we've talked about this before, this is just review. There's salvation when we're first saved. It's the way we often use the word. That person was saved, meaning he was born again, she was born again. Spiritual eyes opened, alive to the things of God, resisting the things of the world and sin. That's salvation. But that's just the beginning. Then in Scripture, there's also the great salvation, the one that Paul talks about, where we are groaning and we are waiting for the redemption, when we reach glory and all of the things that trouble us, all of the weariness of sin and of the world and of temptations, gone. We are completely delivered from everything that's against God and against our soul. But now, In that being saved salvation, that change that takes place, Jesus saves us in several important ways. We often think about it, well, I'm saved, done. But let's think about what he saves us from. And you might think, well, he saves us from our sins, that's what the text says, but what about sin? In the first place, he will save us from the guilt of sin. Now, that shouldn't be confused You know, we sometimes use the word guilty. We feel bad. We feel convicted because we did something wrong. Guilt in the salvation sense, we're not talking about that. Instead, we're talking about guilty before God. Like in a courtroom. The last thing you want to hear a judge say when you're standing there accused of a crime is guilty. That means you did it. And you're going to pay the penalty, whatever that is. He, Jesus, saves us from that pronouncement, from that judgment. How? Because he became guilty. The one who never did anything wrong stood there throughout his life, took slings and arrows of every kind, that immense suffering toward the end of his life, the crucifixion on the cross and everything that went with it, the pains of hell getting hold upon him, that guilt, He suffered so that we one day can stand in the presence of God himself and hear not guilty. We who know we're guilty, we who could, we can't even begin to write the endless lists of times we've sinned against the Lord, ways we've sinned against the Lord, and imagine to stand before the Lord himself who sees everything, remembers everything, and then for him to say, not guilty. Why? Look at the hands. Look at the feet of the one seated at his right hand. Not guilty. The Lamb of God was slain so that we could be acquitted before the living God, cleared of all charges. But if we're sitting here tonight and we are not saved, we are not in Christ by faith, we are still guilty. In fact, John says in his gospel, the wrath of God is abiding on us. We'll go back to the example of a storm. It's as if that storm is following you everywhere you go. You try to shelter in a barn and the storm blows the barn down. And then you go hiding under a tree and then the storm blows the tree down. There's no place to hide from the guilt that's hanging over our heads when we are not saved by Christ. and how dreadful to stand before God at the end. Not like so many who've never maybe heard the Word of God, never sat in a church like you're sitting, never had parents who opened a Bible. They will be judged, but what about us who know better? And then for God to say guilty? No wonder Jesus says it'll be more tolerable for Sodom, for Gomorrah, no matter how awful they live their lives. We will be doomed comparatively Even the people of Nineveh will rise up in judgment against us. They repented over one sermon. And it wasn't a very enticing sermon either, the one of Jonah, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be destroyed. And yet they repented at that sentence. So please, if you do not know for sure you are saved, John the Baptist's words fit you just like they did the people in his day. Flee from the wrath to come. You may ask, where? Into that high tower, which is Jesus Christ. Shelter in him, and then you are safe. Secondly, not only from guilt he saves us, but from the pollution of sin. What does that mean? Well, think of pollution how we use the word today. Think of water pollution. Think of air pollution. What does it mean? Well, in some cities at certain times, you know, factories and stuff, cars, lots of traffic spewing out all kinds of fumes, it pollutes the air. The air is not so healthy to breathe and it affects us. Or maybe water pollution. You remember Flint, Michigan a few years ago, maybe still today, lead pipes and everything corrupting the water and people getting sick and brain damage. It was awful. It was polluted water. Well, you think about that kind of corruption, this is far worse, the pollution of sin. What does that mean? That means the corruption of our very nature, the corruption of our very conscience, the corruption of our very thoughts, every single thought that comes through this corrupt brain of ours, every single desire that comes out of this corrupt heart of ours. It's polluted. It's like trying to put pure water through a filthy pipe. It doesn't work. It gets corrupted. And yet Jesus, His precious blood, is able to wash all of the pollution away. You hear about these companies like, you know, maybe they had a coal-fired plant and it was spewing all this stuff. Well, they have these scrubbers, they call them, in the smokestack. And it literally takes so much of the pollution away. Well, this is better. Not only are we forgiven of the guilt of sin, but we are cleansed from the filth of sin. So let me give you an example for the little children. Hey, you guys. Say you go out to play. And your mama says, don't you go in that mud. And what do you do? You go in the mud. Now, you come inside, you're all muddy. Your mama may scold you for not listening, and she probably should. But you know, maybe she'll forgive you, but there's still a problem. Your clothes are muddy. So she forgave you the guilt of what you did wrong, but you're still muddy. What has to happen? The clothes need to be washed. Same thing with us. We are forgiven, and we need to be cleansed. We are just covered but the pollution that sin brings. And worse than that, not only are we covered with it, but like that pipe, our heart, our mind, everything about us, except Jesus cleanses it. We could be forgiven today, we're going to produce the same filth tomorrow. It's like a well that has nothing but polluted water in it. You can have the best pumps and pipes and everything else, but it comes out polluted because the source is bad. But He cleanses our conscience. He purifies our desires through His precious blood. He begins to turn our will away from wanting sinful things toward Him. And that is one of the great blessings of salvation. We are cleansed. But here again, if we're sitting here tonight as an unbeliever, we may think so highly of ourselves, we may look in the mirror and like what we see, so to speak. But I can assure you, outside of Christ Jesus, you are loathsome. I am loathsome in the sight of God. Covered with filth, ugly as sin itself, because we are that. Why? The heart is corrupt, the will is bent out of shape, our knowledge is twisted and perverse. And how awful it is to go on living this way in the sight of the all-seeing God. How much worse to die this way, completely twisted. You know, we have that word in Proverbs we say every once in a while, froward. It means twisted, perverse, it's messed up. We see that even today. We use such language. You know, you see somebody who commits some heinous crime, it's indescribably evil. You say, that person's got to be twisted. How did he get that way? Well, that's us. Except we are restrained by God from breaking out into such things. Now children, young people, you wouldn't think twice about going days without a bath or shower or maybe weeks without a bath or shower. Could you imagine going months without a bath or shower or years? You wouldn't want to do that. Why? You'd be filthy. And yet how many of us have gone year after year after year after year after year filthy with sin? never once applied to the cleansing blood of Jesus. And yet, we smell fine to ourselves, we look fine to ourselves, we think we're just a cat's meow. That's not how God sees us. Thirdly, not only from the guilt and the pollution of sin, but Jesus saves us from the wages of sin, the just punishment of sin. A good friend of mine in the ministry was asked to do his father's funeral. Thankfully, his father came to faithfully in life. But he said something at his father's graveside that was riveting. And understand him right, he knew his father was in glory, he wasn't dissing his dad by any means, but he said, today, my father received his wages. Because Scripture says the wages of sin is death. So even though his father was forgiven, his father was a saved sinner. And one sin in our life means death is coming. Now, thankfully, for that father, for believers, death is really a portal. It's a doorway from this life to the life to come. So it's not something that we need to dread, as unbelievers do. But nevertheless, it is part of our wages, sickness. Sickness exists because sin exists. Maybe not ours personally causing a sickness, not maybe somebody sinning against me causing a sickness, but the existence of sickness, the existence of pain, the existence of everything that's negative can be traced back to sin. And thank God, Jesus paid the wages that we deserved. 1 Peter 3.18, Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just, meaning him, for the unjust, meaning us, that he might bring us to God. So if we are privileged to be in glory one day, every second of that experience of glory will be a gift of the Lord Jesus, will be because of the Lord Jesus. Nobody has earned it except Him. The Lamb was slain so that we could know that the wages that He earned are given to us, and the wages that we earn were given to Him. But here again, we may be living a life that's very comfortable, we kind of like the way things are going, we wouldn't want to change a thing, maybe a little bit here, a little bit there, but we're not in the Lord, we're not in Christ, we're not saved. Do we realize, you know, we hope to fly tomorrow morning, God willing, to visit family? I want to make it a mental note, like I did on my last trip, to thank the TSA agents for working without pay for such a long time. I mean, that was kind of them. Now, of course, they were expecting that the back wages would be paid up, and they were. So will ours be. We might be sailing through life thinking, hey, sin doesn't cost me so much. I can hide it. I can play with it. I can choose which ones I want to commit, nobody needs to know, and if they do, so what? I'm comfortable with it, okay? Your wages are piling up, and you're going to get them in full. Suffering, despair, hopelessness, not just for a little while, not just for a couple months. Whatever we're going through that's negative in this life will pale in comparison to what is coming. Jesus describes it as the worm that never dies, the fire that never gets quenched. And we might think vainly, like some ungodly people have said, well, at least if I get to hell, God won't be there. Oh, yes, he will. Absolutely. Scripture says he will. They will end up in torments, Revelation says, in the presence of the angels and in the presence of the Lamb. The Lamb who could have been your Savior will be your judge." And why? We were too proud to humble ourselves before God. Like we heard this morning, blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn. They shall be comforted. Fourthly, Jesus also saves us, and this is really precious too, to believe it's from the dominion of sin. The power of sin. This is something the ungodly overlook all the time. So what? I rather enjoy my sins. They serve me, I don't serve them, oh yeah? That's not what Jesus says. Jesus says, whoever sins willingly is the servant of sin. You serve it. being fooled into thinking it serves you. Well, Jesus breaks that cycle of slavery. No more are we slaves to sin. No more does sin have us wrapped around its finger and tightly held in its grip. One of the most beautiful things we as believers can say, I do not have to sin. Temptation comes, I don't have to say yes. My wicked heart previously that led me down the primrose path of destruction, I don't need to go there anymore. Do you know what that freedom is like? That is so extraordinarily wonderful. Free at last from the power of sin, from the dominion of sin over us. Romans 6 verse 18, being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. So what a privilege to be able to turn to Jesus rather than to our sins, rather to find in Him someone worthy to be served, rather than being dragged around by the evil one, to our hurt. And even those sins that are so tenacious that just can't, you can't seem to shake them, you can't seem to overcome them, try as you might, He can do it. He does do it. And there are plenty of believers who can tell you about it, the dominion of sin. And let's go one step deeper. He also delivers us from the very inclination to sin. So scripture is very clear. We talked about it in the adult class today. There's the new man made perfect in the image of God. Cannot sin, says John. That's the inmost being of a believer. But we're faced with what's also called the flesh, the motions of sin, the old who we were, the old way we live, trying to get back into our lives again. And Satan knows just how to tempt us that way. But here's the beautiful thing, even that very inclination to sin, that very tendency towards sin, He breaks that. That doesn't have to continue. Those sins that you felt an extraordinary pull towards, you don't have to go through that the rest of your life. No sir, no ma'am. I told you about that time I was staying in a place in Alberta, Canada. And I woke up and the trees are all tilted this way and the wind wasn't blowing. I'm like, that's odd. So I asked the host, I said, why are all the trees bent over like that when the wind isn't blowing? He said, that's easy. Out here, the wind always blows from the same direction. And so over time, the trees just grow on a tilt. Now that's, I don't know if you ever saw that, but practically every tree you would look at was tilted slightly to the east from the westerly winds. Well, that's what a sinner looks like to God, always tilted towards sin. The wind's always blowing in the same direction, not as a believer. You know what God does? God gets these big, tight, metal cables, and he takes that tree, it could be 80 feet tall, 80 years old, and he just puts them in the ground, and that tree's as straight as a pin. We don't have to be tilting towards sin. We don't have to follow the ways of the past. We can be free of the very inclination, the very tilting towards sin, the very thought, yeah, maybe, no. We don't even have to go there. We're delivered from that too. So no more hopeless way of living. No more blindness and lostness. We're no longer, oh yeah, you know, there's times when I still, no. Yes, we have to fight. Yes, we have to strive. Yes, we have to pray. Yes, we have to remain as close to Jesus Christ as possible. But being saved means we can will differently. Our hearts can yearn after other things, after nearness with Him, after walking in His ways, fellowship with Him, fellowship with one another in true love. It's a whole new world. and at last, altogether free. There won't even be a second of inclination towards sin anymore, forever. So the guilt, the pollution, the dominion, the inclination, the wages, all of it, solved by one name, given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved. And now finally, briefly, His love. What prompted Him to do this? What ever moved Jesus to enter into our lives, our worlds, my life, your life? Do we vainly think it was something so attractive in ourselves? It was not. What was it then that moved him to extend this incredible gift of salvation in all of its parts to us? Why would he ever say to us, to you, to me, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you? Why would he ever say to people like you and me, I will never leave you, I will not forsake you? Why would he ever say to somebody like you and me, I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, I will bring you to myself. Where I am, there you will be also. There's one reason. God is love. That's it. How do we know that's it? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son God commendeth his love toward us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Here in his love, says John, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent the Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Remember that trip through the Old Testament? One-sided love. God first, we respond. God pursuing, we are His. And it continues to this day. he shall save his people from their sins. Doesn't say he might, doesn't say someday, he doesn't say some of them, he says he will do it. It's going to happen because he is who he says he is and he does what he says he does. There's no hesitation. There's nothing uncertain. There's no doubtfulness about it. He is come. He shall save. It's just that straightforward. No conditions for His coming. No conditions that we need to fulfill for His saving us. He shall save. This is who He is. He is our salvation. He is our savior. He is our way of salvation. He's the only way of salvation. He's the only way to God. Hebrews 1 verse 3, the brightness of God's glory, the express image of God's person upholds all things by the word of his power, who when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, ever living to make intercession for us. He's the image of the invisible God, and Him was life, and the life was the light of men. He is before all things, by Him all things consist. By His own blood He entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Jesus, beloved, is this, and He is so much more. You can see why when the very presence of Mary and her voice being heard by the infant unborn John the Baptist caused him to leap in Elizabeth's womb. That's why the hymn writers said, the sound of Jesus' name is music to the believer's ear. He is our song, He is our boast, He is our everything. And to think that on that one night, children, so long ago, God communicated all of this in the simplest of way. He will be called Jesus because He will save His people from their sins. So He was named, so He has done, and so He continues to do to this day. This is our beloved, this is our friend, this is our Jesus. If you're not saved, if you're not in Christ, don't risk what is going to inevitably happen to you. You don't know you're going to live to be alive tomorrow. Is not He the Christ? I close with this passage of scripture, two passages briefly. Blessed be they that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told them by the Lord. Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Amen.