Our scripture reading is 1 Timothy 1. 1 Timothy 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope. And to Timothy, my own son in the faith. Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine. Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith. So do. Now the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, from which some, having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully, Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for man-stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. And I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious. but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Albeit for this cause I obtain mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience, which some, having put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck, of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. So far we read God's holy word. Based on that and many other passages of the word of God is the instruction of the Heidelberg Catechism in Lord's Day 11. Lord's Day 11. There in question 29, the catechism asks, why is the son of God called Jesus that is a savior? And the answer, because he saveth us and delivereth us from our sins. And likewise, because we ought not to seek, neither can find salvation in any other. Question 30, do such then believe in Jesus, the only Savior, who seek their salvation and welfare of saints, of themselves, or anywhere else? And the answer, they do not. For though they boast of Him in words, yet in deeds they deny Jesus, the only Deliverer and Savior. For one of these two things must be true, either that Jesus is not a complete Savior, or that they who by a true faith receive this Savior must find all things in Him necessary to their salvation. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, of the eight billion plus people that are on the earth right now, how many of them are on their way to heaven? And how many of them are on their way to hell? Hell is such a terrible thing. The infinite and eternal wrath of a righteous God experienced forever and ever and ever. So that to think of even one person going there on the way to hell is a fearful thing. But to think of billions of men, women, and children who are on the path that leads to hell is indeed fearful. This is also true in America, contrary to all of the pious religious talk that you can hear today. The notion that it does not matter what God you worship. The Jews worship God. Muslims worship God. Buddhists worship God. People who never attend church but are spiritual, they're fine. And so are Christians of every walk and confession, even those who deny that Jesus is very God. We're all okay, as long as we're living a moral life, we're on our way to a better place. That's not true. You understand that we are certainly not saying that everybody outside of the Protestant Reformed Church is on their way to hell. We never taught that, never will teach that. But the reality is that the whole race of men, eight billion people, is on their way to hell unless they have a savior. Unless they have a savior. Unless they have faith. in that Savior, unless that Savior is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only Savior, the only one. For that to be true, men and women and children must also see the need for deliverance because of their sins. that they are sinners. And that's what Paul writes about in 1 Timothy 1. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief, he writes. Would you join Paul in that? That Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I Am chief? Or are we only to agree that Paul is that one? He's the great sinner and we're somewhere behind him? No. Paul clearly indicates this is for all of us to confess. I am chief. If you can find someone in the congregation that you consider to be a greater sinner than you, If you can find someone in your life or in the world even that is obviously a greater sinner than you, then you do not truly know yourself, and you are in a dangerous position. We need deliverance. Recall that we are in the section on deliverance in the Heidelberg Catechism, And now the catechism takes up the second section of the Apostles Creed. And in that second section, Lord's days 12 through 19, the catechism will set before us once again, the person and the work of our deliverer, of our savior, the person and the work. And the person is explained to us by looking at his names. The Bible gives Jesus many names. In the Heidelberg Catechism class, we came up with over 25 names that the Bible gives to Jesus. The Catechism will limit itself to four, to the name Jesus, the name Christ, Son of God, and Lord. So that will show us who is our deliverer. And then the catechism goes on to discuss the work of the Savior, his work of salvation. Setting forth his work in terms of his humiliation, five degrees or steps of his humbling himself even unto hell. And then his four steps or degrees of exaltation lifting him up to the height of heaven. As we examine then the who is our deliverer, this morning we examine the first name given, the name Jesus, which means Savior. So let's examine this Lord's Day under the theme, Confessing Jesus, Our Only Savior. Well, notice in the first place, the only Savior, Secondly, the confession of faith, and thirdly, the significant warning, which is question and answer 30. What is a savior? A savior is someone who delivers from a great evil, even from destruction or death. There are many earthly examples. A man who is swimming out in the lake and is overcome and is weary and is not able to swim any longer. And he begins to go under and he starts to drown. And he will drown out there unless somebody comes to save him. He needs a deliverer. He needs a savior. Or someone who is in financial debt over his head. And the bank is taking legal action to take away his home and his vehicle. And he cannot pay his debts. He cannot even afford to buy food or heat his home. He needs someone to deliver him financially, a savior to deliver him from the dreadful position that threatens destruction. Someone, that's what a savior does, lifts up out of out of the ruin, out of the threat of death itself. To save someone from drowning so that they're able to live and and to enjoy family, to save some financial ruins so that they're able to function once again, a Savior lifts up out of and unto a much better way. The Heidegger Catechism speaks of Jesus, whose name, very name, means Savior. From what does he save? Well, Matthew chapter 1, where the angel told Joseph to name him what he did, the angel said, thou shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins, from their sins. This is not what natural man wants. It's not what we want. Natural man wants someone to save them from earthly troubles, maybe poverty, someone to save from war and injustice and inequality, maybe save from crime in a city or from all of the physical infirmities from cancer and heart attacks and from pain and diseases. This is what man wants. This is what man will follow. It's been that way all the way through history. In ancient Rome, the people would follow anyone that could promise legitimately, I will give you bread and I will give you circuses for entertainment. In Germany after World War I, the people followed Adolf Hitler because he promised he would bring them up out of their poverty and out of their disgrace. And in the end of time, that's exactly the savior that will come, a man who will promise to take care of all of the troubles of this world and give universal happiness. And that's the Antichrist. He will promise he's a savior. What men are looking for, obviously, is not deliverance from sin, but from the consequences of sin, the consequences of Adam's fall and our own consequences, our own sins deliver us from that. Jesus is not that kind of a Savior. He saves from sin. Sin is the transgression of God's law. And the law is the righteous revelation of God's will for His people, for man. And therefore, really, it's the whole Bible that the Ten Commandments are a summary, but it's the whole Bible that is the will of God for man Sin is failing to live up to what God requires or deliberately breaking God's commandments. Both are grievous sins because God is the creator who made man to serve Him. We are servants called upon to worship and obey God. Sin, therefore, is rebellion. It's a refusal to do what God requires of us. Sin has dreadful consequences. It makes a sinner worthy of death because he is guilty and the punishment of sin's guilt is death. Sin also corrupts and defiles. It makes a person to be like a spiritual leper, a leper with open sores all over his body, and his nose and his ears decay and fall off, and he's hideous to look at, and he stinks, so that if you come up on a person like that, you would be repulsed by it. You would want to vomit. That's what sin does to us. It makes us to be spiritually ugly, stinking, lepers. That's sin. It's guilt and it's corruption. Jesus is a savior from sin. How does he do that? The catechism says that he saveth us and delivereth us from our sins. Those two words, save and deliver, the catechism is setting forth the two parts of Jesus' saving work, his work for us and his work in us. His work for us is that he saves from the guilt and the punishment of sin. And that required that the Savior take upon Himself our guilt and our punishment, that He remove the guilt from us and put it on Himself, that He become guilty in our place, and then He bear the punishment that that guilt deserves, pay the debt which was owed, bear the wrath of God, and enter into death itself. Jesus saves from sin. The essence of His saving work was, of course, on the accursed tree, on the cross. But throughout all of His life, He was bearing the wrath of God against our sin. He went through death. He endured all the punishment, every last ounce of it that we deserve. In this way, He saves from guilt. He saves from punishment. Being a complete Savior, He also lifts us up from the destruction onto something better. He earned a perfect righteousness which he imputes to his people. He could do this because he's the very son of God and because he would keep that law of God, that word of God absolutely perfect from the moment of conception as a little boy, as a teenager, as a man, adult. He obeyed God perfectly, loving God, doing his will. And so he earned a perfect righteousness, which can be imputed to his people. They're guilt-free. They're looked at as righteous. But more is needed for us to be saved, namely deliverance. That's the saving part. Saving from guilt, saving from punishment. But what about the deliverance? What about the corruption of sin? Jesus saves us by working in us. By his spirit, Jesus delivers from the power and the corruption of sin, the corruption of spiritual leprosy, the total depravity that thoroughly corrupts, making every thought vile and unholy, making the emotions even laughter and hatred and love to be corrupt. The will that always makes the wrong choice, the choice of sin and bodies and minds devoted to iniquity, these obviously need to be sanctified, to be turned from sin unto God and made holy. This is part of the saving work of our complete Savior, Jesus. Jesus saving work in us also destroys the domination of sin in his people. The sin is a terrible power. Paul laments that. And when he looks at himself as a regenerated child of God in Romans 7, and he says, the good that I would, that I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. And you remember how he concludes that chapter? Who shall deliver me? Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And the answer, only Jesus. Only Jesus. He is the complete Savior from sin. That's who He is. That's our confession, the confession of sin, the confession of faith, I mean. That's the second point that we turn to now. But it first demands, as we confess, it demands that we confess, I am a sinner. And now that brings us back to 1 Timothy 1. That's Paul's clear confession. And he's such a good example here because, first of all, notice he does not downplay his sin. He does not say, I've made some mistakes in life. He does not say, yeah, I could do better. I need to improve. That's not what he says. He calls it sin. And sin is the ordinary word for sin, the missing of the mark. There's the aim. There's what God sets before us, God's glory. And sin misses that mark, misses it. But you understand this is a deliberate miss. This is rebellion. This is turning your back to the mark and aiming in the opposite direction. He confesses his sins, not only, but he's specific. I was a blasphemer. I persecuted the church. And if that's not enough, then he adds in verse 15, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. This is the kind of language Paul, the inspired apostle, uses when he's going to call attention to something that's almost shocking. It is a bit shocking. Something that you might even question, can this really be true? This is a faithful saying. This is absolutely true. And this is worthy of all acceptation. This is something that all of us need to accept and agree with. What is that? That Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of whom I am chief. He reverses the order of the words actually to put more emphasis on that. The end of the verse would be, of whom chief am I. And the word chief is first, of whom first am I. As if to say, line up all the sinners in the world, I'll be at the head of the line. I'll be first. That's where I belong. I'm first. This statement, Paul says, under the inspiration of the Spirit, we must all agree with it. We must all say this about ourselves. Why does Paul say this? And why must we say this? To be clear, it's not because we look back and we say, yes, look at all those sins. That's true. That will be part of the convicting of us. But Paul doesn't say, I am the chief of sinner because I was a blasphemer, I was a persecutor, and that puts me at the front of the line. No. I am that. I am first right now. How can Paul say that and how can you and I say that we are chief? Three things. First of all, every believer knows his own sins. We are never absent from ourselves. Wherever we go, whatever we say, whatever we do, we're conscious of what we are doing and of the sins that are there, not as we should be, but we're always there. We're always partaking of that. We're never with someone else 24 hours a day, every day of the year. We are with ourselves. We see our own sins and say, yes, they're all there. Day after day, minute after minute, my sin. In the second place, one confesses this when he knows his own depraved nature, a nature that is dead in sin. The nature is dead in sin. You are not what your nature is. Your mind, your will, your emotions, they're all evil. Our bodies crave evil continually. The body wants to be an instrument of sin. We are so wicked, people of God, that if by a miracle God could, at this moment, open up every single heart here and let everybody around us look at the evil that is within us, this congregation would run because all of the terrible sins that are found in every person's heart here. We would be terrified. We would say, I can't be with those people. That's the wickedness in our hearts. That's the source of our sin. We have to live through that nature. It's constantly going in the wrong direction. That's why Paul doesn't merely say, I have sinned in the past, but I'm a sinner. That's what I am to the very core of my being. I'm a sinner. If we're honest, We will see that in ourselves. I can't see the ugliness in your soul. You can't see it in mine, but we can all see our own horrible depravity. And we think no one could be worse than what I'm seeing in myself. I am chief. Third, Paul and we have a greater responsibility of our sins before God because of the privileged position God has given us. The amount of guilt we all recognize varies from person to person, even with the same act. If a child steals $10, that's a sin. But if the parent would do that, an adult, Surely, the guilt is greater. If a preacher who preaches on the Ten Commandments breaks one of those sins, obviously, breaks one of those commandments, obviously, he's more guilty than anyone. And so it is with us. We are all privileged. We have the Bible. We have the preaching week after week. We have catechism instruction and all the things God has given to us. Our responsibility for any sin we commit is far greater than a heathen person or an unchurched person. We are privileged. Most of us from the time that we can remember have been members of a church We've had opportunities to learn about God. We have the Reformed tradition to guide us, Calvin and Luther, and the Reformers through the Netherlands. We have a denomination which, by the grace of God, has not thrown away the truth. It's preached from week to week, and that's not a boast. That's a tremendous gift that God has given us. We have our own schools. We have catechisms. We have Christian homes. Our responsibility before God for any sin is indeed tremendously great. If a heathen man in Africa never reads the Bible, never prays, if he does not repent and believe at the end of his life, he will die. He will perish in hell. But if you and I do not read the Bible, if we neglect prayer in our lives, you see, the responsibility is much, much greater. America may go headlong after material things and seek unrighteous mammon without any apology. And if they do not repent, from serving that idol, they will perish. But if our heart is merely inclined to have those things, do you see that our responsibility is so much greater? Because we know the treasures of heaven. We know the relative unimportance of this. And we have the Word of God which says, not mammon. God, the righteousness of the kingdom, seek that. So on and on we could go. If we're honest and we look at ourselves, then we'll see these things, that we are not zealous for the things of heaven. Things of this earth are very important. Cubbitousness, desire for earthly, lusting after the entertainment of the world. When we see that, we will cry out with Paul, I'm first. Line up the sinners. I'm at the head of the line. When you say that, don't forget the other part of the verse. Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom I am chief. Then you are part of that group. He came to save you. That's our confession of faith. I'm a sinner. I confess specific sins, specific guilt. To cry out, oh, what a horrible sinner I am, that may sound good. But if you refuse to look at yourself really and look at the individual sins and confess them as Paul does, then you're Well, then you're really just a Pharisee in the garb of a publican. You're crying out, what a horrible sinner I am, but don't talk to me about my individual sins. We have to face our individual sins. I am a sinner. Look at the particular sins of which I am guilty is our confession. If you know that, you understand. then you know from what you must be saved. That's why it's so important to see what we are, lest we think, oh, I want to be delivered from this and that. No, it's sin. It's sin. And Jesus is my Savior. That's our confession of faith. He is my Savior. The catechism is emphatic in that. There is none other. There is none other. We ought not seek, neither confine salvation in any other. We come to Jesus with our load of guilt. And he tells us to come to him, doesn't he? Over and over and over with beautiful promises. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. And we spent some time in John 6 and I just want to remind you of some of the beautiful promises there and how Jesus keeps saying come. Come to me. John 635 I am the bread of life. He said he that cometh to me. Shall never hunger he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Or again, verse 37, all that the father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Or verse 40. And this is the will of him that sent me that everyone that seeth the sun and believeth on him may have everlasting life. I will raise him up at the last day." So emphatic. His forgiveness is brought out in his dealings with the adulterous woman. In John chapter 8, when the leaders of the Jews brought this woman caught in the very act of adultery and wanted her to be stoned, and so put her before Jesus, what do you say? And then Jesus with All of his wisdom said, he that is without sin among you, let him cast a stone at her, let her first cast. And so they all went out one by one. And when they were all gone, Jesus said, woman, where are thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, no man, Lord. And he answered, neither do I. Neither do I condemn me. Go and sin no more. There is no sin. There is no sin too great for God. To deliver us, Jesus to deliver us from it. He cast out seven demons out of Mary Magdalene. And with just a word, The legion of demons in that possessed man were sent from Him out into a herd of swine. There is no sin from which our Savior cannot deliver you. And then He forgives. And then He washes by His blood and Spirit. This is our Savior. He came to save sinners. Who are these sinners? Only those who believe in Him. Believe. That's what John over again in John 6. Believe. Come, believe. They believe in Jesus. And only those, therefore, those chosen eternally in Jesus Christ Redeemed by his blood because it's in them and in them alone that the spirit works the gift of faith that believes takes hold of Jesus. And makes the confession that Paul makes. In first Timothy chapter one. The Spirit works a turning from sin. The Spirit works the beginnings of a walk of thankful obedience. The Spirit evokes praise and thanksgiving to God for that great salvation. That's our Savior. Jesus is the one we look to. He's the one we call upon. He's the one that we worship Him. People of God, make this real. Make this real. Jesus is not a mere name that means Savior. He's a real person that saves from sin. A real person who took your guilt and your punishment in your place. A real person who sovereignly sends his spirit into the hearts of his people to make that tremendous change and give them a new life. Someday we will meet him face to face. We will. He has hands, he has feet, he has a body, though it's glorified. We will look him in the eyes and see his love and his mercy. And no doubt we will fall down in profound gratitude for His saving work. And because He's God, we will worship and praise Him forever and ever. Jesus is our only Savior. And this is highlighted with a solemn warning. from question and answer 30. The question asks, do such then believe in Jesus, the only Savior, who seek their salvation and welfare of saints, of themselves, or anywhere else? Quite a question. The answer is they do not. They do not believe in Jesus, the only Savior. Although they boast of Him in words, yet in deeds they deny Jesus, the only Deliverer and Savior. For one of these two things must be true, either that Jesus is not a complete Savior, or that they who by a true faith receive this Savior must find all things in Him necessary to their salvation. The question obviously is a reference to Rome, the Roman Catholic Church. And for our instruction and our warning, let us see how Rome is guilty of what the catechism says here. They boast of Jesus in words. They boast of him in countless thousands and thousands of pictures and crucifixes where Jesus is there and the cross is emphasized. And they teach that Jesus died, died for all actually, what Rome teaches. That his death on the cross was a payment for the eternal punishment of sin. And they claim they honor his sacrifice day after day with a bloodless sacrifice that supposedly continues to pay for the temporal punishment of sin. There's no question about it. They boast about Jesus as savior, but they add other ways to merit with God. Countless ways that one can earn something with God. paying for sins with indulgences, which Luther so righteously condemned, drawing on the merits of saints, supposedly those who are saints have lived beyond what God requires of us and have earned some merit there that you can draw from and pray that those saints will help you in your salvation. They are taught that they can merit with God with their works, their fasting, their prayers, their payment for masses, their good works merit something with God. But by doing this, they actually deny Jesus. The only Savior. Jesus alone is Savior. And Jesus saving work is complete, complete. All blessings come from Him. Deliverance from sin, favor with God, everything has to come from Jesus. If any merit or favor comes from another source than from Jesus, then you have found another Savior. He's not complete if you're getting it from somewhere else. And so you can say, yes, Jesus saves, but if I get blessings of salvation by other means, by my activity or by drawing on someone else's, then Jesus is not the only and complete savior. And the evidence of that, their teaching is that when they die, they need to go into purgatory and there they will pay for the temporal punishment of their sins. until it's finished and they can go to heaven. We're well aware of these errors, and know they have to be guarded against, but the Catechism still sets it for us, because is that all we have to worry about? Just Rome? If we're not Roman Catholic, we're fine? Surely this question and answer is a warning for us in many ways. Every form of Arminianism leaves a place for man in his salvation. No one boasts of Jesus like an Arminian, but while Jesus supposedly has done it all, it does depend on you opening up your heart. It does depend on you as you walk through life, fighting, struggling, praying hard enough so that you do not fall from your salvation. That's a denial of Jesus, the only and complete Savior. Likewise, the error that has come up into Reformed and Presbyterian circles called the federal vision, because it denies justification by faith alone. It does so in a very tricky way. It does so through the covenant. It says God establishes a conditional covenant with every baptized child, which they call the elect. So God establishes a covenant with every single one of those children. But that child must keep faithful. He must believe he must abide in faith in that covenant. But then it gets worse. Because they say, look, God blesses obedience, which, of course, is true, but where they go with that. Therefore, they say when God looks at that believer, when he stands at the judgment seat, God will look at the believer and say, all right, here's the righteousness of Christ. Here's the obedience of that believer. And together, that means that you are righteous. It isn't merely the righteousness of Christ that's imputed, but it's the righteousness of Christ and the merit, the. Good works, the obedience of. That covenant member. That's a denial of justification by faith alone. Now to be clear, yes, God is pleased with good works because that's His work coming out in that child of God. Of course, He's pleased with that. And yes, He even rewards. Amazingly, he even rewards these good works that he produces in people, but it's never merit. That's the important word. Merit with Rome. Merit. That's the word we must never put on our lips except for Jesus. He merits. We never do. We merit nothing. Any reward that God gives is purely of grace. All our righteousness is in Jesus. You must be emphatically sure that this, this thinking never enters into our mind and, and it can so easily that we imagine God is pleased with us because of something that we have done. This is a failure to see that whatever we've done, Is a work polluted with sin? How could God be pleased with that? If it's a good work, it's because God worked it in us and because the blood of Christ had to cover the sin that was in the work. That's not why God is pleased with us. He is pleased with us only because of Jesus. Because of His perfect work. Because of His righteousness. He is our complete Savior. That's our confession. It's a beautiful confession. It's a comforting confession. We have a Savior who has not only delivered us from the misery of sin, we are with the eight billion people in this world deserving of eternal destruction. That's what we deserve. But Jesus is powerful. He's complete. He has earned a righteousness and a life for us, which can never be lost. And it's all ours. Without a single contributing work toward it. Only by faith in Jesus. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy abundant goodness to us. What a Savior. We are amazed at Thy goodness to us, amazed at His willingness to go through the depths of hell for us, and that now, even now, we are the special object of His love and care. He is directing our lives according to that perfect plan. and we will finally see him face to face. So Lord, continue to work in us mightily by thy spirit and make our confession to be real, our confession in Jesus, in whose name we pray, amen. Psalm 73 B 73 B. Which sings of God's care for us now, even in temptation, but that he is our. Only Savior as well. We sing the three stanzas of Psalm 73 B. I saw with my own two eyes I've gone, I've fell, I've sold thee, and everlast, I'll be. Each day that I live waits to be. be. ♪ And ever bless thy name ♪ ♪ Be saved, and I'll be a praise to thee ♪ ♪ I give to my Savior ♪ ♪ Most blessed am I ♪ ♪ I give Thee my refuge ♪ ♪ I pour in my heart ♪ ♪ I praise in my glory ♪ ♪ Whatever cost I made ♪ ♪ Each day will I give thanks to thee ♪ ♪ And all my praise for thee ♪ Thou hast set me a mighty mount, Thou, O God, God of Israel, For me alone hast won this town, And it in glory let it sound. And blessed be his glorious name, Long as the ages shall record, For all the earth and sky his name, Come and have him forevermore. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. ♪