Well, this is a very special occasion, and I wish we could do this every night. To hear you sing and to gather in this place is an inexpressible joy and blessing for me. Every time I come to this sanctuary, I have such pleasant memories. I always hear the Saturday night before the first service on a Sunday morning, and in here with Dr. Sproul and just walking around and the sense of anticipation. And the memories I have of Dr. Sproul standing in this pulpit and preaching the Word of God and hearing and sensing that he was growing stronger and stronger in his preaching of the Word of God till that very last sermon from Hebrews 2, 1 through 4. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? And so, I think it is appropriate to acknowledge where we stand right now in history in the unfolding of God's purposes and plans for Ligonier Ministries that is now reaching around the world in an extraordinary strategic way, that as we gather tonight, this is our first Christmas gathering without our beloved Founder in this world with us, and His influence is lasting. His influence is very spiritual and very deep in all of our lives. And so, I carry that influence as a very cherished stewardship that has been entrusted to my life, and I'm sure that you would give the very same testimony as well of how the Lord has worked in your life Not only has God appointed the end, but He's appointed the means to accomplish that end, and God has chosen to work through men whom He has raised up to minister His Word. And we have been privileged to be under the influence of one of those choicest men in all of church history. Well, as I have the opportunity to speak to us tonight, I have a text, and I understand there's a pew Bible in front of you, and I want you to take your pew Bible, not your hymnal, but your pew Bible, and turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 1. and verse 15, and I have just one verse for the time that we will spend together that I want us to give careful attention to. First Timothy 1 and verse 15, the title of this message is, Why Jesus Came. First Timothy 1 and verse 15, I want to read this passage. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. This one verse captures and addresses the primary reason for which Jesus came into this world. That He came and lived here on this planet is indisputable. Even other religions and secular historians acknowledge that Jesus Christ came into this world. We know who it is who came. He was the Son of God, the Son of Man, the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of Isaac. He was the son of David. He was the prophet like Moses, the priest according to the order of Melchizedek. He was both the root and the branch of Jesse. He was wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His name was Immanuel, God with us. We know exactly who it is who came into this world, and we know where He came. He went to the city of David. He was born in Bethlehem, just as it had been prophesied by Micah. And we know when He came. He came in the fullness of time. in the year that Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census be taken of the known world. We know that it was either 5 or 6 BC. We know exactly when he came. We know exactly where he came. We know exactly who it was who came, and we know how he came. He was born of a virgin. He was conceived within His humanity by the Holy Spirit. He was the holy offspring of Mary. But here is the million-dollar question. Here is the billion-trillion-dollar question. Here is the question of the ages. Why? Why did He come? Why did He leave heaven? Why did He come to this earth? What was the purpose of His coming? And how does this relate to your life? I want us to consider this one verse tonight, and I want us to consider it very carefully because this text addresses crystal clear why He came. It is so obvious a blind man could see it. This one verse uniquely, succinctly captures the very essence of what the gospel of Jesus Christ is. So, let's just walk through this passage together, and I trust you still have your pew Bible open. As we begin looking at verse 15, notice how it starts. Now, Paul starts this verse in a very interesting way. He begins, it is a trustworthy statement. Why would he say that? Is not everything in the Bible trustworthy? Is not everything that Paul wrote in his thirteen epistles trustworthy? Why would he say this is a trustworthy statement? Is he implying that other things that he said are not trustworthy? No, this is a way in which Paul is underscoring the supreme importance of what he is about to say. This raises to the highest level of importance what he is about to say. To say, this is a trustworthy statement is exactly like Jesus saying, truly, truly, I say to you. It is a way of capturing our attention, of drawing us close that we would see the importance of this. Everything that Paul wrote was inspired, inerrant, and infallible. All Scripture is inspired by God. But some things that Paul wrote were more important than other things. They were not more inspired, but they were more important. And this is one of those verses that rises to a higher level of importance than other verses. They're all inspired, but some are mountain peaks. Some rise to a higher level and grab us by the lapel and draw us close. There's only five times in the New Testament that Paul says it is a trustworthy statement, and this is one of those five. And the key word is the word trustworthy. In fact, in the original Greek, when Paul wrote this, the order of the words is different than how it's translated in our English Bible. In the Greek language, if you wanted to emphasize a word, you move a word to the very beginning of the sentence. It's called the emphatic position, to draw our attention to the importance of the word. And this verse literally is translated Trustworthy is the statement. Faithful is the word. And in essence, what Paul is saying is that this statement is reliable. It is absolutely true. It is of such an importance that none of us can afford to not be certain about what it says. And when he says this is a trustworthy statement, we need to understand that Paul is not inventing this statement as he writes this. This statement that will follow in this verse concerning why Jesus came into this world was a very popular statement. All of the believers, when they would come together, would actually say this statement. It was like a confession of faith. It was like an abbreviated creed, if you will. It was at the very heart and center of their Christianity, and it was the bare truth reduced down to its most minimal number of words It is a trustworthy statement. And if there is any statement that you've ever believed in your life that would flow from the pen of the Apostle Paul, this is at the head of the list. You cannot be right with God and be wrong about what this text says. And then to really cinch the knot even tighter, He then adds, deserving full acceptance, not partial acceptance, not a good deal of acceptance, but every one of us must fully accept what will follow in this verse. It is deserving full acceptance. And by that, he means you must accept this into your life. You must commit your soul to what will be stated in this text, because this is the John 316 of the pen of the apostle Paul. This is the very heart of the Christian faith that Paul writes. And so, I want us to look at specifically what is this trustworthy statement? What is this faithful, reliable maxim that Paul writes, that he literally lifts out of the fellowship of the church and places it right here in this verse? And you'll see it in the middle of verse 15. It is a trustworthy statement. deserving full acceptance. That, and now what will follow are nine words in my English Bible. There are eight words in the original Greek with which Paul wrote this, and this is the condensed version of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And this reveals to us why God sent His Son into this world, and why Jesus, in obedience to the Father, came into this world. So, where did this saying actually begin? Where did this start? as it was being spoken by the believers in the first century, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's the statement. What is the origin of this statement? And the answer is, most probably and plausibly, It was combining two verses that came from the lips of Jesus Christ Himself. The first is in Matthew 9 and verse 13, which reads, and these are the words of Jesus, "'I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.' I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. And Jesus would explain in the next verse by way of this analogy that the physician has not come for those who are well, but for those who are sick. And Jesus has come into this world for those who are plagued by the deathly disease of sin. And then the other verse is Luke 19, verse 10. You're very familiar with it. It comes at the end of the conversion of Zacchaeus. And Jesus said, for the Son of Man, and by the way, that was His favorite way to identify Himself. He identified Himself by this term, the Son of Man, more than any other of His names or titles, because He loved to identify Himself with us who live in this world. He referred to Himself most not as the Son of God, though He is the Son of God. But Jesus chose to make Himself most known to us as the Son of Man, that He came to this world, that He got into our skin, that He entered the human race, that He became in essence one of us yet without sin. And in Luke 19.10, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save. that which was lost. And so, this statement that we find in verse 15, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, is a compilation of those two statements, and there are probably a couple of other verses that say essentially the same, but Jesus from His own lips spoke of His coming into this world on a rescue mission of salvation. So, let's look at this statement. It's right in the middle of verse 15, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. It begins by identifying who it was who came. It was Christ Jesus. Normally in our conversation, certainly in my preaching, I normally say, Jesus Christ. Paul did not normally say, Jesus Christ. Paul normally said, Christ Jesus. Christ simply means the Anointed One. It is the Greek from the Old Testament Hebrew, Meshua, or Messiah, which means the very same thing, the Anointed One. And Jesus Christ, in His coming, was anointed by the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the saving mission for which He came into this world. He was endued with power from on high. As He was in the river Jordan in Matthew 3, verses 16 and 17, and the heavens opened, and the voice from above said, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And the Spirit of God descended upon Him like a dove. And after his wilderness temptation, he would go to Nazareth. He went into the synagogue. He asked for the scrolls to be handed to him. He took the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scrolls, and he read what is for us, Isaiah 61 verse 1, "'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me. to preach. That's what it means for Him to be the Christ, for Him to be the Messiah, the One who is the anointed priest, the anointed prophet, and the anointed King. He came as the Messiah, the long-awaited, promised One, the One who was proclaimed by the prophets, the One who came in the fulfillment of the Old Testament. And Paul begins this statement with the name Christ. He was empowered to successfully carry out his mission of salvation by the omnipotence of the Spirit of God upon his humanity. The second word is Jesus. And you know what Jesus means. It means Jehovah saves. It means that Jesus was God in human flesh come to save those who are in great danger of destruction. In Matthew 1 verse 21, the angel said, you shall call His name Jesus. For He will save His people from their sins." It's in the very name, His mission. He has come to save. He has come to rescue those who are in danger of eternal destruction. You'll note the next word, came. Christ Jesus came. That He came means that He descended from the heights of heaven and came down from heaven to this earth. It also implies His preexistence, that He existed before He came, that He was sent by the Father. And He simply has descended from heaven down to the earth. And we would ask the question, why must He come all the way down to this earth? And the answer is, because we cannot pull ourselves up to God. God must come down to us. We cannot by our own good works and by our own morality or religiosity. pull ourselves up to the heights of heaven? George Whitefield, the great evangelist, said, what? Can a man be saved by works? He said it would be easier to pull yourself up to heaven with a rope of sand than for you to pull yourself up by your own works. No, Jesus had to come all the way down to us. He couldn't even meet us halfway. He does His part, we do our part. No, He had to descend down all the way down into this world, and that leads us to where He came. Notice in the middle of this statement, Christ Jesus came into the world. He came all the way down into this world. He came into this world of sin and sorrow. Only in a church does that happen. He came down into a world of misery and death. He came down into this cesspool of iniquity. He did not come into a pleasant place. He came where the curse reigns. He came where the devil holds sway. He came to mankind who is lost. and condemned to hell, man who is alienated from God and hostile towards God. He came down into this world, and notice what He came to do. He came to save. The word save does not mean to deposit something into a savings account. The word save means It means to deliver someone out of a perilous state in which they are in threatening danger. It involves an intervention by one who is greater than the danger and the threat in order to rescue from harm those for whom He has come to save. R.C. Sproul wrote a book, Saved From What? If you listen to the average television preacher today, you would think he has come to save us from financial hardship, that he's come to save us from physical ailment, that he's come to save us from loneliness. that He's come to save us from insecurity or a bad job. He's come to save us from being single and not yet married. That's not what the Bible teaches. At the very apex and pinnacle of the reasons for which He came into this world, Dr. Sproul argues in this book, He has come to save us from the wrath of God. He has come to save us from God. Not only is God your only hope, God is your biggest threat. Romans 1 verse 18 says, "'For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men.'" He talks about in this book, saved from what? When he had just become a Christian, was in college, and was walking across the campus and a very overly zealous believer came up to him and just said, "'Brother, are you saved?' Dr. Sproul said it startled him. He said, "'Yes, I know I'm saved,' and went back to his dorm room and sat down on his bed and with that mind began to think and to process through verses with which he was familiar, "'I know I'm saved, but what am I saved from?' And the answer to that is to be saved from the wrath of God. And there is only one who can save from the wrath of God, and that is God Himself. And it is the mercy of God that saves us from the wrath of God. for His mercy has triumphed over His judgment." Notice for whom He came. He came to save. Save who? The text says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He did not come for good people. He came for bad people. He came for sinners. Jesus came for lawbreakers. Jesus came for God rejecters. Jesus came for those who had no merit and no righteousness of their own. who had no basis whatsoever to be accepted by God by their own doing. Jesus came for the worst of people. He came for sinners. And so, how did Jesus save us from the wrath of God? Well, the answer is very simple. He saved us by His life and by His death. He saved us by His sinless life. Galatians 4.4 says, he was born of a woman under the law. He came into this world under the law of God, the law that Adam broke, the law that you and I have broken again and again and again, times without comprehension. Jesus was born under this very law, and Jesus obeyed the law perfectly. And it was by His obedience to the law of God that He secured perfect righteousness that is imputed to our account when we believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. This righteousness and justification by faith. God does not just create an ex nihilo out of thin air. This righteousness was actually achieved and secured by the active obedience of Jesus Christ as He lived under the law. He lived in your place. He obeyed on your behalf. so that His obedience and the resulting righteousness can be given to you as a free gift. And as Dr. Sproul used to love to say, that is why the mission of salvation was not a three-day enterprise. It wasn't Jesus left heaven, went straight to the cross, died, was buried, raised, and went straight back to heaven. No, he had to live his life under the law and obey that law so that there would be this perfect righteousness that would be deposited into your account when you believe upon Jesus. That's why he left heaven. That's why He came to this earth. That is why He entered into the human race. That is why He was born of a woman. That is why He was born under the law. That transaction and that accomplishment could not take place in heaven. It had to take place here upon the earth, as He was made like His brethren. and not only His sinless life, but His substitutionary death. As Jesus went to the cross, the Bible says, Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin for us that we might receive the righteousness of God in Him. 1 Peter 2 verse 24 says, He bore our sins in His body. upon the cross. And there, as He not only lived in our place, but He died in our place, all the sins of all the people who would ever believe in Him and find this full acceptance of this trustworthy statement All our sins would be transferred to Christ, and Jesus would bear the heavy load of our sin and the curse of God upon our sin, which is death. And by His death, Jesus satisfied the righteous anger of God toward us. There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And in that death upon the cross, Jesus reconciled holy God and sinful man, both of whom were at enmity with one another, and has brought the two together through the blood of His cross. This is how Jesus saved. as He entered into the human race and became one of us, that He might obey on our behalf and might carry our sins far away. Jesus had to come to this earth. Jesus had to enter the human race. Jesus had to become one of us in order to be our mediator who would stand between God and man because a mediator must be equal to both sides. And Jesus, as the God-man, He was truly God and could represent God to man, and He was truly man and could represent man to God. Only Jesus could have stood in the middle and brought the two offended parties together. And this necessitated that Jesus come to this world in order to carry out this mission of salvation. It could not have been accomplished by proxy from heaven. It could not have been. He could not have been an absentee Savior. He had to come, and He had to live, and He had to die. And so, Paul concludes this verse in the most dramatic way. He says, I am foremost of all." Your translation may say, the chief of sinners, the foremost sinner. It's the superlative degree, because Paul was not comparing himself with anyone else and thinking, I'm a little better than someone else. All Paul could see was the perfect holiness of God, and as he measured himself against the perfect holiness of God, the only conclusion to which Paul could come is that, I am the chief of sinners. When he wrote 1 Corinthians 15 verse 9, he said he was the least of the apostles. That was in 55 A.D. Six years later, in Ephesians 3, 8, he said he was the least of the saints. But now as he comes in 1 Timothy, some two to five years later, he says, I am the chief of sinners. He's gone from I'm the least of the apostles to I'm the least of the saints to I am the chief of sinners. And with great humility of heart, Paul is like the publican in Luke 18, smiting his breast off in the corner, unable to even look up to God and saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That is our confession here tonight. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Jesus came into this world to seek and to save that which was lost. He came not for the righteous, but for sinners. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. So the point that Paul is stressing is that by addressing himself as the foremost of sinners, this is what he is saying, and I'm finished. Paul is saying, if God can save me, He can save anybody. If God can save the chief of sinners, He can save any lesser sinners. As Spurgeon said, if God can get the elephant into the ark, He can get the ant into the ark. And if God can get Paul into the kingdom of God and into heaven, then God can get you into the kingdom, and God can get you into heaven. And it begins by confessing that you're a sinner. that you are one who has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But God has sent His Son into this world to save sinners, to rescue sinners, to deliver sinners, to salvage sinners from eternal destruction. And if you have never called upon the name of the Lord, I would urge you to do so even tonight here at a Ligonier Christmas gathering within your own heart. If you've never committed your life to Christ, on behalf of God, I call for the verdict in your heart and in your life and in your soul. Commit your life to Christ, and He will save you, and He will wash you, and He will make you clean, and He will clothe you with His righteousness, and He will reconcile you to God. And He will come and live inside of you, and one day when you die, He will save you from death. He will take you to His Father's house where you will live forever and ever in the presence of God. This is why Jesus came into the world. It is to save sinners. like you and me. And if you will believe in Christ, He will save you. That would be the greatest Christmas you would ever have. Let us pray. Father, thank You for this trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. Thank You for sending Your Son into this world not for us to have warm feelings about animals in a barn and a baby in a manger, but so that we would be rescued from You in the judgment on the last day. Thank You for the abundance of Your mercy and Your grace that is lavished upon undeserving sinners who call upon the name of the Lord. Father, we rejoice that there's been room for us to come into Your kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen.