standing and singing so well this morning. I'm glad again that you're here today. We are not really in a series right now. Last Sunday I preached or taught about the precept of Christ being known as God with us because he was supposed to be labeled that term Emmanuel. That's what Emmanuel means, God with us. And this morning I'm going to go along the same lines and go to another passage or another portion that covers the birth of Jesus in the book of Matthew and chapter number 1. Matthew 1, I'm going to read verses 18 through 25 out loud to you this morning. So Matthew chapter 1 beginning in verse number 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name, say it with me, saints. Jesus. Father, we do thank you for this time this morning. I pray you'll speak to us from this portion of your word. Help us to understand and appreciate and apply what we hear and learn this morning. Father, we again pray for your glory to be done in everything that we say and do. Father, we pray this morning that there be anybody in our midst who has never trusted Christ to be their Lord and Savior, that today would be their day of salvation. Father, I do pray that the Holy Spirit would turn on the lights and they would understand their need to come to Jesus before it is eternally too late. And Father, also use this passage to be an encouragement and a strength to your dear children. We ask these things in Jesus' name. And again, everybody said, amen. We talked about Immanuel last Sunday morning, God with us. Now, it talks about in the passage that he would be called Immanuel or known as Immanuel, but there's not really any time when Christ was called Immanuel. It was just a term or a title that he was known by. He was God with us. That's the way that He should have been known by people. That's the way He should have been perceived by people. That's the way He should have been received by people was Jesus Christ is Emmanuel. He is God with us. But we know that He was not received that way. He was not perceived that way. He was rejected. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. Isn't that right, saints? But his name was Jesus. That was the common name that he was called by. Not saying that his name was common, but it was the name that he was known by or called by was the name Jesus. And you can see from the reading that the name Jesus has great importance. And I want to take some time this morning and just unpack this one verse of scripture help you Understand what it means and to hopefully be a blessing to everybody who's assembled here this morning at Liberty Baptist Church It says and she shall bring forth a son referring to Mary and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins and He shall save His people from their sins. And so to transition from last week's thought of God with us, I want to preach around this thought, God for us. He's for us. You know, for me, that title alone is an encouraging thought. It's a calming thought. It's a peaceful thought. It's a reassuring thought. It's full of spiritual riches and truths. Just that title alone. Jesus is God for us. He's for us. And, you know, if you have had a life, anything like my life, I'm just assuming the human frame is common throughout the world. You've had a life where it's been a lot of ups and downs. You know, and you've been on, you know, through life where you were just kind of cruising down a beautiful straightaway, you know, and you knew it was an easy time, but you've also have hit some hairpin turns along the way, you know, and the ups, those are the wonderful time of life, the mountaintop experiences, and the downs can be downright devastating, can't they, saints? Again, the straightaways, the flat parts are easy and there's not a whole lot of struggle to navigate those or to know or see where you're going. But those hairpin curves that come at you can really leave you reeling, can leave you nauseated. have you ask some questions and wonder about life and ask some heavy questions and feel like, and I know that I felt like this at points in my life, you feel like you don't have a friend at all in the world. Like everybody's turned against you and you're wondering when the next shoe is going to drop and all these different things that are going on. But I want you to know that there's never a time in your life, as a child of God, where you are without a friend. You always have a friend that sticks closer than a brother. He is Jesus. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Isn't that right, saints? And even as a lost person, even if you feel like you don't know Christ as Savior, I want you to know this morning, God is still for you. I'll say it again. God is still for you. He's not against you. He's not up there in the heavenlies looking down for the ones that He can knock down or the ones that He can just make miserable. We know that He could or He could destroy them by stuffing out their lives with the blink of an eye or the snap of His omnipotent fingers. We know that's true about Him. But the truth about God is this. He's for us and He loves us. He loves us. He loves us so much that He gave us His Son. And John 3, 16 is a verse that many of you have memorized or at least are very familiar with in your Christianity. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. I mean, that says that God is for us, doesn't it, saints? He's a he's there for us. He wants us to know him. He's showing us his love and all these different things But again, I want to go back to this verse that I'm gonna focus on this morning for just a few minutes I won't keep it longer hardly ever do And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name, say it out loud, saints, Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins. You know, the name Jesus, there's a meaning to this name. There's a remarkable meaning to this name. The name Jesus, maybe you've heard of Yeshua. It's also the same as the Old Testament name Joshua. Joshua and Jesus both mean this, Jehovah saves or Jehovah is salvation. Don't let the word Jehovah throw you off. Don't let it scare you away. Jehovah is a name of God. It's a description of God. It defines the character of God. It states that He is an eternal being. He has need of nothing and no one. He is a self-sufficient, self-sustained God who has been like that since before the beginning. And so the name Jesus means Jehovah is salvation. The word salvation, a very important word, a word that we use a lot in our circle of churches of like faith, the word salvation. I love the word salvation. I love my salvation. I love that. I have that. I have eternal life. I've been given the adoption of sons whereby I cry, Abba, Father. I've become a partaker of the divine nature. God gave me a new heart and a new hope and a new name and a new song and all those great things. He has redeemed me. Amen. But He saved me. The word salvation means to be rescued. to be rescued, to be brought to a place of safety. I've told this story before, but it's been a long time and might be new to some of you. I have two children. My firstborn, Jillian, my daughter, and then our second is Marcus, my son. They're almost exactly three years apart. They're three years and three days apart, February 1st, February 4th, and 88 and 91, if you do the math. But anyway, I had my daughter and my son. Those are the only two children I have here. We were in the Navy at the time. and Kathy and I took Jillian over to the island of Maui just for a little weekend or maybe even a weekday getaway to go over to Maui and to enjoy that island of Hawaii for a little time. We were looking for a beach where it wasn't real crowded and we could maybe just be with our own family and do something without a whole lot of shenanigans and carrying on. going on around us and so we found this, we talked to the locals and we said, hey, where do you guys go to the beach? It's not just full of tourists and all kinds of different energy that I don't want to be exposed to right now. They told us about this place, it was a hard to get to place, but it's called Big Beach. And it was, you know, you had to go down a dirt road and you had to park in a parking lot. There was no signage at all. And you had to, you know, park your car and walk quite a ways from the road down to this beach. But once you got there, it really was almost a deserted beach. beautiful paradise of a beach. I mean, it was just absolutely amazing. We were just enthralled by this beach and everything else. And the fact there wasn't a whole lot of people there, felt like we had the beach to ourselves. It was just beautiful. And Jillian, at the time, she was right at three years old. She wasn't quite three yet. Marcus had not yet been born, but she was talking. She talked pretty well, you know, and she was, she was daddy's little girl. Can I have an amen, please? We were just always together, and you know, she just adored me, and can you blame her? But anyway, But anyway, we were down there at the beach and just enjoying it, just going in, just where the waves come up and break. She was enjoying that and having a great time. She had no fear of the water, I had no fear of the water. Good swimmer, being a Navy guy and all those different things. So we were just having a great time and enjoying it. It was just getting old and getting worn out. So we started to walk back toward the beach blanket. And this rogue wave came up behind us. We didn't know it was coming. And it knocked me down, and it separated Jillian and me from each other. We were both separated, going different directions. I remember being in that wave, trying to figure out which way was up, because I was so disoriented. And Jillian now was no longer in my hand. I did not know where she was. and I was, I came up to the top, I looked up, couldn't see my daughter anywhere, and just, I can't explain it to you, I reached my hand into the foam like this, and I felt her foot, and I grabbed her foot as she was going out to sea. That shook me up. I think about that moment in time, as a very important crossroads or turning point in my life. I feel like if I had not caught her by the foot at that moment, I don't feel like I'd be standing here before you today. I think I would have been a different man with a different future. Somebody help me please. It's always a very scary time, a very trying time. The adrenaline is pumping and your heart is racing and all other things. I get Jillian, I get her in my arms. She's coughing and she's sputtering. We get back to the blanket and we sit down together and I'm just shaking with fear and disbelief. She said, you lost me, daddy. Yeah, that was her take on things. You lost me, daddy. And I said, I know I did, Jillian, but I'm going to do my best to never lose you again. You know, she's my joy. She still is my joy. I look at her life. I look at the ministries that she's in down in Mexico and the children that she's raising and the work that she does. And she brings so much joy to my life. I cannot imagine what life would be without her. I rescued her that day. I brought her to a place of safety. But when we're talking about salvation in a biblical view, in the biblical sense, we are not talking about being rescued from drowning. We're not talking about being pulled from a burning building by a firefighter or for a first responder or a good Samaritan coming on the scene of an accident and tending to our wounds. We're not talking about surviving a natural disaster. We're not even speaking of being brought back to life by a medical team where they had to resuscitate you to get your heart beating again, to get your lungs breathing again. We're talking about being rescued from our sins. Being rescued from our sins. The word sin gets used a lot in sermons. You know, in churches of like faith, we probably use the word sin almost every Sunday, I'm going to guess. I don't know for sure, but it seems like that word is a common word from the pulpit of Bible-believing churches. But what does it mean? What does sin mean? The easiest definition is to miss the mark. To Mr. Mark, we get this picture of a target set up and the mark, the center is where God is, his perfection there in the middle. Okay? And there's not one person in this room or on this planet that's able to hit that mark. Some people are, we will say this, morally better than others. I was starting to think about this a little bit, how I would illustrate this. I thought, well, if Mrs. Hoffer, she was the first person, maybe she would be out here about this point, pretty close, but still pretty far off. Then I thought to myself, well, I was going to bring Calvin Otterson to the picture today because Calvin, he's a lot of work and I put Calvin out here. about that area, and they haven't even met Misha. I'm going to put myself right over here on the edge, on the white border, and the piece of wood there, and then I got Jeff Shambly down here. Just about off the planet, somebody say amen. Yeah, I warned these men I was going to give them a hard time today before I did this, but you know, none of us can hit the mark. And it doesn't matter how far away from the mark You are. If you miss the mark, you miss the mark. It doesn't matter if you're out here with Jeff Shambly or over here with Calvin. Somebody say amen. If you miss the mark, you miss the mark. Even if it's Mrs. Hoffer, she's down here where the red and the yellow meet. We'll put her real close right now. If you miss the mark, you miss the mark. It's a universal problem. For all have sinned. How many? All. Yeah, what's all mean? Yeah, all means all. That's all all means, right? For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Every one of us has missed the mark. Every one of us is way off base. And so, again, why do we miss the mark? Because God is perfect. and God is holy, and God in His holy perfection has this high bar that is set, and none of us are able to meet that place of perfection or to measure up to His status, His condition, His character of holiness. None of us can do those things. The Bible gives us a few other places where it helps us maybe to understand things a little bit better. I wanted to look at a couple of verses in 1 John this morning that help us kind of define and understand sin in a different way, maybe a stronger way, maybe a more clear way for you this morning. In 1 John 3, 4, the Bible says this, Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law. For sin is the transgression of the law. Let me put that in real plain English. Sin is law-breaking. It's breaking the law. You know, sin is breaking the law. It's law-breaking. It's going against whatever standard of the law there is. You know, we live in the United States of America. We have laws, don't we? We have those who are in place to help enforce the law. We have those who legislate laws and interpret laws, enforce laws, let us know when we're breaking the law. Maybe at one time in your life, sometime a long, long time ago, you were pulled over for breaking a law, going above the limit. Right. You know those things. And so, we can be lawbreakers. And so that's one way to look at it. And the other way to look at it is that sin is doing things that are not right. It's wrongdoing. In 1 John 5, 17. All unrighteousness is sin. How much? All unrighteousness is sin. So sin also is wrongdoing. It's law-breaking and it's wrongdoing. It's doing things that are not right. And we can go through and say, well, who determines what's right and what's wrong? God does. He sets a standard and he tells us what's wrong and what's right. And so, again, you can try to skirt the law. You can try to get out from under the law. Maybe you could hire an attorney that would help you defend yourself or be your advocate. But we can understand that sin is breaking the law. It's not just missing the mark, it's breaking the law. It's doing things that are wrong. It's doing things that are not right. And so we can go on and on and on this morning, and I could wear you out on that definition, but I just want you to know that that applies to all of us. But the law that we're concerned about is not the law, the speeding laws or the traffic laws in America. It's not about the theft laws in England or in Europe. It's not about different laws that are on the different continents of the world. It's about the law of God. We believe the Bible happens to be the law of God. And God inspired it. He breathed these words for us. He preserved them for all perpetuity by His great power. And He has the ability to do those things. We don't have the ability to do those things. Somebody say amen. As soon as we get called on to start preserving and copying, we kind of foul things up pretty quickly. But anyway, this is God's law. I could take you right now to the Ten Commandments, and you would find out that you're not even doing real well with those first Ten Commandments. Then you go and you start adding up all the other parts of the law throughout God's Word, and you're going to find out that you've broken God's law here and there, and let's just be honest, some more than others. Some transgress more easily. Some are rebellious at heart. I've got eight fingers pointing in right here. Some are rebellious at heart. And so we break law and we do wrong that way. And the Bible does say this, that if you break the law in just one point, you're guilty of breaking it all. That's what it says. the life of a lawbreaker. I, you know, I've I've broken laws. Have you? I've never been in jail by the grace of God. Probably deserved to be in jail a couple times. Probably in and out of jail. Lawbreakers paying hefty fines. Lawbreakers may be doing a long prison sentence. Lawbreakers Maybe you never get caught like this lawbreaker, but you spend your life under that dark cloud of guilt. Because where does guilt come from? Guilt comes from our knowing that we broke a law. Guilt comes from knowing that we've done something wrong or done someone wrong. So you've got that black, dark cloud of guilt looming over you, looking over your shoulder, wondering when the next shoe is going to drop, on and on and on. So God's Word says this about the lawbreaker. He says, the way of the transgressors is what, saints? It's hard and that just makes sense. It fits right into real life like in and out of jail or paying fines and having your wages garnished until the fines are paid off or maybe doing a stint in prison and lock up and things of that nature. Suffering the consequences or living with the guilt, wondering when that's going to come to fruition or come to the surface. So we have this truth that the way of the transgressor, is hard. So we're concerned about breaking God's law and doing wrong that would be in violation or going in the face of God's law. And again, I'm not here telling you that I'm perfect. I'm far from it. All of us have broken the law and done wrong to one extent or another. All of us. We've all missed the mark. We've all missed the mark. And God... God is the ruler, the king, the supreme judge of the universe. And what God does is... He makes it real simple. He just waves a blanket, not guilty, over everyone who's ever been born. Born that way. For all have sinned. Come show the glory of God. I was born November 20th, 1965. I was born guilty. I was born guilty. Jeff, November 28th, 1974. Born guilty. Russ, March 5th, 1801. Born guilty. Amen. I knew your birthday at least. I just didn't get the year right. It's a little off on the year. It's not March 5th. March 17th. March 5th is my dad's birthday. Okay. Close enough, right? We're guilty. God says everybody's guilty in my sight. No one has hit the mark. No one can get over the bar. We have to go under the bar. And under the bar means this, that we are sinners in need of something. We're in need of a Savior. to be rescued from those sins. You know, and God doesn't... I don't know what you've heard or what you've been taught in your religious life, but God doesn't sit in heaven saying, yep, they're guilty. I'm so glad they're guilty. He says, they're guilty. I wish they weren't guilty. And I can declare them unguilty or not guilty if they'll simply come to faith in me through my son. And he wants everybody to come to that same saving knowledge, that same faith on the entire planet. He said, the Lord is not slack concerning his promises. Some men count slack. Hey, some men are slackers. But is long-suffering to us word. not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He wants all of us to get our hearts right. He wants all of us to get our lives right. He wants all of us to come to Him and put our faith in Him. You know, so instead of us trying to do things ourselves or to lift ourselves up by our own bootstraps or putting ourselves in the hands of the Savior, in the heart of the Savior, in the work of the Savior, if we come back to that that important realization that Jesus is God for us. The fact there is a Jesus this morning is a stark reminder that God is for you and God is for me and God is for everyone on this planet. Somebody say Amen. The Bible says that Jesus shall save His people from their sins. That Jesus shall save His people from their sins. That means that God in His foreknowledge and His perfection as a manifestation of His holy character has made a provision in His law in his law where you and I can be declared not guilty. And I'm not saying not guilty by Judge Judy or Judge Walker. That's a long time ago. But not guilty by Jehovah, the supreme judge of the universe. And when God declares you not guilty, His not guilty stands for how long, saints? Forever. Somebody say glory to God. Glory to God. Amen. But we have to do it through Jesus. That is how we know that God is for us. There's no other name given among men under heaven where we can be saved. Look at this in Acts chapter 4 verse 12. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. We can go through this morning and list every religious entity that you can think of this morning. We can go through and talk about denominational ties and hierarchies. We can talk about positions and offices in those denominations and hierarchies. We can talk about a church membership. We can talk about something like a baptism or observing the Lord's Supper We could talk about just going to church and faithfully attending for 50 or 60 or 80 years, however long you live. All those things are true. None of those things can save you. The only one that can save you is Jesus because He is God, what saints? For us. And when you come to faith in Christ, when you put your faith in Him, He allows you, it's amazing, the grace that He bestows upon us is so undeserved, He allows us now to be known as a people, and more specifically as His people. 1 Peter chapter 2, But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." Don't miss verse 10. Which in time past were not a what, saints? But you're saying, I am a people, but not the right kind of people. You need to be the people of God, which in time past were not people, but are now the people of God. How did you become a people of God? Which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. So what happens is this, you're born into this world and you've got life and you've got spunk and you've got charisma, and you've got a career, and you've got a family, and you've got children, and you have successes, and you have things behind your name like MD or PhD. You might be a lawyer, you might be a banker, you might be the most successful salesperson on the planet, you might be this or that or the other. Those are great things and we're not going to discount those things or minimize those things, but none of those things will add up, When it comes to eternity, when it's time for God to look you in the eye and say, why should I let you enter my perfect, holy heaven? Because you were a good doctor? Because you were an awesome mother? No. but because I am a part of the people of God, and I became a part of the people of God by coming through Jesus Christ, the person of God. Somebody say amen. And when that happened, everything was fixed, everything was figured, everything was cemented for all eternity. God declared you not guilty, and there won't be any question when it's time for you to enter His glorious heaven. He's gonna say, come on in, child. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Amen? And it's going to look like this. You're going to like this. I think you'll like this. I like this. Like this. You didn't shoot those arrows. God put them there for you. And He put the righteousness and the character and the blood of Jesus on your ever-living soul and says, You can come in now. Come on in. And everybody said, Amen. Father, we thank You for this time this morning. Thank You for Your Word and how it speaks to us. Thank You for Jesus and what He means to us. Thank You for salvation, for our redemption, the purchase that was made on Calvary's cross for the resurrection on the third day that sealed the deal that reminds us about the beauty and the glory of eternal life. And Father, as we gather here Sunday after Sunday, I don't know every heart that comes into this room to worship you, Lord. I don't. And I don't know all their stories. And Father, I wish I did. But Lord, maybe there's somebody here today that still not there yet. They've never trusted Christ to be their Savior. They're trusting something else, maybe their morality, maybe just their church attendance or putting dollars in the offering plate or They've been baptized or they observe Lord's Supper when that comes around. Maybe they're good moral people who don't lie and then they don't cheat and they don't steal. Maybe there's those kind of thoughts. Maybe they're just tying it to church membership or they're tying it to something that mom or dad taught them or grandpa taught them a long, long time ago. Father, none of those things are important or as important as it is to come to Jesus. They shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. That's the most important decision a human can ever make in their lifetime, is a decision to trust Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. And Father, you know the hearts and you know the needs. And Father, I'm praying for you to reach those hearts right now. Give them a knock on their heart's door. and get their attention before it is eternally too late. Father, please have your will and way during this time of response this morning. I pray these things and ask these things in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ. Everybody said... Let's all stand. Every head bowed, every eye closed. I want to ask you a question this morning. If you just would answer honestly. I'm not going to point you out. I'm not going to come back and embarrass you. I'm not going to give you any unreasonable expectation. But if you say, Pastor, I just, I'm not sure. Would you pray for me? It would be my honor to pray for you this morning, to pray for your soul, to pray the light would come on inside you that you would know Christ as your Savior before it is eternally too late. And the way I want you to signify that is to say, Pastor, I need a prayer this morning. Just raise your hand and say, Pastor, please pray for me. I want to do that this morning. God bless you. Anybody else this morning say, pray for me. Anybody else today say, I'm not real sure. I've got some questions. Please pray for me. Anybody else? God bless you. Anybody else? I've got some doubts. Please pray for me, Pastor. God bless you. Anybody else? I've seen three or four hands go up this morning and those are not things to be ashamed of. They're honest questions that we should ask ourselves in the depth of our soul. Let me pray for you real quick and pray for the entire congregation this morning. Father again, we're so thankful to be able to come into your presence and to See what your word has for us, Lord, and to be reminded of your goodness and be reminded of Jesus, God for us. What an awesome thought. What a thought of peace and comfort and reassurance and joy and spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Father, there was a few here this morning that raised their hand. They're not sure about salvation. And Father, I do believe that's the most important thing to be sure of in this life. And God, I pray you'll just have your will and way in their life and show them what they need to do this morning. Help them. They need to come out and have someone take a Bible and show them some verses and pray with them. Father, if that be what they need to do, then lead them to do that. Father, if they want to just come and get some reassurance this morning, have them come this morning. We'll have someone pray with them and take them before the throne of grace and remind them of your love that's everlasting and it's unconditional and undiminished. And Father, for the believer, would you just continue to encourage us and to remind us of your grace working in our hearts and lives all the time, even the small little graces that we don't always appreciate and understand. Father, let's be thankful for what Christ has done. in our hearts and in our lives and in our marriages and in our church. And Father, we just thank you again for your work in our midst. And Lord, you pray for these ones again this morning who have some doubts and aren't sure that you would do what you need to do to take care of that this morning. We're asking these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to sing, Only Trust Him for our hymn this morning of response. Let's sing out this morning. And if you need to come, would you come this morning? We'll pray with you. We'll encourage you. We'd love to be any help to you that we can in the spiritual sense this morning here at Liberty Baptist Church. Go tell them to come and lead us. Come, every soul, by sin oppressed, There's mercy with the Lord, And He will surely give you rest, By trusting in His word. Only trust Him, only trust Him, only trust Him now. He will save you, He will save you, He will save you. ♪ For Jesus shed his precious blood ♪ ♪ Rich blessings to bestow ♪ ♪ Plunge now into the crimson flood ♪ ♪ That washes white as snow ♪ ♪ Only trust him, only trust him, only trust him now ♪ He will save you, He will save you, He will save you now. Yes, Jesus is the truth, the way that leads you into rest. Believe in Him without delay and you are fully blessed. Only trust Him, only trust Him, only trust Him now. He will save you, He will save you, He will save you now. Yes, sir. Amen. Yes, sir. Amen.