We're continuing our way this evening through a new series titled, Who is Jesus? And as I mentioned last week, we get this question from Jesus himself, who asked his disciples, who do the people say that I am? And then he turned the question right around on them and said, well, who do you say that I am? And we want to examine our knowledge and our understanding of Christ according to the Bible. Not only so we can be sure that our understanding matches what Scripture teaches, but because there really is nothing greater nothing dearer to the Christian than to know with greater depth and clarity the nature and the person of Christ. To know Him is to know God. To see Him is to see the Father. To have Him is to have eternal life. And so with that in mind, we're going to press on in this series. And last week we talked about what it meant that Jesus is Lord, that He is both our God and our Master. And we're continuing on in that three-fold name, the Lord Jesus Christ, this evening to talk about the name Jesus. What does the name Jesus mean? Why is Jesus called Jesus? You may remember weeks ago, In our studies through the Lord's Prayer, we said that God's name has meaning. It's not just a series of letters, but it teaches us about Himself, and that's certainly the case with this name, Jesus. So with that in mind, we'll read God's Word, but before we do, let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, this is Your Word. Every word of it is inspired by God. O Lord, You have given it to us for our help and for our blessing, for our correction, for our reproof. You have given it to us because it testifies about Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. O Lord, who said himself, do you not know that the Scriptures testify about me? We pray, our God, that you would help us to see the beauty and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. O Lord, that He is our Savior and our God. We pray, O Holy Spirit, the Spirit that loves to exalt the Son, that the Spirit would move among us this evening to help us to see His glory. O Lord, and to change and to be more like Him. Help us, O God, as we study. We pray for Your blessing. In Jesus' name, Amen. The text on which I'll be focusing this evening will be Matthew 1.21, but I'd like to read beginning in verse 18 through verse 25 of Matthew chapter 1. Let's hear God's Word. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus." And we're going to focus in this evening on verse 21. We're going to look at this text this evening under two headings. Two headings. First, Jesus' name. And second, Jesus' work. Jesus' name and Jesus' work. Well, let's begin. Jesus' name. The name Jesus. What does Jesus mean? And the name Jesus comes from, and you language people, put your antenna up, the name Jesus comes from the Greek, Iesu, which comes from the Hebrew, Yeshua. Yeshua, which is translated in our Old Testament, Joshua. So if Jesus was in an English-speaking place 2,000 years ago, his friends and neighbors would have called him Joshua, or Josh, perhaps. That's what his name means, to kind of get your mind there. And that name, Joshua, means something very particular. The name Joshua means Yahweh, the Lord. Yahweh is salvation. where Yahweh is help. That's what Jesus' name means. And you can think back, there are some fairly prominent Joshua figures in the Old Testament. Of course, the main one, Joshua, about whom the book of Joshua is written. that great leader who brought the people of God into the promised land, through the promised land, crushed the enemies of the people of God, took hold of the promised land that God had given, and then also a lesser known Joshua from Ezra chapter 3, also Jeshua is his name there, and Jeshua was a priest. who assisted in and led the rebuilding of the altar and the temple. So these two Joshua figures would have been kind of prominent there, would have caught the attention of first century hearers. And their names reminded God's people to look to the Lord for help and salvation. That great leader Joshua, as he was facing those big Canaanites, some of them were probably even taller than me, those big Canaanites in the Promised Land, they were afraid. And the name of their leader reminded them that our help is in the Lord. Yahweh, our God, is our help and our salvation. And so as Joshua would stand before that people to lead them forward through the promised land and to take on their enemies, his name reminded them where their help and salvation came from. And the same was true of Jeshua, seeking to rebuild the temple of the Lord and the altar, the place of sacrifice. And as he was leading, as this priest was leading in the rebuilding of what was once torn down, the people would have been reminded. We look to the Lord our God for help and for salvation. Yahweh is our salvation. And there likely would have been a number of little boys running around in Jesus' day with this same name, thinking back to those great heroes, but especially to the salvation and to the God to which they pointed. Well, if that's the background, why is it then that Jesus has this name? Why the connection? You'll notice in verse 21 that the angel who speaks to Joseph is insistent. You shall call his name Jesus. Nobody told Sarah Grafton and I what to name our son. They might have had ideas, but they certainly weren't this demonstrative. The angel is insistent. You shall call his name Jesus. And why is that? Well, I think part of it, as we've just acknowledged, is this connection with these Old Testament figures. These two great Joshua figures of the Old Testament. His name should be Jesus, Joshua, because He's going to be like that great Joshua who led God's people into the promised land and who defeated God's enemies. Just like that first great Joshua, the one who crushed those who opposed the people of God, the one who led them into that great promised land. So too, Jesus will do the same thing. What does our catechism say? He subdues and conquers all His and our enemies. And who is the one that leads us in to the great promised land? Heaven itself. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And so by naming Jesus, Jesus, God is wanting us to see He is going to be like this first Joshua. And also like the second one, Jeshua, the great priest who rebuilt the temple and the altar. Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, who said Himself, I will tear down this temple and rebuild it in three days, who is the dwelling place of God, and who gives Himself as a sacrifice on the altar of the cross, Jesus Christ will be just like that Joshua, that Jeshua. from Ezra. He is the great priest who lays the sacrifice on the altar of God, who rebuilds the temple, perfecting it, that the dwelling place of God might be with man. So this Old Testament connection is important. Jesus has this name to tie Him together in our minds with those who have gone before and bore that name as well. But for Jesus, and unlike these figures, these Old Testament figures, for Jesus, this name means something more. For Joshua in the Old Testament, for Jeshua in Ezra, their name reminded the people to look to God for salvation. Their name was a reminder, a hint, a clue that they needed to look not to the strength of man, to chariots and to princes, but to the Lord their God. But for Jesus, the name is actually much more than a reminder. For that name is a title that describes who Jesus is Himself. His name doesn't merely remind us that the Lord is our salvation. His name tells us that He is the Lord, our salvation. It is not merely a reminder. It is a title of who He is, in a way that Joshua and Jeshua never were. For He is the Lord. He is Yahweh come to save. He is the Lord, our help. And we pick up on this, especially in verse 21 here, where we have an allusion to Psalm 130 verse 8. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. for He will save His people from their sins." And that last bit, for He will save His people from their sins, is picking up on what the psalmist says in Psalm 130. In Psalm 130, the psalmist says that the Lord, Yahweh, He will redeem Israel from all His iniquities. Who? Yahweh, the Lord. And Matthew is telling us here, this promise given in Psalm 130, that Yahweh will save His people from their sins, has come in the flesh. And His name is Jesus. the Lord our salvation. He is what His name proclaims. He is Yahweh saves. He is the Lord our help. Jesus' name, Joshua, tells us, Jesus tells us who He is. He is the Lord who saves. Well, a couple points of application then. under Jesus' name first. And I laugh when I make this point of application, because this could be an appropriate application for any sermon, but it's true of this one. The name Jesus teaches us to read the Old Testament. And you may say, well, how is that? That's an easy thing for the preacher to say. Go read your Bible. But it's true. In order to understand who Jesus is in all of His fullness, we need to understand the promises, blessings, and prophecies made by God in the Old Testament to understand the fullness of who He is. If we know Psalm 130 verse 8, when we come in we say, wait a minute, I thought the Lord God Almighty was our salvation. This says that Jesus is our salvation. That's exactly right. He is the Lord who has come to save. And in order to understand Jesus in all of His glory and in all of His fullness, we need to be students of the Bible. What does Paul call the Old Testament in Romans chapter 1, the Gospel promise beforehand? What does Jesus do when He explains what it is that He has done on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24? He opens the Scriptures to them. The Old Testament teaches us about Jesus, and in order to know Jesus fully, we need to know the Old Testament. So take up and read. Second, Jesus' name teaches us that God is our Savior. Jesus' name teaches us that God is our Savior. His name teaches us that He is God. What does His name mean? The Lord saves, and Jesus' name tells us that He is the Lord. That the Old Testament Lord, Yahweh, the One who came down on Mount Sinai and dwelt in the tabernacle and spread the Red Sea, has come in the flesh, and that His name is Jesus. But it also teaches us where you and I need to look for our salvation. What is the source of your salvation? Is it your works? Is it even your faith? Jesus' name tells us to look to no place else but the Lord our God for our salvation. You see, it's exclusively downward salvation. The Lord saves. He saves. And not anyone else, and not anything else. The name of Jesus teaches you and me where to look for salvation. And we look to the Lord our God alone. Psalm 62 verses 5-8 tell us this so clearly. For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory. My mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in Him at all times, O people. Pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us." Where does your salvation come from? Who saved you and why are you saved? It is because of the Lord. The Lord is our salvation. And is that not what sets us as believers apart from the rest of the world? Not anything you or I have done, not where we grew up, not our intelligence or our good looks or our Bible knowledge. What makes us who we are? It's that God is our salvation. Jesus' name teaches us to look to God for our salvation. So, His name teaches us to read the Old Testament. His name teaches us that God is our Savior. And thirdly, His name is a comfort to believers. Jesus' name is a comfort to believers. What does His name say? What does His name mean? What does His name tell us about Himself? His name says, the Lord is our salvation. And that name is a comfort to believers. Because many believers, those who trust and know the Lord Jesus Christ, though they cling to Him by faith, have assurance that is very, very weak. And you may be a believer this evening asking, have I done enough? Have I done enough to go to heaven? Do I know the Bible well enough to really be born again? Have I experienced enough to truly be a Christian? And your assurance may be wounded because you look at your life and you measure up your holiness and you find yourself to be wanting. What about people of other religions who do great deeds, greater things than you or I have ever done? There are people in other parts of the world who are willing to kill themselves for what they believe. Is your faith stronger than theirs? There are Buddhists or Hindus in places who will go without food or go to the desert for days and weeks on end, beating their bodies, denying themselves. Have you denied yourself in such a way? And when questions like this begin to come in and assail and burden the believer, say, well, what makes you any better than the Muslim who will give his life for his faith? What makes you any better than the Hindu who will go without food for weeks on end for his faith? And the name of Jesus says to the wounded believer, you know, you may be right. You may be right that people have done more. But what sets me apart is not what I have done. What sets me apart is not the deeds that I have accomplished. What saves me is not my works, not even my affections, not even my prayers. But the Lord is my salvation. Who saves sinners? God saves sinners. It's not even the strength of your faith that saves you. Strong faith and weak faith, connect the believer to the same strong Savior. Who is our salvation? The Lord is our salvation. And Jesus' name, believer, should come to you as a comfort. That your salvation comes not even in the tears of spirituality that you cry, not even in the prayers that you cry out in your highest heights of spiritual experience. Those things don't save you. Jesus saves you. And His name is a reminder, as we'll see in a moment, not all my sighs and prayers and tears can give me peace with God. Not what I say or do can remove this awful load of sin. But Jesus can. His name is a comfort to the believer, because His name reminds us of the source of our salvation. What distinguishes you and me as Christians? It's that God is our Savior. God is our Savior, and there is no other. Jesus' name. The Lord is our salvation. But secondly, I want us to look at Jesus' work. Jesus' work. His name means the Lord saves, and that should cause you to ask the question, well, He saves you from what? What do you need to be saved from, or from what do you need to be saved? And Matthew answers this question for us. Call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. From their sins. And we need to ask a couple questions. But this first, what is sin? And second, why do we need to be saved from it? Why do we need to be saved from it? Well, what is sin? And our catechism, so helpfully, gives us a very good answer. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. And in 21st century, that means any time God says, be here, and you say, no, I'm going to stop here, and any time God says, don't cross this line, and you say, I'm going to go over, That's sin. Any want of conformity? Stop here. Any transgression of? Going over what God says? That is sin. And one of the very helpful things about the Catechism's definition about sin is that it gets us oriented rightly. Our culture talks about sin mostly in terms of horizontal things. Things people do against one another. you know, sins of discrimination or sins of murder and hurting other people. And these are certainly sins. I mean, it's sin when you do bad things to other people. But the catechism, rightly, because it's picking up what the Bible says, tells us the real problem with sin here is not horizontal, though that's an issue. The real problem is vertical. The want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. And sin is a problem, such a great problem, because it puts you at odds with your Maker, the One who made you, the One who breathed breath and life into your soul. And sin offends Him. Sin is against God. You remember the verse, we all know it, that David quotes, against you, you only, have I sinned. And Neil Stewart said one time in my hearing, I wonder what Uriah said if he would have read Psalm 51. He said, I don't know. I think you've sinned against me too. But he understood the orientation, the real problem with sin is that it's sin against God. It's offensive to His holy character and to the law that reflects His holy character. So what is sin? We've answered that. Now, why do we need to be saved from our sins? The word here, saved or rescued? That implies danger. It implies danger. If I was drowning, right? And I said, man, I was drowning and then Tyler saved me. Well, I mean, I would have been out. That's it. If not for Tyler jumping into the water and pulling me on out. I was in mortal danger and He saved me. The word saved or rescued brings with it a sense of danger, a sense of problem, a sense of imminent death even. in the case of drowning. Why do we need to be saved? Why do we need to be rescued? Why is it so urgent? Well, we can pick up from other places in Scripture that there are many reasons why this is the case. I'll mention three. We need to be saved from the penalty of sin. Saved from the penalty of sin. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 6 that the wages of sin is death. That is what you earn for your sins is death and judgment and hell. What does God say to Adam in Genesis 2.17? Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die. And we need to be saved from sin's penalty because what you and I deserve is punishment is death and is hell for sin. And we need to be saved from that penalty. You and I, apart from Christ, are in imminent danger of hell because of our sins. Because our sins have offended God. We need to be saved from sin's penalty. We need to be saved from sin's power. Sin is completely powerful over the unbeliever. What is the evaluation of the unbelieving world in Genesis chapter 6, right before the flood comes? The thoughts of man's hearts were only evil continually. That's not very good. Complete power over the unbeliever. Those of you who have not been Christians all of your life can look back on times when you just loved to sin. And if you even had an inclination against it, well, you didn't pay much attention to it. You need to be saved from the power of sin. And that's true even of believers, right? For those of us who are Christians, we've been saved from sin's binding power, but it is still at work, as Paul says in Romans 7. The things that I would do, I don't do. And the things that I don't want to do, I do. And even us as believers need to be delivered from the continued influence, the power, the force of sin in our life. which has certainly taken place at the cross, but it still exerts its evil influence. And we need to be saved from that. Delivered from it. Strengthened to fight against it. And we also need to be delivered from sin's presence. Because though we are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that sin no longer reigns over us, it is no longer our master, yet we're still in sin's presence. Its presence within. Within the soul. How many of you, seeking the face of the Lord in the morning, find nothing but coldness in your heart? And that's because of the remaining presence of sin. How many of you, when you go to your place of work, find people saying things that absolutely cut down other people? You look around the world. I mean, you don't have to read too much news in the newspaper, or online, or on your phone, or whatever it might be, to find out that we live in a world that is tainted with sin. And John assures us in Revelation that one day it will be done away with and all of sin and Satan and all of it will be cast away into the lake of fire. And we long for that day. We need someone to bring us out of the presence of sin. Sin within and sin without. The penalty, the power and the presence of sin. And Matthew tells us here in verse 21 that that is exactly what Jesus has come to do. In fact, that's why he has the name that he has, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Well, a couple of words of application, a few words of application to this final point. First, first, notice and notice well, Jesus came for sinners. Jesus came to save sinners. That's even part of His name. The Lord saves. Saves from what? Saves from their sins. You need to understand this evening that Jesus came to save sinners. And unless you understand that you are part of that category of people, you're not going to have any interest in Jesus. And when Jesus is talking about sinners, when the Scripture is talking about sinners here, they're not talking about like, oh yeah, nobody's perfect, man, and like, you know, yeah, I've done some bad stuff, and hey, you know, yeah, I've probably messed up a few times. Sin is against God. Do you understand this evening that the reason that you need a Savior is because you've offended God by your sin? That without Christ, you could not even enter His presence without being consumed by God's mighty holiness. He came for sinners. And unless you understand, this is sort of like step one or step two of the Gospel. If you don't understand yourself to be a sinner before God, you will never understand that you need a Savior. Jesus came for sinners. To save people who have offended the God of Heaven by the way that they live and speak and think and believe. And that's all of us. And Jesus came to save us from our sins. The scripture speaks about this all over. Luke 19.10, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. 1 Timothy 1.15, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Matthew 9.13. Do you know that you're a sinner this evening? Do you know that you've broken God's law this evening, and thought, and word, and deed? Jesus came to save people like you. He came to save sinners. But the fact that Jesus is our Savior, that He came to save sinners, not only teaches us for whom He came, but it teaches us the seriousness of the problem. The seriousness of the problem. The seriousness of the solution exegetes the problem or explains the problem. If I had a parking violation or a driving violation in Raymond, Mississippi, they most likely would not send the SWAT team after me. It's a little problem. In fact, traveling violations happen all the time in Raymond because the speed limits are like 15 and 25. And some of you are nodding your heads and you've probably gotten caught with me. The speed limit is really low. But they're not going to send the SWAT team. They're going to send Bill or Joe or Stu or whoever to come and give you a ticket and that's that, right? When do they send in the SWAT team? When things are really, really, really bad. Really bad. And they need people with specialized training and with big guns and with big things to break down doors to come in and take these people. You know, the mall cop just isn't going to get the job done. But they're not going to send the SWAT team after me for a driving violation. Well, the seriousness of the solution here, that is that Jesus is the one who comes to save us from our sins, teaches us how big our problem of sin really is. You can just send a spiritual mall cop, so to speak. Your sin problem and mine is so big that only someone as big as God could take it away. That's how serious Our sin really is. It's so big and so heavy and so vast that only someone as big as God could take it away. Only someone as big as God could bear it in our place. You can't clean your life up enough to take it away. You couldn't get all your best friends to throw all their righteous deeds in a pot. and try to out-balance your sin. The size of the solution tells us about the size of the problem. Your sin is against an infinite God, an infinite God, and only the infinite God Himself could take it away. The seriousness of the solution tells us about the seriousness of the problem. Only God can save you. That's the position we're in as human beings. Only God can save. This is further confirmed when Jesus is on the cross. When Jesus is on the cross, he's not given an exception. What happens at the cross? Jesus is clothed with the sins of His people. He takes our sin upon His back and bears it in our place. And if anybody, if anybody was to get a free pass, if anybody was going to get a get-out-of-jail-free card, a slap on the wrist and you're good to go, it would be the Son of God. The one who has known the Father forever, and the one who is with and toward God from all eternity, who is with the Father in the beginning, and the Father looks at Him and says, this is my beloved Son, my only beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. If anybody was going to get a free pass, if anybody was going to be free to go at the charges laid before them, it would have been Jesus. There's no one that the Father loved more. There's no one that the Father has known longer. There's no one for whom the Father's heart beat with greater and deeper and heavier beats of love than His Son. But when His Son is clothed with your sin, even He is punished for it. There's no nepotism at the cross of Calvary. When the Son of God bears our sin, sin is so offensive to God that when it is His Son taking our sin upon Himself, even He is not let go. And that is how big, and how gross, and how awful, and how wicked your sin is. That even the Son of God could not escape from its penalty when He took it upon Himself. the seriousness of the solution, teaches us about the problem. He came for sinners, teaches us about the seriousness of our sin. Third, the name of Jesus, His work, is the source of our sanctification. I said a moment ago, we need someone to save us from the power of sin. And if you're a Christian this evening, there are particular sins that beset you, that have followed you around everywhere you go. And you may have been fighting against them and praying against them, some of you, for decades. Where are you going to find help and strength to overcome your sin? The sin that affects your children and your spouse? The sin that affects your heart towards the Lord? Where are you going to find someone to give you victory over the power of that sin? The name of Jesus says, look to Jesus. He will save His people from their sins. Do you need help fighting sin? Do you need help putting sin to death? Look to Jesus. He gives grace and mercy and help in time of need. So, He came for sinners, the seriousness of sin, the source of sanctification. The fourth and finally, my final point of application is that the name of Jesus teaches us about the love of God for His people. The name of Jesus teaches us about the love of God for His people. We said only moments ago, against whom have we sinned? We've sinned against God. Our sin is so serious because it's against God, the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable Holy One. He's so pure that angels, holy angels who have never sinned, hide their faces when they come into His presence. We've offended Him with our sin. But the name of Jesus says that the One that we have made an enemy by our sin has become our Savior. The same God that we have offended, that you have offended by your sin, has become your Savior. What does Jesus' name proclaim? The Lord Yahweh saves. The Lord who gave the Law. The Lord who wrote His Law in your heart that you have broken time and again. He is your Savior. That same God, He is your Savior. Who makes the unrighteous right with God? God. Who cleans those who are dirty in God's sight? God. Who adopts those who were once far off into the family of God? God. Who makes those who walk in holiness against the law of God more like God? God. Who saves people from their sins against God? God. God is our Savior. Our enemy has become our friend. Our enemy has become our Savior. His name is Jesus. And salvation is not simply some kind of lump on a table that you put somewhere, sort of like a dish at the fellowship lunch, and you say, come here and grab some salvation. It's over here. Go find it. Go grab a hold of it. It's not a substance. Salvation is a person. Salvation is a person. And His name is Jesus. And He looks out from heaven with pierced and glorified hands. And He says, look to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God and there is no other. For I am God your Savior. Do you need to be saved from your sins? Come to the Lord Jesus without money, without payment, without price, and by a complete salvation, a complete forgiveness, a complete holiness, a complete righteousness. He'll take all your sins away, and He'll make you right with God. The name of Jesus tells us that God is our Savior. Let us pray. O Lord our God, we thank You that You have done for us what we could not do for ourselves. That You have become our Savior, that the Lord, my God, is my salvation. O Lord, help us to see and to know. Help us to see the depths, O Lord, the depths of the love of Christ. How far He would go for us. O Lord, transform us by the power of Christ to be less sinful and more like Him. We pray for your help, O Lord. Seal these words to our souls, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.