DeVille, Andrew: The Coming Of Christ-Gospel Message

I would like to read, first of all, this evening in the gospel by Luke and chapter number five. Luke's gospel, please, and chapter number 5. And we're just going to read, uh, one verse, verse thirty two. Luke chapter five and verse thirty two. We'll read for connection of verse thirty one. And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Our second reading is chapter nineteen of the same gospel, please. And we'll read at verse ten. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Now, John's Gospel, please, and chapter ten, And we'll read at verse 9. Again, the words of the Lord Jesus. I am the door by me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. Verse in chapter twelve, please, verse forty six. mhm I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And finally, we'll read a verse or two in chapter fourteen, well-known verses at the beginning of the chapter. We read from verse one: let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me, in my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. We do look to the Lord to bless the reading of the scriptures this evening. I want to consider with you, uh, some of the reasons the Lord Jesus gave for coming into the world. We've read, uh, of four, and we've read also of his coming in the future, but in the verses that we have read, the Lord Jesus indicated some of the reasons why he came. He says in Luke chapter, uh, number four, uh, in the first, in the Luke chapter five, rather, the first verse we read, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. He came to call sinners to repentance. When we read in Luke chapter nineteen, having spoken to the man Zacchaeus, he says this, for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to seek and save what was lost. When we read in John chapter number ten, he says, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. He came to give life, abundant life, and we learned that in John chapter ten. And in John chapter twelve, the Lord Jesus speaks of the fact that those that believe in him will no longer be in darkness. And he says that is one of the reasons why he came. He says, I am come a light into the world, that he that believeth, whosoever believeth in me, should not ab- abide in darkness. And so it's good that we don't have to speculate why the Lord Jesus came. The Lord Jesus tells us himself, and we have read a number of occasions when he did so. Now, the very fact that the Lord Jesus came, that language is used of him and used by him, indicates, of course, that he existed before he came. But yet Bethlehem, as we've sung this evening, was not the beginning for the Lord Jesus. Indeed, we learn in the Word of God that he had no beginning. He is eternal. He is God. He's the Son of God. And the wonderful message of the gospel surrounds the fact that the Lord Jesus came into the world. The Apostle Paul taught, uh, and and writes in First Timothy that this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And so the Lord Jesus left heaven and came into the world. And we've sung in our hymns, uh, this evening of the, the cross. We've sung of the death of the Lord Jesus. And if he was going to fulfill the reasons why he came, as he, as he enunciated in the statements that we've read, it was necessary for him to go to the cross to die and to be raised again. And now we are able to speak of a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not only risen, but he is exalted and seated at the right hand of God in heaven. Now, these are the historical facts upon which the gospel is based. The death, the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord Jesus. These are the facts upon which, uh, the the message that we make known to you this evening. The Lord Jesus said, and he's in conversation, uh, with people in Luke chapter five, men that were questioning him because of the company that he was in. He was amidst men and, and possibly women as well that are described as publicans and sinners, and they questioned him for this. And the Lord Jesus teaches them the reason why he came. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now, who are these righteous people that the Lord Jesus is referring to? Well, in the context of our passage, they were the religious men. They were the f- the far- the Pharisees and the scribes. They thought they were right with God. They thought they were overall, that their lives were right. They thought they were acceptable to God as they, as they stood, as they lived, and they regarded themselves as righteous. Well, the Lord Jesus is really saying, if you regard yourself like that, then I have nothing for you. And that might seem a startling statement, because what we have to come to understand, first of all, is that we are not righteous before God. We might look at ourselves, we might compare ourselves with others, we might look at our neighbors or maybe perhaps, uh, other children at school or whatever, and we might think to ourselves, well, compared to them, I'm pretty good. But you see, what we have to learn is that we are not to measure ourselves against our fellow men and women and boys and girls. We have got to measure ourselves against God's standards. And when we do that, we discover that we are not righteous at all. In fact, we learn that as far as God is concerned, there is none righteous, no, not one. And we learn that we are sinners. And so what we learn in, in Luke's Gospel chapter five is that the Lord Jesus came to call sinners, men and women and boys and girls who understood that they were sinners, that they had fallen short of God's standards, and that includes us all. And so the question that I would like to bring before you this evening is this: how do you look at yourself? Do you realize that you are amongst the sinners? That, in fact, as you are before God without the Lord Jesus, that you're not righteous before God, you're not right with God because of sin. And we have to become conscious of sin and our sins, no matter how few we may think they are, we have got to be aware that we are sinners. But the wonderful thing is the Lord Jesus came to call sinners. He had a message for sinners, and that's why he was in the company he was in in Luke chapter five. He, he, he went amongst those that others regarded as, as tax gatherers and sinners, open sinners, but the Lord Jesus came to call these people. He had a message for them. And what kind of message did the Lord Jesus have for sinners? Well, our verse tells us, the Lord Jesus tells us he came to call sinners to repentance. You see, God does not want us to continue in our sins. He does not want us to learn that we are sinners and then just to go on as if nothing had happened. He wants us to turn. He wants us to turn away from our sins. As you see in the land and the world in which we live this evening, there are many men and women who are living in sins, and they do not regard it as sin at all. And they have to come to learn that before a holy God, a righteous God, the manner of their lives is not right with God, and God calls upon us to turn from that, to repent of it. God command of all men everywhere to repent. The message of the gospel might be summed up like in this, repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And you might say this evening, why would someone turn from sins? Why would they do it? Well, part of the reason why they might do that is this, that they have come to learn how serious sin is before God. And they have sorrow over the way they have lived. And sorrow not just because of the consequences that sin has brought upon our own lives, because sin does that. But sorrow and grief because of what sin means to God. And the fact that we have sinned, and the Lord Jesus says, I'm come, and I'm come to call sinners to repent, to turn from your sins. How good it is the Lord Jesus would leave heaven, would leave a place of holiness, a place of light. The very creator of the world would come into time, become a man. And he came because he had a message, a message for sinners. Not just to condemn sinners forever, though that will be the end of those that do not repent. But he came to call men and women and young people, call sinners to repentance, to turn from sins and to turn to him. How good it was that this was one of the reasons why the Lord Jesus came. I came to call sinners to repentance. But in the second scripture, we learn that the Lord Jesus not only came to call men, but the Lord Jesus was active in seeking men and women. When he uses the term the Son of Man, he's referring to himself. It's a title of the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus says, for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Now proceed, immediately preceding these words, you would read the story of a man called Zacchaeus, and the Lord Jesus was going to Jericho, and Zacchaeus, who was a small man, wanted to see the Lord Jesus, and yet because of the crowds, he felt he could not get a good view of the Lord Jesus, so he ran and climbed up a sycamore tree, waiting for the Lord Jesus to pass by. And so you might say he was seeking to see Jesus. That's the language of the text, and he sought to see Jesus. But what he did not realize was that the Lord Jesus had come to Jericho to seek him. How amazing that was. You might say, why would the Lord Jesus go to Jericho? He came to Jericho to seek Zacchaeus. And the Lord Jesus stopped at the very tree and looked up into that tree, and he did something that must have absolutely dumbfounded Zacchaeus. He used Zacchaeus's own name. The Lord Jesus knew Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus wanted to see the Lord Jesus, but the Lord Jesus said, Zacchaeus. He called him by name. And I want to say that when the Lord Jesus calls us, it's a personal call. It's a message that is for each of us, no matter how young or old we might be. And as it were, he calls us by name. Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. You see the, the incident that we j- we would read of in the opening verses of the, of the chapter nineteen of Luke's Gospel, it was the Son of Man coming to seek and to save that which was lost. He hadn't come to seek an object. He hadn't come to seek, uh, uh, silver or gold or anything like that that was lost. He had come to seek a man that was lost, or a woman that was lost, or a boy that was lost, or a girl that was lost. We are the people that were lost, or maybe are lost if we do not know the Lord Jesus as our saviour, and that was the reason he'd come. He says, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. And you might say this evening, in what sense am I lost? In what sense am I lost? Well, we are certainly in our sins lost to God. Lost to the enjoyment of God's presence, lost to God in terms of usefulness. We're not what we ought to be as far as God is concerned, and God regards us as those who are lost. And yet God has taken the initiative. In his wondrous love and grace, he has sent the Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus is willingly come, willingly come to save, to seek and to save those that are lost, those that know themselves to be lost. And here is this man, Zacchaeus, seeking to see Jesus, and perhaps then not realizing that there was a man, this very Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who had come to Jericho with the purpose of seeking him. Can I say that teaches us about the great interest and the great concern that the Lord Jesus has for every one of us. Imagine leaving heaven to come to the world in order to seek and save that which was lost. Well, what did he need to do to save a man like Zacchaeus? Well, you see, it was necessary. We've spoken of the cross. That's why the, the death of the Lord Jesus is essential. Because of God, of who God is, because of God's nature, God's character. God cannot just ignore sin. God cannot simply sweep it under the carpet. God must deal with it. God must judge it. And that's what happened at the, at the cross of Calvary. God judged sin. And the Lord Jesus became answerable to God on account of sin and sins. He suffered for sins. His soul was made an offering for sin. And the reason he went through all of that and died that we might live was in order that he might save those that were lost. And so he says, this is the reason I've come. This is the reason why I'm here, he would say to us really in verse number nine, verse ten, to seek and save that which was lost. I wonder tonight, if you haven't trusted in the Lord Jesus, whether you have come to learn that you're amongst the sinners whom the Lord Jesus calls to repentance in Luke chapter five. And you're amongst those that are lost, and yet there is a Savior that is seeking you, and a Savior is able to rescue you. He's able to save you. Rescue you from eternal judgment. Save you. He is able to save, but he saves those that believe on him, that call on him. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Just like Peter did when he was beginning to sink in the sea, he called out Lord, save me. That was a call of faith. He didn't call to his fellow disciples, he called to the Lord Jesus because he realized and he believed that the Lord Jesus could save him. And he just said, Lord, save me. That was a call of faith. And that's what, that's what God wants to hear from you. He wants you to call upon the Lord to save you. You have to repent. You need to turn from your sins and confess them to God and call upon the Lord Jesus, realizing that when he died on the cross, he died for you. That you're able to say, like Paul was able to say in Galatians two, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That's the essence of it. Paul had realized that the reason for Calvary was him. The Son of God have loved me and gave himself for me. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Now, when we come to John chapter ten, we learn about another aspect of the gospel message. In order for you and I to enjoy God, to know God, to one day be in heaven with the Lord Jesus, God has to deal with our sins. We need to have our sins taken away. We need to be forgiven. We need to be made right with God. Now, really, the first, I suppose the first two statements that we've considered this evening have really dealt with that. The Lord Jesus calls us to repent of our sins. He's able to save us. That's why his name is Jesus. They shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. But you see, God does not leave us with a vacuum. The gospel message, yes, it calls upon us to turn from sins and a life of sin, but God gives us another life. He gives us eternal life. And this is what the Lord Jesus is speaking of here. He speaks, he says this, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. The life of the believer in the Lord Jesus is not an impoverished kind of life. It's a full life. And you say, how is that? How is it full and satisfying? How is it full and satisfying if I have to give up the sins I maybe have lived with all my life until this point? Because eternal life brings me as an individual into a living relationship with God. The Lord Jesus in John chapter seventeen expressed it like this: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. And the life that the Lord Jesus came to give is a life that brings me back into fellowship, communion with the God of heaven, that not only we know him as the God of heaven, but know him as our Father, that we're children and sons in his family, that we come to know the Lord Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We own him as such. And we're able to get to know the very God who created the universe. Not in some kind of abstract, theoretical way, but a God that we can prove daily by trusting in him. Daily trusting. The life of faith of a Christian is not just one act of faith at the beginning, it's a life of faith, a life of trust, a life of accepting what we learn in the Word of God, and that is the life that is abundant life. And it's a life that will not stop, that will not end if we die here. It's the very life that we shall enjoy in heaven. He says, I am come that they might have life. Perhaps I'm speaking to somebody this evening, and you are dissatisfied with life. You have found that the word of God is true when it speaks of the fact that the pleasures of sin are for a season, they are temporary, they're not satisfying, and they cannot conceivably satisfy. Man has been created to have relationships with God, but that relationship has been broken because of sin. And what God wants is to bring you back to himself. He wants you to be reconciled to himself in the language of the word of God, and he's willing to give you eternal life as a gift. For the wages of sin is death, the Paul declares in Romans, uh, chapter six. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. He came to give life. I want to ask you this evening, do you have eternal life? I'm sure every Christian, every believer in this room would commend it to you. It is abundant life. To know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. You know, we live in a world that is marked by shallowness, superficial nature of so much of it. But there are depths in God that we cannot exhaust. They can net- yeah, there is, there is this simple fact that you could learn something fresh every day of your life about the Lord Jesus, and you can never exhaust him. We commend him to you, the very Son of God, the one in whom this life is found. When the Lord Jesus came into the world, he came into a world of darkness. And this is really related, I suppose, to what we've just been saying, because that darkness came about because of man's ignorance of God. Men did not know God. They were in darkness. But the Lord Jesus said, when he spoke in John chapter twelve and verse forty six, he says, I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness. Now, none of us like to be in the dark, in the sense that we don't like to think there are things we do not know. You feel hurt if there are things others know and you don't, and you're in the dark over something. God doesn't want you in the dark. God wants you in the light. And the Lord Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. He says, I'm come a light into the world. But the sad thing in John chapter twelve, we learn is that many preferred the darkness. They wanted the darkness. And they wanted the darkness because what the Lord Jesus did as that light shot out was it exposed their sin, exposed their uncleanness, exposed their evil. And we learn in John chapter three that men love darkness rather than light because his deeds, their deeds were evil. And so the Lord Jesus expresses again a reason why he came. I am come, a light into the world. But the Lord Jesus has gone. He did come. He died, he rose again, and after forty days he ascended back to his father, and his father said to him, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. And he's gone. But he says, I'm going to come again. And I want to remind all present that the Lord Jesus has given a promise, a promise to come. He says, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. Who is he speaking to? He's speaking to his disciples. He's speaking to men who believed in him, who've been called and have responded to his message, that have repented, that have been saved, that have received the gift of eternal life. And he says, I'm going to come again, and I'm going to receive you. And I'm going to receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. The Lord Jesus gives the promise of heaven, of the Father's house, of a place that he's prepared. He says, I'm going to come, and I'm going to come to receive you. I wonder if you have that. I wonder if this is a promise that you believe. I wonder if you're amongst those disciples of whom the Lord Jesus is speaking in John chapter fourteen. Well, what I would say to you if you're not, is I th- I I would desire, and we would all desire, that you listen to the Lord's exhortation, his appeal. Believe in God, believe also in me. If that was to sum up the gospel and what God wants from us, it's this, the Lord Jesus saying, believe also in me. That's what brings us into the blessing of salvation. It is believing in him, trusting in him, receiving him by faith. I would like to bring this little message to a close with these words. Believe. The words of the Lord Jesus, believe also in me. I trust that you will consider the reason why the Lord Jesus came. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. For some of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness. So we pray. Our God and Father, we thank thee again for thy word, and we thank thee for the Lord Jesus who has come. We bless thee that he was willing to not only leave the splendor of heaven, but he was willing to die for us upon the cross, to shed his blood, that we might be forgiven. We thank thee, O God, that now he is risen. We bless thee for the triumph of resurrection, and thank thee there is a living savior at thy right hand who still calls, calls sinners to repentance. And yet, our Father, we thank thee that we await the fulfillment of his promise, his promise to come, his promise to receive us to himself. We pray that every soul in this meeting is ready for that, that they are prepared for the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ. Part us now with thy blessing, we ask of thee in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.