"Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…”
1 Timothy 1:15
It’s time for our Christmas Message. What should it be about? Well, who’s heard of a TV show called ‘Family Fortunes’? Many of us have. It’s being going for over forty years. It has had several hosts over that time, but I will always associate it with Les Dennis - Les saying, ‘we surveyed 100 people…’ Because that was it - 100 people were asked a question and their answers were then compiled together in order of popularity. The aim of the game was to guess the most popular answer, followed by the other answers given. For example, a question might be, ‘Name a form of transport?’ So… can anyone name a form of transport? There are several answers. If we ‘surveyed 100 people’ we can see how some of the answers would be duplicated, and how some of the answers would be more popular than the others. For example, ‘Santa’s Sleigh’ would be a legitimate answer, but I doubt it would be as popular as ‘car’ or ‘bicycle’.
One of the questions asked on the programme was ‘name something you associate with Christmas’’. Now, I’m relying on an online survey to get an idea of what people would have chosen. ‘Santa’ was right up there in spot number 2! He was only just pipped to the post by ‘Christmas Tree’ which got chosen 27% of the time. These two answers are followed by ‘Snow’ and ‘Presents’, both getting around 10% each. So, is my Christmas message about any of these? Actually, it’s about an answer that was further down the list of responses. Believe it, or not, ‘Jesus’ was named as something associated with Christmas, only 4% of the time. If that survey accurately reflects society then only 1 out of every 25 people questioned would give ‘Jesus’ as their answer. Which is interesting because which of those other things are actually essential for us to have Christmas? We can certainly have Christmas without snow. My brother-in-law lives in Brisbane, Australia. If he cancelled Christmas because there was no snow, his family would get very upset every year!
We can have Christmas without a tree. We don’t have to receive presents to have a Christmas. We could even have Christmas without Santa. Yes, it would then be left to parents to sort out presents for their children, which would be hugely stressful but, if Santa wasn’t available, it could be done! But, if there was no Jesus, there would be no Christmas. There would never have been a first Christmas and, consequently, no subsequent Christmases. It’s all in the name. The first syllable of ‘Christmas’, is ‘Christ’. It’s a festival which begins with ‘Christ’. As a church, we have recently been considering this word, ‘Christ’.
You may or may not know that the Bible is split into two sections called the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament is quite a bit larger than the New. It contains many things, including poetry and wise instructions. It has the lengthy history of the descendants of a man called ‘Israel’, which covers a period of well over a thousand years. But, running continually through all these writings is a thread. That thread is God, and what God has promised.
There are some really sad things in the Old Testament record. It is, at times, a story of trouble and disappointment. But that is how human life often is. We know this. Yes, we may have successes – we may have times of triumph and joy – but life can be hard – life can be very disappointing at times. And, how much more so, when human life and our interactions are viewed from God’s higher perspective. He sees the darkness and sadness of life. That is what is being commented on in the Old Testament record – it is a dark tapestry. But, this thread of God’s promise that runs through it, is like a golden thread. God is constantly promising that he is going to send someone to rescue people from the consequence of their failure. It is someone who has been chosen for this role – someone who has been appointed and ‘anointed’ – specially chosen for the task.
The New Testament starts at the time of the birth of Jesus, which isn’t a coincidence. Because the New Testament tells us that Jesus is the person that God promised he was sending, throughout that ‘Old’ record. God the Father has sent God the Son into our world just as he promised he would. Jesus is that anointed person. And that is why he is often referred to as Jesus ‘Christ’, or ‘Christ’ Jesus. Because ‘Christ’ means something.
The New Testament was originally written in the Greek language of the day. In that original text we have a word - ‘Christos’. It means ‘anointed one’. We have shortened it into what is now the English word ‘Christ’. It is like a title given to Jesus. It identifies Jesus as being the person who God had previously promised to send. It appears over and over again in the New Testament - 469 times in fact. Because the Bible is all about Christ. And it’s not just the bible that is all about Christ. We also use this word ‘Christ’ to describe the festival that we are about to enjoy. As Noddy Holder once famously shouted, ‘It’s Christmas’! It is Christ-Mass. So easily, we associate it with presents, family time, turkey and trimmings, but actually – originally – it was about Christ Jesus.
So, if in reality the number one thing originally associated with Christmas was Christ, this throws up a further question and demands a further answer. Why? - Why would God promise to send his Son into our world of failure? Why did Jesus come?
Well, if ‘we surveyed 100 people’, we may get a number of answers, some more popular than others. But the Bible’s answer is found in these words in 1 Timothy 1:15, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’.
These words were written by a man called Paul who was a Christian. Had he always been a Christian? No, he hadn’t. He had been anything but. In fact, he hated Christians and their message about Jesus. They had been going round his neighbourhood telling people that Jesus was God’s promised Son. They were telling people that Jesus was the only way (see Acts 4:12) that people could have a relationship with God. Paul hated this message. He believed that he had a relationship with God without needing the involvement of Jesus. Paul hated Christians so much that he made it his life’s work to mock them, and persecute them. He had imprisoned some of them. When others died for what they believed, and Paul saw this, he actually approved of it – he thought it was all hunky-dory (see Acts 8:1). He wasn’t very nice. Sin - which is a word the Bible uses to describe our shortcomings and failures – sin, had really misshapen his life, and the worst of it all was that he just didn’t realise. Until the day when it all changed, when he ‘woke’ to how wrong he was. That day he saw himself exactly as God saw him. That day he realised how far adrift he actually was from God. He asked a question, ‘What shall I do?’ (Acts 22:10). Because of his sin – the misshapen nature of his life - he thought that God was out of reach. How could such a God hater reach out to God and be forgiven?
Recently, I heard about a Nasa space mission scheduled for 2023. A spacecraft is to be launched towards an asteroid which sits in the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. The asteroid is called ‘16 Psyche’. It is about 140 miles wide. What is so important about this asteroid? Well, it is thought to contain a core of iron, nickel and gold worth £10,000 quadrillion. Now, just in case some people are thinking, ‘what is a quadrillion – I’ve never looked at my Barclays app and seen that figure before’, I’ll put it another way. £10,000 quadrillion is enough money to make a billionaire of every person on this planet! That sounds like good news! Except it isn’t. It is so far away from Earth that the spacecraft won’t get there for 6 years. Even when it does, it has no chance of bringing the asteroid back. And if it could miraculously find a way to tow it back across the solar system, we know what the consequence would be. Imagine, a 140 mile wide rock heading for Planet Earth. We’d all be destroyed. What is the real value of 16 Psyche? Nothing - it’s out of reach.
But the message of Christmas is so different – it really is good news! That is what Paul found when his life was turned around – when he had a change of heart. Why? Well the bible record tells us. It teaches us that relationship with God was once impossible because of us. God was out of reach. God is holy. We are not. We are sinners. But, as Paul discovered, and later wrote about to his fellow Christian friend, called Timothy, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. Jesus was born in Bethlehem to put things right. Jesus Christ would live the perfect life that God demanded, but which we, ourselves, could never live. Jesus would be put to death on a cross and suffer the punishment we deserved. He would rise again from the dead in victory over sin, having destroyed that great barrier that stood between us and God. Now God is within reach.
So, another question - In reach of who? Well, Paul in writing these words, tells us. He describes his previous way of life in his letter to Timothy. He confesses all his God-hating, God-rejecting ways. He conducts his own survey. He says, in effect, if I lined up, not just 100 people, but all the people in this world, who would be the worst? ‘Me’, he says. What an example for us this is! If he could be saved by Jesus, then who couldn’t be. If someone with Paul’s catalogue of errors could be forgiven, then who couldn’t? Paul says, in 1 Timothy 1:16, ‘I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.’
That’s all it takes – belief. When Paul asked that question, ‘What shall I do?’, he was quickly shown the answer. Christians came in and told him the truth. All it takes is for a person to believe that Christ has saved them, and it is so, regardless of what they have previously done. It is true for everyone who will.
In our text there are some words which precede the wonderful truth that, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’. They are these words – ‘Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance’. What does Paul mean? A ‘saying that deserves full acceptance’ means ‘everyone should accept it’ (see NLT). Paul is actually doing his best Les Dennis impression! It ‘deserves full acceptance’ is like him saying, ‘if I surveyed 100 people they should all give me the same answer.’ Name why ‘Christ Jesus came into the world’? ‘To save sinners’. It’s THE answer.
Why do we give gifts at Christmas – who do we give them to? Usually it has a lot to do with love. Why did God give us the extra-ordinary gift of his son, that very first Christmas in Bethlehem? I’ll answer that with the famous Bible words from John 3:16, and then we’ll say ‘amen’
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’
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