ATTRIBUTES—-
A SENT SAVIOR
WHO IS GOD? A SENT SAVIOR
It’s easy to grow jaded from hearing “I love you” and then seeing the sentiment fall flat when actions don’t back it up. But real love goes beyond cheap talk. It shows itself by its genuine acts. Love that is put into action is dynamic and grabs our attention.
God backs up His words with sacrificial action. God is defined by many attributes in the Bible, but the greatest expression of who He is is His decision to sacrifice one of the dearest things to Him—His Son—for us. God knew we needed a perfect Savior to make right our many, many wrongs. So “God sent his Son . . . to save” (John 3:17). God knows our problem: We have a condition called sin that separates us from Him. This problem will have to be judged when we die. And each of us is like a criminal who has done deep wrong and needs a just punishment to pay for it.
But God has put His plan of love into action by sending His precious Son, Jesus, to pay for our sins. When Jesus obeyed God the Father, even though it required His death on our behalf, He showed us that there was no limit to the extent He would go to bring men, women, and children back to Himself. God doesn’t just say, “I love you.” He says, “I died for you.” Come receive His gift of forgiveness. This is love backed by not just words but an obedient, loving Savior who gave up His life to save us.Watch & Listen: Jesus Words as “The Way”
WHO AM I? IN NEED OF A SAVIOR
Pride is a killer because it blinds us to our neediness. Pride says, “I don’t need help!”
No doubt, everyone has amazing qualities—that is how God created every human being. But each of us is also deeply sinful. There are kind men who become angry drunks in an instant. Sweet friends who become greedy and damage relationships. People who love their families well but turn around and say horrible things to belittle other people. It is natural to want to prop up our good attributes, but it’s often hard to swallow the reality that we are needy and have a problem at our core.
God doesn’t compare us to other humans because the standard of perfection in His eyes is not other people. (Everyone is imperfect, so what kind of standard would that be?) His standard is His perfect Son—the only one without any sinful blemish—and we all fall short of His perfection. It is only when we let down our defenses in humility that we can hear God speak into both the bad news about ourselves—our sin and failure—and the good news He gives us in Christ Jesus: God sent His Son not to judge but to save (John 3:17).
Admitting our need for Him to forgive us is the ultimate expression to God that we understand that He is perfect and we are not. Jesus explains, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent” (Luke 5:31-32). The prideful who see no need for forgiveness from God will remain in their need. They will be judged for how well they lived their lives in comparison to God’s perfect Son, which will result in only failure. When someone says, “I don’t need Jesus’ gift of forgiveness,” they are saying, in essence, “My life is good enough to be judged on its own.” This is a prideful rejection of God’s incredible gift to us—His own Son!
The Good News is at its core a gift that has been given by Jesus, and it is meant to be received. Jesus died for us to give us His perfection so that we can be seen by God the Father as perfect forever. Receiving this gift starts with whether you can admit your need for it. How do you see yourself? Do you think you’re all good, or do you know that you’re needy for Christ’s gift of forgiveness?
WHAT DO I DO? BELIEVE AND RECEIVE
To imagine what sin is like, think about trying to swim with a weight tied around your neck that is so heavy you could never lift it. Or picture a stain on your soul that could never be washed out, no matter how hard you scrub. Sin is a mark of death. It has many destructive effects on us, our relationships, and our communities. It infects everything, and it hardens our hearts to admitting we need God’s help. Ultimately, it separates us from the loving God who created us. Most practically defined, sin is missing the mark of perfection. Does that describe your life? All of us would love to be perfect, but it never happens! Even the good we do could be exposed for being done with wrong motives much of the time.
Whatever metaphor you want to use to understand sin, God makes it very clear what the remedy is. He calls it the gospel. That word means “good news.” John 3:16 is the most popular verse in the world; everyone has seen it somewhere. It says, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” This is the good news for everyone who wants to be made right and set free from the wrong that lives in us. It’s an offer for everyone who hears and understands why Jesus came: Believe in Jesus, and in exchange, you can receive forgiveness from your sin and the consequence that comes with it—an eternity separated from the perfect, holy, loving God.
Wait—this seems too good to be true! God just wants me to believe? What does that look like? True belief means having true trust in God and understanding that Jesus Christ is our only hope for salvation from our sins. The genuine kind of belief God wants from us also means having a heart that is humble and desires to turn away from the sin that separates us from Him. He doesn’t want lip service or the fake, surface-level belief that our modern culture often displays—believing one thing one day and another the next. He wants people who will cry out to Him for salvation for today and for every day moving forward. It is a weighty, committed, true belief that He desires; this is the true belief in Jesus Christ that brings forgiveness for sins. Paul says it this way in his letter to the Romans: “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved” (Romans 10:9-10).