Sermon – “God is my Salvation”

12 And in that day you will say: “O Lord, I will praise You; Though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me. 2 Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’ ” 3 Therefore with joy you will draw water From the wells of salvation. 4 And in that day you will say: “Praise the Lord, call upon His name; Declare His deeds among the peoples, Make mention that His name is exalted. 5 Sing to the Lord, For He has done excellent things; This is known in all the earth. 6 Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, For great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst!”

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 9 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many [f]offenses resulted in justification. 17 For if by the one man’s [g]offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)

10 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once [a]purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. 5 Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me. 6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. 7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come— In the volume of the book it is written of Me— To do Your will, O God.’ ” 8 Previously saying, “Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the law), 9 then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, [b]O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second. 10 By that will we have been [c]sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

All right let us go to Lord in prayer Heavenly Father we do thank you and praise you for your presence not only in this place but in our hearts and our lives by that we thank you that your spirit dwells within us that you speak to us and thank you for those times to speak through us Father to share your love and your mercy with others and father may your spirit to speak through your servant today but more than that father may we be faithful to speak of your love and your mercy in your kindness each and every day of the week not just on the Sabbath but father may every day we be vessels of your light of your mercy sharing with other people Father nor did they may learn to know you and just to understand your grace and father again we just pray your spirits presence here and just help us to receive what you have forced today for Your glory in Jesus’ name amen today my message the title God is my salvation God is He is our salvation and I’m just so thankful for that and I pray that your hearts are thankful for that also Isaiah twelve versus one through six and in that day you will say oh Lord I praise you though you were angry with me your anger is turned away and you comfort me Behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid for you A The Lord is my strength and song he also has become my salvation therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation and in that day you will say Praise the Lord call upon His name declare his deeds among the peoples make mention that his name is exalted sing to the Lord for He has done excellent things this is known in all the earth cry out and shout Oh and habitants of Zion for great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst Amen he got out his blessings to the here and in the reading of His Holy Word God is my salvation the word salvation in the Greek they say is a has a much broader meaning or term than English meaning I’m salvation the Greek word is so terrible and it can mean restoration to a state of safety so if one were in a place of harm or. Liken it to a Appeal W. say there was a prisoner of war and his had been held captive for a number of years and then somehow the US at the SEAL team in there in a rescue dept person and they brought him out of that place where they’ve been tortured and beaten for so many years they bring them out to a place of safety so that SEAL team was their salvation literally saving their lives most likely or to a place of soundness and health a place of wellbeing a preservation from danger or destruction. That’s what salvation means in the Greek William Barclay and defining salvation in terms of the liberals and preservation uses the illustration of a man safe return to his own home or his own country after an absence or a journey and he says it can mean a guarantee of safety or security against danger so that is what salvation means in the Greek some of the English terms for salvation is the act of preserving or the state of being preserved from harm so it’s really the same thing being saved or protected from harm or delivered from some dire situation so that’s what salvation means to be delivered from a place we don’t want to be the religious meaning of it from Britannica means the deliverance of humankind from such fundamental of the negative or disabling conditions as suffering and evil and death saving us from death in the liver Nuss to eternal life that is our great salvation a man. First three said that it is with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation so when I think of the wells a salvation I think of abundance the abundance of God’s salvation the sufficiency of God’s salvation you know there are so many people in the world today that think that their sins are just so great my sins are just so great I just can’t fathom that God can forgive me and I say that because Karen’s father who passed away a number of years ago the most sure how many years ago it’s been but how many and no five he did not live for the Lord through his life and you know I’m going to back step just a minute you know some people will think whenever someone gets serious terminal illness that is such a curse you know whether it be cancer or lung disease or kidney disease or liver disease or whatever some people will look down Think what a curse that they you know they’ve got this disease and they’re going to die but they don’t look at the point that OK this person might have a year or two years or six months or whatever to think about eternity to think about death because it makes it real that they know I’m going to die and know I’m going to die in six months or a year or whatever it may be and it gives them time to search. To search for the true meaning of life and search for How can I have eternal life and her father struggled with the fact he says I’ve done so many things in my life that I shouldn’t have done I have not lived a good life I’m not treated my family the way I should have not done this I’ve not done that it was hard for him the grass the God’s salvation is sufficient that it is abundant no matter how bad our sins have been his grace is sufficient it the well is abundant it is full as I was having a discussion with that person the other day at work I see says well what about that murder they don’t death row at the last minute says I repent of my sins she says that’s just not fair that’s just not fair I’m like it is fair it is fair because that’s our loving God That’s how gracious our God is who are we to say that that’s not fair in the truth is only God knows if it’s sincere That’s the point some may speak the words but it may not be true but God knows whether our words and our thoughts are true so if fact convicted murderer on death row for forty years all the sudden he repents or she repents God is able to forgive them His grace is sufficient they can go to the wells of his of Asian and find forgiveness it doesn’t matter if you follow him from the first hour of your life or just the eleventh hour His grace is sufficient we have all sinned we have also been opposed short the truth my friends is the only sin that God cannot forgive is the sin of refusing to turn to Him and accept his forgiveness to put in other ways the sin of unbelief blasphemy to deny him but we also must remember faith and believing involves something else and that’s repentance so if one truly believes they’re going to repent of their sins and are going to go and sin no more as Jesus often said I found an illustration about what it means to not believe. I suppose you can put yourself in these shoes suppose you were very poor suppose you were dirt poor I don’t know where that term ever came from dirt poor suppose you know I don’t know I don’t know they’re poor means you’re so poor that you had dirt for floors in your house or maybe you were so dirty you didn’t have money for soap I don’t know but suppose you were dirt poor so you know what I mean and someone left you a very large sum of money in their will and the Laurier wrote you a letter and told you all about this money how would you have been left this money by this person but what if you decided it’s all a big joke and you threw that letter in the waste basket would you then be rich would you be rich if you threw the letter in a waste basket nod your head one where the other please no no you wouldn’t be rich it’s there has been will to you but you’re not rich why because you didn’t believe it you didn’t go in receive that gift that was left to you so it’s not actually yours until you accept it right that person had done everything possible to make you believe what you threw it your unbelief is what kept you poor. Your unbelief is what keeps you from salvation because you refused to receive that gift God has done everything possible to bring you to forgiveness to bring you to his great salvation he did it by sending His own Son Jesus Christ into the world to become the final and complete sacrifice for our sins but many refuse to believe his free gift some people think that’s a big joke but brothers and sisters it’s not a big joke it is real the abundance of Jesus salvation is revealed in his conversation with the woman at the well in John four verses seven through fourteen. A woman of some area came to draw water and Jesus said to her Give me a drink His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food than a woman a Samarian said to him How is it that you being a Jew ask a drink from me a Samaritan woman for Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans Jesus answered and said to her if you knew the gift of God the gift of God and who it is who says to you give me a drink you would have asked him and he would have given you living water the woman said then sir you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep Where then do you get that living water Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock Jesus answered and said to her whoever drinks of this water will thirst again and whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into ever lasting life it is an abundant fountain to springs up into ever lasting like the water that he shall give in Romans five sixteen and seventeen says and the gift is not like that which came to the one who sin for the judgment which came from one offense resulted in combination but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification for if by one man’s offense death rang through the one much more those who received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness which reign in life through the one Jesus Christ amen there’s abundant give and I have to back up and say shared that story of my father and all praise the Lord he did believe before he passed away I’m sorry I forgot to add that part he did he understood it received it it took a lot of talking but he did understand and received it and believed in Jesus Christ the natural well that that woman had to draw water from represents the natural water the quints quinces or thirst in the natural in the work that it takes to draw water from the well these kids have probably never seen a natural well where you had to go and lower the bucket down in to bring water up happy and well. I can remember when we was a kid it wasn’t one with the bucket but there used to be an old house up near where we waited on the bus that was nobody live there was a band in there was one of them old crank jobs that you had the courage can crank in crank to get the bring the water out it required a lot of work a lot of work to get the water up and not imagine with that all buckets you had to lower down there that if there was water and drag it back up out of that well and imagine if you had a whole herd of livestock that you have the water a lot of work to receive that water to quench that thirst right a lot of work is Qana resembles the old testament sacrificial system it was a never ending cycle you know that every day they had to go back to that well to get water well the sacrificial sacrificial system was the same way every year every year they come back they come back every year and it was never meant to bring forgiveness of sins it was the remind the people of their sins so every year they came but Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient and was abundant we don’t have to go back every year it was once and for all Hebrews ten vs one hundred ten says for the law having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things can never with these same sacrifices which they offered continually year by year make those who produce who approach perfect for then they would not have to not have ceased to be offered for their worshippers once purified would have had no more conscious of sin consciousness of sin more pause that’s where we should be when we accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we should have no more consciousness of sin they’re gone they’re forgiven forgotten. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins therefore when he came into the world he said sacrifice and offering you did not desire but a body you have prepared for me and burnt offerings and sacrifices for sins you have no pleasure then I said Behold I have come in the volume of the book it is written to me to do your will of God previously saying sacrifice and offering burnt offering and offerings for sin you did not desire nor had pleasure in them which are offered according to the law then he said Behold I have come to do your will of God He takes away the first that he may establish the second by that by that Will we have been sanctified to the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all how do you verse two from our past you know in Isaiah said Behold God is myself ation I will trust and not be afraid do you trust and are you not afraid. We can trust and live without fear because we already know what the outcome will be brothers and sisters I’ve looked in the back of the book right have you we know what the outcome is going to be there was a pastor named Joseph A Still he shared this story about knowing the outcome he said it was in one thousand eight hundred America’s economy was in the ditch the Cold War was in its fury Russia seemed bigger more powerful than us and Americans entertained the world limping as that year in one nine hundred eighty in Lake Placid he says that he remembers home coming home from church one Sunday afternoon in America was playing the Russians in hockey he said it was the end of the first period and he said we were actually beating the Russians and all the sudden he realized his stomach was in a knot his knuckles were white and he had this great anxiety about the game all through the second period so we were ahead going into the third period he was sure he knew what would happen that the Russians would score five goals at the end of the game and beat us and we would again be embarrassed he says but we actually won he says it would sets a big deal that the national networks played it again. He said he and his wife watched the whole thing again Sunday night only this time he realized that he didn’t have nots in his stomach he leaned back on the couch propped these feet up in a relaxed What made a difference he knew the outcome he knew the outcome of the game so he could relax when we have faith that God is working for our eternal good we can have peace we can trust we can relax when it comes to knowing our salvation is in him because we know that he is our strength that he is our salvation you know many pastors have preach the message that salvation is a gift I’ve preached it many times myself as a matter of fact I had just said it it is a gift it cannot be earned you cannot buy yourself a sion. But the truth is our salvation has come at a great price first Peter two twenty four twenty five says for him who Himself Jesus bore our sins in His own body on the tree that we having died his sins might live for righteousness by whose stripes your healed for you were like sheep going to stray but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls it may be a free gift but it cost somebody dearly it cost Jesus Christ the Son of God his life it cost heaven because he had he left his throne and glory and came to earth because the angels because they had to watch the Son of God come and give his life because the disciples because they had to watch the one thing followed for three years they hung on that cruel cross but it cost Jesus most of all because he was willing to die in your place in my place and he died for the sins of the whole world he endured the beatings on our behalf he endured the strikes he endured a crown of thorns it was placed upon his head he endured his hair being yanked out of his beard he endured the nails being driven into his hands and feet he endured to ridicule the people yes he said his blood. On our behalf he took our sins upon his own body as a scripture reveals we have salvation because God loves us and because his only son was willing to die for us there are some who believe that God Salvation is only for the elect but the Word declares that his salvation is for all men it is God’s desire that all men would come to the saving knowledge of his son First him at the two three and four says for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth that’s God’s true desire that all men if it were only for the elect wouldn’t Jesus have said come into me all the elect and I will give you rest but that’s not what he said we all know the most famous verse that everyone can remember for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever It doesn’t say so that the elect can believe in him so whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life but another truth is that if someone dies in their sins it’s because of their own stubbornness or pride to believe in Jesus Christ because they have refuse Jesus Christ as a Son of God in the savior of the world so they die in their sins it’s not God The Condemned and sister own stubbornness John three eighteen through twenty one says He who believes in him is not condemn let that sink in he who believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God the kids one of the questions this morning was Jesus asked of the cycles I get back in scripture a minute Jesus asked the disciples who do the who do men say that I am. So the disciples who have been out into the community in the towns you know they’re here and people talking about who Jesus is they said well some say that you were John the Baptist Some say you were lodges some say one of the prophets but Jesus says to the disciples but who do you say that I am and Simon Peter spoke up You are the Christ the Son of the Living God brothers and sisters that’s what we must believe that he is the Christ the Son of the Living God He who believes in Jesus Christ is not going down but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God and this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil for everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to light this is deeds to be exposed but he does a true thing comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God come to the wells of God salvation because his well was abundant His grace is sufficient he is willing to forgive all who come in faith all who believe and trust in him yesterday as I was again talking with that person. One of the see has so many questions but one of them he says you know what’s the purpose of this life what is our purpose for even being here just every day just keep doing the same thing over and over again just get up and you come the work you go home go up next day because what is really what is the purpose why I can tell you what our purpose is to share the love of God. To share the love of God Our purpose is to have a relationship with God That’s what our purpose here is God created the earth placed men in it gave us dominion over it but that we would have relationship with him that we walk with him communicate with him love him as he loved us our purpose was to enjoy what he created. But our purpose church is also to declare his deeds among the people make mention that his name is exalted That’s our purpose and we can be in that same situation we have to get up every day and do the same thing go to work and come home and we and we go to bed we get up to say it the next day we go to work and we come home and we do we go to bed we can be in that same situation but when we have the love in the Peace of God in our hearts even that can be a joy because we’re thankful because we’re grateful for what he has done and we’re grateful for the opportunity to tell others about his love and His mercy Amen so let’s go forth and declare his deeds among the nations and among our neighborhoods declare that God’s well is deep in his salvation is sufficient for all of our sins no matter how great they are a man a man or.