Wednesday Day 4:

“ “Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people; for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior . . .”

You know what will make this really good news for you this morning? It will be good news of great joy if you feel like you need a Savior. If you are content without him, if you don’t feel like you need him, then he is not your Savior.

Or if you feel like you need him, but only as a Savior from a bad relationship, or from a financial problem, or from sickness, but not from sin, then he is not your Savior.

The angel said to Joseph in Matthew 1:21, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” We take him as Savior from sins or we do not take him at all.

But we must be even more careful in the way we say it. For there are many who want Jesus as Savior from the penalty of their sins but not as a Savior from their sins. They want to be saved from the consequences of sin, but not from the corruption of sin. But if you don’t want Jesus to save you from the pleasures of sin, and give you a new and deeper set of pleasures, then you don’t have Jesus as your Savior.

Jesus came into the world to destroy the works of the devil John says (1 John 3:8), namely, sins. If you try to take him only as sin-forgiver and not as sin-destroyer, you don’t take him at all.” Passage from John Piper, Sermon: Three Meditations on the Messiah, December 11, 1988. www. Desiringgod.org