All salvation is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ alone. To see Him is to see the very salvation of God, for He is Himself the message from Heaven. Scripture declares that all flesh shall see the salvation of God, revealing that rescue and forgiveness are offered to every person through Christ alone. Without Him there is no life, but with Him there is eternal life, the beginning of a transformation to be completed at His return. At that moment our salvation will have progressed and we shall realize that we have been made like Him.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] My goodness, I was just thinking to myself that this looks heavy-duty, coming up here with this bag full of books. They’re very heavy. And what does that mean for how long? It’s 10, 17, how long a sermon you’re going to have. This one may be good for doing exercises. It’s quite weighty. But it’s not a Bible. This is actually a commentary where I have lots of these books like this which make comments on how to understand the Scriptures. And we need a lot of help in getting to exactly what was intended in what are our Scriptures. And so it’s worth the effort. Now, I’m not going to be reading from here, so breathe easy. I will tell you a little bit, though, of some of the things that are said in the commentaries about the verses that we’re looking at. But we’re in the study of the Gospel of Luke,

[00:01:08] and we’ve come through John the Baptist, who was the last of the set of Old Testament prophets, though he’s written up in the New Testament. But he was prophesied in the Old Testament, and he came and delivered a message that was to prepare God’s people, the Jewish people, for the arrival of their Messiah. And he did that, but the second thing he had to do was introduce that Messiah, Jesus, to the people. And that’s why we’re in Luke in chapter 3. We made a start last week in chapter 3 of Luke about the beginning of the Gospel of Luke. Now, the one thing, though, I don’t want to glide over, but just to mention is what we see in the summation of John the Baptist’s ministry, right there in chapter 3, my first verse that I do want you to have on the screen,

[00:02:07] is a verse that is talking about the fact of the announcement of John the Baptist is summed up, and he finishes, not only with all the little details he’s saying, but he finishes, And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. And if I can get you out of here this morning, having understood how in Jesus there is in his person the very thing that this is talking about, available to be seen by everybody, all flesh was their way of saying it’s not just for a special group of people, not just for the Jewish people, but all flesh, every single person, is the intended receiver of the message that God sent from heaven, wrapped up in not just a set of words, but in a person. And as John the Baptist had the role of not only getting them ready as good Jewish people, by confessing their sins and even being baptised

[00:03:22] to show they were repentant, but also because he wanted to introduce them to this very central personage who is the message, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he sums up and says, All flesh, absolutely everybody shall see the salvation of God. Now, we might be wondering, of course, how is it possible that that generation back then, 2,000 odd years ago, they sure did get to see Jesus walking around, but we don’t because we have some writings about him and there are many people who have no access to those writings. What’s this business of absolutely everybody shall see the salvation of God? The two sides of breaking that down I want to do this morning is the fact that Jesus is the summation of the salvation of God. And to see him is to see the lot, though you may not be taught about it all,

[00:04:38] you may not get all the teachings of the Bible. I could read you some of the commentary. I had in mind to do it, by the way, but because the service has so many things in, and I know I couldn’t get away with that and keep you listening, but Jesus in his very person is the salvation of God. He is not only what the message is about, but he is the message. And to see him and to know him is how you get saved. I wanted to pose the question, is your Christianity, is your religious bent, your worship. We’ve just gone through a very often repeated and very central time of the Lord’s Supper. But Jesus was getting across the same point. He is the salvation. He is the salvation because of what he did, yes. And how he died on the cross for our sins, yes. And how he went into the grave, yes. And how God the Father

[00:05:53] raised him from the dead, yes. But Jesus, actually, he is the salvation. If you have him, you’ve got salvation. If you don’t have him, you ain’t got the salvation. You either have Jesus or you don’t. And the Bible says if any person be in Christ. That one is a new creation. The old creation has been damned by God. Our original forebears of the human race were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. For sin had set in and the sin that set in wasn’t something that was going away from the human race, but every one of us has it within our own persons and we are represented by their loss and they’re getting kicked out of the Garden because that which got them kicked is in you. And the Bible declares, for all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. Did you hear that word glory? Did you hear that word glory?

[00:07:01] It’s what you fall short of. Why that was of interest to me is that we’re studying at the moment about John the Baptist and how he came. And it’s a bit of a speech I went over at one of the other Sundays just previously of how it talked about what you do when a very important person is coming. I don’t know who would be such an illustrative person to me to suggest. I’m not going to say a politician. I don’t think they deserve it. But who is there that we could suggest that if we knew was coming, what would we do? We’d be making sure… Well, the floors are pretty good actually because the church has been well kept. Probably I think we’d fix up some of these seats. I think we’d make the car park. I’d have a special person there making sure it’s not too cramped and sending some cars down there and some there.

[00:08:01] We’d do all sorts of things if there were some exceptionally special person coming. Well, John the Baptist speaks about, as he quotes from the Old Testament in chapter 40 in the book of Isaiah. Let’s put it up on the screen as he quotes about what the Bible prophesied about himself and how there would come. Isaiah gave this prophecy back then, but it’s a prophecy that is coming true by John the Baptist arriving. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her and her warfare is ended. And her iniquity is pardoned. That she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. She’s gone through lots of problems. Israel was back in Jesus’ day and I think you’d have to agree that Israel’s going through some of the same problems today. They don’t all know Jesus in Israel.

[00:09:02] Most of them are not even religious. Some are, the Orthodox ones, but they’re still under the punishment hand of God at this very time. And back then when the prophecy came, they were, and in Jesus’ days, they were under the wrath of God because they didn’t live out what they were meant to do as Jewish people. And the prophet through Isaiah and then picked up by John the Baptist is telling them, make straight the highway of our God. Every valley’s got to be filled up and they don’t have any very difficult times of walking. Fill in the valleys, bring down the mountaintops, make straight the path, make it walkable, get ready for this special person who’s coming and that’s what the prophecy is that John the Baptist quoted as being him doing it. Then it goes on and here’s a bit in verse 5. And it says,

[00:10:06] And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Now where you look at the quote in the New Testament of that, because this was not written in Hebrew, well it was written in Hebrew, there’s a Hebrew version, but then there’s a Greek version called the LXX, and it’s the Greek version that is being copied or is being quoted. And that little word glory comes out somewhat different in John the Baptist’s quote of it. And the scholars who my big thick book would have helped me show you that it’s a scholarly to do this, look for how you translate glory. And the language that it’s from and the context that that word is found in, they come up within our Bibles. I actually brought along my King James Bible because it does this. I’m not going to read that to you either, but where it says, should say glory in the translation,

[00:11:05] the word is salvation. Salvation. And the glory being spoken about is God’s provision for the total loss that our fall, the human race, and our fall into sin and our being kicked out of the garden and our losing contact with God and our discovering even in our best attempts like the Apostle Paul, we still sin. Oh, how we need a salvation. And the word there, glory, is talking about God fixing it totally. The salvation that Jesus came. But you know, the interesting thing is that Jesus is the salvation. And when you see Jesus, you see the salvation. And when you’ve got Jesus, you’ve got the salvation. That is, in fact, what the whole Gospel of Luke is about from beginning to end. You know, the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, have different emphases that they bring to the same message. But it’s interesting

[00:12:17] how some of the other Gospels are rather keen to point out the Jews and the Gentiles. That Jesus came and he spent time with both sets. But Luke is the one Gospel who seems to want to make a point. He just says, everybody! When you go through the Gospel of Luke, Jesus does something and his speeches are for everybody. And his salvation is for everybody. That’s why our verse, put it up again, please, that first one about all flesh. All flesh is an old-fashioned way of saying everybody. All flesh shall see the salvation of God in Jesus. And when you’ve seen Jesus really seen him, when you’ve understood that he is the salvation, all that he is is all that you need. Jesus, without him, you’ve got nothing. With him, you get everything. Jesus is the salvation of God. Now when it says all flesh shall see,

[00:13:34] that’s an interesting addition to the whole idea. What does it mean and it says everybody shall see him. Well in actual fact the Bible tells us that in the development of what God has in his plans for the world it includes the second coming of Christ. In our books of Corinthians and in Thessalonians in the New Testament it speaks about how God has a plan for there to be a moment when the one who came and died on the cross for our sins and paid for us to be forgiven the one who was taken into the tomb and buried and dead. This one the Holy Spirit raised him to life again and when he was raised to life by the way the angels didn’t come to roll the stone away to let Jesus out but when the angels came to roll the stone away Jesus was already gone raised straight through the rock those angels rolled the stone away

[00:14:34] to let humankind look in and see an empty too. One of the elements of the gospel that we have to proclaim is how Jesus not only died for our sins and finished with them so that God can forgive us but that Jesus going into death, he rose from the dead, the other side of death, never to die again. He returned to heaven where he was constituted as King of kings and Lord of lords and this Jesus so crowned as the King of all time and creation is coming back in his kingdom, in his rulership. He’s coming back to this world and that will be when he winds up the entire salvation business that he’s about. When he returns and he is the salvation as he comes and one of the things the Bible says for us as Christians, we’re looking forward to that moment and it says when we see him, we shall be like him. How’s that possible?

[00:15:36] Because when you come to Christ and you find salvation in Jesus, that’s the beginning. He gives you the Holy Spirit who then works on you and gradually changes you across the time. That’s between when you’ve come to know Jesus and get converted to the time that all time finishes as far as God’s program’s concerned. He comes back to the earth and when we see him, we’re going to have the surprise of our lives because what we’ll notice is that we are like him. And in the time in between our coming to Jesus and finding him as the salvation between then and when he comes again, he’s about with his Holy Spirit in us, changing us step by step and moment by moment to be more and more like him. And when he comes and we see him, we shall see him and we have been made like him. Wow.

[00:16:32] I can’t emphasise how much Jesus is the salvation and you haven’t got him yet, some of you. Most of us who come to church, it’s because we have found Jesus that changed everything. That’s why we come. We worship, not because we have to or we want to somehow be made better Christians, but because we love him. Because we know him and ever since we found him, we knew we had it. We’re in the door because without Christ, you’re not saved. With Christ, you’re eternally saved and he’s taken over the progress for you to gradually get to be more and more like him. And when he comes again and you see him, you’re going to be flabbergasted to realise that you are like him. Do you have Jesus? In my young life, I got taught Sunday school. I like Sunday schools. I’m glad our church has a good one. In West Australia,

[00:17:59] they used to give exams in Sunday schools, basically having exams at Sunday school. My mother was very ambitious for her youngest son, that’s me, and she taught me up. And I won prizes and they’d have a big meeting of all those churches, Baptist churches in Perth and they’d hand out the prize and I won it two years in a row. Thanks to my mother. She bribed me with 27 pieces to learn Bible verses. But I did not know Jesus. I was a prize-winning Sunday school success who did not know Jesus. I knew all the teachings. Then came the Billy Graham crusade because my dad was chosen to be in charge of the counselling. The Graham team came early to help him get it all set up. They’d meet in our house. Sometimes I left the door open and I was a nine-year-old who pushed myself in. So enthusiastic for this coming big crusade,

[00:19:15] for these visitors from overseas. I look forward to going and I did with my family every day, every night it was and it finished in a Sunday afternoon. But only through that week did it dawn on me, though I loved it all. Thought I was a Christian. Won prizes. Dad was principal of the college. My mother was someone that we all listened to. But despite all of that, it had never gotten through to me that at those moments I did not yet have Jesus. Because without Jesus, you’ve got nothing. And with Jesus, you have everything. He that has the Son has life. He that doesn’t have the Son of God does not have life. And you can get all the training from the best of homes and from the best of Sunday schools and the most wonderful of a church. You’re in it already, I think. You can get the best of what’s offered

[00:20:33] and have failed to have noticed you haven’t yet got Jesus. And what the Lord wants you to understand is He wants you to find Him. He that has the Son has life. He that does not have the Son of God does not have life. Michelle’s family were not Christians. When I met Michelle, she was a young one. But her family was. And they were not knowing what to think of me. And I remember her mother was a little bit, well, not a little bit, anti-me being friendly with her daughter. But in their house, the mother tried to put up some argument that they were okay because they did have some religious backgrounds. And talking to that mother down the hallway, you had to go out a door, out in the back. But at that moment, somehow God got me to say a Bible verse. It wasn’t in the conversation, but I quoted to her, he that has the Son

[00:21:53] has life. He that doesn’t have the Son, I don’t think I said she, but I just said the general truth. The person that doesn’t have the Son of God does not have life. And I could tell that she was visibly moved as it dawned on her, no Christ, no life. With Christ, you’ve got it all. You’ve got it all. In Jesus, that’s why he is the salvation. That’s why that verse we had at the beginning that John the Baptist said is about the fact that the glory of the Lord is our salvation. It is Jesus. He is the glory of the Lord. He is the salvation. He’s the gift that God gave as John’s gospel says, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. In him was life and to have that life is to have life. When you have Jesus, you’ve got the life. And I’m asking you this morning, do you have Jesus?

[00:23:23] Because he is the glory of God. He is the salvation of God. And if you yield yourself to what he did on the cross by dying for your sins and how he’s been available to be your saviour, the saviour, when you have Jesus as your own personal saviour, you have got it all. You might be at the beginning of a Christian life about which you’ve got a lot to learn. That’s true. You might need to have a lot of communion services to gradually realise that there is a fellowship with Christ that it’s all about. You might need to be working in the church, joining in the fellowship that God might teach you and help you get it sorted through yes there’s progress, it’s called sanctification that happens the other side of being converted to Jesus but you’re going to have him in the first place oh I didn’t have him

[00:24:23] I was a little star I thought I don’t know whether I should tell you this but I thought I was very bright I could pass exams I could quote Bible verses old passages of it but I did not have Jesus and on that final Graham crusade day on the Sunday afternoon in Perth while he preached on having Jesus suddenly Jesus appeared to me he wasn’t there physically but and the call that was being extended that day was for me to come and take Jesus and I am extending to you the same call this morning most of us here probably have Jesus because we found him but he is the salvation of God and to have him is to have the lot to miss him as I was mistakenly thinking I had him and didn’t required of me to say an eternal yes and it seemed to me as Billy Graham disappeared out of my eyes and it appeared that Christ was there and he was calling calling me

[00:25:55] to come to him and I am extending to you the same call this morning if you are uncertain of knowing Christ a lot of people get uncertain and go through having to work out if they are in the door or not that is a good process in my case I had to work it out and what was the truth was I wasn’t and when I made a move to respond it all happened and I’ve been certain of Jesus ever since he is the salvation can you hear? he is the salvation of our God and once you let him take control of your life he changes you and there’s a process going on that makes you more and more like him and when he comes back again you’re going to look on him I don’t know how this works because obviously he’s probably got brown hair and mine has not I’m only guessing from the pictures and there’s other aspects he’s probably properly built and I’m skinny

[00:27:11] you know, there are lots of things different but I’m going to see him and I’m going to know somehow he has worked to make me like him. There is nothing other than Jesus he is the salvation and you’re invited today to have him I’m not going to ask you do anything like the big crusade did I have to walk down the front and be counselled you can answer that yourself you can do it here and ask some friend of yours to help you pray say I want to pray that prayer to Jesus that I want him or you can go home and get down by your bed and ask him to make you certain that he’s yours and know that from this moment on he’s going to be changing you more and more so when he comes back at the end of the age the job will be finished and you’ll see him and you’ll be like him as he is. I’m really glad God called me to be a preacher

[00:28:28] because I love the content of the message that we bring. It’s about a wonderful person. I got a mighty big kick in the rear from an African man in my teenage years who used to talk to everybody about Christ and there were people around our house that I hadn’t talked to. Across the back fence was a family with a lad about my age. I never said a word to him. But this African university student witnessed to him across the back fence when he’d soon just come. And I watched him. And it didn’t matter who he talked to. He had some phrases that were rather endearing and he was from Africa so he had an accent. But he’d ask people, do you love the Lord Jesus as your own personal saviour? And he was so intent on you hearing that you should know Jesus and you’d learn to love him. That so got to me that I take it as my task

[00:29:43] to continue his work. He was a personal worker. I’m a preacher. But to put people into the awareness that salvation’s all about Jesus. It’s not church. You can be churchy and religious. You can serve. You can be a missionary. You can be a pastor. I’ve had pastors that got me to preach in their church and then when we got back to their house they wouldn’t let me go to sleep. One pastor, I won’t say where it is, but he wanted to keep talking. He’s trying to get up the courage to say, Jim, as far as my message was concerned, he doesn’t really know that he’s in the door. I think there’s probably lots of people in a lot of churches. Not so many in ours because we stress to know Jesus means to repent of your sins and come for forgiveness. It means to seek him. Sometimes the seeking takes time

[00:30:48] and you don’t know what you need to do, but God can work on us to get us to make the right approach. So I don’t think the majority of the people here are without Jesus, but I do know it could well be someone here who needs today to know the salvation of our God, the glory of that salvation that’s in Jesus, and to have him is to have the lot. Will you see you’re doing something about that, please? I want to pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for our service today. Thank you for the communion time. Thank you for the fellowship. That’s such good music that we have in our church. Thank you for it, Father. Lord, we have a number of different people who participate, but this morning the worship was wonderful. I think it is very often, and I give you thanks for our church and those that participate in that.

[00:31:58] Lord, there was mention by Jared that we do need, or was it Joey, we need more people to participate in all the various things behind the scenes to do with twiddling the knobs at the back. I’m glad I don’t have to do that because I’m not good at remembering all the right things to do, but thank you for Cameron who was sitting there doing that today. And Lord, would you draw others to help, Cameron and the others. Thank you for the musicians that we had, Lord, Father, and the way everybody sang. Lord, that was terrific today. Would you help there to be more who find a calling in that musical side? People who don’t have croaky voices like me, but people who, Lord, can be used of you there as well. Lord, thank you for what our church is doing in the various things. Right now, little kiddies

[00:33:01] are being taught about Jesus, and I know from knowing what they teach, they teach that Jesus is the way. We pray that you’ll strengthen all those teachers, we pray. And may the little ones of our families that are coming into being recently come to be grown up to know the Saviour, we ask. In the Saviour’s name, would you do with them, Father, about like me? Don’t let there be any that get around, get away with not waking up to the need to know Jesus personally. We ask it in his name’s sake. Amen.