Jesus Saves! But How? PART 1: Why Do We Need A Saviour?

Andrew Grey starts an adult Sunday School teaching on "Jesus Saves! But How?"

This is part 1: "Why Do We Need A Saviour?" from Sunday 9th November 2025

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, welcome to Adult Sunday School. We're starting a new topic this morning. Christian people know that Jesus saves, but how? So the next few weeks, God willing, that's the question we're going to be digging into. Jesus saves, but how? So today we're going to be thinking about why we need a saviour. Why do we need to be saved? So I just um I asked you to discuss, you know, people are basically good, true, false, or not sure. I don't wonder, we were you sitting next to someone who is basically good. Don't know whether you talked about that. Uh so we're going to think about why we need to be saved. And we're going to be digging into what the Bible says about us. Uh, then we're going to think about, for the rest of this term, God willing, about what the Lord Jesus did in his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his heavenly rule. So if you like redemption accomplished. And then after that, that's probably going to be the other side of Christmas. Well, how do I benefit from all that Jesus has done? So if Jesus has won this, achieved this, all of these blessings that I so desperately need, how do I actually benefit from them? So that's the flow. The Bible tells us that it has a pattern. The Bible has a framework, if you like. And what we're going to do is draw out the whole Bible's answer to those questions. Why do I need a Saviour? What has Jesus done? And how do I benefit from what Jesus has done? So the next few weeks we're going to be doing some systematic theology, some doctrine. Really, it's a doctrine of salvation that we're going to be digging into. If you've got a Bible in front of you, please could you open up Romans chapter 1? Romans chapter 1. And if you've got one of the Black Church Bibles, you are on page 939. Thank you. So page 939 and Romans chapter 1. So I'm going to pray and then I'll read. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day that you've made. We thank you that you're a good and wise and powerful God, and we thank you for a good, wise, and powerful and beautiful gospel. Teach us this morning from your word about what we are like, about your love for people like us and all that the Lord Jesus has done for people like us. So encourage our hearts in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So I'm going to read from Romans chapter 1 and verse 16 down to the end of the chapter. So let's listen to God's word. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. Well, thanks be to God for his word to us. We're beginning where we're beginning for a very good reason. So why do we need a saviour? Well, we begin with the bad news, if you like. We never will appreciate our Saviour unless we appreciate our sin. And that chapter I've just read, that's us. Apart from the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is us. It's a bit like going to the doctor. If you diagnose the sickness incorrectly, you end up taking the wrong medicine. So today we're digging into the Bible's teaching about us, human beings, men and women, and the problem of sin. The Bible's doctrine of sin, it is not a merely academic exercise. It's actually one of the most practical and realistic and humbling of all Bible doctrines. And as we work our way through and kind of plumb the depths of human nature and the human heart, all the while be remembering this is what the Lord Jesus saves us from. You know, for all of our woes, and they are many, there is an equivalent and more glorious redemption that the Lord Jesus works. So, first up, what is sin? The Bible uses many different words to describe sin, about fifty. And cumulatively, they show us that God is really, really holy. The most common sin words speak of missing the mark. Imagine an arrow that veers away from the target. Speak of guilt and of rebellion. Now we've not got time to dig into that now. If you wanted to, I've just listed some Bible passages there that talk us through those main sin words and ideas. Probably the key Bible concept behind the sinfulness of sin is idolatry. And really that's what the reading from Romans 1 we just had speaks to us about. So please take just three minutes with a neighbour and with your Bibles open, look at Romans 1, 18 to 25. Just talk about those three questions. Minute on each question. Go for it. So Romans 1 in front of us there. What is it that provokes the anger of God? It is because by nature we suppress the truth. We are truth suppressors. So verse 19, verse 20, they say that God's godness is written all over the creation that He has made. It's understood from what He has made. His fingerprints, if you like, all over His creation. As a result, men are without excuse. There's no excuse for ignoring the one true God. There is sufficient revelation in the world around us to render us without excuse. There's not enough to save us, but there is enough to condemn us. And then what human beings do is we suppress the truth. So it's a bit like we would rather poke out our eyes or shove our fingers in our ears than see or hear things that speak about the glory of the one true God. Think of it as a bit like trying to hold a tennis ball underwater. The tennis ball keeps sort of popping up. There is knowledge of God just absolutely everywhere, but our instinct is just to desperately try and shove it down, keep it underwater. And then, that's actually not the worst of it. Verses 21 to 23 teach us that having suppressed the truth about the true God, we then pursue idols. So we don't thank and glorify the true God. And this is what happens to human beings. Our minds become darkened. That's verse 21, futile in our thinking, darkened minds. They kind of become spiritually useless because of sin. And there is this terrible exchange, this swap. We swap worshiping the true God for worshiping creatures. We don't stop worshiping, though. Humans cannot stop worshiping. We are worshippers, we are built to worship. But we either worship the true God or we worship creatures. Now, verse 23 describes actual idolatry, you know, fashioning an image and bowing down to it, worshiping. But the Bible says anything that displaces the true God is an idol. And in his righteous anger, the Lord gives people over. We sort of see this descent into truth suppressing and idolatry and sin. And the Lord gives us over to it. He gives over people, he gives over cultures. You know, you reject me, right now live with. As part of my punishment in the meanwhile, there'll be an end day punishment to come, but in the meanwhile, live with the consequences. So just a couple of applications to Clock. As I've just said, we are all worshippers. We all worship the one true God, or we are an idol worshipper. Idolatry is the heart of sin. Sins, we think, you hear the word sins, we think behaviours, don't we? Sins is actually not the root of sin. The heart, and heart idolatry is the root of sin. And it's the most hateful thing because it robs God of glory. It is not okay when people do not worship the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although obviously we live in a relativistic age which says it is. So, what is sin? Let's go on. Second, next page of the handout. How does sin affect us? Well, to start with, who does sin affect? And the answer is sin affects everyone. Sin is found in every single person. If you've got your Bibles open, just look over to Romans 3 and verse 10. As it is written, none is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside. Young, old, rich, poor. There are no truly good people. It's not just those who we might think of as obviously wicked who are sinful. None is righteous. As we share the gospel with people in our evangelism. We are relating as people who by nature are not good people with other people who by nature are not good people. This is true of us as we relate with Christian people as well as non-Christian people. Christian people wonderfully with forgiven and being sanctified, being made holy, but we are still gripped in our flesh by this sinful sin. And this is true of every person except the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're going to see in the next few weeks just how wonderful it is that we have a sinless Saviour. But it's not just that sin is found in every person, sin infects every part of every person. So Romans 8, 7 and 8. The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. So Paul there is talking about two people. God be praised. But until a person is born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, those verses describe what we are like. And it is impossible for that person who's controlled by sin to do anything to please God because every single part of them is infected with sin. Yes, our actions and our words and our minds, even our ability to think properly, and every single desire. And this is the Bible doctrine that is sometimes called total depravity. Now it's not that we are as bad as we could be. No one, praise God, no one is as bad as he or she could be. It means though that not a single part of a human being is untouched by sin. So every single deed, word, thought, desire is infected by sin in some way. So just consider our desires for a moment. Do you ever wonder why sin seems so natural? If you're a parent, you do not have to teach your children to sin. It is so easy, in adverted commas, it is so easy to sin. Do you ever get taken aback by your instincts? So something just arises from within you, and you sort of do a double-taking thing. Andrew, where did that come from? You know, that desire or that thought. Well, God's word says this: Jeremiah 17, verse 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? That's the human heart. And therefore we are unable to save ourselves. Total depravity means total inability. Because we are wholly infected with sin, we cannot free ourselves from this slavery. Over the centuries, this has sometimes been called the bondage of the will, trying to summarize the slavery, which is the reality of a non-believer's heart, soul, mind, until God the Holy Spirit steps in and does something. The Christian is someone who has been freed, but we do not and cannot liberate ourselves. So just listen here, these three references to the Apostle Paul talk to us about what we are like and Jesus here. They say that we are dead and that we are enslaved. So Ephesians 2:1, as for you, before you were converted, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. No life. Not just slightly unwell dead. Jesus in John 8 34, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. It's really important this if we understand it. Biblically, human beings do not have absolute free will. Not if by that we mean I'm free to choose God or I'm free not to choose God. An unsaved person sins necessarily. They are not free to choose God, but also, and this is the kind of the painful kicker, they sin voluntarily. That is, they want to rebel against the one true God. And that's what Jesus talks about in that next verse I've put down on the handout, as this conversation goes on as he talks with this crowd, he says to them, You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. That is, you want to go the way of Satan. You're enslaved to sin. You can't do anything else but be under the grip of sin, but you want to go that way. There's no kind of external compulsion. Well, that's just a little outline, a little overview of the deep inability of man. Just pause. Anyone's got any questions for a couple of minutes before we go on? Does anyone to pick up any questions, clarification? So, how does a Christian relate to what we might call besetting sins? Sins that seem so hard to shake off, and we know that we are not under the control of sin, but boy, doesn't it feel like it. Yeah. I think what you've just described is the Christian experience. So if you've got your Bibles there, just have a look at Romans 6 for a moment. For example, have a look at Romans 6 and verse 7. For one who has died has been set free from sin. So I think probably my chief encouragement is to believe what the Bible tells us. So the relationship between the Christian and sin is fundamentally different to the relationship between a non-Christian and sin. So we we are no longer under the dominating, controlling power of sin and the world and the devil, the sort of evil trinity that go together. And I think out of that does come progress in godliness. Okay, I'm not under the mastery of the sin. I have been filled with the spirit. I am able to fight. I'm able to feel that awful tug. Until you're born again and given a desire to walk in the ways of the Spirit and obey God's word and please Jesus, you're not even aware there is a fight to be had, are you? I mean it's a it's an it's an encouraging thing, I think, actually, that we we even desire to fight and put sin to death. If you just look over the page to Romans 7, I think what you've what you've just described, that battle, was also experienced by the Apostle Paul. So just look down to Romans 7 and verse 15. For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. You cut down to verse 22. I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, you know, who will deliver me from this body of death? And Romans 6 and Romans 7 are both true. You know, I am free from the enslavement of sin, but I'm not in heaven yet. And in God's wisdom and will, we're kind of like in the overlap of the ages. We're sort of we're endearing, carting the flesh around with us, but also a renewed and regenerated self, and they they war against us. Um and I guess I guess we want to believe Romans 6, and we want to believe Romans 7, but we also want to believe the very end of Romans 7 and in chapter 8. You know, Romans 7, 25, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. You know, we have a Saviour who is good both for forgiveness and for transformation. Um but the battle you've just described is is real and it's unavoidable. Um I think we'll we'll go on because that does very much flow into that next question. Number three, where does sin come from? And when we trace sin back to its biblical origins, it explains its griff on us. Um the answer to where does sin come from is best answered in the term original sin. It's not a term that occurs in the Bible, but it describes Bible truth. It was originally coined by Augustine, and it means sin derived from our origin. And it takes us all the way back in the Bible story to Adam and the Garden of Eden, and it says that what happened then was not ancient history, but it's our story, and we are caught up in it. So I'll put on the handout there, Romans 5, 19. Just look at that verse. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous. So there's Adam and there's Jesus in one verse. Uh humanity, back in the Garden of Eden, we were not made sinful, we were made good. But what Adam did changed human nature and impact on every single other human being for the rest of time, save Jesus. Verse 19 tells us that through the disobedience of the one man, Adam, many were made sinners. What one man did changed human nature. People were made into sinners. So it's not just that Adam was our great, great, great, great, great, great something or other grandfather, nor is it simply that we copy him. Oh, it was a bit of a chip off the old block. It's more than that. Uh God gave Adam a special job to do, and he appointed him as the head of the human race. He made a covenant with all human beings in their covenant head, Adam. So he was like the leader or the representative or the captain of the human race. And that is just the way that God decided to set things up. So if you imagine Adam as being like a great giant, you know, imagine a sort of a giant version of Hagrid, something like that. Uh, and that's Adam, and he's got a really, really, really, really, really big belt. And hanging off his belt is every single man, woman, and child who has ever lived. And as God does business with Adam, he actually does business with all of us. It's like we were in Eden with Adam. Now that does seem a hard thing to imagine, doesn't it? And to wrap our heads around. Just it might help us just to also consider the other half of that verse for a moment. If we think it unfair that Adam represents us in sin, remember too that Christ is the captain of our salvation. Uh it's it's like a it's like a beautiful mirror image, that verse. So also through the obedience of the one man, the many would be made righteous. So there is another giant, um, a better giant, a much bigger giant, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the covenant head of the saved people of God. And wonderfully, you know, the work of the Holy Spirit is to take people from being in Adam, you know, take them off the belt of Adam and join them to, hang them upon the belt of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are saved through our union with Him because we are in Christ. Might come back to that in just a minute. Now, we haven't at all talked about yet question number four, how does God respond to sin? And in a sense, that is actually the biggest problem with sin. The biggest problem with sin is not sin. The biggest problem with sin is, well, what does it do to God? Um, the universe is centred around him, and therefore we should be chiefly concerned with how he responds to sin. And he responds with a holy hatred. A holy and a righteous God must hate sin. If he didn't, he would not be good. So Hebrews 1.9, this is actually talking of the Lord Jesus here. It says of him, you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Sin is chiefly against God. Do you remember in Psalm 51, when David confesses his sins, he's committed adultery, he's murdered, and he begins his prayer of confession against you, Lord, against you only have I sinned. And it's it's worth remembering, isn't it? That yeah, horizontal sins, people on people sins, are grievous. The Lord sees, the Lord knows he is grieved by that, but he is the most grieved party in that. Psalm 5, verse 5 tells us, you hate all who do wrong. Ephesians 2 verse 3, like the rest, we were, it's talking about Christians, we were, past tense, by nature objects of wrath, or literally children of wrath. You know, our inheritance was wrath, God's righteous judgment against us. You know, John 3.36, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. There is the gospel. But whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him. But you see, sin is not the greatest problem that we face. Uh we don't simply need to be made into nicer people. Uh God's wrath at sin is the greatest problem human beings face because sin, and not just sin, but sinners, inexorably attract the holy anger of our good God. Now, you just turn over to uh the back of the handout. I want to just try and pull some of these things together and then draw some applications. I don't know whether that diagram is helpful. In that, I've tried to summarize the teaching of the Bible about sin and judgment. So if we go back to the Garden of Eden, that first column on the left, Adam, who is our head, he sinned and fell. But we also sinned and fell in him. We fell with him, you know, in union with Adam. And therefore, now we inherit the guilt of Adam, our father, for his sin in the garden, and we are born with a sinful nature, out of which then flows idolatry and sinful actions. And then when we come to the last day, yeah, we will be judged by our holy God, both for our inherited guilt, but also our actual sins. And when we just stop and think about this and apply it, just a few things to note. Just to repeat, there is much more to sin than just outward actions, what we do with our hands or with our bodies. There is much more to sin. Sin is at root, it's a heart attitude of idolatry. We commit sinful acts because we have a sinful nature. And that's true of every single person who comes into the world. And we have a sinful nature because we are born in Adam. We have a sinful nature, not because we do sins. I think that's what we probably think. Do bad things, and therefore it's true to say we have a sinful nature. The Bible actually says that is completely the wrong way around. The problem is actually way, way worse than that. That first line down the centuries, various people have tried to teach that, and the church has said that's just complete false teaching. Complete false teaching. The problem is way worse. Because of our bond with Adam, we come into the world with a sinful nature, and therefore, out of that heart then flows actual sins. So some of us will remember the old catch line of the Christianity explored course. I am more wicked than I ever realized. And that doesn't, that doesn't cease to be a true thing. Maybe some of us have been in Christ for a very long time. Well, I am by nature more wicked than I ever realized. But also in Christ, I am way more loved than I could possibly imagine. Maybe the biggest uh outbox from this, that last heading there, God must save and God alone. Here's Jesus in John 6, 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. So if everything we've said about human nature is true, obviously we cannot save ourselves. We can't even contribute an odd little bit here. It's not like it's, I don't know, 5% awesome, 95% God. No, it is 100% God's, it is all of God, and his salvation is amazing. Because all of these points at which we sort of descend into helplessness and wickedness, we find a perfect answer in the Saviour, the Lord Jesus. So he does something for me, that is, he deals with his wrath at my sin and he gives me righteousness. He does something for me, but also he does something in me. He transforms my will, transforms your will, such that you love Christ, you love the gospel, you love the Bible. So God must say, and God alone. I don't know if anyone care to just ask any other questions, perhaps from those last couple of until a until a person is in Christ, in a sense, we are all we are all blind and enslaved and condemned. It it seems like some people are further down the track, and maybe in terms of Christ-hating and destructive behaviours, they are further down that line. Well, I think that the fact that we we pray is absolutely the right thing to do, because a miracle is required. Uh, to change a heart, to give a new ability, to free a will, to think, well, actually, my biggest problem is God, but he has got something for me that I need, and I will embrace it, and I will trust him with the outworkings of all of that. You know, ways in which maybe he will fix the messes of my life or he will call me to really painful repentances. But I guess it is an utter miracle, isn't it? Um, and yeah, you're you're I think you're right. The consequences, some you some consequences of sin, this side of heaven, are bigger and badder, but but genuinely you can be a seemingly quite scrubbed up, nice, churchy non-believer. Romans has plenty of to say about them, and you're in no better a place, possibly even a more perilous place, than you know the pagan non-believer who Paul also knew about, who's just gone way down the track. So I think just keep praying. The Lord does love to do miracles. Maybe the last maybe the last question.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Just one other obstacle. I know you can't teach all of it. The other tragedy of sin is separation from God, you know, banishment from his presence. And I just I'm so encouraged in a minute, we can draw near. We can come into the Lord's presence because we come humbly confessing our sin and saying, Lord, because of Jesus, we can now draw near, and that separation as we were put outside of the garden, the whole Bible story is bringing people back, isn't it? And I think I'm with Abby, the joy of that in a minute. We we the leader can say, draw near, and we can come into the Lord's presence because of Jesus, um, and because he's dealt with our biggest problem. Um for me that uh that's just an increasing joy Sunday by Sunday that messed up people can with faith draw near.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah, I mean, that's a really good word to finish on. What why don't you just turn to your neighbour and pray? Praise God for the gospel. If there's maybe there's something in the someone, someone in the top of your mind you would love this work of liberation to be done in. Pray for them as well. Go for it. Thank you.