Over the next four weeks I want to walk through the four truths that give our Foursquare family its name. You'll sometimes hear them called the four cardinal doctrines, but that makes them sound more complicated than they are. They're really just four things we believe are true about Jesus: he is Savior, he is the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, he is Healer, and he is the soon-coming King. Four faces of one Jesus. Everything else we believe hangs on these.
We start where the whole story starts, and where your story with God starts too: Jesus is Savior.
The word that assumes bad news
"Savior" is good news, but it only makes sense against some bad news first, and I'd rather be honest with you than pretend. The bad news is simply this: something is broken, in the world and in us, that we can't fix on our own. The Bible calls it sin, not just the obvious wrongs, but the deep-down pull to run our own lives apart from God. We feel it. The distance is real.
A savior is someone who rescues people who can't rescue themselves. That's the whole idea. If we could fix ourselves with enough effort or good intentions, we wouldn't need saving, we'd need a coach. The gospel says we need more than a coach. We need to be rescued.
What Jesus actually did
Here's the heart of it. God didn't stand at a distance and shout instructions. He came. Jesus, fully God and fully man, lived the life we couldn't live and then went to the cross to take on himself what our sin deserved. Three days later he walked out of the tomb alive, and death has never been the same since.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
That's John 3:16, and it's almost too familiar to hear anymore, so slow down on it. God gave. The rescue cost him everything, and he paid it gladly, because of love. Salvation isn't something we climb up to reach. It's someone who came down to reach us.
Not earned, received
This is the part that surprises people who grew up thinking religion is mostly about being good enough. Salvation isn't a wage you earn by good behavior. It's a gift you receive with empty hands. Our own goodness was never going to be enough, and it doesn't have to be, because Jesus' goodness is.
That's freeing, and it's humbling at the same time. It means the exhausted person and the respectable person come the exact same way, by admitting they need rescue and trusting the Rescuer. No one gets in on their résumé. Everyone gets in on his mercy.
What it changes
Being saved isn't only about where you go when you die, though it's about that too. It's about being brought back into a relationship with God that starts now. Forgiven. Adopted. Given a fresh start you didn't earn. The weight you've been carrying, the record you've been afraid of, Jesus takes it. That's what a Savior does.
It's also where our whole mission begins. We say we exist to help people follow Jesus, become like him, and do what he did. None of that gets off the ground until first we've been rescued by him. You can't follow a Savior you've never met.
Come and see
Maybe you've never actually met Jesus as your Savior, or maybe it's been a long time and you've wandered. Either way, the door is open and the invitation is real. You don't have to clean yourself up first, that's backwards. Come as you are, bring your questions and your baggage, and meet the One who came to carry it.
That's the whole invitation. Text Pastor Brian, come sit with us this Sunday, and let's talk about it in person. Next week we'll turn to the second truth: Jesus is the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit.
The glory rising over Dothan has a name, and his name is Jesus, the Savior. We'd love for you to meet him.
Pastor Brian