By Justin Edwards
Did you know that God saves bad people? He saves sinners, that is, He saves sinners who recognize themselves as such. It doesn't matter what you've done, or who you did it with, there's nothing in your past or present that God will not forgive. He calls you to repent and place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He promises to save all who lay their life down before Him. Call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and submit to His rule and reign in your life, and the gift you receive will be Life Eternal.
Transcript below:
God Saves Bad People
God loves to save the most despicable kinds of people. And that's certainly true in my case. In getting me God wasn't getting something good. In getting me God wasn't getting anything special, in getting me God wasn't getting anything that would add to Him or benefit Him in any way, shape, or form. Have you forgotten by any chance the sewer out of which God rescued you? Which means, dear friends that our hope, our joy is grounded in this: that our God is absolutely relentless in his passionate pursuit to save sinners, not good people. God doesn't save good people; good people don't need to be saved. God saves bad people! Are you a bad person today? Then I am exceedingly glad that you are here, because that's what this congregation is, a congregation of bad people. Why do you come to this place? So that you can hear of the God Who saves bad people, Who loves bad people, Who rescues and delivers and extends mercy to bad people. Why bad people? Because doing so reveals the glory of His grace and the expansive boundaries of His love. Because doing so exposes the true potency of His saving accomplishments in His Son Jesus Christ. God loves to save bad people.
We raise our fist in God's face and we say, "Why do You save some and not others?" And it makes us mad. In our arrogance it makes us mad. As the pot, we think we have rights to the Potter. "Why do You save some and not others?" And you understand of course the predisposition that's behind all of that: the assumption that we're all innocent. But when you understand as Rahab does that we are all guilty, then suddenly the amazing thing is not that God saves some and not others, the amazing thing is that God saves any! When you understand that we're all guilty, suddenly saving any becomes the most amazing display of the grace of God.
This is the Christian God. The God Who saves bad people. The God Who has revealed Himself to you most fully in Jesus Christ. The gracious God, the generous God, the warm-hearted God, the open-armed God, the God Who is for sinners! Are you a sinner? A sinner like Rahab, dominated by sin because of your enslavement to sin? The God of the Bible is full of power and full of love and eager to save. And He does so, dear friends, by the One Who is now come to us through the redeemed womanhood of Rahab, God's Own Son Jesus Christ. You are not beyond the reach of God's grace. It makes no difference, dear friend, how scandalous your sin may be; even if it's as ugly as that of Rahab's. Like Rahab, ask God to save you from death, and He will in ways far greater than you could ever begin to imagine. Ask God, like Rahab, to save you from death. Because of the One Who has come to us from the lineage of Rahab, because of Jesus Christ, God will give you life.
(HT to Greis Vllahu for transcript)
