Third Sunday of Easter –
About 8 months ago I was baking some cookies with my
children. As I was setting the ingredients
out on the counter to make sure we had everything we needed, I noticed the
recipe called for shortening – an ingredient we did not have. While I was telling my disappointed children
that we would have to wait until another day, my wife handed me a large
laminated sheet of paper with the title, “Ingredient Substitution Chart.” On it was this information: when baking, butter,
margarine, or lard can be substituted for shortening. That is the way it works with a lot of things
in life, isn’t it? If the teacher is
sick, in steps the substitute. If you
are watching your sugar, you might substitute splenda. And it works.
We can get away with it. However,
when it comes to the foundation of our faith and the hope of our salvation
there is no substitute. There is no
substitute for Jesus.
Our text this morning is a continuation of last week’s
lesson. In Acts 3, we heard about the
first miracle after Pentecost. Peter and
John had gone up to the temple at the time of prayer. There, a man crippled from birth, asked them
for money. Instead of giving him money,
Peter took him by the hand and said, “In
the name of Jesus Christ of
Acts 4 begins with the news that thousands more came to
believe in Jesus. But the Jewish rulers
were not happy. So they arrested Peter
and John and threw them in prison. The
next morning they assembled the Sanhedrin and brought in Peter and John for a
hearing. They asked them, “By what power or what name did you do
this” (Acts 4:7)? Our text is
Peter’s answer:
Acts 4:8-12 – Then
Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the
people! If we are being called to
account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he
was healed, then know this, you and everyone else in Israel: It is by the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom God raised from the dead, that this man
stands before you completely healed. He
is the stone you builders rejected which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there
is no other name under heaven given to men by which we
must be saved.”
There is a story about a pastor who did a lot of flying
with his work. He would frequently use
these opportunities to share the message of Jesus with his fellow
travelers. On one flight before 9/11 he
struck up a conversation with the woman next to him. After he had developed some rapport, he asked
her if she knew what would happen to her if the plane crashed. She responded that no one could know for
sure. The pastor then explained that he
was sure because Jesus, God’s Son, had died for him and for her. Then he rose again to assure us that his
death on the cross was sufficient to pay for all their sins. That’s why he was so sure that if the plane
crashed he would be immediately with Jesus in heaven.
After what he thought was a good conversation, he paused
to give the woman a chance to respond. Finally
she looked at him and said, “Sir, you’ve got to be the most arrogant person I’ve
ever met!” Yet,
isn’t the very thing the Pastor said the same thing that Peter says in our text
today, “Salvation is found in no one
else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be
saved”? But what
about you? Do these words of
Peter sound arrogant to you?
I
pray that there is not even the smallest part of you that finds any of the
words of Peter to be even the least bit arrogant. Instead, I pray that you share the same
conviction that Peter and John and the rest of the apostles had – that there is
no substitute for Jesus. The reason the
apostles could be so bold in what they said is because of what they had “seen and heard” (Acts
And
if Jesus rose from the dead, then what they had heard him say must also be
true. They had heard him say, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the
Life. No one comes to the Father except
through me” (John 14:6). After his
resurrection Jesus would repeat that exclusive claim. He commissioned them, “Go and preach the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be
saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark
So
now, I come back to you. Are you as
convinced as the apostles of the absolute truth of these words, “Salvation is found in no one else, for
there is no other name under heaven given to men by which
we must be saved.” I do not seek to
insult your intelligence or doubt your confession by asking such a
question. But I do seek to remind you
that your sinful human nature, just like mine, is always trying to get us to give
in on the absolute truth of that statement.
Every day the world tries to slip us the poison that says, “it doesn’t really matter so much what you believe, as long
as you are sincere.” How often doesn’t
that venom come packaged in Satan’s lie that says, “there
is no such thing as absolute truth.”
Don’t think for one second that Satan isn’t trying to seduce you into
thinking that your good works can save you, or that everything is all right
simply because you are an active member in a Christian church.
And
dear Christian friends, I am troubled and deeply concerned because Satan has been
having success among us right here.
There have been times when I have heard it said, “Well, at least they
are going to a church.” But what
church? One that
teaches the pure Word of God? One that holds out to its members that the only way to heaven is
through faith in Jesus Christ? If
they don’t teach that everything is not ok!
There have been times when I have
heard it said, “Well, they are such good people.” But why are they good? Because they are trying to
earn favor with God? Because they
feel that karma will get them back if they don’t? If these are the reasons they strive for an
outward life of good works, something is tragically missing. Everything is not ok! And how often doesn’t our practice of close
communion come into question because it is figured that as long as someone has
walked into our church, then they must have some working knowledge of God, and we
shouldn’t judge them. But such an
attitude seems to say that as long as someone believes that there is a God - it
doesn’t really matter what god that might be - then everything is ok. But is that what Scripture says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for
there is no other name under heaven given to men by which
we must be saved.”
You see, the problem with thinking of others in this way
is what it says about what we think about ourselves. If we suppose it is ok for people to have
their own individual concepts of who God is, at what point will we convince
ourselves that we can mold God to be whatever we want him to be. If we suppose that simply “good people”
couldn’t possibly be turned away from heaven by God, how long does it take for
us to convince ourselves that we will enter heaven because we are good
people? If we simply assume that anyone who is an
active member in some church is in a right standing with God, how long will it
be before we think that our right standing with God comes from our membership
in our church. But dear Christian
friends, good works cannot save; a name on the membership list in a Christian
church will not save; a belief in some supreme being will not save. “Salvation
is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men
by which we must be saved.”
If we feel that we can not honestly say that an
individual will go to hell if they don’t believe in Jesus, then we need to go
back to the Word. It is essential that
we have the same conviction that Peter and John did, that salvation is found in
no one but Jesus. There is no substitute
for Jesus. And how does such a
conviction come about? It is only by
seeing and hearing for ourselves. It is
true, we can’t see and hear Jesus in the same way that the apostles did, but
through the Word Jesus still speaks to us.
Through the Word we become eyewitnesses of his Majesty. Through the Word we are filled with the Holy
Spirit and convinced that “salvation is
found in no one else.”
Salvation
is surely found in Jesus, and it is found in him alone. There is no other substitute. You see, we needed to be delivered from sin,
death, and the power of the devil, and God in Christ supplied that
deliverance. The name of our Savior was conferred upon Him
with a set purpose. The angel Gabriel
told Joseph in his dream, “You will give
him the name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” The meaning of that name was at once
explained. It was Jesus, because He is
the Savior. But the name of Jesus must
have a wider meaning for us than the five letters of the word. Even if we know that it means Savior, but
know nothing more, we have gained nothing.
We need to ask: A Savior from what?
How does he save? God has put the
answers to these questions in his Holy Word.
God in his perfect love had pity on our poor sinful condition. Out of his infinite love, he sent Jesus to
bear all our sins, to carry all our sorrows, to pay for all our transgressions
– to be our substitute. Jesus, who had everything in heaven, who was
King and Lord of all, took on our wretchedness and died innocently under the
curse of sin in our place. He rose again
and ascended into heaven to demonstrate that his life and death atoned for all
our sins. Now the sinner personally has
the benefit of Jesus’ atoning work the moment in faith we can say, “He lived
and died for me, too.” Faith in Jesus
and his perfect works for us is the only way to escape damnation.
You
might be able to substitute butter for shortening when baking cookies, you can
even chill a 13 oz. can of evaporated milk for 12 hours, add 1 teaspoon of
lemon juice, whip until it is stiff and substitute it for whipped cream – but
you can not substitute anything under heaven for Jesus Christ. We must be saved in him, or we cannot be
saved at all. Dear Christian friend,
study the Word that you might grow in this conviction. Amen.