Our Great God: Salvation

Our Great God

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

January 18, 2026

 

Our Great God: Salvation

In 1927 the USS S-4 submarine was doing routine exercises off the coast of Cape Cod when it collided with a Coast Guard Cutter also doing routine exercises. The S-4 sub with its 40 crew members sank 102 feet to the ocean bottom. Rescue efforts began immediately but were hampered by bad weather. At one point a diver was communicating with the six surviving crewmen who were running out of air and one of the crewmen tapped in Morse code: Is there any hope?

As these six men huddled in the dark, cold torpedo room, they desperately longed to be saved. To hear the words, “we’ve got you, you’re saved!” would have been worth more to them than all the gold in the world. Tragically help was not able to get to them in time and the six crewmen perished.

When the jailor asked Paul and Silas the question, “what must I do to be saved?” they answered, “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” If Jesus is your Lord and Savior, take a moment this morning to treasure the truth that you are saved. Jesus says to you, “I’ve got you, you’re saved!”

If everything else in your life goes wrong, hold onto this: you are saved. If everyone in the world abandons you, hold onto this: Jesus never will. It’s good every now and then to pause all the stuff going on around us and remember, “I believe in Jesus Christ and I am saved!”

We’re in a topical series called Our Great God and this morning we are going to consider God’s greatness in salvation.

1. Our great God is a Savior

From Genesis to Revelation the Bible is the revelation of a God who saves. The name Joshua (Yeshua) means Yahweh is salvation or Yahweh Saves and Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua. Jesus literally means “God saves” and Jesus himself said he came to seek and save the lost.

God is the Deliverer who loves to deliver His people from their troubles. Isaiah writes that the Lord’s arm is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. God is strong enough to save, and cares enough to hear our cries for help. God’s heart is a saving heart.

We can clearly see that in one of the most familiar Bible verses of all:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

I felt like the Lord gave me a fresh perspective on this familiar verse this week. I was thinking about how limited our capacity to love is. Even people with a large capacity to love are limited in how many people they can really, deeply love. Think about it: how many people do you love? Really love? People you’d sacrifice for, take a bullet for? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? Maybe a hundred? A hundred would be a lot.

Now think about John 3:16: God so loved the world. God’s heart is big enough to love billions of people deeply and personally. Year after year, generation after generation, from the beginning of time to the end of the age, God has loved the world – not en mass but individually, one person at a time.

Just thinking about it gives us love fatigue.

Scientists estimate the universe may have as many as a trillion galaxies. Each galaxy has billions, and some trillions of stars, each star a marvel of nuclear fusion. Our sun’s core, where the nuclear fusion takes place, is 27 million degrees. It’s that perpetual nuclear fusion that gives the earth the light and warmth needed life. But think about it: the immeasurable energy constantly being generated at the core of the sun is also being generated in countless stars throughout the universe. But all these stars combined wouldn’t touch the infinite energy and power of God.

The Bible tells us that at God’s core is love. The “nuclear fusion” going on from eternity past to eternity future in God’s heart is everlasting love. Over and over again, 26 times Psalm 136 says about God “his love endures forever”. The sun will eventually burn out, every star will, but God’s love endures forever.

It’s that love that motivates God to want to save. Want to deliver. Want to rescue. But what does God save us from?

2. What does our great God save us from?

The biggest thing of course is our sin and God’s judgment of our sin. Our worst enemy isn’t Satan, or any human being. Our worst enemy is ourselves. Sin is a spiritual and moral cancer that destroys us. Paul writes about the fight going on within him in Rom. 7

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Rom. 7:24

It’s our sin that sinks our lives to the bottom of the ocean and leaves us huddled in the cold darkness of hopelessness until eventually sin kills us. Death entered the world through sin. Sin has left us perishing and we need to be saved.

God could save us from every other enemy in our life without breaking a sweat and He could save us in a thousand different ways. But there was only one way God could save us from our sin and His judgment. People are offended when Jesus says “no one comes to the Father except through me.” Or when we quote Acts 4 that there is no other name under heaven by which man can be saved. Too exclusive! They say there are many religions and many ways to God.

But the reason Jesus says no one comes to God except through him is because there is no other way. God didn’t have 5 ways to save mankind. Or 3. Or 2. Just one way. Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” Jesus is saying, God if there is any other way to save the world, let me avoid the cross. There was no other way!

Jesus, as God incarnate, did on the cross what could not be done any other way. He became the second Adam who obeyed God where the first Adam disobeyed, and then willingly paid for the sins of mankind. God’s justice was satisfied by Jesus’ sacrificial death so that He could be both just and the justifier of sinners. Jesus saved us from our sin! Hallelujah!

But the Greek word for save is the sozo and it means more than salvation from sin. It means to be made whole.

• When the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed, Jesus told her to “go in peace, your faith has made you whole (saved you).” Matt. 9:22
• When a woman known only as a sinful woman anoints Jesus’ feet, Jesus tells her “your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
• After healing a blind man and a leper, Jesus told them their faith had made them whole (saved them).

We can bring all our needs and troubles to Jesus and believe that he will make us whole.

• Is there someone unfairly coming at you to do you harm? Lift them up to God and ask God to deliver you from their plots to do you harm.
• Are you facing financial troubles? Ask God to provide what you need and save you from financial ruin.
• Are you dealing with health issues? Is there a sin that is getting the best of you? Is someone sinning against you? Jesus says bring it to me. Believe that I can make you whole and bring it to me!

3. What does our great God save us for?

The answer is right there in John 3:16: that whoever believes in Jesus should…have eternal life. Jesus saves us from judgment and hell and saves us for everlasting life in the presence of God and Jesus.

For the believer, dying isn’t death. When we close our eyes to this world, we open them in the next. The gates of Jesus’ kingdom will be wide open to us, and Jesus will show us the home he’s been building for us.

No more pain. No more tears. No more sickness. No more hatred. Perfect love and peace and joy and contentedness and productive, interesting work. Right now this world seems so real and that world seems so unreal, but as we get closer to that world and this world begins to slip through our fingers, eternity becomes more and more real to the believer.

Eternity has been on my heart and made more real to me this week because Wednesday evening I got a text from Matt Farr that his wife Kenzie’s mom Bambi was in the hospital in Dansville. Thursday morning I met Matt and Kenzie at the hospital along with Kenzie’s dad Mark and brother Mark. A few hours later Bambi left this world and awakened in the next.

It is a somber and sobering thing when a soul cuts its tethers to this life and sets sail into the next. Jesus came to save us from perishing and for eternal life. I am convinced that some things won’t be made whole in this life. There won’t be neat answers to all our why’s or resolutions to all our troubles and trials…this side of eternity. But the more our eyes see and our hearts grasp the reality of everlasting life, the more we will be ok with that. Hope is seeing with eyes of faith things that can’t be seen with our eyes yet.

Our great God is a saving God and He promises that all who call upon the name of Jesus will be saved. If you have never believed in Jesus, the Bible tells us there aren’t many ways to God. There aren’t even two or three ways. The only way God could save us is through Jesus and the way we receive that salvation is by believing in Jesus.

The big question is, will you believe in Jesus? Reach out by faith and ask him to come into your heart and life and save you. Ask him to forgive your sins and give you eternal life. It’s why Jesus came – to seek and save the lost. You can be found and saved simply by reaching out with faith.