From His Heart

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Today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, a lesson about the miracle of salvation.

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Have you personally experienced the miracle of salvation? You know, lots of people come to church and they talk about salvation, they sing about salvation, but they've never experienced salvation.

They know about it in their heads, but they don't know it for a real personal experience in their hearts.

And so we want to talk about that today. What does it mean to be saved? Miracle of salvation.

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Well, Merry Christmas and welcome to today's broadcast from His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. He’s in his brand new Christmas series called the Miracles of Christmas. Last time, he explored the miracle of the Incarnation when Christ came to earth as a man and as the Son of God.

Today, we learn about the magnificence of the miracle of salvation. His gift of salvation is for anyone who will come to him in repentance and faith as broken, sinful people. Our greatest need is forgiveness. So, God sent a savior to rescue and redeem us.

Have you personally experienced that miracle of salvation? It's not a family decision. It's not a national decision. God insists that it's a personal decision between you and God. Have you made that? If you haven't, well, God put you here today to listen and consider these truths that you'll hear today.

We hope you'll open your heart and mind to listen without preconceived barriers and see if you hear the Lord speak to you—not audibly, but in your spirit. Open your Bible to the Book of Matthew, chapter one. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve to begin the lesson: The miracle of salvation.

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Here's my question for you. Have you personally experienced the miracle of salvation? You know, lots of people come to church and they talk about salvation, they sing about salvation, but they've never experienced salvation. They know about it in their heads, but they don't know it for a real personal experience in their hearts.

I remember when the girl that God used to bring me to faith in Christ, we went out on, I think it was like the second date. She asked me the question. She said, "Jeff, are you saved?" I said, "I don't know. I don't know what that is. I don't know what that means. Are you saved?" I said, "I've never heard that. Are you saved?" And so maybe you're like that. Maybe you're like I was. You don't know what it means to be saved. And people talk about being saved and you're like, "What is that?" You know, if you don't know you're lost, you don't know you need to be saved. And so we want to talk about that today. What does it mean to be saved? The miracle of salvation.

Matthew, chapter one, beginning in verse 18: "Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together physically, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.' Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, the prophet Isaiah. 'Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,' which translated means God with us. And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus."

Such a great passage of Scripture. Your wife Mary is going to give birth to a son from the Holy Spirit. And it is he who will save his people from their sins. That little baby was salvation. It's interesting that when Mary had Jesus, Luke chapter two tells us that the days were completed for her purification. For a boy, it was 40 days. And so after that, they presented Jesus at the temple. And there was a man there at the temple named Simeon. He had been praying and waiting for the Messiah, waiting for the consolation of Israel.

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And.

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And the Lord through the Holy Spirit had told Simeon, "You're not going to die until you see the Lord's Christ." And so when they came, the Holy Spirit let Simeon know, "This is the one." And he says, "Now, Lord, let me depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation. This little one is the Lord's salvation. This is God with us. This is Emmanuel. This is Creator God." So it was so exciting for Simeon to get to experience that before he died—the Lord's salvation.

Now I want to share with you three truths concerning the miracle of salvation: Jesus who saves from sin. First, truth: Jesus came to earth for a rescue mission. There's a rescue mission. You know, salvation is used over and over again in the Bible, and it basically means to rescue from danger, to deliver from danger. So rescue and deliverance are part of salvation. And that's what Jesus came to earth to do—to rescue us. He's on a rescue mission. He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Now, many people are familiar with John 3:16. That's one of the most famous verses in all the Bible: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." But verse 17 is very important: "For the Father did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world or to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him." He came on a rescue mission so that the world would be saved and could be saved through him.

Now, when we think about the Christmas story, you know, Joseph is involved, but Joseph typically doesn't get much airtime. I mean, we don't talk about Joseph a lot. We sing songs like "Round yon virgin mother and child." Joseph's like, "Hey, I was there. Hey, you left me out." God is the father of the Lord Jesus, and Mary is the mother of the Lord Jesus. Joseph is the adoptive father, so to speak. He's the human element there to provide for him and to train him up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, which is what parents are supposed to do. He has a key job, but he gets overlooked often.

When you think about the Christmas story from his perspective, well, he's all jazzed about getting married. He's betrothed to Mary. It's an engagement that's stronger than our engagements because that means the only way you can break a betrothal is through divorce. During that betrothal period, you would be faithful to your spouse-to-be. Well, it was found during this betrothal that Mary was pregnant. Now, she told Joseph. We know that she told him as we read through the lines. She wouldn't have just not told him anything. And you can't hide it, right? After a while, he's going to know. So she said, "Well, I'm pregnant, but it's not what you think."

Well, I know what I think. What are you telling me? "Well, it was from the Holy Spirit." Yeah, right. I mean, who would believe that? Nobody would believe that. He didn't believe that. He wanted to believe it, but he couldn't believe it. It was just too outlandish. And so here he is, all excited about getting married, and then his excitement just turns to despair because he finds out she's pregnant. But he loves Mary and doesn't want to just throw her to the dogs, so to speak. He doesn't want to disgrace her publicly. He doesn't want to come square and say, "Hey, I was going to marry her, but she is unfaithful."

And what's the penalty for adultery? It's stoning—to be stoned. Well, he wasn't going to do that. So he's just going to put her away secretly. He's just going to go behind the scenes, so to speak. He's just going to do it under the radar because he doesn't want to disgrace her. But then he has a dream. He's thinking, "Well, this is what I'm going to do." But then he has a dream, and the angel comes to him in his dream. "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid." He was afraid to take Mary as his wife. He's afraid. What are people gonna say? I mean, people can do the math. They know. And, you know, I can't believe her story. I'm afraid to believe her story. "Don't be afraid, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, and she is going to bear a son. And you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

That "he" is emphatic in the Greek. He and only he will save his people from their sins. He's going to be on a rescue mission. Now, man, humanity needed to be saved from sin. Sin is the big player here. And God sent his son into the world to save man from sin. No doubt you've heard the quote that is very, very famous: "If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness. And so God sent a savior." He is going to save his people from their sins.

Now, notice he doesn't say he's going to save his people from their mistakes, from their faults, from their foibles. No, from their sins. We kind of like to water things down and make ourselves look better and feel better about ourselves. We're really not so bad, you know. He came to save me from my mistakes. Rosaria Butterfield, the lesbian activist who came to faith in Christ and now is a wife of a pastor and the mother of, I think, four or five children, wrote in her book that she and her husband were on a vacation in Southern California. They went to a community church that was there that was kind of this progressive, cutting-edge church. They wanted to see what it was like.

In the bulletin, it read the prayer of salvation. And this was from that church: "Dear God, I'm sorry for my mistakes. Thanks for saving me. Amen." Well, Rosaria rightly said, "You're sorry for your mistakes? Well, like it's no big deal. I just made a mistake. I missed the exit on the freeway. You know, I just have to turn around. I just made a little bit of a mistake." We haven't made mistakes; we have sinned against God. We have committed treason against heaven's king. And that's true for every single one of us. We have all, like sheep, gone astray. Each one has turned to his own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

You know, sin is not necessarily shaking your fist in the face of God and saying, "I'll show you, I'm going to do it my way." It's just blowing God off. Just saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jesus is just all right with me," singing that Doobie Brothers song and doing your own thing. That is sin. Sin is lawlessness, and sin is treason against heaven's king. Sin is a terrible, horrible thing. You know, the Bible says in Isaiah 59:1, "Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short that he cannot save, neither is his ear so dull that he cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear." We are separated from God. We're in terrible trouble. Sin is not a minor thing; it's a major thing. It's a cancer of the soul that will kill you forever and ever and ever.

So man needs a Savior because we needed to be saved from sin. And we need a Savior because we needed to be saved from divine wrath. We don't like to think about that. I was going back and forth on Facebook with somebody I've known for a long, long time, and they were trying to tell me, "You know, well, I don't see God the way you do. I don't see God as a God of wrath. He's just a God of love." Well, God is a God of love and a God of wrath. Jesus is full of grace and truth. And, you know, people like the love part. They like the grace part. They don't really like the truth part. They don't like the wrath part, but you don't get to design your own God. "I am who I am," said the Lord at the burning bush. And so God is who he is. He's not who you want him to be. And God does have wrath.

The Bible says in Romans 5:9, "Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him." Saved from the wrath of God. Romans, chapter 1: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident to them, for God made it evident within them." But people say no to God. Well, what does that bring? That brings the wrath of God. Now we live in a time where God's mercy, the dam of God's mercy, is holding back the waters of God's wrath. God is a God of mercy. He's a God of grace. He's a God of love. He does not want to judge. He does not want to destroy. He didn't want to do that with Nineveh.

But he sent Jonah the prophet, a very reluctant prophet, that finally went to Nineveh. Jonah, chapter three, preached, "Yet 40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown." Well, did God want to destroy Nineveh? No, he wanted to save Nineveh. And when Nineveh responded to the Lord in a positive way, in repentance and faith, the Lord relented concerning the evil that he said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it. And so God is always wanting to save. But God is a God of judgment. The waters of God's wrath are furiously beating against the dam of his mercy. One day the dam is going to break, and the waters of God's wrath are going to flood upon those who rejected the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Jesus came to earth for a rescue mission. He didn't come to judge the world the first time. When he comes again, he's coming to judge the world. Acts chapter 17: "God is now declaring that all men everywhere should repent because he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead." When the Lord comes back, he comes back not as Savior; he comes back as judge. But right now, his first coming, and before his second coming, he wants to save. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

So Jesus came to Earth for a rescue mission. Truth number two: Jesus came to Earth to reveal God to us. So, Joseph, he's told what he's supposed to do. And it says that she's going to have a son. Call his name Jesus. He will save his people from their sins. And then Matthew says this in verse 22: "Now, all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet." This is not what the angel said to Joseph; this is what Matthew, led by the Holy Spirit, is saying to us. Verse 23, he adds in from Isaiah, the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," which translated means God with us.

Now, Joseph didn't need any more convincing, but you and I need more convincing. So it's like, "Well, wait a minute. Is this really true?" Yeah, it's exactly what Isaiah said in Isaiah, chapter seven, when he said that to Ahaz. He gave that prophecy to Ahaz, King Ahaz, who was all afraid that the enemy was going to destroy him. He said, "Well, here's the sign. There's a virgin in your kingdom. She's unmarried. She's a virgin right now, but she's going to have a child. And that child is going to be named Immanuel. And before that kid grows up, the king that you fear, this army that you fear that's going to destroy you, they're going to be gone. You don't need to worry about them."

That was the immediate prophecy, but it had a future prophecy. And the future prophecy is fulfilled in Mary. She is the virgin who is going to give birth to a child. And that child is not going to be called Emmanuel; he's going to be Emmanuel. He is God with us. God with us. And so Jesus came to Earth to reveal God to us. This is what God is like. He's the exact representation of his nature, and he holds everything together by the word of his power. You remember at the Last Supper, Jesus, in John 14, they said, "Lord, we don't know the way you're going." He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me."

And Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." He said, "Philip, have I been so long with you, and yet you are not knowing me? Do you not understand? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, because I am in the Father and the Father is in me." Jesus is God in the flesh. And he came not only to rescue us but to reveal God. Now, I was really landing on this point. In verse 21, "You shall call his name Jesus," Yeshua in the Hebrew, "for he will save his people from their sins." The name is very, very important. That's what the angel in Luke chapter one told Mary: "Hail, favored one, the Lord is with you."

And then he says, "You're going to bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus." You can't call him whatever you want to call him; you're going to call him Jesus. And then it says in verse 25 of Matthew 1, "But he kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus." Yeshua, that's an important name because that name means Yahweh saves, or Yahweh is salvation. Now, it's not like nobody had that name before; that was a common name. It goes back to the Old Testament. You know, when we run across that name in the Old Testament, it's Joshua. And Joshua's name was Hoshea, which means salvation. Moses put a "yah" on it, Yahshua, or Yeshua, and said, "Yahweh is salvation."

So Joshua went from having a name, salvation, to Yahweh is salvation. And when they were told, Mary and Joseph, "You're going to have this baby, and you're going to name him Yeshua," well, that would immediately trigger things in the mind of a Hebrew about other people in the Bible who had that name. Now, there were three key people that had that name, and they're all pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first one is Joshua. I mean, we all know about Joshua. There's a whole book in the Bible called Joshua—the Book of Joshua, Joshua the deliverer. But then there's another guy in the Bible; his name was Joshua, and he was a high priest, and he's in the book of Zechariah. Then a third one is not named Joshua; he's named Hoshea, or as we call him, Hosea the Prophet. Well, that's the root of Yeshua. Hoshea means salvation.

And so I was reading this Greek scholar. You know, it's always fun to read Greek scholars. Those guys are just a barrel of laughs. Anyway, I was reading this Greek scholar, and he was talking about those three names and how they're so significant—significant because to a Jew, they would connect those dots.

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There are a lot more dots to this message. We're halfway through exploring the miracle of salvation from Pastor Jeff Shreve on from his heart today. Pastor Jeff will continue describing these three men of the Old Testament and how their names tell us so much about Jesus' Name. That's next time.

Before we go, let me remind you that because of your support, more people around the world are hearing the life-changing truth of God's Word, many for the very first time. Together we're proclaiming real truth, real love, and real hope in Jesus to countless hearts who need to hear about Him. As we step into 2026, we're praying that God would bless you richly for the difference that you're making in His kingdom.

If you're a supporter of From His Heart, we are forever thankful. Pastor Jeff is a supporter of this ministry as well. He and his wife Debbie are monthly vision partners, and he's also a volunteer for From His Heart, receiving no income from anything that comes to From His Heart. We're a separate nonprofit organization, and Pastor Jeff's church pays his salary. All you give goes to help us produce and distribute these programs on radio, television, and online around the world each day.

December is a critical month for us as we usually receive about a quarter of all the donations we'll get all year long, and it sets us up next year to be able to expand this ministry if God so moves on your heart. To join us this year with a generous gift, we'd like to say thank you by sending you a special resource that will encourage your walk with God throughout the coming year. It's a brand new, beautiful, high-quality daily devotional book called "The Heart Is God's Home" that Pastor Jeff helped to write.

It'll draw you closer to the Lord who lives within you. Each devotion reminds you that God's presence is as near as your own heartbeat through a powerful scripture reading, uplifting insights, a wonderful devotional, a heartfelt prayer, and more. The book is called "The Heart Is God's Home." Just request your copy when you give your best gift before January 1st.

Together, let's keep sharing the love of Jesus. Call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go online to fromhisheart.org with your year-end gift and get the year-long devotional book "The Heart Is God's Home."

Thank you for being with us today. I'm Larry Nobles, trusting you'll be here on Christmas Eve when Pastor Jeff will conclude the message "The Miracle of Salvation." That's next time when we'll open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His Heart. And Merry Christmas!

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Every scar.

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From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

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