The Gospel of Christ Personally Yours

Be sitting for the hymn and stand for the scripture, but remain standing, please. Turn to Galatians chapter two. I'll only make you endure standing for two verses, which will be our reading and the text for the preaching to come.

Galatians chapter two, beginning at verse 19. The word of God through the apostle Paul to the Galatians and now to us. For through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. God bless this reading of his word, and now the proclamation.

Please be seated. So we begin today a series that I'm going to preach, might last through all of June and maybe a little bit into July, depending. There's at least June in this short series that I've put together.

Begins today. Now series is what we will often call topical. It's a topical series. I'm not going to exposit text, particularly I'm not going to go through a particular book or epistle or psalm, verse by verse or anything like that.

I have a topic in mind. And calling it topical really doesn't even quite describe what I have in mind as your preacher, as your pastor. Because I have in mind more a result that I would like to have in you.

I have the result in mind more really than a topic. I've searched through scripture in order to support this result that I have in mind. I found text that perhaps are not the inspired author's main point.

I've worked hard to be fair and honest to derive a point that is true to the main point, that is in context a true derivative of the point. We need to understand that Paul's letters, which is where I'm going to take most of this series from, they're written to churches.

And each letter had its own purpose. For each one of those letters, there was a particular issue that needed to be addressed. And that's what we call the occasion of the letter, the occasion or the purpose.

What caused, what was the catalyst for the apostles to sit down and write under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the occasion. And so consequently, because these letters were predominantly written to churches, Philemon being an exception, but they're written to churches, and therefore we have the commands and the corrections and the things that needed to be said and needed to be obeyed and the differences that need to be made in our lives were all to the church in the plural.

So the pronoun you would be in the Greek, in the plural, you all. We have commands like this, or do you, you, plural, all of you, do you not know that your body, now it's singular, that's the whole made up of the many parts, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?

And you, again plural, you all, were dead in trespasses and sins. He's writing to a church. And for my purposes, I cannot use a verse like that that will not meet to the result that I'm looking for. My point here being just to point out to you and to remind you that Paul wrote to churches, and so most of what he wrote is in the plural.

You need to make a correction. You need to repent. You all need to act in this way. So I begin with those two verses from the letters to the Galatians, and the church in Galatia was at the time in grave danger.

They were tilting precipitously away from the true gospel and towards a mentality, a mentality that is most dangerous, a mentality that is so easy for all of us or any of us to slip into, a mentality of Jesus plus.

Jesus plus something. Jesus plus my effort. Jesus plus my prayer. Jesus plus my attendance at church. Jesus plus my home worship. Jesus plus anything in order to attain to salvation or to grow in the Lord.

Jesus plus anything, not only for sanctification, but for assurance of acceptance by God. And that last phrase most particularly to the Galatians. And so Paul moves to where I believe we must all go. To understand that the gospel, especially in the letters where it's mostly plural, for you all, for we as a church to respond as a people, as individuals responding as a unit, as a body, yes, that all being true.

And yet there's a point where we as individuals must apprehend the gospel individually. And this is the result I would have in this short series I've put together. That you as a person, that you as an individual Christian will be sure that you have apprehended the gospel of Jesus Christ, the salvation that he wrought for you on the cross personally and individually.

And so again, I've been a little bit careful in the verses that I'm taking to bring this to you. And the reason I brought up the one about do you not know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, that's one I would not use for this purpose because that cannot be transitioned from the plural to the singular because you singularly are not the temple of the Holy Spirit.

We together are. So integrity would say I cannot use a verse like that for the purposes I'm drawing out of scripture. My purpose is for you today, God willing next Sunday and the Sunday after and the Sunday after, to leave this place with a personal apprehension of Christ Jesus, to be able to say Christ Jesus died for me with the Apostle Paul in context who says, life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Given to us in the plural in many places. But I ask that we look at these singulars and I ask you, do you apprehend this gospel? Do you personally apprehend the gospel? The Galatians needed to act as one to shed themselves of the people we call the Judaizers, the ones who were bringing in this false doctrine, the one that alarmed Paul more than almost any other church, any other issue he dealt with.

If you read the letter to the Corinthians and all the errors and all the weird stuff that we can't quite figure out with the church in Corinth at that time, he was angry, he had some irony in his letter, his corrections were severe, but if you read through it and then read Galatians, you'll find for the Galatian church he was alarmed, they were in danger.

And so he writes to them and he wants the individuals there to meld their thinking into the apostle's instruction with all the rest and this I think is why we have this short verse, this short, pithy, pungent personal summary of the gospel where the apostle Paul says of Jesus Christ that he is the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Do you struggle with a sin? I mean, I don't mean sin generally because we all struggle with sin in the world, we all struggle with sin in ourselves, God willing you struggle with sin in yourself. But do you struggle?

Do you struggle with a sin, with a tendency? And what do we do when we're convicted in that way? What do you do? Well, we pray and I encourage you, keep praying. We confess and I encourage you because it's biblical, keep confessing to God and to others as needed.

We seek counsel from God and his word from the safety of many counselors and I would say keep seeking. These are all good and right things to do when we are under the sway of a particular sin, what the Puritans called a besetting sin, a tendency, a way of thinking, a thought process that comes to our minds too often in the same situation over and over again, responses that are wrong and it keeps happening over and over and over.

I don't have a cure all here, but I do have a cure I believe from the scriptures. Add to the reminder of your Christianity, the reminder that Paul gave to the Galatians that Jesus Christ, he who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, that this Jesus, the eternal son of God, the second person in Trinity, he emptied himself and he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross and this same Jesus says the apostle Paul loved me and gave himself for me.

Now I don't mean to imply and Paul didn't mean to imply that he or I or you or anyone else was worth saving. That's not what is being said at all in this emphasis on the personal pronoun, the singular personal pronoun.

Again, quoting the apostle Paul in context. But the reminder of the personal sacrifice of a personal God who personally sent his son to become a person like you and me and then give himself for me. And God willing, you can say for me, with me.

Gave himself for me personally, not exclusively, but personally. You know, it's a powerful bomb to think that way. It's a powerful bomb against sin and it's an equally powerful catalyst for growth. It takes the idea of the gospel, the concept of the gospel, the plural of the gospel and it forces it upon me.

Now again, it doesn't say, look who God saved, Moah. That's not it at all. It's with humility and thankfulness to God that God before all time chose you, me, by name to be in Christ. That's Ephesians chapter one, verses three and four.

We chose us to be in him. He predestined us to be in him. Predestined us to be in his son when his son went to the cross and redeemed us. Us, yes, you, by name, in the son, by the predestining will of God the father.

No, we're not worth saving. God didn't look through the anvil sometimes and say this one's gonna be great in my kingdom. I really need her or him. That's not it at all. It's God's mercy, it's God's grace, it's God's will.

We need to transform the words like this. While we were yet sinners, as the Apostle Paul writes to the Romans, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, the just for the unjust. And we need to transfer that.

We need to use that kind of a verse and make it into the singular. And unlike you all are the temple of the Holy Spirit, which we can't use for my purposes, this one we can. This one we can. We do no harm, we do no foul to the scripture if we say while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me.

I being unjust, he being the just, he died for me. The just for the unjust. There's kind of a syllogism here. Now syllogism is simply a way of reasoning where you take a major premise, a minor premise, and come to a conclusion.

The premises have to make sense and the conclusion has to be logically connected to the two premises. But it could be something like this. All humans are persons. I'm a human, I'm a person. Major premise, all persons are human.

Minor premise, I'm a person. Excuse me, all humans are persons. Minor premise, I'm human. Conclusion, I'm a person. Major, minor conclusion. So while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, the just for the unjust.

Major premise, Christ died for sinners. Minor premise, I am a sinner. Are you with me so far? Christ died for sinners, amen?

Amen.

I am a sinner, amen? Well it's the right conclusion. Christ died for me. That's logic and that's scriptural. You know, I've noticed something in my pastoral career. I've noticed something. When people come to discuss their issues, I will always ask about the gospel and their conversion to the gospel.

And I often, if not usually, hear something like this. Okay, Jesus is the eternal son of God. He is God himself, as much God as is a father, as much God as is a spirit. And on the cross he paid the penalty for my sin and by faith I know him and I'm saved.

And that's a fair description of the gospel. It shows an understanding of the gospel. It shows how the son of man came to seek that which was lost and give himself his life a ransom for many. But you know, I've started to notice, and I hear this often, that's describing the gospel.

That's telling me about the gospel. It's not quite a personal apprehension of that gospel. Let me make an illustration of this. I have always thought that the fifth generation Corvette is the best looking Corvette that Chevy ever made.

Okay, they were made from 1997 to 2004. Mine out there, you know what I'm referring to, that's a 2003, which by the way, turned 33 years old. I was driving it home, but that's another story. But I thought about them for a long time and I understood a lot about the C5 Corvette.

I understood, for example, this is when I'm sitting at America's Tire Company waiting for tires to get put in my car and I read about cars I can't afford and road and track and car and driver. So I understood some things about the C5 Corvette.

Had a 350 cubic inch engine that makes 350 horsepower. Not much by today's standards, but it's quite a bit if you put your foot into it. I understood that they're made from 1997 to 2004. I understood that the transmission is a rear mounted transaxle.

And finally, to stop boring you with details, I understood, because I read about it, that the frame members are hydroformed, which for some reason is why they're so stiff and light. What does all that mean to me?

Well, it meant that I understood something about this car, which lines I so admired. But I had no idea what it was like until I bought the one that's in the parking lot now, which, by the way, is the first one I ever sat in.

So I went from understanding about the car and knowing something about the car to a personal apprehension of it. I think they're great cars, mine is great, but I didn't know until I sat in it and drove it.

Now, that's not to boast about the car, but that's just to illustrate to you the difference between understanding about something and personally experiencing it. To understanding the thing and having a mental apprehension of it to a personal apprehension of it, to an experience of it.

So often in the Psalms, when David speaks of drinking a cup of salvation, or nations are spoken of by the prophet, drinking a cup of judgment, experiencing something personally. And I fear, especially in Reformed circles, where we want to be so well taught, and it's good to be well taught in the Scripture, that too often it comes to the mind and we forget that it needs to go down.

And the way we bring it from the mind to the heart, one way we bring it from mind to heart is what I'm admonishing you today from the Son of God who loved me, gave himself for me, to take this individually.

To remember that as unworthy as we are, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. As unable as we are to accomplish anything that God did for us in Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus did do that for you.

To make himself a people, a church, a great nation, yes, all of us together, but we are made up of individuals. You need to be sure that while understanding the Gospel and the importance of understanding the Scripture, because the Scripture is spiritual, they engage mind and soul.

You have to move to the personal, to the Son of God who loved me. And it can be very uncomfortable to think this way, but it's something we need to do because as I've shown you, it's Scriptural. And we're beginning with the one that is most clearly in context, where the Apostle Paul himself loved me, gave himself for me.

In order to motivate all those individuals to think together and become a body and move away from a particular crisis. God deals with nations. God decrees wars. God sends armies here and there. Our God is in the heavens.

He does whatever he pleases. God deals with creation. He sends rain and sun when and how he sees fit. He changes the heart of the king. He decrees when a sparrow should fall. And so Jesus uses the plural and he means each of us individually when he says, but if God so clothes the grass of the field, this God who raises up and destroys nations, which is alive today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, in other words, it's meaningless, it's temporary.

It only lasts a few hours and it's gone. If God does that then and there, will he not much more clothe you?

Oh, you of little faith.

We think of common grace, we think of particular grace and things like that and we turn it into an intellectual concept which is a wonderful thing to think through because it helps us in the scripture.

But don't forget. Let us never forget. Let us always remember that Jesus Christ himself says, will he not much more clothe you, me? Oh, me, Joshua Sheldon. Oh, you, Jane Doe.

Of little faith.

How do we remember that God will clothe me of little faith? By remembering that he knows me. By remembering that when Jesus Christ redeemed a people in himself, I, the individual, for no other reason than God's mercy, but I, the person, was placed by that merciful God in him.

The one. Part of a many, but still the one. I think personal apprehension of the gospel will magnify your faith. It moves you from intellect to heart. It moves you from mind to action. I wonder, did this personal, me-based reminder to the Galatians help them through their crisis?

We can only hope. You know, we don't have the second book of Galatians or anything in Acts or something like that to tell us that when they received this letter, they repented, got rid of the Judaizers and moved forward.

We don't know. We can only hope. But if it did, I would argue one of the reasons it did, one of the more powerful things that Paul said in that letter was, the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Here's how that might work. The Judaizer. Does everybody remember what the Judaizers were advocating? You need to be circumcised. Then the Judaizer comes to a Christian in the Galatian church and says, you must be circumcised.

Galatian.

Really?

Why so? Judaizer. Well, the law demands it. This is how you enter into God's covenant people. Galatian.

Nah, I'll pass.

My acceptance with God, hear me, my acceptance with God is because of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That's why I'm accepted by God. That's why God set his love upon me. That's why God had put me in Christ so I would believe this.

No, I'll pass. Acceptance with God is because of Jesus Christ who loved me, gave himself for me, and not for something I did, not for something I can do. And there right away, I would say, I would argue, if you have this locked in your mind as a Galatian, you believe that Jesus Christ died for me to redeem me from all lawlessness, to bring me into the liberty of the gospel and the kingdom of God.

If you believe he did this for me, their answer to the heresy would be just as I said. No, Christ died for me. Christ has done it all. And you can go through the law and you can twist your mind into a pretzel with all the fancy arguments, but if you know that Christ died for me and you read on and say, for liberty, Christ has set us free, set me free, you have a powerful protection against being misled.

We still need to read the scriptures. We still need to understand the scriptures. We still need to be taught the scriptures through the formal teaching of the church, through preaching, through Bible studies, all that.

Yes, I'm not saying you can just quote this verse and all of a sudden you're magically protected. I'm saying this is one powerful protection you can have. Is there sin in you that you just have not been able to relinquish?

It could be that your attack has come from the mind. Do you remember that Jesus Christ came to save sinners of whom I am the chief? And when we put ourselves in there and say that Paul was saying he was the chief of all sinners and we put ourselves and say I'm the chief of all sinners, we're misusing that a bit, but that's just me.

But when we have it just in our mind and you remember the gospel points and you understand the gospel and you can intellectualize the gospel, do we forget to personalize it? As we're working against a particular sin, a particular tendency, whatever it is that you've been unable to repent of in a way that brings transformation away from it, perhaps this will help.

Say it this way. I'm not gonna make you call this out. Remind yourself the son of God, Jesus Christ, who loved me, comma, Joshua Sheldon, comma, and gave himself for me, comma, Joshua Sheldon, and then your name.

And see if that doesn't attach you more closely to the personal aspect of the gospel. See if that doesn't help you to remember that the Holy Spirit was given to you in order to help you along in this journey, in this world, in order to make you powerful to mortify your sin.

Not just that God helps mortify and God has the power and God raised Jesus from the dead and that power works toward us who believe in him, Ephesians 119. That's all true.

What am I saying?

Is it yours personally? Can you put your name in there? Might be a little uncomfortable because we don't wanna make much of ourselves, but the gospel saves persons. And we need to remember this as we struggle to become more like Jesus Christ.

It could be that while Christ has made you his own, you've not quite made him your own. Maybe what's lacking is Revelation 2 .17, a white stone with a new name written on that stone that no one knows except the one who receives it,.

An individual.

You have a name from Jesus Christ that he wrote and gave to you, the individual, the person who he redeemed into a people. The prince of preachers, excuse me, Charles Spurgeon wrote here, you will not do wrong, my beloved friends, if you meditate on what the grace of God has enabled you to do, if you do it humbly, and if you praise God for it.

Do you have anything that you've done to deserve that grace? Of course not. Spurgeon says, though, meditate upon it and meditate on what that grace of God enables you, the one, the individual, to do. Do so humbly, do so with gratitude to God, do so knowing that without Jesus, as he says himself, you can do nothing.

And yet, the individual empowered. The problem with only understanding the gospel without personalizing your relationship with God because of the gospel is that by doing so, you keep Jesus at arm's length.

He becomes God and became man in order to save sinners, of which I am one, and brethren, that's a weak medicine for your sin. That's a poor fuel for your journey into his image. Put your name there. Remember that God sent his son to die for you.

Undeserving, of course, we always have to say that we're in a reformed church, but it's true. And yet, the individuality of the gospel.

Cannot be forgotten.

You know, it's sort of like marriage, isn't it? This idea of personalizing. Before you get married, it looks so great. You can understand what marriage is, you can read the Bible and see what the biblical standards are.

You can come to this great Sunday school Pastor Rowan's been giving on the theology behind marriage, which has been, can I say, it's just a brief advertisement, has been really, really good. Be here for that.

But you don't know it until you personalize it. You don't know how wonderful it is to have a husband or a wife until it's yours. Until you go from the descriptions of it, from friends or from reading about it, to actually experiencing it.

Whether you struggle with a particular sin or if you're dissatisfied with your progress towards Jesus' image, in either case, in any case, here's what I want you to do. I want you to experience the personal nature of the scripture, of the gospel.

Pray Galatians 2 .20 with your name. Like I said, the son of God who loved me, your name, and gave himself for me, your name, and pray that way and put your name there. And see if that doesn't draw you a little bit closer to the feet of Jesus Christ himself personally.

Well, I pray I've shown you or persuaded you some of the power and the benefit of apprehending Jesus and his gospel personally, of putting your name here in the son of God who loved your name. I'll close now with another quote from Spurgeon.

I want you to listen to how he transitions from the plural we and us to the each of us, to the individual. This wraps it up very well, I think. The apostle, that's Paul, the apostle knew that Christ had loved him and had given himself for him.

And we may also know it. It is not necessary for us to go through life merely hoping and fearing, questioning and inquiring, may I add, reading and understanding. We may come to the certain knowledge of the fact, if it be a fact, that we have an interest in the special love of Jesus Christ, that we are redeemed from among men, that we are called and separated to the Lord's particular people, that each of us may be able to say of the Lord Jesus Christ who loved me and gave himself for me.

May God be pleased to draw near to you, to me, to us as we, as I, as you draw near to him, amen?