Sermon Tone Analysis

*Galatians 2:20*

*The Reason Jesus Came*

 

“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.”

[1]

 

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e don’t usually think of Paul’s Letter to the Churches of Galatia as a resource for Christmas sermons.

However, the Incarnation of the Son of God is a central theme of the book.

Christmas can be wrapped up in a simple statement—God became man to present Himself as a sacrifice for sinful man.

Paul repeatedly makes this point in order to stress the liberty we now enjoy in Christ Jesus.

Pleading with the wayward Galatian churches, the Apostle makes one statement concerning the love of God that can only be classified as great, both in intent and in impact.

Paul’s purpose in life is stated in our text, and that noble purpose would well serve each Christian as we seek to commemorate the birth of the Saviour.

Examine the Apostle’s statement with me that together we may discover the reason Jesus came.

*God’s Love Personalised* — “I have been crucified with Christ.”

The Apostle personalised God’s love.

Without making the central truths of the Gospel personal, one cannot be saved.

Not only can an individual not be saved without making the Gospel personal, but one cannot begin to comprehend the love of God without recognising that the provision of forgiveness was because of the love of God in Christ the Lord.

One of my favourite passages in the entire Bible is *Romans 10:9, 10, 13*.

Almost always I quote these verses at the conclusion of the messages I deliver.

I do this because I am convinced that with these verses Paul makes the issue of salvation so very clear.

Note how these verses stress the need to make the message of life personal.

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Then, the Apostle cites the Prophet Joel who testifies that, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

“If you,” an individual, one somebody—you—confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you will be saved.

It is a tragic error of too many of our Paedobaptist friends to give the false hope that an adult can believe in the place of an infant.

Even those churches that aver that such is not their intent must admit that the common perception is that salvation is conferred on the infant who is christened.

It is a glorious truth that Jesus loves children, instructing His disciples not to hinder them as they are coming to Him.

However, accepting children is quite different from declaring them saved because of a rite.

Salvation is not bestowed because someone other than yourself has intervened or believed.

Salvation is offered to anyone willing to receive the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus as an individual.

“With the heart one believes … and with the mouth one confesses.”

Salvation implies forgiveness of sin for individuals.

It has been well said that God has no stepchildren.

Just because you were raised in a Christian home, or just because your father went to church, does not make you a Christian.

Just because you were born in Canada does not mean you are a Christian.

Going to church no more makes you a Christian than living in a garage makes you a Mercedes Benz.

Salvation is offered to those who are lost, and if one will be saved, he must individually come as one who is lost, receiving the reign of Christ over his life and accepting His sacrifice because of their own sin.

If we will be saved, we must each receive the offer of life individually.

We Baptists insist upon a testimony of faith preceding baptism as this is taught both by precept and by example in the Word of God.

Those baptised on the Day of Pentecost first received Peter’s word that they must repent and believe the Lord Jesus [*Acts **2:41*].

Those who were baptised in Samaria were baptised when they believed [*Acts **8:12*].

The jailer in Philippi who was baptised submitted to the ordinance because he believed the message of life in Christ the Lord [*Acts **16:31*].

Beyond this, however, the very act of baptism itself demands that the candidate receiving the ordinance will have already accepted the truth pictured through the rite.

Listen to the Apostle as he explains the significance of baptism in his letter to the Romans [*Romans 6:3-11*].

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.

For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

In baptism, the child of God confesses that Christ died because of her sin, and that Jesus was raised for her justification.

As she is baptised, the candidate looks back to the death and burial of Christ the Lord, confessing her personal belief in these truths.

Moreover, she confesses that she has personally accepted that He died in her place and that he was raised specifically for her to be declared righteous.

In other words, she confesses her personal responsibility for the death of Christ the Lord and confesses that she personally benefits from His resurrection because it has been made effectual for her.

The Christian Faith is personal, if nothing else.

The implicit demand of the Faith we preach is that each individual must choose whether to believe what is declared.

If the individual opts to attempt to work to make herself acceptable, she will have effectively rejected the opportunity to believe and to be saved.

Though it is true that “God is love” [*1 John **4:16*], that love is ineffectual until one has received it personally.

Until I accept the offer of love extended by Holy God, His love is merely theoretical.

The call of the Word of God is to make this testimony practical, receiving the love of God personally.

This means that I will accept that Christ died because of my sin—that He died because of me.

Knowing that I caused His death, I will also accept that He rose from the dead to declare me righteous before the Father.

John’s testimony concerning Jesus makes this Good News incredibly personal.

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

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” [*John **3:16**-18*].

To believe is to receive; to fail to believe is to reject.

There is no family salvation, no national salvation, no cultural salvation.

God calls us to faith as individuals, and we are born again into the Family of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Oh, that each individual could say with conviction, “I have been crucified with Christ.”

Oh, that each individual could with confidence affirm that they stand firm in confessing that salvation is the gift of God, given because an individual lays down all claim to righteousness except for that which is found in Christ the Lord.

It is vital to point out that we must affirm this truth precisely because fuzzy-minded evangelicals permit their emotions to overwhelm the truth they profess to have embraced.

Such emotionally motivated individuals just cannot believe that God will not accept their child.

After all, the child grew up in a Christian home and is a good kid.

They grab one isolated verse and say they trained the child properly, so they “know” that their wayward daughter or son will return to the Faith in days to come.

Or they cannot believe that God will not accept a neighbour, because he is a “good person.”

Dear people, salvation is never extended because one is raised in a Christian environment.

Neither is salvation given because someone is a good person.

Each individual must personally come to the point that he confesses that Jesus is Lord, believing that his own sin necessitated the death of the Son of God.

Each individual who will be saved must personally receive Jesus as Saviour and Master of life.

As John says, “[Jesus] came to his own, and his own people did not receive Him.

But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” [*John 1:11-13*].

*God’s Love Demonstrated* — “The Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me…”  Paul declares that the Son of God loved him; and each member of God’s redeemed family can make that same affirmation.

It is a tragic truth that whenever we speak of love, our fallen race has so distorted the concept that it is necessary to define what is meant by the term.

The Children’s hymn, “Jesus Loves Me,” presents a great theological truth that is too often taken for granted.

Jesus loves me, this I know,

For the Bible tells me so.

Though we teach the song to our children, as we grow older we tend to fail to retain the truth of that declaration.

Jesus attested that whoever has seen Him has seen the Father [*John 14:9*].

Therefore, when we say that “God is love” [*1 John **4:16*], we also testify that the Son of God is likewise defined by the essential characteristic of love.

Love, in biblical terms, is associated with God, but it is utterly unlike our concept of love.

Love, in modern parlance, is usually tossed about in reference to an emotion.

Love, as we most frequently define the term, is focused on gratifying our personal needs and desires, whether emotional or physical.

We say we “love” a particular food, or we claim to “love” a particular football team.

Obviously, we do not mean that we have a physical relationship with that food or with that football team, but we mean that eating that particular food or watching that particular team play brings gratification.

When I say I “love” wild game, we understand that I am speaking of gratifying my palate.