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July 19, 2021 12:01 am
When we come to faith in Jesus and are united to the crucified, risen Savior, our old life is left on the other side of the cross. Today, Sinclair Ferguson identifies what it means for Christians to be crucified with Christ.
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How does the Bible measure love, we must look great and also the love by the greatness and dignity for all the love for unconditional grace of dignity. That's what's so astonishing to the apostle. It's the son of God who loved me. First John three says what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. You can hear the apostle John's utter amazement and delight the magnitude of the father's love for his children were going to consider that today here on Renewing Your Mind as we look at a theme that that we come across repeatedly in the New Testament. Our union with Christ.
What does it mean to be united with Christ as it look like and how is it a measure of God's love for our teacher is Dr. Sinclair Ferguson were coming again to this theme of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ I want, especially in the session to focus on one particular verse very famous verse which if you became a Christian in my era, you would have been told to memorize immediately its Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20. These amazing words of Paul that, in a way nothing seems to prepare you far when he says I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me on 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 among them mayonnaise striking things about this statement is the prepositions that Paul uses. I'm not sure there's another verse in the whole of the New Testament for the whole gospel is summarized by the use of four different prepositions. I've been crucified with Christ.
Christ lives in me. I live by faith. He gave himself for me.
Amazing. Just in these four prepositions. It seems as though the whole of the gospel is summarizing socks away. Our union with the Lord Jesus Christ is so clearly stated in a way this is the framework for a gospel saturated Christian life, and clearly it focuses on this idea that we are united to Christ and in some ways something like if this was Paul's first letter of East first letter that we still have this would be his ugliest statement of this theme that we sent you remember Al out on in our studies we can trace all the way back to his encounter with Steven and Stephen's mom told him sometimes the logic of a passage is slightly different from the audit of the warrants in the passage on so I want us to think about this since were thinking specially about this doctrine of union with Christ what to think about the logic, the nature of the gospel that comes to expression in 20 says here in Galatians 220. Because there are four steps in his thinking. Step number one the son of God loved me and gave himself for me. Step number two I live by faith in the son of God, step number three. I've been crucified with Christ.
Yes, I live in step number four at the same time. It is also true, but Christ lives in me.
Let us remind ourselves first of all, but union with Christ is not some abstract concept on the way in which Paul brings Lance out here is by the way he undergirds all he says. With the knowledge of the love of Christ we can be united to Christ, for one simple reason. Jesus Christ loved us and pull strictures but statement to its maximum. We might say, by the way he describes the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God loved me and gave himself for me. Paul is actually the only person in the New Testament who says that the son of God loved me, however, the apostle John also notes the fourth Gospel describes himself as the disciple Jesus love the disciple Jesus love but you know when he says that I don't think you saying he loved me more than he loved the other disciple. I think what you saying is I have discovered but she left me, singing not only has discovered that he wants to stay took the son of God loved me when you think about that statement. You, you realize he is actually saying a tremendous amount about love. How do we measure lots was how do we measure love. One of the ways we we measure love despite the greatness of the lover, but so is how the stories work part-time Cinderella works.
The greatness of his friends who is falling in love with Cinderella. So we measure the greatness of the love by the greatness and dignity of the lover unconditional grace of dignity. That's what's so astonishing to the apostle. It's the son of God who loved me and then we measure love by the distance of the difference between the lots are on the left one Cinderella box wasn't Cinderella Wada Princess, it wouldn't work in the same way but she's not a princess she's she's a poor general. That's what makes the princes love so overwhelming and that's what Paul has come from the son of God loved the sun before we translate that into our own experience was perfectly legitimate.
Don't just confuse that me with this me that me who is this me. While this is the me who was trying to destroy the church. This is the me who at the blood of Christians on his this is the me who seriously believed he was the chief of sinners. Now I know we often say you can see coal growing in holiness through the letters because he grows from being the least of the apostles to the chief of sinners. That may well be true. But Paul believed he was the chief of sinners, because he really did believe he was the chief of said but the son of God loved but then we measure love biathlon measurement. Don't wait by quote the lover will do for the loved one. The lover will do for love quote the son of God loved me and gave himself for me.
It's unspeakable is an let me remind you what he's doing here. He saying this is the one to whom your your nice.
This is the one to whom your unite will ever match a Christian who just retains a deep sense of lack of assurance of of the love of God, a friend said to me recently on a mature Christian friends said to me, sometimes you wonder if you really love should going through a hard time not much sign of soul.
How do you really know Christ love should I I rather suspect many Christians subliminal and succulent as though things are going so well in my life. Most of the signs, the Lord left me so that's what we got into difficulties when things aren't going well in our life's work were sitting there he loves me he loves me not.
When things go well. I know he loves think when things don't go well I don't quickly love snake, but the Bible never tells you to believe that Jesus loves you because good things are happening in your life. The Bible tells you to believe that Jesus loves you because he gave himself for you.
Providence is extremely difficult to read because will not God. We don't know what God is doing in our lives. We don't we don't see the full picture.
So where are we going to look going to look to the place where he gave himself for some of you will know how Charles Hudson's function sometimes used to say I look at the cross and I wonder if God loves me more than he loves her son because he's dying in my place because he's given himself for me about polo so towards the end of Romans… This is this is the anchor of our assurances.
Those who are united to Jesus Christ we know that he will give us everything we need because we know if you gave us his son and social God is saying. I don't have any more to give you I've given you everything in getting my son to on this is the background to the idea of union with Christ. This is the Christ of whom we are united. It's amazing. From heaven he came and sought to be his holy bride with his own blood he bought us on for our life. She died. This is the foundation of all of our union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. But then Paul goes on to a second I mentioned here, so there's the wonder of the love of Christ for us is the foundation of this union, but then secondly, the nature of our response to him. I live by faith in him know many of you know how to go to farmer some but the reformed theologians have described faith as being a kind of amalgam of three dimensions.
That is knowledge because you you can't believe in what you don't know and that is a sin because you don't believe in something that your mind retracts and then there is trust faces and trusting yourself. I was taught as a young Christian faith is forsaking all I take him unless what Paul is saying here.
I live by faith in the son of God, but notice what he's really saying here is not.
I live by faith really saying is it's not my faith that sustains is the object of my faith that sustains and of course Littlejohn Hill to put a little bit differently but this faith is a faith that unites me to Jesus Christ. I believe into the Lord Jesus Christ's and when I am thus united to him all that he is forming is also mine all that he is done for me is also mine is a very important thing for us to understand people often speak about their relationship to the Lord Jesus taught that a coming how is your relationship to the Lord Jesus I know often the answer to that question as well. I'm struggling a bit of backsliding to tell the truth of things are going really well. One way I want to say that's not what I mean when I ask you what your relationship is if somebody says to me what is your relationship to Dorothy Manson is not gotten okay at the moment all you know where 4000 miles away at the moment myosin is unmounted to our thoughts. My relationship to her and that does not change in the ups and downs of life sciences. The steady reality of our lives, and Paul wants us to understand that exactly the same is true of our union with Christ doesn't go up and done.
Yes, our communion with him.
We may grieve the Holy Spirit, that we may stumble on sale. We may we make time away for a season, but the relationship is a constant reality and it never changes. We live by faith in the son of God on the recent never changes us because when we believe into Jesus Christ. Something happens. Since Paul and what happens is this I at that point I'm crucified with Christ. I want to encourage you, just a step back from that statement for a minute and under powers it I know most of us didn't like the teachers who told us to parse the because we Can evoke confused with Woodson voices and all the rest look, it's very important that we parse this statement of Paul. First of all pretense. Second, the voice phoned the mood the tense is present or past the voice is active or passive. The mood is it indicative of command competitive forces. It will look at what Paul says here.
First of all pretense. I have been crucified with Christ, hold onto this Paul is not telling you to do anything here. This is not something you have to do. This is something that is happened to some that happen to you when you came to faith in Jesus Christ of our other places where he tells us those those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its lost two sons left at the end of Galatians have something we do we have to put sin.
Today we are to take up the cross and carry it daily, but that is not what he is saying here. This is not a command about what we are to do in the present.
This is a statement about something that is happened to us in the past when we became united to Jesus Christ.
I must place in the passive voice.
I have been crucified with Christ mostly is not in the imperative mood, but the indicative mood is not telling us to do something is telling us to recognize something that has been done in other words, it's encouraging us to recognize who we are.
Who are you I am somebody who is been crucified with Christ and yet I live this Paul mean by that. Well, will explore about that later on in our studies, but it's a very important thing for us to ask how do you think about yourself as a Christian because Paul is encouraging us to think about ourselves as Christians, we got up in the morning who are my only become conscious that we are somebody we say while you are my goal is not saying you'll be one thing tomorrow. One thing today differencing yesterday using the answer to that question every single day of your life as a Christian is because I'm united to Christ, who was crucified and raised. I am somebody in union with him who has been crucified and raise the old has gone, the new has come is not what he said in second Corinthians chapter 5 if anyone is in Christ, the old creation has gone, the new creation has come. How is the old creation God because when you are united to Christ. He will united to a crucified Christ a new sales and all the implications of that crucifixion. When you believe into the Lord Jesus Christ knows some of our churches. We say the apostles Creed. Probably most Sundays on the minister or the person who's involved in the service usually introduces it by saying this Christian what do you believe what he means is, what do you believe about the truths of the gospel and so we also I believe in God the father Almighty, maker of heaven and saw one of the other creeds, but to our surprise, the minister said Christian. What do you believe about yourself what you believe about yourself. I think it would be tragically unusual for the congregation unless it were live in the order of service instinctively to say I have been crucified with Christ and yet I live here, Paul is saying this is absolutely definitive of what it means to be a Christian. You cannot be a Christian unless you've been crucified with Christ. It's over. The very essence of coming to faith in him and participating in what he has done so that it brings to an end. The old life that you'd used to live it. It's it's on the other side of the cross. That's what they say, the person who takes up the cross and follows him is like the person who puts his hand to the plowed and does not look back to that old life, but we try it another way to argue well I can tell that by looking at your domain you might be English.
You might be French you might be Canadian. You, for all I know your chairman.
I can tell by looking at so who are you going to say most of the sick. I am an American.
So I said she was a Christian who are you Christian than this is this is the heart of the response. This is who I I'm somebody who's been crucified with Christ on your time with what happened to him is a reality in which I have come to share because by faith. I've been united to him because I've been united to him.
He has given me an entirely new and glorious identity. We were thinking about this in their last study one way that's one of the basic problems of the world in which we live. People don't know who they are and so they have to invent themselves, and it's actually the problem with many Christians. They don't know who they are until the scouting around and scenting themselves and not reading the Bible's unlearning from the Bible is who we really are in Christ. But then you notice he had something else. Yes, I've been crucified with Christ. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
But then he adds this on this Christ has come to indwell me. I been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. I said didn't and undoubtedly are started that book the great focus of the New Testament is on getting out of ourselves into Christ when you see correspondingly when the spirit brings us out of ourselves into Christ. He also comes to dwell in us. He comes to dwell in us is the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ so that we are able to sales. Paul says here Christ lives in me. I'll never tell my dying day and perhaps beyond that as our forget the first time I have some I think it was 15 on the words of Paul in Colossians 1 Christ in you the hope of glory. You see, this is the other side of it. Who am I I'm somebody who's been crucified with Christ. But I'm also someone in whom, but crucified and risen, ascended and raining Christ by his Holy Spirit has come to indwell labs who have hustling the Christian life is so extraordinary that's why the gospel is so great that's why salvation somebody because that's who you are Christian, what do you believe about yourself I been crucified with Christ in your time with them yet not Christ lives in me couldn't be is one of the greatest comfort you and I can have as Christians to know that we have Christ – and as we learned today is because of our union with Christ, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson is been our teacher today. He's one of our teaching fellows here at regular ministries, and as he pointed out many believers are unaware of this doctrine, but it helps us understand how closely Jesus identifies with us as Christians, our relationship with sin and the devil has changed and how we bear the fruit of the spirit. It's all part of Dr. Ferguson's teaching series union with Christ, and were making all 12 messages available on DVD for your donation of any about you can call us today to request your copy at 800-435-4343 or you can give your gift online at Renewing Your Mind.Ward. Dr. Ferguson will be one of our featured speakers at next year's litigator national conference that's there. March 24 through the 26th here in Orlando. Our theme is upholding Christian ethics will also hear from the other regular teaching fellows along with Dr. John MacArthur. They will help us understand how the Stanford truth love our neighbors Welland and seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, so I hope you'll make plans to join us again that March 24 through the 26th you'd like to register or just know more about the conference go to Ligon era.Ward/events. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow as Dr. Ferguson addresses what it means to be baptized into Christ.
He says it's not possible logically to receive Jesus Christ to be united to Jesus Christ. It's been logical to think that if you been baptized into his righteousness, and would live as though you were still dominated by the world of sinfulness. Please join us Tuesday for Renewing Your Mind