Dec 18, 2015 Words of Grace – Salvation: Personal or Private?
“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:21
Jesus came to save his people from their sins. His people are a people, not just individual people. There is a corporate nature to salvation.
The testimony of the Bible is that God’s purpose is to have a people who belong to him and he to them. This “people” is made up of people. Jesus saves people (individuals) to become his people (the church). Saved people and a saved church are the same purpose of God.
This brings up a point. Is our salvation personal, or is it private? We need to make the distinction. Salvation is personal. You and I, individually, must repent of sin and believe in Jesus Christ to be saved. No one can do this for us. Jesus calls us personally to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow him.
Salvation is not private. You and I are saved by grace through faith to become a part of the people of God. The people of God are individual Christians who make up the church of Jesus Christ.
There are massive implications to realizing that our faith in Christ is not private and that we belong to something bigger than ourselves. We go to church with the expectation that God dwells among us. We together seek to live in devotion to Christ. We help one another and work together. We live together on mission in the world.
Personal faith is a must for salvation. Salvation is never a private experience. Jesus came to save his people from their sins.
This weekend, spend some time thinking about salvation. Look for ways you may have privatized salvation by disconnecting from Christ’s people, and ways you can experience and enjoy the corporate nature of salvation through the ministry of the church.
I look forward to worshiping with you Sunday.
– Scott