Life, Love And Liberty

West Greeley Baptist Church

July 1st 2001

Galatians 2:20

“ Life, Love and Liberty”

By Pastor Mark Hensley

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

Introduction: Ruth is a 44 year old stay at home mother of five from Pennsylvania when asked why don’t you attend church she replied:

“ I’m active in Scouts with my daughters, and my husband and I both coach teams for our kids. I feel if we were involved in a Church that would mean other commitments. And I can’t say that the activities we have now model anything other than moral, uplifting behavior. So I don’t see how church could add much to our lives.”

Transition: When a relationship with all mighty God and service to the institution he established is compared to athletic teams or boy scouts something is wrong at the core of ones value system! Today we will be reminded that God desires a relationship with us and when that is established every other organization on the planet with be of secondary importance to those who have experienced “Life, Love and Liberty” Galatians 2: 20

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

In Christ I have:

A new life

A Love that endures

A liberty that I celebrate

I. A new life

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”

The Apostle Paul has been crucified with Christ that is Christ has lovingly enveloped his life! The personality of Paul the essence of who he was, did not evaporate or fade in meeting Christ, no it was enhanced! Just as any life that has been touched by God is!

When Paul say’s “I no longer live” *He is stating that Paul the self- righteous Pharisee, died, but Paul the great Apostle remained! *Kenneth Wuest Word studies in the Greek New Testament pg 81

To think that God would die for us is a remarkable thought! To know that Jesus would allow sin to be placed on him, the sin of the world in order to pay a debt we owed is incredible!

“ If you were to ask Jesus today the one reason for his coming to earth, He would sum up his entire ministry in one statement: He came to seek and to save that which was lost” Dr. James Merritt President of the S.B.C. 2001

Paul is teaching us an invaluable truth that through his death we live! Christ lives in me! He became our substitute taking our place.

History records that during the Civil War, many acts of violence were committed by both the armies of the north and the south. Once such act occurred in October of 1862 in the town of Palmyra, Missouri. According to W. E. Sutterfield, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Palmyra, the town was under military law at the time....occupied by one of the armies involved in this conflict.

The commander of the army ordered ten men shot in reprisal for the work of an informer in the town who leaked information to the enemy. Several men were being detained in Palmyra jail as prisoners of war at that time, and ten were selected from among them. One of the number was William T. Humphrey, the father of several children. His wife pleaded for his release because of the children and her poor physical condition. Because of this, the commanding officer struck Humphrey’s name from the list and chose the name of Hiram Smith, a young man without a family. Hiram agreed to take the place of Humphrey, stating that perhaps it was better for a single man to die than a man with a family.

The ten men were shot on October 17, 1862 in what has come to be known as the “Palmyra massacre.” At the Mount Pleasant Church cemetery, there is a stone erected at the grave of Hiram Smith by G. W. Humphrey, the son of the reprieved man. It reads: “This monument is dedicated to the memory of HIRAM SMITH, the hero who sleeps beneath the sod here, who was shot at Palmyra, October 17, 1862 as a substitute for William T. Humphrey, my father.”

In a very real way your life and mine becomes a living-breathing monument to the one who rescued us from imminent danger the Lord Jesus Christ!

That’s why Independence Day reminds believers that liberty is costly and none more so that what our heroic Savior accomplished on a hill called Calvary!