Try as she will, Karen could not overcome a certain sin.
She knew it was wrong, she knew it hurt others, she knew it hurt her reputation, but it was as if she turned around, and there is was that sin again. Now, there were times that she would go for days, even weeks, where she would not even be tempted to commit this sin – but then, it would pop right back into her life, and she was, back at square one.
She prayed about it. She kept a journal about it. She confessed it to others to help her work through it. She even swore an oath, determined that this would never happen again…but the next thing she knew, there it was again. The longer she worked on overcoming this sin the clearer the principle of overcoming sin became to her: The more persistently we try to conquer sin, the more persistent the sin becomes – the harder we try to overcome a sin the more difficult it becomes to overcome the sin.
Finally, Karen gave up trying to conquer this sin, she came to realize, nothing that she could do would make this thing go away. She went on with life, doing her best to hide her sin, lying about it, covering it up, denying its existence in her life, hoping no one would notice.
Karen fell into the trap that many Christians fall into: She attempted to live the crucified life.
Karen was right about one thing though, she would never be able to conquer the sin in her life, she would never be able to overcome the sin in her life. Never.
Is Karen now lost to live this shadow of a Christian life forever? Is Karen sentenced to entrapment by this sin for the rest of her life? How in the world can Karen live a life that is real and step out of this world of lies, cover ups and denials?
Paul, in our Scripture this morning, shows us not only who we are in Christ, Paul shows us how to break out of the cycle of failure in dealing with sin we all fall into. Paul shows us that we need to stop living life like we always had in the past and live our new life in a new way in the person of Jesus Christ.
Let’s start with verse 20, which is the key to this passage.
Gal. 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.”
With your bibles open, let’s take apart this verse.
Let’s start with a basic question, who does Paul say has been crucified? Are you looking there at verse 20?
Jesus has been crucified AND you, also been crucified. What does Paul mean by this?
When Jesus dies on the cross and then is resurrected, what is the purpose of his death and resurrection? Is it to solve the problems in my life? Is it to make my life better? Is it to make sure I never have health problems? Is it to make sure I never get divorced or is it to make sure I never have financial failure? No, how shallow would that be?
Jesus Christ dies and then rises from the grave to defeat sin.
I know what haunts you in your life?
Sin.
We sin and others sin against us, and things go from bad to worse in our lives…..well, I don’t have to explain it, you experience sin in your life. Sin destroys us, it defeats us, it ruins relationships, it ruins dreams, it ruins our peace, it causes us to worry, it keeps us awake at night, it causes us to fail – And we cannot, let me repeat, we cannot overcome this sin. Humans never have been able to overcome sin, and they never will.
We cannot overcome sin but, Jesus Christ has defeated sin.
Remember, Jesus’ action on the cross is effective outside the dimension of time; Jesus’ death and resurrection, his defeat of sin, is effective past, present and future. It is effective against the all sin humanity has ever committed, and ever will commit. Jesus’ one time action is effective for all time.
Paul tells us, and he is referring to we who are Christians, we who have given our life over to Jesus Christ, Paul tells us that we who are Christians have been crucified with Christ. In effect, what Paul means is that our sin, the sin we have in our lives, this sin has been dealt with, it has been overcome, put away, taken a side and left to die.
All the sin you have ever committed, all the sin you will ever commit has been dealt with already, by Jesus Christ.
A few Sunday’s ago we saw that, when we become Christians, we actually move out of the dominion of the world into the dominion of God; We move out of the control of evil into the control of God. We saw that the sin that previously held us down, the sin we could not overcome, we are now released from – because we now answer to God and not to evil.
Wait a minute here. What about Karen? She is a Christian, she lives in the dominion of God, her sin has been overcome – why can’t Karen get it right?
Because Karen is attempting to live the crucified life, when she has been already crucified with Jesus Christ. Karen is attempting to defeat sin. But she cannot. She is attempting to defeat sin that has already been defeated – Karen is working in the wrong direction.
Who can defeat sin? Who has defeated sin? Who will defeat sin?
It is you? Can you defeat sin?
You know who it is, it is Jesus Christ.
Stop trying to defeat sin. You will lose every time.
There will be times when you will think you have been successful. But the sin will return, days, weeks, months…even years later. You know this, you have lived this, you have seen this happen..
When Paul says, in verse 20, that he no longer lives, that Christ lives in him, he means something different than you and I may first assume. Paul is not suggesting some sort of eastern mystical thing where I slowly give up myself and slowly blend into the energy of God. He is not suggesting that we as people slowly fade out of existence. Absolutely not. In Christianity it is always thou and I. It is always me and God. I will always, always be me, even in death, and God will always be God. The two never merge. God has created us as individuals, to love and have a relationship with. You will always be who you are, you do not morph into another being.
When Paul says that he no longer lives, he means that he has died to sin – to die to something means that we no longer have any further relation to it. In other words, sin no longer rules us. Since Christ lives in us, and he means this literally, we live to Christ and no longer to ourselves, and we live not longer to sin. See Christ is in me, so sin can no longer have power over me, because sin cannot have power over Christ.
Who am I living for?
Christ.
Am I living for sin?
No, I live for Christ as Christ lives in me.
Karen, in her attempt to defeat sin, thought she was living for Christ, but in effect, by the way she acted, she was living for sin, for she was trying to overcome, what had already been overcome. She was living the crucified life – what I mean by that was she was acting as if she was the one who was being crucified for her sins in the present, she was acting as if she was the one who was able to overcome her sin. Our sin has been already crucified, we have been crucified in Christ, so we no longer need to live a crucified life.
Paul tells us, still in verse 20, that the life we live, we live in this body. Now that seems obvious doesn’t it? – but what he is pointing out is that you may think you are living life as if it is just you alone – but that is not true any longer. It is now you and Jesus Christ…and we live this new life by faith.
What does he mean we live this life by faith? Well, we live this life by faith, in a person, not faith in an idea, an ideal, or a cause, no we have faith in a person?
Is that faith in the pastor? No.
Faith in the church? No.
Faith in ourselves? No.
Do we have faith in Christianity?
NO! We have faith in a person, the person of Jesus.
Look. What does it say? “I live by faith in the Son of God”.
Karen, for all her piety, for all her personal effort, for all her will power – Karen had faith, but she had faith ----- in herself.
Who is my faith in? Who is your faith in? Jesus.
Now Jesus may be the correct answer, but look at your life - when you approach a problem, who do you primarily have faith in?
Do you have faith in yourself more than you have faith in God?
Do you trust in your judgment first?
Do you approach God only after you cannot figure your way out of a difficulty, or do you consult God first?
Perhaps you have figured it out by now, having faith in yourself is a dead end street.
Look, we may not be so crass as to call it faith in ourselves – we call it self awareness, or self esteem, positive thinking, self motivation, personal sacrifice….call it what you will, but it all has to do with ME - how I can, how I will, how I must. Me, I, by myself, I’m the one. Over here, right here, me.
You know what we do when we live this way? Verse 21 says, we set aside the grace of God.
I…shall…overcome.
Ok, if that is so, if you shall overcome, then – Christ died for nothing!
Verse 16, “a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ… because by observing the law no one will be justified.”
The law, think of the ten commandments and all the commands of the Old Testament, try as I might, I will never be able to successfully keep them all and live as God desires. I will always fail.
What the law shows us is that we cannot do it on our own, and if we try to live by the law, if we try to do it on our own, then we will rebuild in our lives what Christ has broken down as it says in verse 18. See, when I try to overcome on my own I am living by the law, I am attempting to overcome sin by faith…faith in myself.
This is why I am saved by faith in Jesus, not by the law. I cannot deal with my sin, no matter how hard I try, but God steps in and gives me His grace through faith and now I have as a gift from God what I could never attain on my own.
See, we want to live for Christ, and so we try, we try hard, we attempt to observe all the right things, hoping this will make us good people – because after all, isn’t is obvious that good people act like good people? Well, maybe, but like Karen, people acting like good people are maybe just….acting.
Here at the beginning of this Scripture we have the Apostle Peter as an example of what Paul is taking about. Peter has grown up with the idea that a Jew should be very careful associating with those who are not Hebrew. This has historical validity. This summer as we took a look at the nation of Israel in their journey through the desert, we saw that those outside the Hebrew community tended to pull the Hebrews away from God – so we saw the Hebrews refuse to mix with the pagan communities they encountered. Each time in Israel’s history, that the people mixed with outsiders, they fell away from God. Peter still lives with this fear and so when the men from Jerusalem come to Antioch, Peter stops sitting with his Gentile Christian friends, that is those who used to be pagan, and now sits only with Jewish Christians.
But see, Jesus Christ came and a new era began. There are no longer insiders and outsiders, there is now only brothers and sisters. Now, anyone, even those not connected with the law of Moses, can have a strong and very real faith in Jesus Christ. The Greek pagan who once lived an unrighteous life and then became a Christian is just as much of a saint as the person who grew up Jewish lived a good and righteous life and then became a Christian. Remember last week, we saw that the Gospel of Jesus Christ unites all people of all races, of all cultures, together, under the dominion of Jesus Christ. We are all one under Christ – one group of people holds no dominance over another in Christ.
The reason Peter sits to eat with the Jewish Christians isn’t only that he is being pressured to do so. The reason Peter sits with the Jewish Christians is, that is what the extended Jewish law demanded. It demands that Peter be righteous by behaving this manner. What Peter is doing is falling back into the old ways. See, a righteous Jew would never eat with a Gentile, a righteous Jew would always eat separate from a Gentile. Jews of the day saw all who were not born Jewish as born under a reign of sin because the reign of God only covered the people of Israel. (We see this mentioned in verse 15). So they saw Gentiles as outsiders from birth, while Jews were seen as under the protection of God from birth.
Why is what Peter doing so wrong? Peter is no longer culturally Jewish and the Gentiles are no longer culturally Greek – that was the old era – now Christian Jews and Christian Greeks are simply – Christian. The Christian Jews have more in common with their Christian Greek brothers and sisters than with Jews who are not Christian. The Christian Greeks have more in common with their Christian Jewish brothers and sisters than any Greek who is not a Christian.
What Peter is doing, at the bare bones, Peter is living like Jesus had never died and rose again.
Well now wait a moment. Wasn’t it a sin before to eat with the Gentiles? So now since it is ok to eat with the Gentiles, is Jesus Christ now promoting sin? Is the grace of Jesus making Peter a sinner? No. They are no longer Gentiles, Peter is no longer a Jew – they are now simply, Christians. They are from diametrically opposed cultures, but under Christ, they are united.
Peter, like Karen, falls into the old way of doing things, by having faith in himself. Now the examples of Karen and Peter are not parallel here, but the concept Paul is teaching us applies the same – we depend upon, NOT on faith in ourselves, but we depend upon faith in Jesus Christ.
Peter had not overcome his prejudices because he acted on his own faith, he was not living by faith in Jesus. So try as he might, Peter does not overcome the sin of racism. Earlier we saw Karen depended upon her own faith to overcome and not upon faith in Jesus. Peter does the same. Both fail.
Well, as a practical matter how do place Paul’s concept into action in our lives? If we cannot overcome sin, then are we at a standstill in life, stuck with sin that will never go away?
First, we will always sin. We are in a fallen world and our perfection in Christ will only be complete when we stand before him in Judgment. However, sin can be overcome, after all Christ overcame all sin upon His death and resurrection. What we do is we redirect our effort toward the building of our relationship with Jesus.
This seems counter intuitive to us, but this is how things biblically work.
This is what happens, as your relationship grows stronger with Jesus Christ, you live more for Christ than for yourself. You are still you, and you will always be you, but as you understand God’s will and God’s desires you act on God’s will and God’s desires.
Notice – as my relationship grows stronger with Jesus Christ. What am I concentrating on? Jesus Christ, not my sin. Now, this does not mean I will ignore my sin, I will still fight it. But I place more time, effort and heart into my relationship with Christ rather than fighting the sin n my life.
The reason we act this way is, sin is not the root cause in our lives, it is the result of something that is happening deep in our hearts. If we only deal with the sin in our lives, then all we will ever deal with is the sin in our lives. It is like dealing with the symptoms of a sickness, but never the cause. Deal with the cause, deal with the symptoms.
The root cause of our sin, is not he sin itself, but our hearts. The root cause of our sin is always our heart. Our heart is being realigned to the desires of God. What changes our heart is a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. When we have this deeper relationship, when we place our faith increasingly in Jesus, the desire for those sins that won’t go away, those desires start to fade
Karen ended up living a life of lies because she couldn’t conquer the sin in her life. But we don’t have to live that way. We can move beyond reoccurring sin, by placing greater effort into building our relationship with Jesus, because our sin has already been dealt with, now it is our hearts that must be dealt with.
