One of the most powerful truths in the Bible is found in verse 20 of Galatians chapter two.
Hudson Taylor called this ‘his spiritual secret’.
Years ago I heard Charles Stanley preach about how God changed his life in a dramatic way. He said it happened when he read a book by Raymond Edman called ‘They found the Secret’. 20 people whose lives were changed because they found this secret of an Exchanged life.
It is described in the book in many ways: Oswald Chambers called it the HIGHEST LIFE. Andrew Murray called it the ABIDING LIFE. Amy Carmichael called it the RADIANT LIFE. Charles Finney called it the POWERFUL LIFE. D.L. Moody called it the DYNAMIC LIFE. Others called it the VICTORIOUSLIFE, the BURNING LIFE, the UNCHAINED LIFE, the OVERFLOWING LIFE or the SATISFYING LIFE. DOES ANY OF THAT SOUND LIKE SOMETHING YOU MIGHT WANT? What is this secret?
There have been over one billion people who have become Christians in the last 2,000 years. But only one person has ever lived the Christian life, and that is Jesus Christ. Only One Who can. The average Christian knows far more about how to BECOME one than how to BE one.
Two things you need to know about this secret.
1) You will naturally forget it. If you just do what you naturally do it will disappear from your life.
2) You are surrounded by those who will steal it from you. Just like in Paul’s day we have people who are more interested in you being like them than being like Jesus Christ. Say what they say, do what they do, sing what they sing…etc
The message of the book of Galatians is to recognize and experience the freedom that is ours in Christ. The dangers that we face that would steal that away from us are found in chapters 1 & 2.
a. False message which is not the true gospel: legalism of Paul’s day and tolerance & self-esteem of our day.
• False actions of adding things to our relationship with Christ which come from us and not from Him. Requirements and rituals to gain favor.
• This life God offers us in Christ can easily be lost because we won’t naturally find it but we can understand and apply it when we discover what is possible because of who we now are in Christ. Verse 20 helps us to understand this life.
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Wonderful was the experience that had come in answer to prayer, yet so simple as almost to baffle description...Hudson Taylor
THINGS I NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE THIS SECRET KNOWN THROUGH MY LIFE
I AM NO LONGER WHO I USED TO BE
CHRIST IS NO LONGER WHERE HE USED TO BE
I CAN NO LONGER THINK HOW I USED TO THINK
I AM NO LONGER WHO I USED TO BE
"
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live,
Dead people make the best Christians. Too many of us are very much alive.
a) Look at our goals, study our daily agendas or even listen to our prayers we are very much at the center of it all. We are very much alive in ourselves.
Before we can be wed we must be dead. We must attend our own funeral before we are ready to be the Bride of Christ.
Paul makes an amazing statement that we need to understand is true about us if we are truly born again in Christ. WE ARE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST.
HUDSON TAYLOR called this the EXCHANGED LIFE. Most Christians only understand the ‘Exchanged Life’ at the entry level of our relationship with Christ.
2 Cor 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. WE EXCHANGED OUR SIN FOR HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS
Paul is sharing the wonderful truth that when Jesus hung on the cross that not only were our sins placed upon Him that He might pay the penalty for them in His death there but also we were placed in HIM that WHEN HE DIED TO THIS WORLD WE DIED TO THIS WORLD. What happened to Christ literally happened to us spiritually.
I DIED BEFORE I WAS BORN. Over 1900 years before I entered this world physically God says I spiritually died on a cross with Jesus.
a. His death paid the penalty for my sin.
b. His death paved the way for my life in this world
I can wake up each day and know that it is a fact that when Jesus died on the cross that all that affects my spiritual life was impacted by that. I may not feel it or completely understand it but from God’s vantage point and approach to my life it is absolute truth.
I need to daily set my mind to live by that as the truth of my life.
a. When sins shows up and says to me it is time to go and do that thing, think that thought, say those words….I can say, ‘I can’t hear you, I am dead’. ‘Go find someone who still thinks they are alive!!’
We are not only dead to sins penalty but we are also dead to sins Power
Rom 6:6-7 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
Not understanding this truths makes us try to live each day in our fleshly ‘old man’ which leads to our being ‘slaves of sin’.
God’s truth for us is to know that our death in Him makes us ‘freed from sin’.
Trip to Taiwan and was being shown around downtown area by one of our missionaries. Showed storefronts that people rented in honor of their departed loved ones. They believe the spirit/ghost stays around for 40 days so they do things to keep them happy. He pointed out a bus that was used to carry dancing girls you could hire to come keep a male ghost happy. The real truth is that their dead relative has died to this world and has no concern for those girls.
CHRIST IS NO LONGER WHERE HE USED TO BE it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;
Not only am I dead but there is also now an amazing life living in me. Because that life is in me then there are things possible that were not possible apart from that life.
Hudson Taylor: Whenever he spoke after that, a new power seemed to flow from him, and a new peace possessed him. Troubles did not worry him as before. He cast everything on God in a new way, and gave more time to prayer. Instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Christ.
1 Cor 3:16 16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
Rom 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
1 Cor 6:19-20 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God
When you woke up this morning the first thing you noticed was you were alive (eyes opened, breathing, thinking).
The second thing you needed to do was tell yourself you may be alive but really you are dead (crucified in Christ, old man is dead).
The third thing you need to do it remind yourself that although you felt alive but were really dead that the real fact is that you are ALIVE AGAIN. Confused?
it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;
Jesus lived a substitionary life for us in that He lived a life above sin.
He then died a substitionary death for us in that paid for our sin. Now He provides a substitionary life for us as He gives us power over sin.
When His life ended on the cross so did ours and when He was raised from the dead so were we!!! That is why our true life message is not about telling ourselves we are dead but that we are ALIVE!!
When you woke us this morning you could have just taken a short cut and told yourself JESUS IS ALIVE TODAY and HE IS ALIVE IN ME!!!
When Jesus exited the Tomb He became available to enter our lives.
It is amazing to think that of all the places Christ could have dwelt in this entire universe He chose to live in our lives. That means that our lives should be defined by the difference it makes to have Christ living in us.
It is not about us doing things for Him but Him doing things through us.
TAYLOR: I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.
He may live IN US but He is not living THROUGH US because we have not learned the secret of letting Him do that each day.
TAYLOR: I strove for faith, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it, but in vain. I prayed for faith, but it came not. A sentence in a letter from John McCarthy revealed to me the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. "But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One."
THE PIVITAL POINT: The Secret is in learning to live that exchanged life Learning to exchange all that you are for all that He, ‘the Faithful One’ is!!! Learning to let Christ live His life thru you & Have his way in and thru you !!! Christ living in your heart is the secret to success in the Christian life
The secret to overcoming sin! The secret to being used. The secret to being able to do what God commands
Hudson Taylor said of those whom God uses in a mighty way All God’s giants have been weak men and women who did great things for God because they believed that God’s spirit was with them & in them.”
Your ability to live for God & do great things for Him and to make an impact in this life has nothing to do with who you are but has everything to do with Who He is in you.
Four of the most frustrating letters in the world to me are WWJD. What would Jesus do? I might as well use WICD or what I can’t do.
Knowing what Jesus would do doesn’t make me any more able to do it.
He has to do it through me by the power of His life in me.
TAYLOR: Abiding, not striving nor struggling; looking off unto Him; trusting Him for present power... resting in the love of an almighty Savior, in the joy of a complete salvation, "from all sin" -- this is not new, and yet ’tis new to me...
If you gave me a canvas and some paint and told me, ‘Draw a picture of Jesus’. First off it would be a stick figure if I actually did it but imagine I had some talent to draw. What was the shape of His face? How tall was He? What color were His eyes? His skin tone? How long was His hair & beard? What would He be wearing? What would His expression be? My limitations would make me unable to even begin to draw Him accurately.
BUT if Jesus put His hand on mine and said, ‘Watch this’. He could begin to perfectly draw His image on the canvas. That canvas is your life and mine. He wants to draw His image in us and only He knows what that is to look like. We can guess at things like most religious people do but it is only as we surrender to Him fully that He can produce His perfect image in us.
Some of us strut around thinking we are pretty close imitations but I think we would all be shocked at how far off we truly are until we allow Him to take total control of our lives.
The lingering question is where do I start to make this all possible.
TAYLOR: By thinking of all that Jesus is and is for us as the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith but a resting in Jesus and letting Him do the work which makes all the difference.
As I thought of the Vine and the branches how great seemed my mistake in wishing to get the sap out of Him! I saw not only that Jesus will ever leave me, but that I am a member of His body. The vine is not the root merely, but all -- root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit. And Jesus is not that alone -- He is soil and sunshine, air, rain and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed, wished for or needed.
Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and your left poor?
I CAN NO LONGER THINK LIKE I USED TO THINK and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
PROBLEM: FLESH - We have to live each day in the FLESH.
Can even come to church in the flesh. If the flesh is not recognized, understood and addressed then it will naturally guide our lives.
Martin Luther compares the flesh to a man’s beard. What happens when you shave on Monday? The beard grows back on Tuesday. If you shave on Tuesday, it grows back on Wednesday. If you stop shaving then soon you have stubble everywhere on your face. The flesh is ready to grow and show it presence in our life every day unless we counter it.
In Galatians 5:19-26 we are introduced to two different ways of life.
One is called the ““works of the flesh.” It describes what life looks like without God.
Or living by the flesh is what happens when you decide to go your own way all the time.
The other way of life is called the “fruit of the Spirit.” It describes a life filled with supernatural power and dominated by qualities that could only come from God.
A huge difference. ‘Works’ come from our life while ‘fruit’ grows through our lives.
Just like a tree can only produce fruit if it is planted so the “fruit” of the Spirit is only possible as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
We naturally produce the “works of the flesh,” but the “fruit of the Spirit” is produced in us by the Holy Spirit as we surrender day by day to him.
The flesh produces only sin; it cannot create a truly changed life.
If we want the “fruit of the Spirit,” we must seek it, ask for it, and yield ourselves to God that we might have it by the process of exchanging our life for the life of Christ.
We often hear about someone becoming a Christian and ‘finding religion’. The kind of thinking is part of the problem. The problem is that most people need to ‘lose their religion’. Everybody born into this world is religious. It is programmed into us and is meant to be used to lead us to a relationship with God. Too many are still in their religion and don’t understand the difference of a true relationship with God thru Jesus.
The most religious thing on this earth is the flesh. It works to gain favor for the sake of pride and self achievement. It refuses to seek out humility and lower itself for the sake of others. It readily condemns others for not measuring up in an effort to build its own reputation. Its sin is minor while the sin of others is major.
FRUIT only comes through surrender which the flesh will never choose to do.
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).
John Stott. ‘If we are going to follow Christ, we must be brutal with our flesh. Too many of us fondle our sin and then wonder why we give in. We make excuses for our flesh and act surprised when the flesh controls our words and our deeds.’
SOLUTION: FAITH - life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God
Galations 5:16-17 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.
My spiritual success today is deeply rooted in my understanding in what the life, death, resurrection and intercession of Christ mean to my life.
These are not just historical events but each impact me directly each day.
THREE IMPORTANT WORDS:
1) BELIEVING: Staking my life on the absolute belief that Christ lives in me today, tomorrow and every day I Iive this life on earth.
Eph 3:17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith
Knowing this is true allows Christ to comfortably DWELL in my life. My unwavering faith in this fact is a welcome mat to God in my life.
2) DEPENDING: Realizing I can’t live my life as it should be without Him doing it through me and not trying to. Apart from Me you can do nothing.
Matt 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Recognizing my inability to live the Christian life in my own power. If I try to I will only end up a religious person who is judgmental, critical, failing to overcome sin and leaving a life message of constantly falling short.
Imagine if I had two checkbooks sent to me and I could use either one. One was connected to my account and the other to Bill Gates. If I was going to buy a new Rolls Royce this week then how foolish would it be to even try to use mine.
Living the Christian life demands a high price than can only be paid from God’s resources.
The fact is we have got too much strength. We are not weak enough. It is not our strength that we want- because one drop of God’s strength is worth more than all the world.” D.L. MOODY
3) MINDING: Setting on mind on the truths of God as a daily
Rom 8:5-6 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
The things of the Spirit do not naturally inhabit our thinking unless we take the time to purposely seek to know them and retain them.
Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 2 COR 10:5
How do we set our minds on the things of the Spirit?
1) Filling each day with the Word of God which leads us into His truths
2) Unceasing prayer as we encounter His presence.
3) Expecting God to influence your day. Sensitive, expecting, anticipation Him.
Col 3:1-3 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
TAYLOR: The sweetest part is that I am no longer anxious about anything for I know He is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how for that is rather for Him to consider than for me. In the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. Must He not give me much guidance in great difficulty, much grace in pressures and trials? His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.
CHECKLIST:
1. You have to know the truth about who you are. KNOWING
2. You have to believe the truth about who you are. BELIEVING
3. You have to not sabotage the truth with your own efforts. DEPENDING
4. You have to set your mind every day, every hour to constantly remember and reinforce the truths you live by. MINDING
I was recently talking with a cook at a restaurant I eat at quite often. She said she had asked some of the people out front what I did for a living. When they told her I was a pastor s he said, ‘I thought so because you carry yourself like a minister’.
I am not completely sure how a minister carries themselves but the question I might ask is will there be any people at your funeral who will be shocked when they read that you considered yourself a Christian. That you wanted your life to be remembered as one who followed Christ.
Someone has said things like you may be the only Bible some people will ever read, the only sermon some people might ever hear but the real truth is that you may also be the only Jesus some people will ever know
Stephen Olford said, "The Christian life is nothing less that the OUTLIVING of the INDWELLING Christ
"He is most holy who has most of Christ within, and joys most fully in the finished work..." Henry Law(1867 Christ is All)
If the world is going to see Jesus in us then they will have to see Him THROUGH us as we allow Him to live His life through ours. ARE YOU READY TO MAKE THAT EXCHANGE?
TAYLOR: I am no better than before, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be.
But I am dead and buried with Christ and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and "the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
