Intro: I have a question for you to answer this morning. I don’t want you to answer it out loud. Are you enjoying the Christian life are you enduring it?
Jesus made some pretty powerful statements about being saved and following Him as disciples.
In the presence of God is fullness of joy
I came that you might have life and have it to the full
Is your life an echo of the promises of Jesus? Or does your life reflect the barrenness, frustration and failure of the world? Either way today’s message is for you. If you are not crucified with Christ your walk as a Christian will be filled with frustration as you try in human strength to produce Godly results. The frustration will lead to barrenness and defeat.
What you must understand is that religious people adore the cradle of Christ and longingly await the coming of Jesus while despising the cross of Christ.
What we as Christians don’t realize is that you can’t have resurrection power until you have been crucified with Him! Paul is addressing a real life issue. Peter was allowing the Jewish believers to influence his behavior toward the gentile believers. Paul is clearly telling Peter if you are in Christ you will not behave in that manner.
What do we find when we talk about being crucified with Christ.
1) A living Lord that cares for us and can provide every need!
2) A ruling Lord that owns us and has every right to direct our life
If we are to be crucified with Christ where does this begin?
I. The crucified life begins with recognition and reception
A) You must recognize what you were
2:19 “I have been crucified with Christ.” What Paul realized and we must realize is that Jesus died so that we would die. Jesus died so that we would die to sins controlling and condemning power. Our old spiritual man needed to die so that we could live with and for God!
I have been –
Paul is making clear that there was a point in time where the crucifixion of Jesus was applied to himself spiritually. It is obvious since we are reading Paul’s writing about this event in his life that he was not dead physically. So it must have been a spiritual or internal death.
When Paul confessed Jesus as Lord. When He agreed that Jesus had every right to tell him what to do and where to go, Paul was crucified with Jesus!
I have been – Has this become a reality in your life. There is a great difference between He died for me and I died with Him.
B) You must recognize what you are
If you have confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior then Jesus’ death had your name on it.
Some things to realize
1) You are no longer condemned
What on earth does Paul mean through the law I died to the law, I have been crucified with Christ. If you recognized that you needed a savior and received Jesus Christ you were crucified with Jesus spiritually. You are no longer condemned! What is the condition? Those that are in Christ!
Wait a minute, what if I don’t feel this way. What if I feel like all the lessons and all the tests God puts in front of me I fail? What does it say? There is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. This was preceded by Paul’s personal frustration with his own performance. Who can save me from this body of sin?
Praise God Jesus will. If God says there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus then you best make sure you are in Christ.
A feeling of condemnation comes from trying to live up to some self-imposed or otherwise imposed standard.
Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse has a great statement about the practical effect the truth of "no condemnation" ought to have in our life: A soul that comes to the full realization that he ought to be in hell but that in reality the Lord Jesus took his hell, and that there is therefore, now, now, NOW, no condemnation for him because he is in Christ Jesus, is likely to be quite moved by the truth. If the members of the human race are permitted to yell because their team won a football team, because their candidate won an election, because they have won fifty dollars on a horse race, because their drilling has produced a gusher, let us shout for joy because we are in Christ Jesus, there is, therefore, no condemnation for us NOW. (God's Heirs, p. 4-5)
Jesus said you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. What God says about you is more important that the way you feel! Speak this truth to yourself often.
2) You are no longer controlled by sin
Paul said clearly I died. The old man of sin was crucified with the sinless one. He who knew no sin became sin that I may become the righteousness of God in Christ. Jesus died that I might live! I died that Jesus might live in me. If you recognize that Jesus is supposed to rule in your inner man and have presented yourself at the cross to be crucified daily sin has no more authority over you!
You must know you don’t have to be overcome by the old selfish self anymore!
3) You are no longer you own
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Don’t you know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.
C) You must receive who you are
If you want to walk in victory and have Hope (confidence, assurance, power) growing in your life. You must make a personal commitment to take up your cross. Jesus will never force you to live the life of power, joy and peace that he purchased on Calvary!
What did Jesus say, “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will save it.”
Did you notice the two important parts of living the crucified life? There must be a desire, “If anyone wants to come with Me.
Honestly ask yourself, “Do I really want to give up what it takes to follow Jesus?
There must be a desire and there must be a decision.
Must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. Daily decision and commitment.
"Will you please tell me in a word," said a Christian woman to a minister, "what your idea of consecration is?"
Holding out a blank sheet of paper the pastor replied, "It is to sign your name at the bottom of this blank sheet, and to let God fill it in as He will."
We need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. That means recognizing that we “have been” past tense crucified with Christ.
II) The crucified life begins with Implementation (An appropriate word)
Why was Paul using the example of Peter and his need to be corrected? The gospel has a practical application to daily living. The good news of Jesus Christ dying for our sin doesn’t belong only in the church house. It belongs in every house.
A) Jesus must come before personal relationships
B) Jesus must come before personal reputation
C) Jesus must come before personal realization
Your cross is something that you choose to bear.
A young man approached AW Tozer what does it mean to be crucified with Christ: “What does it mean as far as this life is concerned to be ‘crucified with Christ’?” The believer replied, “It means three things: (1) a man on a cross is facing in only one direction; (2) he is not going back(goodbye to the past and past life) ; and (3) he has no further plans of his own.”
Take up your cross facing one way!
Daily we are to deny our desires, to defer our decisions.
As Chuck Swindoll puts it, "This path leads to our becoming a living, breathing sacrifice-dead to anything the Master hates, devoted to everything He loves."
An authentic Christian life is a life in which I commit to constantly say "no" to me and "yes" to God.
Romans 12;1-2 (Message Version) 1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.”
(The practical outworking of Christ never happens without first having the powerful in working of His Holy Spirit.)
An amazing transformation takes place when a person trusts Christ and is justified eternally (2:16; 5:5). Paul called this change “a new creation” (6:15; see 2 Cor. 5:17) and deliverance from the present evil age (1:4). This incredible new status of salvation came about because Christians have been crucified with Christ (2:20), freed from bondage to sin (3:22–25), adopted as children and heirs of God (3:26–4:7), and given the Holy Spirit to dwell within (3:2; 4:6).
Conclusion: Dying to self is living the abundant life. The more we say not to our selfish sinful nature the more we can say yes to God. Before your new self can resurrect your old self must be crucified.
POEM When you are forgotten, neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting or hurt with the oversight, but your heart is happy being counted worthy to suffer for Christ;
That is dying to self.
When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinion ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient, loving silence;
That is dying to self.
When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any annoyance; when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure it as Jesus did;
That is dying to self.
When you are content with any food, and offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God;
That is dying to self.
When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or record your own good works or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown;
That is dying to self.
When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met, and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and you are in desperate circumstances;
That is dying to self.
When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit, inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart;
That is dying to self
