Title: Finding Yourself by Dying Script: Gal. 2:20
Type: Expository Where: 6-19-22
Intro: In her book, It Only Hurts When I Laugh, Ethel Barret tells how four outstanding servants of God died to self and sin. George Mueller, when questioned about his spiritual power, responded simply, “One day George Mueller died.” D. L. Moody was visiting New York City when he consciously died to his own ambitions. Pastor Charles Finney slipped away to a secluded spot in a forest to die to self. And evangelist Christmas Evans, putting down on paper his surrender to Christ, began it by writing: “I give my soul and body to Jesus.” It was, in a very real sense, a death to self. John Gregory Mantle wrote, “There is a great difference between realizing, ‘On that Cross He was crucified for me,’ and ‘On that Cross I am crucified with Him.’ The one aspect brings us deliverance from sin’s condemnation, the other from sin’s power.” We all recognize that when Christ saves us we have new life in Him. However, in today’s verse we’ll notice that new life is manifested in
Prop: Exam. Gal.2:20 we’ll realize 3 Lives the Cross of Christ calls every believer to.
BG: 1. Galatians is the 1st of Pauline Epistles. Written around 48 ad to combat Judaizer heresy.
2. Paul had 2 purposes in writing Galatians – reassert his authority to church who spurned him, combat the destructive lies that were leading people to reject authentic Christianity.
3.
Prop: Examining Gal. 2:20 we see the cross of Christ calls every believer to 3 lives.
I. The Relinquished Life – “I have been crucified with Christ…”
A. Paul considers the Implications of a Relinquished Life.
1. How had Paul experienced a Relinquished Life?
a. In Acts 9:1-19 we read of the miraculous confrontation Saul of Tarsus had with Jesus Christ and his subsequent conversion and renaming: “Paul”. There was Saul, a young zealous religious leader of the Jews intent on destroying the Christian faith. “He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.” V.2 He was a hateful man. A hell bent man intent on defamation, destruction, and detention. He lived his life under the assumption that he was right and everyone else was wrong. He was taking matters into his own hands and assumed he even had God’s blessing in do so. (Sounds like a lot of us before we met Christ!)
b. And there, on that dusty road to Damascus a light flashed around him, he was knocked to the ground and a voice said to him: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you Lord? I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Right then, Paul has an encounter with the Cross of Christ! Saul thought he was living righteously. He thought he was faultless. He thought he was right. He didn’t care about anyone else. No mercy. No grace. The cross of Christ condemned him as a vile sinner.
2. What does Paul mean when he declares: “I have been crucified with Christ?”
a. One of the most dramatic aspects of becoming a disciple of Christ is the fact that He invites sinners to die to themselves in order to experience new life. Those who have become united to Christ experience a radically different way of being human because they have in fact died to their old selves and their sinful ways of living.
b. “I have been crucified..” depending on the translation, either 4-5 words in English, yet only one word in the Greek. Only time used in the entire NT. It meant “to impale in company with another”, we might say to “crucify together”. Now, Paul was not literally there when Jesus was crucified. Two men were. Paul was not. Yet, the spiritual reality of the crucifixion for the Christian is that we were there. Had ramifications for us.
B. Have you and I considered the Implications of a Life Relinquished to Christ?
1. What are the implications of a relinquished life?
a. Have you relinquished your life to Christ or are you still attempting to live it for yourself?
Illust: When James Calvert went out to be a missionary to the cannibals in the Fiji Islands, the captain of the ship warned him, “Sir, you will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” Calvert’s response was instructive to all Christians of every generation: “We died before we came.” There comes a time in every Christian’s life when we stop living for our own plans in life, give up ownership of ourselves, and declare to the Lord: “Your will be done in me.”
b. Christian, like Paul or like James Clavert, can you say that you too have been crucified with Christ? You were, positionally, with Christ, at Calvary. However, are you experiencing that today? Right now? Here? Are you and I living in the lap of
2. Think of the meaning of this section of the verse for you and me.
a. In v. 19 Paul had spoken of himself as “dead to the Law, and living unto God.” The prominent idea in the first half of this clause had been the release from that burdensome ceremony which the Judaizers wished to bind every Christian’s conscience. Paul makes this grand transition from what the Law could not do to what faith in Christ could do! The Law could not make men righteous before God. In Christ they were made righteous! How? Here, too, there was death. The Christian died with Christ to something else besides the Law. With his eye fixed upon the cross, he died a spiritual death and rose to a new spiritual life.
b. Illust: English Puritan John Owen said: The baits and pleasures of sin are taken all of them out of the world, and the things that are in the world— namely, “the lust of the ?esh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” These are the things that are in the world; from these does sin take all its baits, whereby it entices and entangles our souls. If the heart be ?lled with the cross of Christ, it casts death and undesirableness upon them all; it leaves no seeming beauty, no appearing pleasure or comeliness, in them. “It cruci?es me to the world; makes my heart, my affections, my desires, dead unto any of these things.” It roots up corrupt lusts and affections, leaves no principle to go forth and make provision for the ?esh, to ful?ll the lusts thereof. Labor, therefore, to ?ll your hearts with the cross of Christ.” (Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation)
C. Applic: Let me ask you dear one: Are you identifying with Christ’s position on the cross? Are you attempting to mortify sin in your flesh? Are you living through the power of the cross? Are you identifying with and in the cross?
II. The Exchanged Life – “I no longer live but Christ lives in me.”
A. Paul considers the Implications of an Exchanged Life.
1. How had Paul experienced an Exchanged Life?
a. Paul realized that he died that day on the Damascus Road. His life. His will. His plans. His pride. He died. For 3 days he sat in the darkness of his spiritual blindness until a faithful believer, by the name of Ananias comes and through providence of God restores his sight, leads him to saving faith in Christ, and the murderous bully is baptized by and filled with the Holy Spirit! (Acts 9:17) When Paul saw what life in Christ was like compared to his old way of thinking and acting it was pretty easy to declare :”I no longer live but Christ lives in me.”
b. Christian, the exchanged life recognizes that this life I am living is no longer lived for my ways, my pleasures, my desires, but it is to be lived for Christ’s affections, His plans, His purposes!
2. How does Christ live “in me”?
a. None of us can live the Christian life in our own strength. None of us can resist temptation by sheer will power and strength of character. Noe of us can love as we should by our own efforts. The Christian life is the Lord Jesus daily living His life through us by means of the Holy Spirit.
b. Loosely translated we would read this: “I lives however in me Christ”. It is, however, no longer the old natural man in me that lives: it is not that part of the human personality which has its root in matter, and is “of the earth, earthy,” but that part which is re-formed by the Spirit of Christ. I live now in my present condition as a Christian and not in my previous condition outside of Christ. He lives there by faith. He lives there by the HS’s power and presence.
B. Have you and I considered the Implications of an Exchanged Life?
1. Every believer Experiences an Exchanged Life in Christ.
a. Illust: My g-g grandfather was Corp. Orlando Cole of the 18th Mich. He was captured in N. Ala in a hopeless attempt to break thru Confederate lines and rescue a few companies of Union “Colored” troops that had been surrounded in two blockhouses by 5k men under the command of Gen. NB Forrest. 350 volunteers fought their way to the blockhouses, only to find many had already surrendered. After a few days of fighting, having suffered nearly 50% casualties, and completely out of ammo, the troops surrendered. My ancestor was taken to Cahabwa and later Andersonville (CSA) prisons. There he lingered until the war ended and he was exchanged. It was a great day when his prisoner number was called and he stepped across the gates of his jail. A trade was made.
b. Christian, Col. 1:13 tells us that we have been delivered from an even worse prison. “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves…” Friend, a great exchange was made for your and my life!
2. An Exchanged Life Means that I am to live for Christ.
a. An exchanged life is passionate about the things of Christ. The affections of Christ. The mission of Christ. The plans of Christ. The purpose of Christ.
b. Illus: Earlier this Darryl Strawberry spoke of his conversion and calling at a college in SC. One of MLB’s legendary power hitters says “baseball is just a game. It will pass. But one thing I do know, God’s Word is going to be here forever.” Strawberry,played with four Major League teams over 17 years in the 1980s and ‘90s, Despite winning Rookie of the Year in 1983, four World Series rings, making eight All-Star appearances and crowned NL Hr King 1988, Strawberry admits that he doesn’t follow baseball closely these days. Referring to himself as a former womanizer with drug and alcohol addictions, who also did jail time and faced bankruptcy, he says God has transformed him to bring a message for God’s glory as an evangelist. “If I had not gone through struggles, I probably would have made another $70 million playing baseball but I would have never met Jesus,” He credits his mother and wife for praying that “God would knock him off his own throne,” adding that people need to come to the truth about God despite distractions from Satan. “They’re lost. That’s what the enemy wants,” Strawberry said. “He doesn’t want people to come to know the truth, come to know God because if they do, their life can be changed just like my life was changed.” “When God changed me and called me into the ministry, I got serious about it,” Strawberry told the reporters. “You can’t straddle the fence with God. You’ve got to make a commitment. You’ve got to surrender yourself.
C. Applic: Dear one, have you exchanged your life yet? Are you living or is Christ living in and thru you?
III. The Trusting Life – “The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.”
A. Paul considers the Implications of a Trusting Life.
1. The Christian Life is a Life Lived by faith.
a. As Christians we are saved by faith. We work by faith. We walk with Him by faith. We enjoy His presence and we trust His promises.
b. The Greek terms pistis (noun) and pisteuo (verb) may be translated in English as "trust," "believe," or "faith." This term conveys two distinct aspects of our relationship with God. 1. we put our trust in the trustworthiness of God's promises and Jesus' finished work 2. we believe the message about God, mankind, sin, Christ, salvation, etc. (i.e., Scripture)
Hence, it can refer to the message of the gospel or our trust in the Person of the gospel. The gospel is a person (Jesus Christ) to welcome, a message about that person to believe, and a life like that person to lived. Only if we are united to Christ by faith alone can we escape the curse on sin and live unto God (2:19–21). We live that faith out while we are in the flesh. We are living the reality that although we are alive, we are in fact dead.
2. The Life of Faith is a Focused Life.
a. “in the Son Who loved us and gave Himself for us.” That’s it! Focus! Draw your mind and attention to Jesus Christ!
b. In this verse we have a bundle of paradoxes: We have a bundle of paradoxes in this verse. First, ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.’ The Christian life is a dying life. If we are in any real sense joined to Christ, the power of His death makes us dead to self and sin and the world. The next paradox is, ‘Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ The Christian life is a life in which an indwelling Christ casts out, and therefore quickens, self. We gain ourselves when we lose ourselves. And the last paradox is, ‘The life which I live in the flesh, I live by/in ‘the faith of the Son of God.’ The true Christian life moves in two spheres at once. Externally and superficially it is ‘in the flesh,’ really it is ‘in faith.
B. Have you and I considered the Implications of a Trusting Life.
1.The Sweetest Life the Christian Lives is a Life of Trusting Christ.
a. Illust: In the late 1800’s Louisa Stead wrote the hymn: “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”. The 1st verse and refrain 'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, and to take him at his word; just to rest upon his promise, and to know, "Thus saith the Lord." Refrain: Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him! How I've proved him o'er and o'er! Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust him more!”
b. Look at the Person of this Trusting life: The Son of God Who loved us and gave Himself for us.” Let that phrase sink in: “The Son of God”. The Son of God! What did He do? Two things: 1. Loved us. 2. Gave Himself for us! Christ died for the whole world, but each individual Christian has a right to appropriate His death to himself. The death of Christ was prompted by love, not for the abstraction humanity, but for men as individuals.
2. Are you trusting Christ or Struggling to Trust in Christ?
a. Illust: Someone asked George Mueller the secret of his victorious Christian life. His reply: “There came a day when George Mueller utterly died! No longer did I seek my own desires, preferences or tastes. Christ came first.”
b. Illust: A young man approached an older Christian with this question: “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; and (3) he has no further plans of his own.” Commenting on this, T. S. Rendall wrote, “Too many Christians are trying to face in two directions at the same time. They are divided in heart. They want Heaven, but they also love the world. They are like Lot’s wife: running one way, but facing another. Remember, a crucified man is not coming back. The cross spells “finis” for him; he is not going to return to his old life. Also, a crucified man has no plans of this own. He is through with the vainglory of this life. Its chains are broken and its charms are gone.” (Bible.org illust.)
C. Applic: A sign once hung outside a dry cleaning and dye business in NYC. ”We dye to live and live to dye, the more we dye, the more we live; and the more we live, the more we dye.” I wonder if the Apostle Paul owned that shop? He would certainly have thought it appropriate for the Christian life. (Robert Morgan)
