DEAD MAN WALKING
Victory In Jesus – Part 2
Galatians 2
September 26, 2004
Introduction:
I was born and raised in the church. Ok, I was not literally born in a church. I was born in a hospital, but you know what I mean. Actually the day I was born my parents missed church because I was born on a Sunday. But as soon as mom and I were home from the hospital I was in church. When I was growing up we went to church on Sunday mornings including Sunday school and again on Sunday night. Wednesday after school there was CYC and in the evening we went back for prayer meeting and Bible study. When we had special speakers at our church we went to every single service.
It goes with out saying that I was raised to be a Christian. I knew the stories about Jesus and the disciples. I knew the kinds of things that were wrong and what was right. I knew how I should live my life and what kind of person I should be. I knew the truth. I had all the head knowledge that anyone could ask for. But somehow all that head knowledge never made it to my heart.
As a result I rebelled against God, my parents and church when I was a teenager. When I was seventeen I decided that I had enough of church. I decided that since it wasn’t doing me any good as far as I could tell there wasn’t any reason to go any longer. So I stopped going to church with my family.
Deciding to live life my own way I set out in a radically different direction than they way I had been raised to live. I got into drinking and drugs and sex. The longer I continued in that path the more my life began to revolve around drinking. Who could I find to buy beer for me? Where could I get the money? If my friends and I couldn’t get the money and find a buyer we didn’t give up like most others would have. We would steal the money or if need be steal the liquor. What ever it took. It became the driving force in my life.
After only three years I was well down the path of alcoholism and I was making myself miserable. After drinking all night I would have to get up with only a few hours of rest and with a nasty hang over and go to work. After working while feeling sick all day I would then go out and do it all over again. Life wasn’t fun anymore. I thought there must be more to life than this. And I knew from being raised in the church that there was.
And so as I reached the end of my rope in only three short years I turned to Jesus who said, “If you now the truth the truth will set your free.” And it did. I was set free from addictions to alcohol and tobacco. I was set free from sin and forgiven. I was set free to live a new life that was pleasing to God and ended up being far more pleasing to myself as well. That was something that I never would have expected just three years earlier.
There was nothing that I did to earn or deserve this gift of salvation. It was the free gift of God offered to me by faith through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
However, after being born again there was a lot of growing and maturing that needed to take place in my life. And rather than living by faith I found myself at times trying to be the person God wanted me to be on my own. And the harder I tried the more I seemed to fail and fall short. I’m getting ahead of myself here a little bit but I want to share with you a verse that we will be looking at next week in chapter three because what Paul wrote to the Galatians could well have been written of me.
“Have you lost your senses? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” (Galatians 3:3, NLT)
I love how that verse puts it. “Have you lost your senses?” “Have you lost your mind?” “What are you thinking?” If you couldn’t save yourself why do you think you can sanctify yourself? All I knew was this: even though I was a Christian I still felt/knew that there must be something more. No matter how hard I tried to live up to God’s standards and do the right thing that I knew to do I just kept falling short. There had to be more and there was something more, but I was guilty of trying to get it on my own.
If you have ever or do now feel that way, then this message is for you. The message today is titled “Dead Man Walking.” You are probably thinking, “That is a weird sermon title for a series called ‘Victory In Jesus.’” But look at how Paul describes how he got that “something more” in his life.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;” (Galatians 2:20a, KJV)
On the one hand he had died with Christ and on the other he was still living. Paul was literally a dead man walking. Today we will learn from the second chapter of Galatians how to experience that “something more” in our lives. Before we do let me set the stage for you.
While Paul was ministering in Antioch Peter came for a visit and Paul ended up having to confront Peter to his face in front of the people. Why? Because when Peter first came to Antioch he was associating with the Gentile Christians there. He would even eat his meals with them going so far as to eat pork which was something that was strictly forbidden from the Jewish diet, but Christ had now declared it ok to eat. So everything was going smoothly. But then some Jewish Christians came along who believed that the only was to be saved was to trust in Christ and follow the Old Testament rules and regulations of the Jewish law. When they came to town Peter stopped eating ham sandwiches and even worse he stopped associating with the Gentile Christians. To make matters worse he was influencing other Christian leaders like Barnabas to do the same thing.
So Paul confronted him to his face in front of everyone and basically accused him of being hypocritical. He reminded Peter that people are saved though faith in Jesus Christ and not through keeping Jewish rituals. He basically told Peter that he was sending conflicting messages by on the one hand teaching salvation by faith in Jesus alone and on the other hand holding to these outdated regulations. The example that he was setting didn’t match the message that he was teaching.
This is what was at stake here. If one is saved by faith alone, do you then need to maintain and advance in your walk with the Lord by keeping certain rules and regulations? Or do you continue on by faith as well. It is by faith that we are saved and it is by faith that we grow in grace and it is by faith that we are sanctified.
There is no exact equivalent in our modern way of life with the Jewish laws referred to here. They had rules about how many times they washed their hands, what kinds of meat they could eat, and how far they could walk on Saturdays. But we can and do get into our legalistic ways of thinking some times.
Imagine if some one came here from another denomination and said, “You people here at the Emily Wesleyan Church are not real Christians and this is not a real church. You don’t have stained glass windows or pipe organ. Your pastor doesn’t wear a robe or a clerical collar. Therefore you are not a real church.
Now we all know that isn’t true. We all know that those things don’t make a church a church. Those are external things not eternal things. Peter was guilty of emphasizing external things over eternal things and Paul was going to set him straight. Paul basically told Peter that he was leading people astray by living out a religion of externals and that there was more to it than that. Then Paul goes on to describe that “something more.”
Today we will see that advancing in the Christian life is not about rituals and regulations and rules. It is about a relationship with Jesus Christ – a life long, life-changing relationship.
There is only one way to experience that “something more” in your life. You have to die. Not physically of course, but internally. That is why the message is titled “Dead Man Walking.” You have to die to your hopes and dreams and goals. You have to be crucified with Christ. Let me share with you some truths that will help you to experience that “something more” in your own life today.
1. It is a matter of being, not behaving.
Paul said, “I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (v. 20b, LB).
Let me be very honest with you this morning about living the Christians life. You can’t do it! The only one who could live the Christ life was Christ. That is why it is named after him. If I could live it on my own, then it would be named after me, but I can’t and neither can you. The Christ life - the deeper life - as it is sometimes called is not a matter of behaving because we can’t do it.
What Paul is saying here is essentially this: “I’m not the one living this life. It is Christ who is in me living this life through me.” He is saying, “This life you see me living – I’m not the one doing it. I’m and simply being what Christ, who is in me, has made me to be.”
Now let’s go back to the beginning and try and make sense of all this. Paul says that he can live this life because he died and now Jesus is living within him. How does this work? Paul tells us in the book of Romans.
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2, NIV).
You can be conformed to the world, but you cannot be conformed to Christ. Becoming sanctified is not about conforming to certain rules and regulations. That is why Paul criticized Peter for his behavior as we discussed earlier. What we are talking about here is not a reformation, but a transformation. What is the difference? It is much more than just semantics.
Reform means “to improve; to do better.” That is what religion is all about. Religion is about trying to improve your self. Religion is about trying to do better next time. But transform means “to change completely in nature.” That is what being sanctified does for you. You can try your best to do better, but sooner or later you will always falter. What you need is for Jesus to change your very nature. This is why it is a matter of being rather than behaving. You don’t need to be reformed you need to be transformed.
Jesus said, “Whatever is in your heart determines what you say.” (Mt. 12:34, NLT). In other words it is who you are at the core of your being – your nature – that determines your speech and your actions – your behavior. Just as it is in the nature of dogs to bark and cats to meow so it is in the nature of a sinner to sin and a liar to lie and a cheater to cheat. That is what they are so that is what they do. And so if you are just a sinner saved by grace then it is still in your nature to sin and so when you try not sin you will find yourself battling against yourself. This is why being reformed will never work. Try reforming a dog so that instead of barking it meows. Good luck! You must be transformed at the core of your being. Remember that transform means, “to change completely in nature.” What you need then is a completely new nature – a nature of holiness and righteousness. Because when you are made to be holy then you will behave holy. You can never consistently live a holy life when you are not holy.
How do you get this transformation of your nature? Paul tells us in the book of Romans that this transformation was begun in us when we became Christians.
“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:3-4, NIV).
He says that when we were baptized – a reference to our conversion – we died spiritually speaking with Christ to our old way of life so that we could be raised again to a new way of life. In other words we were born again.
However, the full potential of what has been worked into our lives remains to be worked out. When we are first converted we are aware of our sins being forgiven. But it takes some time before we realize that there is something more that needs to be done with sin. Sin not only needs to be forgiven it also needs to be cleansed. At first we fail to realize the full potential that we have and so when he gets to verse eleven he says this:
“Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).
Until we realize the potential of Jesus’ atonement for our sin we will never experience the full salvation that he offers to us through his work on the cross. Paul says we need to count or consider or reckon that this has taken place in our lives. The Greek is a term that is never used for imaginary suppositions, but only of hard facts. The fact lacks power until the fact is combined with faith. Until then it is like a seed lying dormant in your life.
Have you given your life to Jesus Christ? Then stop trying to live right for him in your own strength. Understand that Jesus died on the cross not only to forgive you of your sins so that you can get to heaven, but also to make you holy so that you can live for him right now.
“Jesus himself suffered outside the city gate, so that his blood would make people holy” (Hebrews 13:12, CEV).
The Bible says that Jesus died to make you holy. The first step is to accept it. To believe it. Or as Paul said to count on it or to consider it to be true for you. But then what?
2. It’s a matter of faith, not feelings.
Once you have come to recognize that you cannot live the Christ life through your own self-effort and have recognized that Christ died for more than just your forgiveness, but also for your holiness, you are ready to begin living the Christ life.
“The life you see me living is not ‘mine,’ but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20c, Mes).
When you come to realize that Jesus died on the cross to make you holy and when you realized that the potentiality of a holy life was made available through the cross as well and when you ask God to sanctify you by making you holy, what happens? Does it instantly change the way you feel? Maybe and maybe not. Some have testified to feelings of euphoria and somehow feeling clean. But many more would say that they had no special sensation or feeling. Even if you do have an emotional experience you can be sure that those feelings will not last.
Here’s why. God wants us to learn to live by faith not by feelings. Paul didn’t say that I live this life you see me living – the life of holiness – by feelings. He said this life “is lived by faith in the Son of God.” Circle the words “by faith.”
When you pray and ask God to make you holy you must then move forward in faith believing that the prayer has been answered. The key is to base your life on the facts not the feelings that may or may not come from this or that experience.
Have you every watched the Road Runner cartoons? They always seem to include a scene something like this. Wile E. Coyote is chasing the Road Runner when he falls off of a cliff. As he falls he grabs a hold of a twig sticking out from the wall of the cliff. Just as Wile E. Coyote thinks he is going to be all right – crack! – the twig breaks and he falls. It doesn’t matter how strong his grip on the twig was, when the twig breaks he is going to fall.
Keep that picture in mind as we talk about faith this morning. For you see, the key to a great faith is not how strong the faith is but what the faith holds on too. If faith holds on to a breakable twig, then it matters not how strong the grip of faith is, the twig will break and the faith will fall. But a faith that holds on to the facts will never fall for God’s promises never fail –they never break.
What are the unimpeachable facts of God’s word concerning your sanctification? Let’s look at just the basic facts that you must hold on to.
The Facts of Sanctification:
a) It is God’s plan for your life.
“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified” (1 Thes. 4:3).
God flat out says that this is his will for your life. Now remember that Paul was addressing these words to people who were already Christians. He is saying, “I know that you are saved, but God wants you to be sanctified as well.” Let me tell you something, you don’t have to pray about something that God clearly says is his will for your life. If it is God’s will, then God wants it for your life.
b) It is provided through the cross.
Here is a verse that we looked at earlier, but it is worth looking at again.
“Jesus … suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood” (Hebrews 13:12, RSV).
Jesus died on the cross for the dual purposes of salvation and sanctification. In the former we are delivered from the power of sin while in the latter we are delivered from the presence of sin. While we can be delivered from the power and presence of sin we must remember that we can never be delivered from the possibility of sin in this lifetime.
What does that mean? It means that when you were saved sin’s power was broken in your life. Although sin remained in your heart it was no longer your master. It remained there tempting and enticing you to do wrong and sometimes you give in to it. When you are sanctified the presence of sin is removed so that this inner civil war or tug-of-war between right and wrong is decisively ended. However it is still possible for you to commit sin by giving in to external temptations just as Adam and Eve did in the garden when tempted by the serpent.
c) It is performed by faith.
Jesus appeared to the apostle Paul and commissioned him to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles so that “they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18, NIV).
Why is sanctification received by faith? Because, like salvation, this is something that you cannot earn or achieve on your own. It is a gift from God and God’s gifts can only be received by faith. Faith activates the facts. The fact is that Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins so that you can be forgiven. However, that doesn’t become effective in your life until you put your faith in that fact. The same is true with sanctification.
This is the life that Paul said was “lived by faith in the Son of God.” Now what does it mean to live by faith. It means much more that to simply see the truth and think that it is true. To live by faith means to act upon that truth. When you have received the truth and believed it and asked God do perform this work in your life then you move forward in faith believing that God has done what he has promised to do.
Paul said this to the Thessalonians: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through …The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it” (1 Thes. 5:23-24, NIV).
Again Paul is talking to those who are Christians – who have been born again – and he tells them that there is something more that they need. They need to be sanctified through and through. Then he goes on to assure them that the same God who calls them to be sanctified will perform this work of grace in their lives. And you can be sure that he will perform it in yours as well.
When you move forward in faith this power is activated. An old pastor used to illustrate this by saying it was like power steering. To just look at the steering wheel you wouldn’t know that anything was different. And if you never to hold of the steering wheel and began to try and turn it the power steering would never kick in. Power steering doesn’t work until you start to work it. Moving forward in faith activates this power in your life. Move forward believing that God’s power is available to you whether you feel it or not – whether you sense His presence or not.
The following little poem illustrates the way that feelings, faith, and facts should operate in our lives.
Three men were walking on a wall,
Feeling, Faith and Fact,
When Feeling got an awful fall,
And Faith was taken back.
So close was Faith to Feeling,
He stumbled and fell too,
But Fact remained and pulled Faith back,
And Faith brought Feeling too.
(Author Unknown – contributed by Jimmy York, Sermon Central)
If your faith is too closely tied to your feeling you will have some unnecessary spiritual falls in your life. Your spiritual life operates effectively only when feelings follow faith, which is rooted in the facts.
All of this is pulled together nicely by the apostle John.
“If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:7, NIV).
When you walk in the light – stepping out in faith and living in obedience to the revealed truth of God’s word – you will be purified from all sin by the blood of Jesus – you will be sanctified.
You have heard the simple facts of God’s word this morning. Are you now prepared to live by faith in those facts? Have you realized that there is “something more” that you need in your life? Are you ready to admit that you can’t live this Christ life on your own? Jesus died on the cross to sanctify you – to make you holy. Believe in the truth and act on the truth.
Conclusion:
As we come to a close look with me at verse 21:
“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Now that you have become a Christian don’t make the mistake of setting aside the grace of God and trying to go on to sanctification on your own. You will never be beyond your need for God’s grace in your life. If you could earn it, then it would a reward – a paycheck – and not mercy. But the grace of God is far better than any reward. For with the grace of God rather than getting what you deserve you get more than you deserve. He owes me nothing, but by grace he gives me everything. Will you receive it this morning? That “something more” you have been searching for is available in Christ by faith through grace.
Please email me if you use this sermon or a revision of it. Thank you!
steveamanda8297@hotmail.com
