The Great Exchange: Living The Crucified Life

Introduction: The Heart of the Matter

My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, I greet you this morning in the matchless name of Jesus Christ.

If you were to take a single pen and a single piece of paper, and you were asked to summarize the entire Christian experience in one sentence, you would be hard-pressed to find a more profound, more comprehensive, and more revolutionary statement than the one we have before us today in Galatians chapter 2, verse 20.

In this one verse, the Apostle Paul, under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit, unpacks the very core of our salvation. He gives us the secret to the Christian life. It is not a life of trying harder, but a life of dying deeper. It is not a life of self-improvement, but a life of divine replacement. It is, in its essence, a Great Exchange.

So many of us, even as believers, are weary. We are tired of the struggle. We fight the same sins, we wrestle with the same doubts, and we carry the same burdens day after day. We try to be better husbands, better wives, better parents, better Christians. We make resolutions, we promise God we will do better this time, only to find ourselves failing again.

Why? Because we have misunderstood the fundamental principle of the Christian life. We are trying to live for God in our own strength. But Paul tells us this morning that the Christian life is not you living for God. It is God living through you. Let us break down this glorious truth together, as we look at this powerful verse.

I. The Foundational Fact: A Death Has Occurred

The very first clause of our text is shocking. It is violent. It is absolute. Paul declares, "I am crucified with Christ..."

Notice the grammar. He does not say, "I will be crucified," as if it is some future hope. He does not say, "I should be crucified," as if it is a moral obligation he is trying to meet. He states it as a past, completed, and settled fact: "I am crucified." The tense of the verb in the original language signifies a past action with continuing, present results.

When Jesus went to the cross 2,000 years ago, He did not go alone. By faith, every person who would ever believe in Him was, in a spiritual sense, on that cross with Him. When He died, we died.

What died?

The "Old Man" died. The person you were before Christ—enslaved to sin, bound by your passions, living for your own glory—that person was judged and executed on Calvary's cross. Romans 6:6 says, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."

Your Debt to the Law died. The Law of God, holy and just and good, demands perfection. You and I could never meet its demands. It stood over us as our accuser, rightly condemning us. But Colossians 2:14 tells us that Christ took that "handwriting of ordinances that was against us... and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." Your legal debt was paid in full.

This is not a feeling; it is a fact. You may not feel crucified. You may feel very much alive in your old ways sometimes. But we do not live by our feelings; we live by the facts of God's Word. You must reckon it to be true. You must plant the flag of your faith on this truth: The old me, the one who was in rebellion against God, has been legally and spiritually put to death in the person of Jesus Christ. The case is closed. The sentence has been carried out.

II. The Present Reality: A New Life Has Begun

Now, if the verse ended there, it would be a gospel of death. But look at the glorious paradox that follows: "...nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me..."

Out of the ashes of death comes the miracle of resurrection life. "Nevertheless I live!" The crucifixion of the old self does not lead to annihilation; it leads to a glorious new animation. But who is the source of this new life? Paul makes it breathtakingly clear: "yet not I."

The life you now possess as a child of God is not your old life, patched up, cleaned up, and polished for God. It is not a life of reformation. It is a life of replacement. The ego, the self-driven will, the prideful "I" has been dethroned. And a new King has taken residence in your heart—the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Imagine a glove. A glove can be made of the finest leather, stitched with the greatest care, but on its own, lying on a table, it can do nothing. It cannot grip, it cannot wave, it cannot work. But when a living hand slips inside that glove, the glove suddenly comes to life. It moves with the power of the hand. It does the will of the hand. The glove is not the source of the life; it is merely the vessel.