TRANSCRIPT:
Galatians Chapter 2, and I'd like us to read verse 19 and verse 20 as we focus on verse 20 this morning. Galatians Chapter 2:19-20: "For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; 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 for me."
As we near the end of chapter 2 this morning, we remember that last week we looked at the objection that is most commonly brought to the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ, and that in this passage is phrased as "Is Christ therefore the minister of sin?" And that objection is simply that if we are saved by faith apart from the works of the law, and it is that faith alone that is the sufficient righteousness that comes to us through Jesus Christ, then what's the point of the law? As it was read this morning, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" Well, the answer, definitely as we looked at last week, is certainly not. In fact, Paul's argument demonstrates that the doctrine of justification is not apart from our union with Jesus Christ, and therefore those that are united to Him by faith are the ones who receive that righteousness in accordance with their union with Jesus Christ, and therefore living unto God, living a life of holiness, of obedience, a life that is pleasing to God, has everything to do with our union to Christ. That not only sufficiently saves us, but it also sufficiently sanctifies us to help us continue on in obedience. And we looked at how this was the promise of the new covenant, that God will cause His people to walk in His ways, which made that a superior covenant to that of the old.
Now this morning, we're going to look at verse number 20, but verse 20 is really only an exposition and explanation of verse number 19. So verse 19 says, "For I through the law died to the law that I might live unto God," and so the themes there of death and life come in verse number 19, and then Paul goes on to elaborate to Peter and to the Jews and to the Galatians that now we're reading this letter, and to us this day, what that actually looks like, how that actually works. He elaborates this concept of dying to the law and living unto God, and he does that in a text like verse 20, where it says, "I've been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Now this is no doubt a well-worn text of Scripture. It's become many a person's life verse, favorite verse, and I recommend it to you as one of those. But what often happens with life verses, favorite verses, they get transmitted over time as an isolated text from the context, and so a verse like this ends up being a verse that is apparently about self-denial, or it's apparently about the higher life, or the deeper life, or the crucified life, and it is a verse that is often tried understood as something that is primarily practical rather than theological. I was preaching on this text maybe six years ago or so now, and I remember one brother in Christ hearing about the fact that I was going to preach on this text, saying something like this, "You know, I'm really excited that you're gonna go through the crucified life, how to put to death, you know, the deeds of the flesh and these kind of things, and you know, 'I am crucified with Christ,' and I just remember saying that after studying, I'm like, 'Well, it's actually not primarily about that.'"
We must begin where the scripture begins when it comes to our understanding of our union with Christ, and this passage of scripture is primarily about our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, which affects our consciousness of our communion with Christ. So yes, it is very practical, no doubt, in its application, but so often we jump to the application without seeing the foundation upon which that application should be built, and then we find ourselves not really understanding who we are in Christ and what the gospel of Jesus Christ has actually done for us, that by reason of that gospel transforms us in our Christian living and obedience. So this text begins with the believer's position and is primarily about the believer's position and not the believer's practice.
It was George Eldon Ladd who said this, "This is not a subjective statement of something that happens in the Christian consciousness, but a theological statement of one's position in Christ, but it has great consequences for the Christian consciousness and life." For many of us, we approach the Bible as a book which we want like a how-to manual, but I've got news for you, the Bible is not a how-to manual. It will tell us how to do things, no doubt, but we must begin where it begins, and it always primarily begins with our position. It always primarily begins with the gospel, and by consequence of what God has done for us in Christ, then we are told how we ought to live. But when we come to it as primarily a how-to manual, we don't understand how to interpret those practical pieces of guidance and instruction from God in light of what God has done for us already, and this leaves the Christian in a very dangerous place, in fact, the place where they feel a sense of condemnation, a sense of shame, a sense of "I'm never going to be able to rise, and I'm never going to be able to obey these commands." In fact, they might as well just be under the law.
But what we find in this text of scripture in verse number 20 is an objective fact and a new position, and in verse number 20, the opening statement in this verse is, "I have been crucified with Christ." This is not about self-crucifixion; this is not about putting to death the deeds of the body. This is primarily about what has been done to us by God's grace in the gospel. And mind you, 2000 years ago, this text of scripture begins with the words, "I have been crucified with Christ," and that "have been" points us back to a time where that happened, and that "have been" not only points us to the past, but it's a "have been" that points us to the past and shows us that there are present consequences and realities because of that, meaning "I have been crucified with Christ, and I remain crucified with Christ. I have been crucified with Christ, and I am crucified with Christ."
It's not "Christ was crucified with me" when I believed on Jesus, as if Christ died again, and I died with Him in that moment. No, it's more than that. Christ takes a historical event, the crucifixion of Jesus, and He says, "I have been crucified with Christ." There's Christ hanging on a cross 2000 years ago, dying for the sins of His people, fulfilling the law by His death, and Paul says here, right now, at this present hour, "I have been crucified with Christ." It was true of me with Him then, and it remains true in my life and my experience now. A historical event, a physical event in the past, before you ever existed, there is some kind of mystical reality that we cannot fully wrap our heads around, but that when Christ died, all His people died with Him. There was a union there. He died physically, but His people died spiritually with Him 2000 years ago in the death of Jesus Christ.
You say, "That makes no sense." That's exactly what the naturalistic, atheistic approach to these things are. They're happy for us to have our mystical views of mythology, all in the name of the spiritual and the supernatural, but do not make that historical. Don't say that's a historical reality. That's okay to keep that in your mystical sphere of mythology. We can put you with all the other mythologies and false things out there. That's the naturalistic view. But what we see in scripture is that this is God's world, and often the physical and the spiritual collide in God's world, and this is what happened at the cross of Jesus Christ, that it wasn't just a man dying on a cross 2000 years ago because he was rejected by the Jews and by the Romans and was hanged there to die. God was doing something in Christ, in history, for His people, and Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ." This is an important mystery.
Paul's saying, "When He died, I died." And death is a cutting off; death is a separation. And in one sense, Christ died, and He was cut off from, as it were, the world, the life around Him. And the meaning is similar, but in a spiritual sense, that when we died with Him, in one sense, we were cut off to something. There was a separation to something due to the cross of Jesus Christ. Now, if you want to really get your brains going, you can do a study on union and find that this stretches way before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and goes even back into eternity past, where we've been chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Whoa, the "in Him" part is union; that's what "in Him" refers to. And it goes right back before even the cross of Jesus Christ. But let's not stretch our brains that far back this morning. We'll deal with our texts and talk about the cross.
But this in mystery is important because it is very spiritually significant for God's people to understand and to believe that when He died, I died, and what He died for, I died too. So Christ dies for sin, and therefore I died to sin because I died with Him. That the law, and it's condemnation, when the Bible says, "I through the law died to the law," well, when did all this happen? How did this all happen? Well, Jesus, the fulfillment of the law, who kept the law perfectly, united me in His death, and so the full demands of the law fell upon Him, the condemnation, the judgment, all that, and I died in Christ. What's Paul saying by that? Well, there's a separation that if Christ died for sin and I died, therefore, to sin, and if Christ died in fulfillment of the law and therefore I died to the law, what he's simply saying by that is that the law and sin have no more claim upon me.
Galatians Chapter 2, and you can read this in your own time, connects with Romans Chapter 7 and connects with Romans Chapter 6. We read Romans Chapter 6 last week, but the idea is that I am free from the law through the body of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? What he's saying is I'm free from that old union and relationship that I had before, one of condemnation, one of death, one where I could never rise into full and complete obedience to God, and now I have been cut off from that relationship, and I'm married to another, which is none other than Jesus Christ. And therefore, I serve not in the oldness of the letter of the law but in the newness of the Spirit. I've been brought into that covenant relationship which was secured for me at Calvary. "I have been crucified with Christ," is exactly what Paul is saying in Romans Chapter 7. Therefore, the law has no claim on me. I died to its rule, I died to its realm, I died to its reign, and in essence, what he's saying to Peter in this passage is, "Why is it, Peter, that you are leading these people by hypocrisy under that law by which they have died to in Christ, just like I have died to in Christ?"
You know, when Paul says, "I've been crucified with Christ," he's not saying, "Oh, it's just me and nobody else." What he's simply saying is, "I, and all those for whom Christ gave Himself for," Galatians Chapter 2:20, "who loved me and gave Himself for me," brought into that union with the Lord Jesus Christ into His death, and therefore, Peter, you cannot bring those believers back under that bondage. They've been loosed from that through the death of Jesus Christ.
And the same is true in Galatians Chapter 2:20, in Romans Chapter 6, verses 1 to 7, which you read this morning. In Romans Chapter 6:6, it says this, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin." And what Paul is saying here is simply this: that my death with Jesus Christ on the cross, when I, by faith, believe on this one, I experienced the power of that union that was secured for me at Calvary, and I enter into that life, and I live in such a way as to serve and adore and love this Savior. My old man, the man that I used to be in Adam, is dead, and that body of sin, that sense in which I was a slave to sin, the old man in Adam that had no power over sin, that did not have the Spirit of God indwelling, that man, that man has died. That man does not exist anymore. He has literally been cut off, destroyed in the death of Jesus Christ, in the burial of Christ, and he stays there. He's dead, and I'm dead to his rule, I'm dead to his realm, and I'm dead to his reign, meaning if sin calls me up one day and says, "Hey, can you commit this crime? Can you do this evil?" you can say, "You're not my master anymore. I died to you in Christ."
That's how practically this truth works. Once again, this is a theological, positional truth. You may not feel that you have power over sin. You may not feel that you have the strength to say no to sin. In fact, most of us, when we're struggling with sin, don't actually sense that. But what Paul is saying to the believers in the book of Romans is you need to know this, so even though you don't feel it, you must believe it. You must reckon this to be true and consider it to be true of you, that the old man has been crucified with Christ, and as a result of that, the body of sin has been made inoperative, meaning it's been destroyed, meaning that it does not have the same power and forcefulness that you give it to. Now, whatever you serve, you serve by your own will. When you say yes to sin, it's you saying yes to sin. You're no longer a slave of sin. Before, you could not please God, but now, in Christ Jesus, the old man has been crucified with Him. You've been raised to walk in newness of life. You become a new man in Jesus Christ. You can say no to that old man.
And what Paul is trying to get the believers here to understand, and in the book of Romans to understand, is this: that something fundamentally happened as a result of God's work in Christ before you even existed, that you now are to claim as your own, having believed in Him, and to walk in the power of that new life. How does this all work? It's just getting more confusing as you speak, you say. Let me give an illustration that might be helpful.
In the American Civil War, a man by the name of George Wyatt and Richard Pratt, and during the Civil War, there was that man by the name of George White who was drawn by lot to go to the front to war, and he had a wife and he had six children, and a young man by the name of Richard Pratt, he offered to go in his stead. He was accepted, and he joined the ranks of the army, but he joined the ranks of the army bearing the name and number of George Wyatt. Before long, Pratt was unfortunately killed in action, and later on, the authorities, they sought to draft in George Wyatt into service, but George White protested, entering the plea that he had died in the person of Pratt. He insisted that the authorities consult their own records to the fact of his having died in identification with Pratt, his substitute. Wyatt was therefore thereby exempted as beyond the claims of law and further service. He had died in the person of his representative.
You see what's happening here? One man representing another in such a way that the demands of the law and the demands of the master, the old master, cannot have claims on that person, and he keeps pointing to George White, says, "I died in the person of my representative." Ali Maxwell, from the book "The Born Crucified," he continues to say, "George White did not find deliverance by fighting the law or endeavoring to please the authorities. He took his death position according to the government record. He acts on the basis of 'it is written.' He had died in the person of his representative. Even so, I too have a substitute and representative. He entered a deadly combat and died my death. I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. That is a great fact. No amount of struggling on my part can make it more true. I am an actual partaker of Christ and therefore of His death and resurrection. Christ actually lives in me. His is a life of death to sin and aliveness to God. It is mine to yield my all to Him, to believe and rejoice and rest in Christ."
This is the great facts of your life if you have believed in Jesus Christ, and this fact is to be a conscious reality. Here is where it gets a little bit practical for us, a conscious reality that should invade and affect and influence the way in which we relate to the world and in obedience to God. This is a new power that God has secured for us in the death of Jesus Christ, not only a power that is working in us but a power that is given to us as a conviction. It's really the power of a new conviction. What the Bible is telling us here is this is true of you, and even though you don't think it's true of you, you need to believe that it's true of you. That's basically what it's saying here, and what Paul is saying here's the power of a new conviction: live in the knowledge of it.
What is it that Christ has given His people? A new position. And if any of us know anything about the history of warfare, we will understand that a lot of battles are won due to the persons' or the armies' positioning. In fact, when Joshua was fighting at AI the second time, after Achan was destroyed and cut off from the people due to his sin, God told Joshua these very words. He said, "Lay an ambush for the city behind it." Right? So God gave Joshua and his people a strategy, and what did they do? They set an ambush behind the city, and half the army came to the front of the city, and the people in AI said, "Let's go out and fight the people at the front," and they went out to the front to go fight the people at the front, and as they were coming out, Joshua and his armies at the front, they started to retreat as though they were scared of the people of AI, and they started going back, and they came out more and more and more and more, and then Joshua and his armies turned to go and attack them, and the people from behind the city invaded the city, burnt the city, plundered the city, and took the spoils of war and destroyed the people. That whole battle, which resulted in victory, was won due to a strategic position.
And what God is teaching us here is that if we have knowledge of our new position in Christ, that the old man is crucified with Him, and that I'm now alive in Jesus Christ, and that Christ lives in me, and I understand my relationship to the law and my relationship to sin, and I understand my relationship to God, then I will find in myself a new conviction to fight those battles from that position, which means when the devil or when your flesh or when your circumstances speak to you saying, "This is too hard," you can respond and say, "No, no, this is actually my position. How can it be too hard when I'm dead to sin? How can it be too hard when I'm dead to the law?" You see, the whole point is there's a new conviction that the people of God ought to have, that they understand that they've been crucified with Christ.
But the beautiful thing about this is it doesn't end at a mere conviction which we are to consider ourselves in, dead to sin, but it goes beyond that. In Galatians Chapter 2:20, he says, "I have been crucified with Christ," but he goes on to say, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." And so this is not only the power of a new conviction, but this is the power of the indwelling Christ also. He goes as far as to say that Christ lives in you.
I just want you to think about the profoundness of that statement. Here is Christ—Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended, Christ glorified, Christ powerful, Christ who calms the sea with the word of His voice, Christ the one who heals the sick, who raises the dead—this Jesus, by His Spirit, lives in me. Wow! You read your Gospels, and you say to yourself, "I wish I lived in the time of Jesus." But Paul says, "Hey, in one sense, you are living in the times of Jesus. He is King over all, and He lives within your heart." Christ lives in you; His days have not ended. They have just begun with regards to His death and resurrection and His rule and His reign. Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."
This is the great truth of the New Testament. Yes, a mystery indeed, but one we must believe: Christ in us, the hope of glory. This is the truth that strengthened God's people, that Jesus even said as an encouragement to His disciples, "I'm going away from you, but I won't leave you as orphans. I will come to you. You will not be without comfort. I am there with you, in you, to guide you, to lead you, to demonstrate God's love to you, to remind you, to shepherd you, to teach you, to correct you, to instruct you, to give you the way in which you should go, and to shape and influence every area of your life. I am with you. I'm in you."
And Paul says it's not just the fact that we have a new position in which we wage warfare, but he's saying this is a real new power because Christ Himself indwells us in His new covenant relationship to us by the Holy Spirit. And that Christ is not a dead Christ; He's a living Christ. You see, the passage is not just simply saying that Christ is in you; that's actually not what it's saying. He says, "Christ lives in me." You see, this Christ with whom I was crucified did not stay dead. He arose from the dead as a victorious conqueror over sin, death, and hell, and He has sent His Spirit as the Spirit of His Son. This is God's Spirit, the Spirit of His Son, which is the Spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Spirit, into our hearts.
And this resurrected Jesus lives in the power of that resurrected life in the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit, which means that which He has conquered ought to be conquered in us, that which He has power over, in one way or another, by His will and grace, we can have power over. This is the whole point of the new Christian life. This is the way in which Christians ought to live. Christ lives in me. This is not just the fact of His presence; this is the fact of His power, that He governs my life, He rules my life, He reigns in my life. This is a life-giving spring that issues into every part of my life. It's no longer the law that governs my thought life; it is Christ who lives in me. It is no longer sin that governs my thought life; it is to be Christ who lives in me.
This is His power. He is alive in us. Think about that. You are sitting here in Camden Valley, 2000 years after the resurrection of Jesus, and the life of Jesus is in you through the Holy Spirit. This is the truth that we ought to know. This is the truth that we ought to believe. This is the truth of salvation. As the hymn writer says, "Oh, what a salvation this, that Christ lives in me."
And this life, this new life, this life of Christ living in me, is walking in newness of life. This life of the Holy Spirit is marked by a new dependence. Look what he says in verse number 20 of this text. He says, "I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me." Look what he goes on to say, "And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loves me and gave Himself for me." Isn't that beautiful? He's saying it's not like Christ lives in you in the way that you actually don't live anymore. Your old man's being crucified with Him. Christ lives in you, but Paul goes on to say, "The life which I now live in the flesh"—isn't that beautiful? It's not like Christ is taking over your personality. It's not like Christ is making you some kind of robot. What Paul is showing here, what Paul is saying here, is there is a life that I used to live, but the life which I now live in the flesh, in this body, I live this life in the body, but I live it with Christ living in me. And he goes on to say, "I live it in light of a new dependence. I live by faith in the Son of God."
He's saying this is a life of faith. You say to me, "How on earth am I meant to understand or grapple all these things?" This is where faith comes into play. You ask yourself the very question, "Does God say this about me?" And then you say to yourself, "If God says this about me, I must believe it. Live by faith, believing that Jesus Christ is our Savior, who died for our sins, who paid our debt, who has given us a righteousness which is not our own, and believe that that righteousness is sufficient to be justified and accepted before God, and to believe more than that, that this Christ lives in me and reigns and governs and rules my life."
Christ lives in me, marked by a new dependence, not only a saving faith but a persistent faith. So as the Creed puts it, "I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord." It's no longer about just me knowing things about God; it's about me believing in Jesus Christ, believing in Him who died, believing in Him who rose again, believing in Him who lives in me, believing in Him who has authority over sin, over death, and over hell, and Him who saved me by His grace. Believing in Him, a life of faith. And that's where it moves from position to practice, in this sense. As I understand my position in Jesus Christ, and as I understand that Christ lives in me, and I understand that He's king over my life, what ends up happening is, as I trust in Him, it moves from communion to communion. All of a sudden, what you know to be true of Him and what you believe regarding Him starts to be true in your experience.
This is where it's not just about me telling myself that Christ lives in me, but it's more than that, that this is an actual truth, and if it's a truth, it's going to translate somewhere along the line in my experience. I can have faith that this is true, and when I believe, then I will see the glory of God manifested in my life. When I believe in what God has said, then I will see that power at work in me. But as long as I remain in unbelief regarding my position and regarding the power that's in me, then I will remain without the experience of that power in my life.
This is where union meets our communion, that this Christ who lives in us, we actually sense and know His presence. Jesus said to His disciples, "I will not leave you comfortless, or as orphans; I will come to you." He's trying to tell them, "You're going to know that I am with you, that I am in you." But you first need to believe what I say regarding myself and yourself and about your new position and about this new power. You need to understand what the new covenant actually means and what it means to have God's Spirit sent into our hearts, what it means to have the indwelling Christ in our lives. You need to believe these things, but as you believe them, as you depend upon them, you will know them in your experience and in your power because I will help you live this life.
And so this is not only a life that's marked by new dependence, but it's a life marked by a new realization. And that is the realization not only that He lives in me, but I love what Paul says here in the last part of this verse. It's a powerful thought. It's the life which I now live by faith. I live in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Who loved me and gave Himself for me. My co-crucifixion with Jesus, my deliverance from the power of sin and from the power of the law in my life, my new resurrection life, He's living in me—all of this that I've been talking about this moment for the last few moments here—is simply because of this one fact: He loved me. He gave Himself for me. Paul's saying it's because He loved me, it's because He gave Himself for me, that He has planted me in a new position. He has taken me into Himself in His death and resurrection life, and now He lives in me.
And Paul is overwhelmed by the fact that these truths, although not always felt all the time in our experience, but they are true, and he's believing in them, and he comes to a fresh realization that this Jesus loved me and gave Himself for me. When He was there hanging on the cross, Paul's saying, "It was for me. He died for me. He cried for me. He shed His blood upon the tree for me."
He gave Himself—we love to think of it corporately, true, He gave Himself for the church, He gave Himself for the world, the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world. We think of it corporately, broadly, He gave Himself for the nations. But Paul says, "Hang on a minute, no, no, no, He gave Himself for me." This is personal. This is real personal. This is Christ thinking of you on the cross, if you have believed in His name, thinking of you in His death. This is Christ taking you into His death, you into His resurrection life, and then living in you. This personal—that's powerful, isn't it? A new realization of the fact that Christ personally resides, loves, lives, governs the life of every individual believer who trusts in His name.
Can you put your name there? "He loved me," put your name in there, "and gave Himself for me." Christian, do you put your name in there? Do you tell yourself, do you remind yourself, that He loved me, put your name in there, John, He loved John and gave Himself for John. He loved Joshua and gave Himself for Joshua. He loved Paul and gave Himself for Paul. He loved Peter and gave Himself for Peter. He loved Sarah and gave Himself for Sarah. He loves Lillian and gave Himself for Lillian. He loved Leanne and gave Himself for Leanne. He loves you and gave Himself for you. Can you put your name in there? Do you put your name in there?
Church of the living God, if you put your name in there, it will revolutionize the way you think of the cross. "That He loved me and gave Himself for me." I love what Martin Luther says on this passage. He said, "Did the law ever love me? Did the law ever sacrifice itself for me? Did the law ever die for me? On the contrary, it accuses me, it frightens me, it drives me away. Somebody else saved me from the law, from sin and death unto eternal life. That somebody is the Son of God, to whom be praise and glory forever."
This is what he says, he says, "Read the words 'me' and 'for me' with great emphasis. Print this 'me' with capital letters in your heart, and do not ever doubt that you belong to the number of those who are meant by this 'me.' Christ did not only love Peter and Paul; the same love He felt for them, He feels for us. If we cannot deny that we are sinners, we cannot deny that Christ died for our sins." Isn't it amazing?
We live under the condemnation of the law. We wonder whether we're accepted by God. "Has God justified me? Has God received me? Is the righteousness that I have good enough to be acceptable in the sight of God?" What Paul is simply saying is the righteousness that you receive by Christ in justification was because of this union. And this union is because there is one by the name of Jesus who said, "I will die for his sins. I will die for her sins. I will die for her sins. And I will credit to them a righteousness which is not their own, that they might stand complete before God forever. And no matter whether they sin, no matter whether they fall, no matter whether they're ridden with guilt, no matter whether they're ridden with shame, they are to believe and understand and know that I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. That He loved me and gave Himself for me."
Do you understand that this is the power of the new covenant life that we have in Jesus Christ, this new recognition of the power over sin? And I think it is true of most of us today that we have probably failed to understand this reality as it is given to us in Scripture. We don't live in the light of this new position. We do not live in light of this new power. We live in constant defeat. We live in constant regrets. Our life is marked by a continual struggle. And I'm not saying that we're not struggling. We fight against sin to the day we get to glory. But I'm talking about a struggle in our consciousness and convictions. That we plunge into seasons, often deep, dark seasons, where we do not believe that He loves me and gave Himself for me.
And what Paul is saying to us, as he says to you this morning, "Lift up your eyes into the hills and see Christ crucified for you. Believe He died for me. Trust in Him. Live by faith in the Son of God. Stop forgetting that He loved me and gave Himself for me." You say, "Why do we break bread so often?" So that we can remember that He loved me and gave Himself for me. This is why we break bread, to remember this reality, that we never lose sight of it, that we live in light of it, that we understand and realize that this is the power of Christ in me.
And so, three phrases in closing that you need to wear on your shoulder and have in your mind and work out in your life day to day: "I have been crucified with Christ," "Christ lives in me," and "He loved me and gave Himself for me." Memorize those three phrases and constantly remember, constantly remind yourself about them. When you're under condemnation of guilt and shame, say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." When Satan tempts you to despair, you say, "No, no, I've been crucified with Christ. The old man's already been condemned and destroyed with Christ at Calvary for my sins. I'm not going to be judged for that. I'm a new creature in Christ."
When you're filled with busyness in your day, and your life is frantic, and you feel like it's falling to bits, you can remind yourself that He loved me. And if He gave Himself for me, isn't He going to take care of me? You know, when you're under this sense of—it feels like God is so far away from you—you just have to stop and say, "I've been crucified with Christ. Christ lives in me." He's not far away. He may feel far away, but He's actually in me. And you can stop, whether it's at the kitchen sink or whether it's in your workplace, or when it's at a cafe one day when you're sitting down, or when you've just got a phone call with bad news, you can stop and say, "Jesus, You live in me. You're near. You're here. You indwell me."
In times of temptation, when your flesh feels like, "Man, there's no way I can say no to this thing," you tell yourself, "I've been crucified with Christ." Tell yourself, "Christ lives in me." And tell yourself, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." And you try and sin with that on your mind. You try and give way to lust and to anger and to frustration and pride and bitterness and envy when you're thinking on this very truth. You will find that that power of the risen Christ will be more manifest in your life.
And then work this doctrine out in your heart and in your life. Don't just tell yourself these things; meditate on them and understand what it actually means. We live in a self-centered culture where it's all about me, myself, and I, and the getting of our own way. But don't you love it? "It is no longer I who lives." That's a good dose for self-centeredness, isn't it? For self-pity, for the victimization of our culture that is so common today. "I died with Christ. It is no longer I who lives." It's not about me. "I died with Christ. It is no longer I who lives." It's not about me. It's about Him who loved me and gave Himself for me. It's about Him living His life in me. It's about Him dominating and governing my thought life. It's not about me. It's not about me.
Christian, if we would just live in light of this one text of Scripture, we will find ourselves to be like living and walking little Christs in the world. And the world will know that there is one who loves His people and gave Himself for them. And look at the power in their life. "Give me some of that. Joy in trial, victory over sin." Wow. Yes, "I have been crucified with Christ."
May the world, may God work this in our hearts so that the world may see a new demonstration of Christianity in our lives. Let us pray together.