Dying for a New Life

Scripture Reading

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Introduction

Jennifer was taking an afternoon nap so she would be able to be awake to see the New Year end later that night at the big party that had been planned. 

After she woke up, she confided to Clayton, her husband, 'I just dreamed that you gave me a diamond ring for a New Year's present. What do you think it all means?'

'Wow, let me just say, you'll know tonight,' Clayton answered with a big smile.

At midnight, as the New Year was chiming in, and people left and right were kissing their sweethearts, Clayton approached Jennifer, kissed her while holding her a long time, then he handed her a small package.

Ecstatic and delighted, she opened it quickly.

There in her hand rested a bible, when she opened it to the bookmarked page she saw that and verse 8 was highlighted which read, “Only God knows the meaning of dreams.”

It’s hard to believe that we’ve came to the end of another year, and I would like to ask you with 3 days left in the year, if you made New Years resolutions for yourself at the beginning of the year, how did you do?

Did you accomplish any of the goals that you set for yourself?

I hope that you did. And if you did congratulations! It’s great to celebrate your accomplishments and I hope your goals moved you closer to God.

Or maybe the year has thrown you so many twists and turns that you can’t even remember the goals that you set for yourself last year and you find yourself limping to the finish line here in December.

And if that is you this morning let me tell you that you are not at all alone. Sometimes just getting through the year in one piece makes for a successful year.

As I stand here today, I can honestly tell you that I cannot recall my resolutions from last year. I know I have them written down somewhere, and that I could go back and look at them, but at this point I know that I’ve failed some if not most of them.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have a great year, a productive year, in fact in may ways I think that I’ve had a better year than I would have if I had stuck to every single one of my goals.

See the problem with resolutions is that you never know what life will bring.

God might put something or someone in your life that is far more important than any of our goals.

So while I’m certainly going to make some goals for myself, I’ve decided that I’m going to set one scripture as my most guiding resolution for the year.

In fact the verse we are going to discuss this morning would make an excellent theme for the year.

So I would like for you to join me this year in framing in your mind for the next 12 months Galatians 2:20.

Introduction: The problem with New Year’s Resolutions is they tend to “go in one year and out the next.” Well, today I’d like us to consider adopting a Bible verse as a resolution. Some people choose a Bible verse at the beginning of January to set the theme for the coming year. If you could have one verse scripted and framed to hang in your living room for the next 12 months, which would you choose? I’d like to suggest

Galatians 2:20 ESV

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This verse presents three aspects to the Christian life that we would do well to remember every day when our feet hit the floor every morning.

The Relinquished Life

Text

“I have been crucified with Christ”

Explanation

The first statement that Paul makes in v. 20 is that he has been crucified with Christ. Now it’s important that we take just a few minutes to look at what led Paul to make the statement that he is making in here in v. 20.

Paul is writing to the church in Galatia it seems to first and foremost correct what he has heard regarding their being led astray by Judaising teachers.

Back in chapter 1. and v. 6 Paul wrote

Galatians 1:6 ESV

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—

This different gospel was apparently one that combined Christianity with Judaism, those that said true Christians would be circumcised and follow the works of the Law.

But Paul says that wasn’t the Gospel that he preached to them. and in fact is so confident in the Gospel that he recieved from Christ that he says to them

Galatians 1:8–9 ESV

8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Galatians 1:8

Now that’s a pretty bold statement! It seems to me that Paul was absolutely, 100 percent convinced that what he had recieved was from God.

But lest you still didn’t believe him, Paul is going to spend v.11 - 2:21 defending his apostleship and stance that what he teaches is the true Gospel, and that even though he had great prestige and power as he advanced in Judaism, that he gave all of that up for the sake of the Gospel which God had given him.

In fact in his letter to the Philippians he makes plain that whatever greatness he may have had as a Jew, he counted it as rubbish in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus.

When we pick back up in , we see that Paul is telling us that a Christian life is a relinquished life, it’s a life that we’ve given up.

ells us the Christian life is a relinquished life: “I have been crucified with Christ.” In receiving Christ, we come to the old rugged cross and gaze upon the dying form of one who suffered there for us. We see his hands nailed fast to the wood. We see the spike in his ankles. We see the blood flowing in streaks down his body, and, deeply moved, we turn aside from the kind of life we once lived and take our stand beneath the cross of Jesus. We die to ourselves and to our sin. We die to the world, the flesh, and the devil, and we identify with the cross of Christ.

Galatians 2:15–20 ESV

15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Gal 2:15-

Paul says whatever came before, whether good or bad, there is nothing there worth keeping you from knowing God, from living to God.

After all is that not what Christ said? Is he not recorded as saying in

Luke 9:23–25 ESV

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

In receiving Christ, it’s not enough that we are thankful for what he did for us by enduring the shame of the cross.

It isn’t enough that we look upon him as he’s humiliated, scourged and beaten and nailed to the cross and grieve for his pain and sorrow. That’s surely the reaction that most rational humans would have. What Christ has asked from us is that we follow him to the cross.

Now that doesn’t mean that every one of us will be subjected to Crucifixion, but it better mean that all of us who are Christians die to ourselves and to our sin. We better die to the world, the flesh, and the devil, and we better find a new identity that is rooted in the cross of Christ.

We die to ourselves and to our sin. We die to the world, the flesh, and the devil, and we identify with the cross of Christ.

Illustration

James Calvert was a missionary who in 1838 at the age of 25 left his home in the United Kingdom along with John Hunt to bring the good news of Christ to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands. When the captain of the ship heard that they didn’t intend to go to the more civilized areas of the Fiji islands but instead were going to the cannibals, the he tried to turn back crying out to Mr. Calvert, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages!” James Calvert is said to have responded calmly to the ship captain, “We died before we came here.”

Application

Can you not hear the early Christians that we read about in the book of Acts telling the Jewish leaders who had them beaten and imprisoned and threatening them with death saying the same thing? “We died already! We’ve been crucified with Christ! Therefore we heed the words of Jesus when he said do not fear those who can kill the body but have no power to kill the soul.”

Matthew 10:28 ESV

28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Church, imagine what we could accomplish if we lived each day like that! If we stopped worrying about what our neighbors would think, if we stopped being afraid to speak about Christ in public, if we understood that we. are. dead to what we want. That we have died to our desires, our sins, our social standing, our bank accounts?

Church I think the early church grew like wildfire because they truly believed that. They

Dead people don’t fear death. They don’t fear being embarrassed. They don’t fear anything.

But that’s not the whole story, and that’s not the whole text this morning.

You might have realized that you aren’t physically dead just yet. That this morning you have been blessed with the soundness of body and mind to be here gathered with the saints.

But if you are a Christian this morning, you shouldn’t be here as the same person that you where when you went into that watery grave of baptism.

Instead you were raised to walk in newness of life. Not the same man, but a renewed man, one dead to sin and alive in Christ.

That is what Paul continues to say in when he says...

The Renewed Life

Text

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

Explanation

Illustration

What an incredible statement so far Paul has made here in !

He’s stated that he was crucified with Christ, and that it wasn’t him that came back to life in his body, no, it is Christ who lives in him.

This renewal of life that Paul speaks about in and even the new birth that Jesus speaks of in hasn’t occured to wipe your slate clean so that you can keep living YOUR life, following YOUR desires, chasing OUR goals. Instead this is really more like an exchanged life isn’t it?

And what an exchange it is!

When we chose to become Christians and obey the gospel of Christ in confession, belief, and baptism, we exchanged our old messed up life full of sin, disappointments, inadequacies, hatred, malice, lying, and on and on for what? Christ living in us!

What in incredible exchange right? When we keep reading in Galatians we are going to see that Christ living in us produces the fruit of the spirit.

Hatred -> Love

Misery -> Joy

War -> Peace

Wrath -> Patience

Meanness -> Kindness

evil -> goodness

unbelieve -> faithfulness

harshness -> gentleness

selfish desires -> self control

The Exchanged Life: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Missionary Hudson Taylor called this the “Exchanged Life.” None of us can live the Christian life in our own strength or resist temptation solely by our own will power. Only Christ can successfully live the genuine victorious Christian life—it is, after all, His life—and when we come to Him in full surrender, He begins living His life through us. This involves two levels: p 3

• Christian Living: Christ lives His life through us, producing the Fruit of the Spirit (), which represents the character qualities of Christ Himself.

• Christian Service: Christ does His work through us. In , Paul said: “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me” (NRSV). In : “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us.” In , the apostle said: “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me.”

Illustration

IF TIME -> VW Bug

Application

Application

What an amazing thought this is! Think about how different your life can be if from now on you gave up living for yourself and instead in everything you did consider what those little bracelets that were popular once upon a time asked.

Do you remember those bracelets that had WWJD on them? Remember what they stood for? What WOULD Jesus do?

While that’s a great question to ask, I think this one might be better as it looks to the future instead of speaking about Jesus as if he’s not living in you right now.

What if as we faced each day we asked ourselves the question “What WILL Jesus do?”

In whatever we do, where will Jesus go with these feet today? What will Jesus do with these hands? What will Jesus see with these eyes? What will Jesus hear with these ears?

How will Jesus use me today?

After all Paul goes on to say:

The Raised Life

Text

“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.”

Explanation

Now you may be thinking, that’s too much. I can’t put that kind of pressure on myself! There’s no way I can live the kind of life that Jesus would live! Remember that God isn’t requiring perfection. He knows that we cannot do this perfectly, but he is asking us to live by faith and by that faith we shall be victorious.

1 John 5:4 ESV

4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

“This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” ().

“This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” ().

Illustration

Romans 1:17 ESV

17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

tells us that the Christian life is one of faith from first to last, for the just shall live by faith.

Isaiah 26:3–4 ESV

3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. 4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart.”

In heavenly love abiding, no change my heart shall fear;

And safe is such confiding, for nothing changes here.

Proverbs 3:5 ESV

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

The storm may rage around me, my heart may low be laid;

But God is round about me, and can I be dismayed.

We don’t live this Christian life under our own power, but we allow God to work through us by faith.

Illustration

Imagine walking into a museum and finding an amazing painting on the wall. Now I’m not talking about that modern art junk that looks like someone just splashed paint everywhere, but a painting where the details are crisp and clear and as far as you can tell, perfect.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I decided that I wanted a copy of that painting and so I took my paint and paintbrushes and a canvas and sat down in front of that painting to make a copy, my copy is not going to end up looking anything like the original. In fact it’s going to be pretty poor.

That’s how we can often feel when we’re imitating the life of Christ isn’t it? Here Christ lived this perfect and sinless life and my attempts at that are just ugly.

But imagine if it were possible for the artist of the painting himself to somehow live in you! If the artist of the perfect painting were able to guide your hands, to choose the paint, to make the strokes. Then what would your copy look like?

See, that is the faith we need to have in Christ as Christians! We need to remember and have faith that Christ is with us, and make every attempt to put our feet, our hands, our eyes and our ears into service for Christ.

Application

Application

How do you do that? Do the things that you know Christ would do even when you don’t think you can.

Church we ought to be a collection of doers. Isn’t that what James says? Be doers of the word and not hearers only, so deceiving yourselves?

Conclusion

Imagine what we could do as individuals and what we could do as a congregation of God’s people if everyday when our feet hit the floor in 2020 and beyond we recalled .

What would 2020 look like if every day we woke up we thanked God for another day, and then promptly died to ourselves, our sins, our motives, our wants and desires and before we left the bed asked ourselves, “What will Jesus do today through me?”

I bet if we did that things would change in our lives. I bet we would look a lot more like Christ. And the beauty of it is that if you fail, and we will. We just start again the next day.