Who Is Doing The Living? - Galatians 2:20

- we're studying favorite Bible passages this summer

- last week we studied Zech. 4:6 - Not by might, nor by

power, except by my Spirit, saith the Lord

- let me ask you - did you have opportunities in the last

week to be reminded of that verse?

- I sure did - one of of goals is that this study would add

to our arsenol of verses that can help us in day to day

situations

- if you had situations this week where that verse came to

your mind, and perhaps even where that verse changed the

way you responded to a given situation, then I think we

could view that as a great step of victory

- As we grow, God wants us to become less and less feeling

oriented and more and more principle or truth oriented

- Hopefully this series will help in that process

- Let mention one other goal for this series that I didn't

mention last week

- If you haven't done so already, let me encourage you to

memorize these verses

- I'm not talking about Bible memory as an end in itself

- but I'm not sure we're going to be able to become more

principle oriented if we can't remember the principles

- it may be a good idea to write these verses out on index

cards and review them and even if you don't get them

memorized completely, at least you'll have the main thrust

- tonight's verse is one that will probably be more familiar

than last weeks

- but what stands out in my mind about this verse is that it

is potentially one of the most misunderstood verses in the

Bible, and while it is a favorite of many--misunderstanding

it has caused many to go astray

- Read Gal. 2:20

- (read from the NASB - most gramarians agree that the NASB

trans. is a better trans

- actually it doesn't affect the meaning of the verse

very much

- would you agree with me that that is not an easy verse to

understand?

- there are a number of questions we need to answer about

this verse:

1) what does it mean to be crucified with Christ?

2) in what sense is Christ living me?

3) what does it mean to live by the faith in the Son of

God?

- faith in what?

4) if I'm dead and Christ is living in me, why do I have

to live by faith anyway?

- I'm sure that you would agree that the way we answer these

questions has implications to the way we grow and change

and live as believers

I. A Common Misconception

A. The goal of the Christian life should be to stop

"self" from running it.

- Quotes and Diagrams are from Charles Solomon, Grace

Fellowship International, movement known as

Spirituotherapy

- many other believers view the Christian life the

same way even though they aren't connected to

Solomon in any way

(FALSE DOCTRINE)

(diagrams)

"At Grace Fellowship the first thing we tell people

after they accept Jesus is, 'Don't try to live the

Christian life! You have invited the Lord Jesus

Christ into your life, let Him live it through you"

(Handbook of Happiness, p.57)

- in other words, they would say that our problems or

our sinfulness is because we are trying to live the

Christian life. I need to dethrone myself and let

Christ live in me.

B. This goal takes place at a point in time

subsequent to salvation.

- even try to demonstrate that exegetically

FALSE DOCTRINE

(Diagrams)

- so the question in spirituotherapy is, Who's living

your life, you or Christ? Are you closer to the

Jordan River or the Red Sea?

- now, I think you can see how a person could read

Gal. 2:20 in an isolated way and come up with this

system. Now let's talk about:

II. Why This Position Can't Be True

A. Violates the grammar of the verse

- INPUT - how is this true?

- and the life which I now live in the flesh, I

live by faith in the Son of God

- if this position were accurate, Paul wouldn't have

continued to use personal pronouns

B. The first "I" in Gal. 2:20 (and "self" in passages

like Rom. 6:11, Matt. 16:24, etc.) is not my whole

person or personality

- couldn't substitute your name or my name in the

first blank and say "Steve Viars" in total was

crucified at the point of salvation

- when Jesus says - deny yourself and take up

your cross - He's not saying - deny your entire

being, your entire personality

- we'll talk about what that means in a minute

C. God wouldn't have made me a new man if I was supposed

to turn around and deny it.

- II Cor. 5:17 - If any man be in Christ, he is a new

creation

- why would God make me a new man if I supposed to

crucify that. It seems to me that thats a little

ineffecient. Its like digging a hole and filling it

back up.

- Eph. 4:24 - Put off the old man (v.22) and put on

the new man. Why put on the new man if I'm supposed

to crucify it?

- the point is that we make a great error if we view

the first "I" in Gal. 2:20 or the "self" in Jesus'

command to deny yourself as our whole person

- it doesn't fit the grammar of the rest of the verse

and it doesn't fit it with the concept of the new

birth, or the new man

D. Inconsistent with the many metaphors that indicate

human effort in the Christian life.

- If I can't do anything in the Christian Life and

Jesus does it all through me, why did God liken the

Christian the life to a race?

- why did He tell us to exercise ourselves unto

Godliness, using the Greek word gymnazo?

- why did he liken the Christian life to a war?

Pastor mentioned the battle at Normandy Sunday

morning - Can you imagine what it would have been

like if our soldiers had that view of warfare?

("sorry General, this war will be spoiled if we

expend any effort")

- Do you know where we'd be today? Ein, Zwie, Drie,

Vier... (we'd all be speaking German!)

- point is - this verse does not teach that I can't

live the Christian life but that Jesus somehow

mystically lives it through me.

- now we're going to talk about what the verse means

in one minute, but I think there's a danger of

going through exercises like this one and that is

that we become proud because we could say how

someone else is wrong. Thats not the goal.

- its important to do what we just did because:

1) it helps us sharpen what we believe. Thats

why Paul said in I Cor. 11:19 that there must

be heresies among you so that those who are

approved may become evident.

2) also important because it helps us make more

pointed applications - and we'll be doing that

in a little bit as well.

- now let's move into:

III. The Meaning Of Galatians 2:20

A. Input from the context

- this verse is actually part of a larger section

that began back in chapter 1:6

- I'm only going to discuss that to the degree to

which it affects this passage

- Paul is upset with the Galatians (has the shortest

introduction of any of his letters

- read 1:6

- The Galatians are being swept away by Judaism

- the grammar Paul uses doesn't indicate that they

have totally bought it up, but that they are in the

process of doing so

- Judaism is essentially this:

- salvation by grace through faith alone was not

enough

- a person also needed to be circumcised, obey

Jewish dietary laws

- Paul is obviously very upset, but writes this

book around the theme of the grace of God

- 1:6 - "I marvel that you are so soon removed from

Him that called you into the grace of Christ..."

- 2:21 - we can't make void the grace of God

- the point, at least for our purposes of

understanding Gal. 2:20 is:

- the Galatians were still trying to determine

how to please God and how to get favor from Him

- Paul is saying – that’s what you did as unbelievers

- you tried to conjur up ways that you could please

Him by obeying the law

(by the way, thats exactly what we did - we thought

we would go to heaven because we had kept some

arbitrary standard - we hadn't murdered anyone, we

tried to be good...)

- Paul is saying – that’s what you did as unbelievers

- you thought you had the ability to please God

by following the law

- but that wasn't the purpose of the law

- the law was supposed to be your schoolmaster,

showing you that you couldn't please God on

your own and therefore you needed a Savior

- and now, after being saved by grace through faith

in Christ, you are thinking about going back to

your old ways of trying to conjur up ways to

satisfy God, please God, placate God, earn merit

from God, on your own

- Paul summarizes his position in the verse right

after the one we're studying, READ 2:21

- Now, I realize that was a mouthful, so let me give

you "the short version"

- for the purposes of understanding this verse, we

need to know - Paul was upset with the Galatians

because they had fallen back into their old habit

of doing things their way, even when it came to

living for God

- now, with that context in mind, we need to determine 3

things

- what died (or what truly was crucified) - we said

it wasn't my sum personality, but obviously

something died

- what does "Christ in me" mean

- what does it mean to live "by faith"

B. Determine What Died

- the question is - what did Paul have in mind when

he said "I am crucified with Christ?"

- in line with the context, the answer has to be:

- my way of doing things

- my goals

- my ambitions

- my view of right and wrong

- even my view of how to serve God and please him

- thats a very important concept in Scripture

- My way of doing things was such a powerful force

that it had to be crucified - put to death

- Paul made that same point in Romans 6:3 - "Know ye

not that, as many of us as were baptized into Jesus

Christ were baptized into His death?"

- So its not my whole personality that was crucified,

its not that as a new man I can't do anything

- But those old habits of doing it my way had to die

- thats why we baptize the way we do

- to picture that we have died to our old selfish

ways, and we are being raised to a new life

- that really needed to be killed, didn't it

- remember some of your "ways" before you were saved?

- Is there any question that they needed to be put to

death?

- hockey illus. - before saved, going to church,

Sunday practice, maybe I can be a help to

someone

- Just my ways of doing things

- so in that sense, I was crucified and needed to be

C. Determine What "Christ In Me" Means

- we said earlier that the Bible uses all these

metaphors to describe the human effort involved in

the Christian life--then you do we explain this part

of the verse?

1. not absolute control where the person has no

choice

- some folks want to discuss this verse like a

young person in a driver's ed. car - that has

two steering wheels, gas pedals, brake pedals

- so when things get tough, temptation comes,

somehow the believer says, here Lord--you do it

through me, closes his eyes, takes the wheel

back over after they've rounded the sharp

curve

- that just can't be

- a critical element of personhood is that we are

volitional - we have the freedom to choose

- this verse is not describing a situation like

on the wizard of Oz, where there's a man

inside, franticlly working the controls

- so "Christ in You" is not absolute control

where the person has no choice

- so what did Paul mean when he said, I am

crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but

Christ lives in me

2. opposite of what had to be crucified

- instead of my way, I have Christ's way

- instead of my power, I have Christ's power

- Christ is now living in me

- His ways of doing things

- His ways of pleasing God

- His ways of handling situations

- understanding this verse this way makes it much

easier to understand the last part

D. Determine What It Means To Live By Faith

- living by faith means believing that his way is

right even when it is radically different than my

way

IV. Implications

A. Ask God's Forgiveness If You've Had A Wrong View of

Growth

- I realize that you may be here tonight and have just

been coming to our church a little while and the

charts we talked about at the beginning may be very

close to the way you have operated your Christian

life

- perhaps the best thing that would come out of this

study for you would be to spend some time with the

Lord talking about how you want to change your view

of growth

- maybe you haven't been putting the right amount of

effort into it because you thought you weren't

supposed to

- a committment to grow in a way that is consistent

with this passage may be just what you need to see

some significant steps of growth

B. Become More Adept At Recognizing His Ways & My Ways

- the tricky part of the process is that even though

our ways have been crucified, the nature of then

crucifixion is this:

- I'm no longer a slave to following those ways

- I'm no longer bound up to that way of thinking

about life

- I'm no longer bound up to behaving that way

- I don't have to be that way - but I'm still

fighting against those habits, and I have to put

them to death daily

- thats why Paul said - "I die daily"

- thats why he called us "living sacrifices"

- those concepts sound somewhat paradoxical

- its somewhat of a good news/bad news proposition

- good news is -you're no longer a slave to those

sinful way, those sinful habits

- bad news is - you've still got to wrestle with

them and put them to death

- see the problem with a living sacrifice is our

tendency to want to crawl off the altar!

- because of that we need to become much more adept

at reconcognizing our ways and his ways

- thats hard to do

- situation recently - someone hurt someone thats

close to me

- some of those old habits come back

- I'd like to go punch him out, or worse

- let me get even with this guy

- need to remember - I am crucified with Christ and I

no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the

life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith

in the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself

for me

- thats the kind of thing we were talking about

Sunday night

- contrasting Christ's ways concerning sexual

relations and our ways

- those 2 ideas don't always go together

- His ways don't always make sense

- makes more sense to use our bodies to satisfy

ourselves

- makes more sense to seek as much sexual pleasure as

possible

- but thats not Christ's way

- repeat verse

- I wonder if we would have individuals who would

say, I can see that part of my problem in a present

situation I'm wrestling with is that I'm very much

like the Galatians - I've been going at it my way,

- I've fallen into some of those same habits of my

solutions, my tricks, my methods

- I need to change because of this verse

C. Be Thankful For His Way

- Jesus said, I am the way...

- this passage should make us much more thankful for

Christ's direction in our lives through his Word

and His principles

- the situation I mentioned earlier also has an

unbeliever involved

- its obvious that this person doesn't know how to

respond

- there's talk of beating people up and all kinds of

foolishness

- but we'd all be there if it wasn't for Christ

living in me

D. Live By Faith

- the bottom line evidence of a person who

understands and is applying this verse would be

that he/she could point to situations where they

are doing something different than how they would

normally do it only because they know its what the

Lord would want them to do

- maybe they are returning good for evil

- maybe they are seeking forgiveness even though the

other person also sinned

- but its clear that this person is living by faith -

living in a way that demonstrates that they

believe God's way is best

- perhaps a good question to conclude with - could

you come up with any evidences of how you are

living by faith in the way that we've discussed it tonight?

- I am crucified with Christ...