Category: Sermons

Text: Galatians 3:1-10

Preached at the Birmingham Convention, England

“Paul, an apostle (not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of his present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. (Now I put a couple of exclamation points after that because that’s the way I believe Paul intended it. This immediately tells you what we’re going to be talking about in this epistle. Paul is very excited about it and it’s an excitement that has some heat with it and he says “Amen!” and then you’re not surprised when you read these next words…)

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ.”

This is one of Paul’s more heated…more fervent books because of this subject that’s very dear to his heart.

We were talking about the holidays with Phil that our two countries have in common. Last Sunday, in America, was Mother’s Day. And I brought out Mother’s Day cards that I had hauled all the way from the states because I wanted Kaye to have nice, beautiful cards on Mother’s Day. I hear you “Mothering Day” is in March and so we were saying that about the only holidays that we celebrate at the same time would be Easter and Christmas. And I mentioned, “What about July 4th?” And he became a little testy when I mentioned that. But, the truth of the matter is that we did fight what you call the War of Rebellion and what we call the War of Independence. The fact of the matter is that having gained independence, as all nations must, it is much more difficult to sustain that liberty than it is to obtain. Our country has lost more lives maintaining our liberty and our freedom and our sovereignty than we did in gaining it in the first place. That’s true of every country that is free.

Who was it that said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance? It’s one thing to gain your freedom, it’s another thing to maintain your freedom. And if I had to give tonight a theme for the book of Galatians, I think it would be this… “Set Free and Staying Free.” He’s writing to people who had been set free, but his concern is that they are not staying free.

He says, “I marvel…I’m astonished…I’m amazed that you have so quickly moved and deserted and abandoned the One who saved you by His grace. He says as a matter of fact in chapter 5:1… “it is for freedom that Christ set us free, stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery…”

Paul is saying, “You have been set free, but now the problem is staying free in Jesus Christ.” And I was studying this passage this afternoon and the background and the context of it, I wrote here in my Bible… “these are people who have become with bored with Christ…bored with the Gospel.”

And I remember a time in my own ministry when we were doing conferences…there were several of us that were doing conferences together and I remember we had people driving from long distances to attend these conventions and these other two men were preaching on special subjects, you know, enticing subjects, sensational subjects…and I was praying about what God wanted me speak on that night and He kept bringing me back to Isaiah 53…to the suffering Servant…to the suffering Christ, and I kept fighting Him and I said, “Lord there’s nothing spectacular about that. There’s nothing sensational about that. Why should people drive all this distance to hear that same old story?” And God rebuked me. And He said, “You have become bored with the Gospel.” And when you are bored with the Gospel, then friend, there is something wrong.

Now, what happens usually is when we become bored with Christ and bored with the Gospel, we begin to add things to it and to once again work up enthusiasm. I know in the States, we have mega-churches now and I’m not saying this to be critical, but we have churches, of course, that offer Olympic size swimming pools and “Jogging for Jesus” classes and “Slender for the Savior” diet classes and everything, you know, a full recreation…a full service church…because we’re trying once again to get people excited about the church and excited about going to the church, but the problem in many instances, not in all instances by any means, but in some instances men are even taking away from the Gospel, soft-peddling the message of the Cross, trying to make it more attractive to the general population.

But, I want to say to you tonight that if you add anything to Christ, you subtract everything from Him. Christ plus anything equals nothing. And that’s what Paul is saying. He’s saying “if anybody preaches to you another gospel than I’ve preached to you…” Is he stubborn about this? I should say so…he wouldn’t get along very well today because he’s a stubborn, obstinate man. He says, “I tell you that even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches a different message than I’ve preached to you, let him be accursed…let him be eternally condemned.”

Why? Because if you add anything to Christ, you take everything from Him. Christ plus anything equals nothing! But, there had come some Judaizers into the church by some means who were telling these believers, “Oh, it’s not just Christ, but it’s Moses…it’s not just grace, but it’s Law…it’s not just the Spirit and faith…but it’s works.” And we may talk about this later where he says, “Are you so foolish as having begun in the Spirit, do you now believe that you can be made perfect by the works of the flesh?”

There’s always that tendency. So, tonight I want to speak to you on this subject of Paul’s opening statement and that is this…that Christ and Christ alone is sufficient for our salvation. Now when I say “salvation” I do not mean just the initial act of being saved. I’m talking about salvation from start to finish.

You see, in the Christian life you don’t start off with Jesus and then graduate to something better. Sometimes people make me feel like a poor relative, because all I have is Jesus. And they may say, “How did it go at your church yesterday?” I may say, “Oh, we had several people converted to Christ. We had several give their life to Christ.” And one man said to me, “You should have been over to our place…we had three legs lengthened.”

Well, he topped me, he thought. Now, I’m not against lengthening legs, you know, if you have a leg that needs lengthening and God wants to lengthen it, I’m not against that, but he was literally saying, “Oh, is that all that happened at your place? Just people saved? You should have been to our place.” And there are sometimes you are made to feel like a poor relative…or a poor stepchild…because all you have is Jesus, but listen, let me tell you something…in the Christian life, you don’t start out with Jesus and then graduate to something better! You don’t pick up the Cross at the entrance of the way of life and after you’ve moved on for awhile, lay it down and find something better and more sensational and more spectacular. Christ and Christ alone is sufficient for our salvation…just at the beginning of it, but from the time we are taken into His presence.

Christ is sufficient is because of the death of the Cross.

It is the cross that Jesus bore. In most of Paul’s letters he always has something nice to say to his readers. But, he doesn’t have anything nice to say to the Galatians. He says, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”…and that’s about as good as it’s going to get as far what he has to say to his readers… “…Who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father to Whom be glory forevermore. Amen.”

In other words, he starts at the very beginning…I mean…right at the very opening of his letter, he makes it clear that what he’s talking about is the death of Christ on the cross and he’s saying, “Christ and Christ alone is sufficient because of the death of the cross.” The death of the Cross was necessary because the Bible says that He died for our sins…literally “on behalf of our sins.” And nothing else can take away our sins from the very moment in the Garden of Eden when man first sinned…however you want to interpret all of that with the fancy interpretations that we’ve had through the years…one thing I know is clear is that God had to shed the blood of any innocent animal in order to cover the nakedness of that young couple…to cover that sin…and all the way through the Bible, it’s been nothing but the blood…nothing but the blood….nothing but the blood. All the way through the Bible, without the shedding of blood there is no remission! And that is offensive to our generation!

I was reading the other day in a magazine article where somebody was complaining about this “bloody Gospel” that we preach… It was the same week that the move, “Independence Day” came out. It’s blood and guts all the way. It’s amazing that you can go to the movie or you sit down at your television set and you watch all this violence…and we cheer it on and we say, “Great! He got him! Good! He plugged him right between the eyes! He got him! That’s good that it happened!” And then we come to church and suddenly we’re squeamish and we say, “Don’t talk to us about the blood of Christ!” But, without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.

And Christ is alone sufficient for our salvation, because He alone has died on our behalf…for our sins…voluntarily… He said that He gave Himself. The word is a gift of grace. He gave Himself. I love the words of Jesus when He said, “No man takes My life from Me.” I love that! “But,” He said, “I lay it down and if I lay it down I’m able to take it up again.” He gave it voluntarily. It was not forced upon. Jesus was not a victim. I hate it when I hear people say that He was a victim of circumstances…and that that’s what brought Him to the Cross! Oh, no! He said, “For this cause I came into the world…” He was born to bleed…born to die! And I say to you that Christ and Christ alone is sufficient tonight for your salvation, for your wholeness, because of the death of the Cross.

Christ is sufficient because of the deliverance of the Cross.

Notice again, he said He gave Himself for our sins to deliver us…to rescue us from this present evil age! Now some translations read “from this present world, but the best translation there is “age.” Because it has to do with this “present” evil age. Not the world in general. Not the world of earth and mountains and sky and trees…not that! But this age, this Godless age.

See, the Bible makes it very clear that there two ages running on parallel tracks. There is this present evil age when we’re caught up in the moirés and the standards and the custom of this world and we let the world set the agenda for our life…we let the world set the standard for our ethics and our morality…there is this present evil age and running on parallel tracks there is the kingdom age.

You say, “the kingdom is coming…” Oh yes, but it is already come. And what I’m doing and what you’re doing if you’re saved is you’re living in “kingdom come.” We’re living in “kingdom come.” Christ has died. Why? To deliver us out of this present evil age so that I don’t have to be captive by this evil age in which we live! So that I can belong to the new age…not the “New Age” that everybody’s talking about, you understand…the “New Age” is the evil age, warmed over, and given a new title…but I’m talking about the new age that Jesus Christ ushered in when He arose from the dead.

The kingdom is coming, but thank God, it has already come. And Christ leaves us in the world, but not of the world. So He delivers – rescues us. That’s strange language! You might think he would say that He gives us the option, but when he uses the word “deliver” or “rescue” He implies danger. Right? How many people passing on the streets tonight believe they’re in danger…and they need to be rescued? You see, that’s the blindness that Satan brings upon lost people’s minds and hearts. They don’t realize they’re in danger. Not just in danger of being eternally condemned, but in danger of missing out on the fullness of this life…of all that God has for them…of no longer being a slave, as we come to the end of the Galatian letter, Paul says, “Let henceforth no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” And there’s another place where he says there were some people who seemed to be important, but who they were doesn’t matter, they were nothing to me, it was God who judges. I like that!

The Bible says “The fear of man brings a snare.” And yet there is something about when Christ saves a person He rescues him from the snare of this present evil age. He’s not just rescuing him from hell. He’s rescuing him from this age…this life that he’s living. See, we must emphasize those words…deliver, rescue…implies that they are in danger…that this evil age is a danger.

Kaye and I were watching the news tonight on TV and they were talking about education. We’ve become enlightened. We think we’ve found such a better way. Isn’t it interesting how now we’re returning to the old ways…how we see that need now…and I told my wife, “It’s not just in education, but it’s in morals and ethics and we’re reaping what we have sown.” Why? Because folks, this evil age is dangerous. It’s hazardous to your health. So, Paul says that we have been rescued.

But, there’s another interesting thing about that word rescued. In the Greek tense it means “rescued for myself.” What he’s saying is that when Christ died on the Cross, He was rescuing us for Himself. And so it’s not just being passed from this age to the future age, but it is also being possessed by God Himself. God did this so we might belong to Him…so that we might be His possession! So, what we have here is the death of the Cross…that makes Christ and Christ alone sufficient for He was the only One who was able to die for our sins. But, also because of the deliverance of the Cross.

Christ is sufficient because of the design of the Cross.

Now, I didn’t intentionally plan for all these to start with the letter “d”…it just came out that way. I’m not hung up on all that. It just happened to be that way. I usually don’t like to use alliteration because then you begin to anticipate and sometimes you finish my outline before I ever get there. Don’t do that…I might slip a “c” in on you next!

The design of the Cross…notice those words, “…according to the will of our God and Father…” People say, “why does it have to be through the Cross? You evangelicals are so narrow minded! Why does it have to be through the Cross? Why does it have to be your way?” Because that’s the way God wants it! That’s why! Oh, but why does it have to be through faith? Why does it have to this way? Well, I could give a hundred reasons, but there’s only one big overarching reason…and that’s because this is the way God wanted it! It’s according to the will of God!

Down in verse 11, Paul says, “I want you to know brothers that the Gospel I preach is not something that man made up.” And I tell you something else…it’s not something that God thought up at the last minute. I remember somewhere in the Bible that Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Isn’t that something? Did you know that God is a Savior before He’s a Creator? You know, most of the time, when we think of God, all of God’s activities, we would start out with Creation, wouldn’t we? And then, down near the last, we’d say Redemption…but the fact of the matter is long before He was a Creator, He was a Savior! Because before there was ever a tree in the Garden of Eden, there was a Cross on the hill of Golgotha in the mind and eternal purpose of God. It’s according to God’s will. What we’re preaching is divine in its source. It’s not something made up by man.

Did you notice something here? He says in verse 6 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting…”…not the Gospel but… “deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ.” Did you pick that up? Did you notice that? You see, Paul is startled that they’re doing it so quickly. It shows you how fast the devil works. But he’s also startled because they’re not forsaking a theological position. They’re not deserting a doctrinal ideology. They’re forsaking a Person! They are deserting a Person!

My dear friend, when you change the Gospel…when you attack the Gospel…you are attacking God Himself. So, the design of the Cross is that it was according to the will of God.

There’s something else.

Christ is sufficient because of the doxology of the Cross.

“Amen!” he says. “To whom be glory forevermore”…verse 5. “Amen.” Did you know that the only thing that will give glory to God is our salvation through the Cross? If I add anything to it, that takes away from the glory, doesn’t it? If I should add just a wee work…”just one work, Lord, so I can just kinda feel good about myself…so I can feel like I’ve contributed something…maybe, Lord, one little work…” What that does is it takes away from the glory of Christ. Do you know something? There’ll be no strutters in heaven! There’ll be nobody in heaven saying, “I’m here because I was such a good person. I’m here because I did this and that.” Oh no! All of us will fall down before the Lamb, and worship Him. Why? Because it is only because by the death of the Cross that God is glorified, you see! If you add anything to it, then you take away from His glory and His honor and His majesty.

One more word…

Christ and Christ alone is sufficient for our salvation because of the command to preach the Cross.

I told you the “c” would come. I warned you!

Why else would God command us to preach that? When Christ commissioned us He didn’t send us out to build men’s self-esteem. He sent us out to preach repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ!
1 Corinthians 1:23…
“…but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block
and to Gentiles foolishness.”

Now, let’s think about this for just a moment. You’re going to start a new religion. You’re going to start a whole new dimension of faith and religion. Then, how can we best do it? Well, certainly we don’t want to do anything that would be a scandal to people! And secondly we wouldn’t want to do anything that other people would think is nonsense! Would we? That’s not the way to win people! Isn’t it amazing? That’s exactly what God chose! He said, “…to the Jews it’s a scandal!” Why? The thought of their Messiah being crucified as a common criminal! That’s a stumbling block! It’s something you’d trip over and you just can’t get by that because I just can’t bring myself to believe that the King of glory should die as a common thief. And to the Gentiles…that’s the rest of us…it’s nonsense. You’re telling me that the death of a Man 2,000 years ago is going to save me today? How can that be? Well, what if I were to tell you that my grandfather died at birth? I wouldn’t be here! You see, even on the human level the life and death of a person a hundred years ago affects my life. Paul says, “It pleased God by the foolishness of what was preached…” not just the foolishness of preaching, but “by the foolishness of what was preached to save them who believe.” And he says, “I want you to know that the Gospel I preach is not something that man made up…I didn’t receive it from any man…nor was I taught it…rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.”
Galatians 1:15:
“But when He who had set me apart, even from my mother’s
womb, and called me through His grace was pleased to reveal
His Son in me, that I might preach Him among Gentiles, I did
not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up
to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went
away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. Then
three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted
with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days.”

See, what Paul found out when he got to Jerusalem is that Peter was preaching the same thing he was preaching. See, what Paul is emphasizing is that this message…this Gospel…I received from direct revelation from Jesus Christ. I wasn’t taught it in a seminary. It wasn’t passed down to me by any tradition. He said that it was a direct revelation from God.

So, he said in verse 10, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men I would not be a servant of Christ.”

I want to end on that note. I believe that one of the greatest dangers facing those of us who call ourselves “evangelicals” is the overanxious desire to be accepted by the world…to please men. One of our leading churches in the States…and the pastor is a good and godly man…and I think his preaching and the work of his church have brought thousands to Christ. But, he did something that just grieves me to no end. He took down the cross because it offended lost people who came into the building.
Let me say something to you. If you start out and your aim and your goal is to please men, you’re going to be forced to compromise the truth of the Gospel. Paul said, “if my ambition is to please men, then I cannot be a servant of God.” Isn’t that amazing? So we still face the task that’s before us and that’s to reach a lost and dying world. But you’ll never do it by pleasing them! You’ll only do it by being a scandal and an offense! And that comes by preaching the Cross of Jesus Christ! Amen!

Would you pray with me please?
Our Father, as we stand in Your presence, we come here to
worship You, to honor and to glorify You. And if I know
anything about what the Bible teaches, that all begins with
our acknowledging the Cross.

I pray for anyone here tonight who does not know Jesus Christ
as Savior. If they’ve never had that experience of salvation
and they cannot know without a doubt that their sins have
been forgiven. I pray that as pray that they would pray, asking
Your forgiveness for their sinfulness and asking Christ to come
into their lives to save them.

For those of us who are Christians, Lord, we live in a world in
which we’re pulled in so many directions. It is not wrong that
we should use new methods and new technologies…but it is
wrong that we should ever compromise the message.

Now, Lord, I pray the thought that You would leave with our
hearts tonight is that we cannot at the same time please men
and be a servant of Yours.

Bless Your word to our hearts…we pray in Jesus’ name,
Amen.

© Ron Dunn, LifeStyle Ministries, 2005

Galatians 3:1-5

Would you open your Bibles tonight to the book of Galatians, chapter 3?  I want to read verses 1 – 5.  I will be referring to some other verses throughout the course of the message tonight, but I want us to begin with just these five verses:
O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified?  I would like to learn just one thing from you:  Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?  Are you so foolish?  After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?  Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing?  Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

O you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?  Who has cast a spell on you? Who has hypnotized you that you should not obey the truth?  I’ve always been a poor sleeper.  Even to this day I can never really remember having a good night’s sleep or getting up feeling rested.  I don’t like these people who jump out of bed singing every morning.  I think it is of the devil.  I take getting up very seriously.  I don’t believe you should jump out of bed.  I believe you ought to sit on the side of the bed there for ten minutes with your head cupped in your hands, realizing that it is dangerous out there.  I have always been a very poor sleeper.

When I was pastor, I went for about six months where I just didn’t get any sleep at all.  I finally decided to go to the doctor to see if he could find out what was wrong with me.  There had to be something wrong that was keeping me from sleeping.  He ran these tests.  I went back in a few days later.  I was sitting in his office, and he walked in with the folder that contained the results of my tests.  He said, well, preacher, I can’t find anything wrong with you.  I can’t find anything organically, physically that is causing you to be unable to sleep.  Of course, he had to be a joker like a lot of doctors.  He said he did find out however that I was too short.  See, I thought I was too fat.  He said according to my chart you ought to be 7 feet, 3 inches tall.  I was glad to hear that because it’s a lot easier to stretch than it is to reduce.  He said he couldn’t find anything that is causing you to be unable to sleep.  I said, well, I have got to have something.  I was asking if he would give me some sleeping pills.  He said he really didn’t like to do that.  You can become addicted to those things and half the time you wake up with a hangover.

He said what he would really like to do was teach me self hypnosis.  When he mentioned the word hypnosis, red flags kind of flashed before my eyes, and some bells rang in my ears.  I didn’t know about that.  It was spooky to me.  When I thought about hypnotism, I always thought of some nightclub magician making somebody cackle like a chicken or bark like a dog.  He could see my hesitancy.  He said, preacher, I know all the things you have heard about hypnosis.  All hypnosis is self hypnosis.  You hypnotize yourself without even knowing it.  That’s why you get sleepy a lot of times when you are driving down the highway gazing at that long ribbon of pavement.  You get drowsy.  It’s the most natural thing about the world.  It will take me about six weeks to teach you how.  You can put yourself to sleep and wake up without any kind of hangover.

I thought what do I have to lose?—except my mind.   I said okay I would give it a try.  So I went into his office every week for an hour for six weeks.  He did teach me self hypnosis.  It was one of the most disappointing things in my life, not because it didn’t work.  It did to a certain extent.  I don’t use it anymore because it takes too much concentration.  What disappointed me was that it was so simple.  I thought I was going to be initiated into some deep, dark secret.  It was simple.  You just lie down on the bed, fix your eyes on a greasy spot on the wall, or a dead fly in the screen, take your attention off everything else and focus on that one thing.  You say to yourself:  I am sleepy.  I am sleepy.  I’m getting sleepy.  My eyelids are so heavy.  I can’t keep them open.  I’m going to have to close my eyes.  I’m getting into a deep sleep.  I’m going to count to five backwards.  By the time I get to one, I’ll be in a deep, deep sleep.  It is simply a matter of mind over mattress.  That’s all there is to it.

Paul writes to these Galatians.  He said, O foolish Galatians.  In that phrase he is  both showing his love for them, and his contempt for what has happened to them.  I like the Phillips translation.  It reads:  O my beloved idiots.  O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?  Somebody has cast a spell on you so that you are no longer walking in the truth.

What is the essence of this bewitching?  What was this truth, or this false truth that these Galatians had been led to believe.  I think you have it right there in verse 3 where he says:  After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?  I want to say to you tonight that I believe that one of the greatest bewitchings that has come upon believers is getting them to believe that even though they are saved by grace through faith, and they began in the Spirit, yet they are perfected by the works of the flesh.  If we are going to grow and mature in the Lord, it is going to be by our performance, by following rules and regulations.  If somehow I’m going to become more pleasing to God and more like Jesus and grow in maturity, it’s up to me to do it.  I’ve got to work hard and be busy so I can become Christ-like.
Please don’t misunderstand.  I believe a Christian ought to be busy.  And I believe he ought to serve, to work.  I believe that with all my heart.  What I am saying is that service and activity will not make you spiritual.  We do these things (serving, being active, busy for the Lord) out of gratitude for what God has done for us.  It is the issue of grace.  We do not do these things because we think by doing things we are going to be more acceptable to God.

If grace means anything, it means this:  God has already accepted you.  There is nothing you can do to make God love you anymore, and there is nothing you can do to make God love you any less.  What happens is that some people come along like these Judaizers came along after Paul left.  They said Jesus was good as far as it goes; he just doesn’t go far enough.  You’ve got to add Moses.  It’s not enough just to have faith; you’ve got to have works.  It is not enough to have the Holy Spirit; you’ve got to have the law.    So these believers had become bewitched.  They thought, okay, now I’m saved.  No doubt about that but if I’m going to attain my goal and be everything God wants me to be, it’s going to be up to me.  It is going to be up to my efforts and my performance.  I’ve really got to work hard in order to impress God and please him.  Folks, I want to tell you something.  We are saved by grace through faith, and then there is the growth process where day by day we are being made more like Jesus, being conformed more and more into the image of God’s dear Son.  Friends, that is not something you accomplish by your performance, by your efforts.  Works cannot bring life to a lost man, and they cannot bring maturity to a saved man.

Why do people think this?  What gets into people so that they think it is up to me.  Most of my Christian life is struggling in the flesh trying to overcome.  It’s because they have been hypnotized.  In order to be hypnotized you have to take your mind off other things.  You have got to have your attention diverted from other things and focused on this one thing.  Paul in this passage mentions three things that these believers have had their attention diverted from that enable them to be hypnotized and bewitched by false teachers. I want to talk about those three things very quickly tonight.  The moment you take your eyes off of one of these three things, or a combination of them, you are going to be plunged into the pit of self effort, thinking that you are going to grow and become like Jesus simply because you do more than somebody else does.  What are these three things?

We become bewitched  when we take your eyes off the manifestation of the cross.

Let’s read again what Paul has to say to these people:  You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?  In the Greek text, the word you is in the emphatic position.  In other words, Paul is saying, I can’t believe that you of all people have been bewitched.  I could understand somebody else being bewitched, but I can’t believe that you have been bewitched.  Why?  Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.   In other words, Paul says when I was with you, every time I taught, every time I preached, it was as though I had a big billboard up there, and Jesus crucified was on that billboard.  You could translate that word billboard.  I think one translation does say before your very eyes Jesus crucified was billboarded before you.  I said I didn’t make such a small matter of it.  It wasn’t just a mention.  It was the major portion of my message.  It was the heart, the central of everything.  It was like a billboard was right there in front of your eyes, and I can’t believe that you of all people have taken your eyes off that and forgotten that.

Dr. Rogers, when you travel like I do, they think you know stuff, if you are from out of town you know things.  People ask me what I think is one of the greatest threats to modern Christianity.  I think there are two.  1) I think we are losing confidence in the power of the Word of God.  2)  We are forgetting the cross, minimizing the cross.

There are some churches that are trying to be so seeker friendly to the world that they won’t mention the cross because it is offensive.  My dear friend, I would rather offend a lost person by preaching the cross than to offend God by leaving it out of my message.  That is what we are doing today—minimizing the cross.  What happens?  Listen, when you minimize the cross, you take your eyes off the cross and put your eyes on yourself.  Then you begin to think it is up to you to do it all.

Let me tell you what the cross means.  Jesus Christ dying on the cross means that everything that was ever needed for my salvation and sanctification and glorification was accomplished by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.  It’s already been done, already been accomplished.  Everything that was necessary for my salvation, for my day-to-day living, for my glorification has already been done by Christ on the cross.   When I forget about the cross, I don’t preach the cross; I don’t like to talk about the cross.  If you don’t talk about that, what are you going to talk about?  There’s only one thing.  You talk about your goodness, your efforts; you’re doing the best you can.

If you want to know how to tell the difference between new age stuff and Christianity, that’s just it.  In new age, there is no cross, no sin.  In new age you have to solve your own problems, get in touch with your inner self and your inner child, pull yourself up by your boot straps and find the god that is within you.  But when you come to the cross, it slays man’s pride and self effort and throws him on the floor and says you can’t do anything to merit my favor.  You can’t do anything.  Natural man doesn’t like to hear that.  When we take our eyes off the manifestation of the cross (forget the cross), that is the moment we begin to focus on ourselves.

Let me show you one thing that the cross means.  (You are going to have to listen a lot faster than you are listening for me to finish.)   Look in chapter 6, verse 14, where Paul says, But God forbid that I should boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.  There is a double crucifixion there.  Paul says the world has been crucified unto me and I unto the world.  In other words, Paul says as far as I am concerned, the world is dead.  Friends, when you forget about the cross, the world comes alive to you.  You begin to fancy it.  But he says I have been crucified to the world and the world unto me.  In other words, Paul says as far as I’m concerned, the world is dead, and as far as the world is concerned, Paul is dead.  That means if I am really going to proclaim the cross, and live by the cross, and understand the cross, I have to understand that the world holds no attraction for me, and I certainly don’t have any attraction for the world.  This is just my opinion, which I respect.  I believe with all my heart that the reason so many preachers and religious leaders today are minimizing the cross is because they want to be thought well of by the world.

Ever once in awhile I like to read the letters to the editor.  Maybe there is an issue that has been tumbling around in the pages, and some dear saint writes a letter to the editor and starts off like this:  sirs, I am a Bible-believing Christian.  Do you know what, they have done it right there.  From that moment on, the world is not going to listen to you.  As I told a group the other weekend, you can be against homosexuality if you have other than Biblical reasons for being against it.  The world will respect your opinion about abortion unless you throw up the Bible to them.  If you announce yourself as a Christian, and these are my beliefs based on the Bible, I have news for you.  As far as the world is concerned, you are dead.  You have nothing to offer.  The reason we have such a tendency to minimize the cross is because we want to have an ear with the world.  The Bible says the ear we get with the world is that which comes from proclaiming the cross.  Somebody says, but that offends people.  It was meant to.  That is the whole purpose.  It offends natural man.  So, first of all, you take your eyes off the manifestation of the cross.

II.  We become bewitched when we forget about the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
I love verse 2.  This is always a good question.  Paul says,
I would like to learn just one thing from you:  Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?  Are you so foolish?  After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

This is all very logical here as you follow it with Paul.  First of all, there is the cross and what Jesus did on the cross.  He did everything that was necessary for our salvation and for our sanctification.  Now, it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to take that and make it real in our lives, and to apply it in our lives.  We weren’t saved by the works of the flesh, were we?  No!  How were we saved?  By the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit; we began in the Spirit.  Are you so foolish to think that what you began in the Spirit can now be finished by the works of the flesh?  Not so.  And so when you and I minimize the work of the Holy Spirit, forget about the Holy Spirit, don’t wait for the filling of the Holy Spirit and try to go out.  What are we doing?  We are working in the flesh.

Paul has a great deal to say about the Spirit.   Turn over to chapter 5, verses 16 and following.  He is talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of those believers.  He comes down to verse 22 and says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.  Notice, as I’m sure you know, the word fruit is in the singular.  He is not talking about nine different fruits.  He is talking about one fruit with nine characteristics.  You say you have love but not much patience.  Well, that would be all right if God graded on the curve, but he doesn’t.  If you are really walking in the Spirit, you are going to exhibit all nine of these characteristics.

Have you ever taken the time to study those nine characteristics?  Do you know what they are?  They are the character of Christ.  What he is saying is that the Holy Spirit is not only the one who begins us in our salvation, but he is the one who makes us like Christ.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit.  It says the fruit of the Spirit.  I like to think of the Spirit as a fruit tree planted in the believer.

When we had our farm in Arkansas, we had a big lake.  The road leading from the house down to the lake was lined by big oak trees.  It made a beautiful walk down the road to the lake.  I was there one summer, and I noticed as I came to that last oak tree right before the lake, it looked as though someone had taken a pencil and ruler and drawn a straight line right down the middle of that tree.  All the leaves on one side of the tree were dead, and all the leaves on the other side of the tree were green.  What that meant was one side of the tree was dead, and the other side of the tree was still alive.

I didn’t think too much about that at the time.  But I came back on Thanksgiving, and all the leaves had fallen off the trees.  I was walking down that road and came to that tree.  It looked as though somebody had taken a pencil and a ruler and had drawn a straight line down the middle of that tree.  All the leaves on one side of the tree, though they were dead, were still hanging on the branches.  And all the leaves on the living side of the tree had fallen to the ground.  That puzzled me.  Why did those leaves not fall?  Then I began to look around.  We had done some clearing and cut up a lot of brush but had not had time to burn it.  It was dead, and I noticed that the dead leaves were still on those dead limbs.

When I got back home, I talked to a friend of mine who knew a little bit about everything.  I mentioned that to him.  Why didn’t those dead leaves fall off those dead trees?  He said, oh, leaves don’t fall off trees.  They don’t?  No, dead leaves don’t fall off trees.  They are pushed off by the life that is in them.  As that sap begins to fall in that tree, it pushes off those old dead leaves so there will be room for the new leaves next spring.  Since there is no life on the one side, there is nothing to push off those old dead leaves.

You know, God is really smart.  What if he had arranged that differently?  Let’s say I have a hundred trees in my yard.  It’s fall and time for those dead leaves to come off so I get a ladder and climb up one of those trees.  I’m pulling off all those dead leaves.  They hang on quite tenaciously.  Finally I finish.  It’s taken me a whole day, and right at the top there’s another . . . well, close enough.  But I have 99 trees to go.  I’ll never finish by spring.  Suddenly, God says to me, son, what are you doing?  Father, I’m pulling off these old dead leaves so there will be room for new leaves next spring.  God said I don’t recall ever creating anybody that stupid.  You don’t have to pull off the dead leaves.  All you need to do is make certain the tree is alive and healthy, and that life is flowing through the tree.  It will all by itself push off the old dead leaves and produce the new leaves.

You see, I spent a greater part of my Christian life climbing trees, trying to pull off dead leaves.  Do you know what I’m saying?  I’ve got to quit this.  I’ve got to give up this.  I’ve got to give up that.  I think I’ve just about cleared the tree, and there’s another one full of dead leaves.  God came to me and said, son, that’s ridiculous.  All you need to do is make certain the Holy Spirit is flowing through you and filling you.  Do you know what?  He’ll push off the old dead leaves of hate and its place put on the new fruit of love.

The glorious thing I have about preaching tonight is that I’m not asking you to go out of here tonight and surrender to a new set of rules and regulations so you can be right.  I am asking you to go out of here submitted to a person.  When the Holy Spirit has his way with us and we walk in him, then those old dead leaves will take care of themselves.  But if you forget the ministry of the Spirit, you’ll think it’s up to you and your effort.

We become bewitched when we forget the message of faith.

I have been talking about these three things:  the cross, the Spirit, and faith.  If you study the book of Galatians, you’ll find that over and over again.  That’s the key to the whole book.  He says in verse 5, Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

Paul is so smart.  Verse 6:  Consider Abraham.  These Jews who had become Christians and were trying to get these Galatian Christians enslaved by following the rules and regulations of the law kept saying if you are going to be children of Abraham, you are going to have to do this.  You aren’t going to heirs of Abraham’s promise if you don’t do this.  They kept pushing Abraham down their throats, rallying around Abraham.  You have to keep the law if you are going to be children of Abraham.  Paul doesn’t shrink from that or run from it.  He comes right back and pushes it down their throat.  Do you want to talk about Abraham?  Let’s talk about Abraham.  He quotes Genesis 15 where the Bible says that the Lord imputed unto him righteousness because he believed.  What’s so important about that?  That was 430 years before the law ever came long.  If it takes the law to make you a child of Abraham, if it takes the law to make you a heir of Abraham, then there is something funny somewhere because Abraham was justified by his faith 430 years before the law ever came along.  I just want to ask you this one thing.  You received the Holy Spirit long before you heard about the law.  These were Gentiles.  They didn’t know anything about the law.  Now they have been saved; the Holy Spirit indwells them, and Christ is in their hearts.  Then these Judaizers come along and say they can’t be saved without the law.  You can’t have the Holy Spirit without the law.  They said that was funny because they received the Holy Spirit long before we ever heard of the law.

Paul comes down to verse 11:  Clearly no one is justified before God by the law because the righteous will live by faith.  You’ve heard that before, haven’t you?  The just shall live by faith.  It’s quoted four times in the Bible:  Habakkuk 2, Galatians 3, Romans 1, and Hebrews 10.  If God says the same thing to me four times in the Bible, I get the idea he is trying to tell me something.  Four times he says the just shall live by faith.  I think what he is trying to tell me is the just shall live by his faith.

It is faith that makes it universal.  If it were works, there are some works we could never accomplish.  Isn’t it wonderful how God has made his salvation so available?  O. Christmas Evans, the Scottish evangelist, used to say you could put a man in a wooden barrel, nail down the lid, wrap chains around it, padlock it, then punch out the knothole and whisper through that knothole how to be saved, and he could be saved.  Right there in that barrel.  Isn’t that amazing?  It’s all by faith.  The just are not saved by faith; they live by faith.  I live the Christian life the same way I entered the Christian life.  As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, Paul says, so walk ye in him.
All of this starts in Habakkuk 2 where the Chaldeans are swooping down on the people, and it looks like they are going to be destroyed.  Habakkuk has been complaining because God is not doing anything about the Chaldeans.  Habakkuk is, in effect, saying, what is going to happen to me?  I’m righteous.  What’s going to happen to me?  God says the just shall live by his faith.  The Hebrew word can be translated the just shall survive by his faith.  I’m glad to know I’m going to survive, aren’t you?  Do you know how you are going to do it?  Not by your works.  You are going to do it by faith.

In 1948 they made a discovery called the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest portions of Scripture that we have on record.  For years now a few scholars have kept those to themselves.  That’s the way scholars are sometimes.  A scholar can take this small piece of a parchment of Isaiah and study it for 30 years and then write an article in a journal on it.  Then he is famous.  That was what they were trying to do.  They wouldn’t let anybody else look at them.

But through the efforts of the magazine Biblical Archaelogists, all those things have been let loose and more people are free to study them and benefit from them.  One of the interesting things is that part of what they found was Habakkuk 2, plus a Qumram commentary on Habakkuk 2.  When it comes to that verse that says the just shall live by his faith, the word his is capitalized.  Thus, it is translated the just shall live by His faithfulness.

I don’t live by my faithfulness; I’m not faithful.  I don’t have an ounce of trust in my trust.  I don’t have faith in my faith, folks.  But God is faithful.  Do you know why I’ve survived so long?  I would have killed myself years ago.  I’m surprised that God still talks to me, much less listens to me.  I don’t why he didn’t just throw me away.  But he has been faithful. He promised to be with me.  He promised to bless me.  He promised to guide me.  He promised never to leave me nor forsake it.  Folks, it is HIS faithfulness.  Abraham said that he was persuaded that what God had promised, God was able to perform.  That is the key.  I’m all the time making promises to God, and then it is up to me to perform them.  No, that’s not the way it works.  God makes promises to us.  What he has promised, he is able to perform.  I haven’t promised God that sin shall not reign in my mortal body.  God promised that to me.  I have not promised God that every need of mine would be met according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.  He has promised that to me.  If I make the promise to God, it’s up to me to keep it.  No wonder some of you are so worried.  Forget about making all these promises to God.  Just take out your Bible and write down all the promises he has made to you.  Then the just will live by HIS faithfulness.  In the final analysis, that is all we’ve got.  For if God is not faithful, then there is no hope for any of us.  Bless God!  He is faithful.
Bow your heads . . .

Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing?

© Ron Dunn, LifeStyle Ministries, 2006

Text: Galatians 2:20

The apostle Paul says: “I am crucified with Christ:  nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:  and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

There are two statements that make the Christian life a frustrating thing.  To be honest with you, I don’t know of anything that’s more frustrating than being a Christian.  One night at Falls Creek Cary preached a sermon on “Our Downright Dilemma”.  I don’t know of a more apt description of being a Christian.  Sometimes it’s just a downright dilemma.  And I’m sure that if every one of us was honest tonight, and would stand up and give our testimony, we would say, “It sure is frustrating sometimes to try to live the Christian life”.  There are two statements that give us this downright dilemma to make the Christian life a worrisome thing.  Statement number one: The demands of Christ are impossible.  Statement number two: My resources are inadequate.

The Demands of Christ are Impossible

First of all, the demands of Christ are impossible.  We’ve been learning a verse of scripture in Vacation Bible School.  I wonder if all the kids realize that it’s almost impossible to obey that scripture.  It’s Matthew chapter 5 where it says “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44).  Anybody find that hard to do?  Love your enemies, pray for them which despitefully use you, bless them that persecute you.  It’s easy to love your friends.  But what more do you do if you just love your friends than the heathen do (Matthew 5:44 – 47).  “I say unto you, love your enemies”.  That’s an impossible command.

I know another one over in Matthew chapter 6 where Jesus says “don’t worry about anything, take no thought for tomorrow, don’t worry about what you’re going to eat, don’t worry about what you’re going to drink, don’t worry about what you’re going to wear, don’t worry about anything” (paraphrase of Matthew 6:25 – 34).  I submit to you, that’s impossible.  But I’m going to try.  I’m going to do my dead-level best.  And so I’m saved, I know I’m saved; I’m baptized; I joined the church.  So I set out with my box of envelopes under one arm and a Sunday School quarterly under the other and I’m going to do my best to live up to the impossible demands of Christianity.  And I haven’t gone very far until I’ve found out that my resources are inadequate.

I’ll be very honest with you tonight, I just can’t do it.  I just can’t do it!  And it’s a very frustrating thing.  I talked to a man in my office this afternoon and I said, “You know what your problem is?”  By the way, Dr. McBeth said one time, the reason that advise is so cheap is because of overproduction.  Oh yes!  We flood the market with advice.  But this man came for his advice.  I said, “You know what your problem is?  You’re living beneath the plane that God intended you to live.  You’re not possessing your possessions, you’re not inheriting your inheritance.  You’re living below the plane that God intended every Christian to live above”.

My Resources are Inadequate

I see on the one hand that the demands of Jesus Christ are impossible to keep and then I see on the other hand that my resources for keeping those are inadequate.  Yet I come to the Word of God and I cannot escape the fact that Jesus says we are to be overcomers in this World.  And I cannot escape the fact that in Romans chapter 8 Paul says that we are super-conquerors through Him that loved us (Romans 8:37).  I cannot escape the fact that First John chapter 5 says “this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith”  Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ?” (1 John 5:4 – 5)

Every Christian believes that Jesus is the Christ.  You can’t be saved without believing that.  Is there anybody here tonight that believes Jesus is the Christ?  Every one of us who have been saved believes that Jesus is the Christ.  Well, I want to ask, are you overcoming the world?  Jesus said, “he that believeth overcometh the world”.  All the way through the Word of God, and especially in the book of Acts, they are just dripping with victory.  There were insurmountable obstacles….harder times than you and I have ever imagined meeting.  Yet, one after another, there was victory and triumph.  They certainly were living triumphantly.  The demands of Christ are impossible and the resources of the Christian are inadequate.

How to Live Triumphantly

I want to preach to you tonight on how to live triumphantly.  How you can bring your own life up to the dimension that God intends it to be.  I will be glad when we come to the place at MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church when we will settle for nothing less than absolute victory!  Douglas MacArthur made the statement years ago that there is no substitute for victory.  That was after Korea.  Vance Havner said, “We celebrated the ending of a war that never ended and we celebrated the beginning of a peace that never began”.  There is no substitute for victory!  You either win or you lose.  And in the Christian life the same thing is true.  That’s what Jesus is saying to those seven churches in Asia when He says that every promise is given to the overcomer.  He doesn’t give any promises to those who don’t overcome.  Every promise is given to the overcomer.

Jesus is saying there is no substitute for victory.  And one of the happiest days of my life was when I woke up to fact that I didn’t have to live in constant defeat, that I didn’t have to be UNDER the circumstances.  I could be on TOP of the circumstances.  That I didn’t have to be a victim, I could be the victor.  That I didn’t have to be overcome, that I could overcome.

Paul gives us the simple secret right here in Galatians 2:20.  I’m not reading anything to you that’s new.  You’ve read it a thousand times.  Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”.  That is the simple secret of triumphant living!

I.  The Triumphant Life is the Executed Life

There are three stages in living triumphantly day by day.  First of all, the triumphant life is an executed life.  Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ”.  Crucifixion was a means of execution.  A sentence of death was passed upon a man and he was executed, he was crucified.  The triumphant life is the executed life.  It is the life that has been executed after it has been condemned by almighty God.

Someone said to me last week, “Preacher, you started talking lately a lot about dying to self and dying to this and dying to that.  Is this something new that you have just come upon?”

No, it isn’t something new!  Jesus Christ said it in John chapter 12 when He said if when a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it brings forth fruit.  But unless that corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone (John 12:24).  Jesus is saying the only way that there can be fruitfulness in the Christian life is if that Christian life dies.

In Romans chapter 6 Paul talks in that whole chapter about being dead; dying with Christ; buried with Christ in baptism; raised to walk a new kind of life.  In Galatians chapter 6 Paul says the same thing, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14).  All the way through the gospels Jesus keeps coming back to this one secret of discipleship:  Except a man deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me, he cannot be my disciple.  The cross is the symbol of the method of execution.  Jesus is saying, unless a man knows what it means to die to self, he cannot be my disciple.  It is the executed life, dying with Christ.

The Executed Life is an Actual Past Event

Now there are two things I want to say about this executed life. First of all, it is an actual past event.  Notice what Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ.”  The togetherness with Christ.  If a man is crucified with Christ he has to be crucified the same time Christ was crucified.

If I walk out of this building with my wife, I have to walk out of this building at the same time she does.  She cannot leave an hour earlier and then I leave and say I left church with my wife.  There’s no way I can do that.  If she and I are going to leave this building with each other, we have to leave this building at the same time.  Paul says “I have been crucified WITH Christ.”  You cannot be crucified with Christ unless you are crucified at the same time that Christ was crucified.

Now let me explain this.  God sees every person either in Adam or in Christ.  If He sees you in Adam, He sees you in your sins, separated apart from God.  If He sees you in Christ, He sees you dead with Christ and risen with Christ.  He doesn’t see me apart from Jesus Christ.  He looks at me and He sees me identified with Christ.  Now I don’t understand it, but when Jesus Christ went to that cross 2000 years ago, He took me with Him!  When Jesus Christ died on that cross, I died with Him.  When Jesus Christ was laid in that tomb, I laid there with Him.  When Jesus Christ came out of that tomb on the third day, I was with Him.  I arose with Him.  I have been unified; I have been identified with Jesus Christ.  Just as all of us sinned in Adam, so all of us in Jesus Christ are counted by God as dead.

Now that means that when God looks at me tonight He looks at me with Jesus and He sees me as dead to sin, as dead to the old life, and as alive unto God. You say, “Well, I don’t understand that”.  I don’t understand that either, but I believe it!  The first thing that you have to understand in order to live triumphantly is, first of all, that you are already dead.  Romans chapter 6 says “he that is dead is freed from sin.”  That’s what it means to be justified, to be freed from sin.  When Jesus Christ went to the cross He nailed me with Him there.  I died with Christ!

When I came to Jesus Christ as a 9 year old boy and trusted Him as my savior, that death became real in my experience.  The only trouble is nobody told me that I died with Christ.  I didn’t stay dead long enough to even get rigor mortis.  I rose up out of my tomb and I started going out trying to live for Jesus.  Do you know what’s been wrong with me all these years?  It’s been a dead man trying to live, when you can’t do it.  I can understand now why I couldn’t pray.  Because a dead man just finds it mighty hard to pray.  I can understand now why I wasn’t able to live up to the impossible demands of Christ.  Now I know why my resources where inadequate.  I was dead and I just didn’t know it.

I died with Christ.  That’s the first thing.  You must come to realize that it is an actual event in the past.  That when Jesus died on the cross, He took you with Him.  When you trusted Jesus Christ as your savior for the first time, He made that death real.  You died!  Now when God looks at you, He doesn’t look at you as alive unto sin living the same old life.  When God looks at you He looks at you in union with Christ and He sees you as dead unto sin, as dead to the old life and alive unto God.  But that’s not enough.

The Executed Life must be an Appropriated Present Experience

Not only is our crucifixion an actual past event, but it must be an appropriated present experience.  Now this is where we get down to how it works for me.  Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ”.  That happened in the past when Jesus died on the cross.  But Paul says I’m aware of it day by day.  In another Scripture he says, “I die daily”.  That happened in the past when Jesus died on the cross, I have to keep up to date; I have to make real; I must appropriate it by faith.

Now in the first ten verses of Romans chapter 6 Paul is talking about what I’ve just talked to you about.  That when we came to Jesus and trusted Him for salvation, we died.  The death that Jesus died on the cross became our death.  That’s why Paul says, “What do you mean living in sin?  How can he that is dead to sin live anymore therein?”.  Paul couldn’t understand these Roman Christians wondering if they could sin because he said, “You’re dead, how can you live in sin?”.  You died to sin.  That happened in the past.

But now when it comes to verse 11 he moves out of the past and he comes to the present.  He said that now you’ve got to make it real.  So in verse 11 he says “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God”.  Alright, are you following me?  First of all I come to the place where as a Christian I realize that I am dead.  I don’t feel dead.  I don’t look dead.  I don’t act dead.  But I’m dead as far as God is concerned.  And that’s all that really counts anyway, is how God looks at it.  As far as God is concerned, I am dead.  That means there is not anything that I can do to please God.  That means there is not anything I can do to serve God.  I am dead!  Alright, once I realize that, I have to agree with God.

Yes Lord, you’re right I am dead and I do, by an act of faith, take that position of death.  You made the motion Lord and I second it.

That’s what it means to reckon yourselves dead.  I must count myself to be dead.  You say, “I don’t understand how to do that.”  There are two ways you do that.  First of all, you must condemn your flesh.  That’s what Jesus did.

You say, “What do you mean by condemning your flesh?”.

What I mean is this:  I must come to the place where first of all I recognize that God expects nothing from me except absolute failure.  There is not one thing I can do to please God.  This flesh, myself, this nature, does not have in it the adequacy and the ability to do anything for God.  All I can do is fail God…miserably…miserably…miserably…all I can do is fail God.

I cannot pull myself up by my bootstraps and say, “I’m going to grit my teeth and I’m going to do my best and I’m going to tense my muscles and I’m going out today and I’ll die or I’ll live for Jesus”.  And I come back in absolute defeat because I never have come to the place where I’ve realized that there is nothing I can do in the first place.

I must come to that position where I condemn myself.  God’s already condemned the flesh.  Now I have to condemn the flesh.

Alright Lord, I condemn the flesh.  I take the position tonight that there is not anything that I can do to please you.  I can’t preach a sermon; I can’t witness to anybody; I can’t teach a Sunday School class; I can’t live for Jesus.

This old story of going out and trying to imitate Jesus and trying to live up to the Christ-like character, you cannot do it!  There is no possibility that you’re ever going to be able to reproduce in your life the character of Jesus Christ.  You cannot do it!

So I condemn the flesh.  I say,

“I give up Lord.  I thought all this time that I was pretty strong, that I was pretty good.  I thought all this time that maybe I could live up to the demands of Christ.  I thought all this time that maybe I could live like Jesus and I’ve tried to imitate Him and I’ve tried to reproduce Him in my life.  I realize now that that’s wrong and I can’t do it.  I realize now that when you saved me you didn’t try to repair the flesh; you wanted to crucify the flesh.”

So first of all, I condemn the flesh.  I condemn myself.  Then secondly, I by faith crucify my flesh.  Did you know that crucifixion is not a self-inflicted death?  Nobody could commit suicide by crucifixion.  Crucifixion is the one death where somebody else has to do it for you.  No man can crucify himself.  Now I want you to listen.  In Romans 8:13 it says, “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live”.  The Holy Sprit is the undertaker.  The Holy Spirit accomplishes the work of crucifixion.  The Holy Spirit makes real my crucifixion of my flesh.

This is the way it works.  If I am going to live triumphantly, I must recognize that I have to take the position of death.  Am I willing tonight to die to self?  Am I really willing tonight to give up having my way and doing what I want to do?  Am I really willing tonight to come and like the song says to “perish every fond ambition?”  To have no plans for the future…have no goals.  My life is not my own; my family is not my own; my ministry is not my own.  I don’t have any business telling God what to do with my life.  I’m willing tonight to come to the place where,

“Yes Lord, I’ll die to self.  I’ll take that position of death.  I’m already dead.  But I’ve never acknowledged that.  I have never accepted that death.  I’ve wanted to live; I’ve wanted to have my way; I’ve wanted to be selfish; I’ve wanted to live in disobedience.  I’ve not been willing just to come to the place of total crucifixion and say, ‘Lord Jesus, I die to my will; I die to my pleasures; I die to my affections; I die to my ambitions.  I’m willing tonight to absolutely die to self; to be obliterated.  I’m willing tonight to die to myself and by faith to count myself dead.  I right now by faith take the position of death’.”

When I do that, the Holy Spirit comes in and He does the work of killing.  He brings all the killing power of the cross to bear in my life and He makes it real.  And I stand before God dead unto sin and alive unto the Lord.

It has to be an actual experience and it has to be a daily experience.  Every problem is a cross to die on and every hard situation is just another cross on which to die.  Every sermon is just another place to die.  Every criticism is just another cross to die on.  You talk about liberty, you talk about emancipation, you talk about freedom, this is it!  I mean, what difference does it make if a person criticizes you?  They can’t hurt a dead man!  What difference does it make if they praise you?  A dead man can’t get a big head!  All of our problems in our church are over self, me wanting my way.  All the problems in the home are over self, me wanting to have my way.  All the problems in life arise from self.

What liberty, what freedom it is to be free from self!  No longer looking out for number one.  You know it’s a full time job looking out for number one.  Always afraid that somebody is going to get ahead of you.  Always afraid that somebody is going to get the praise for what you’ve done.

You know that happened to me.  Sometimes I feel like my ‘self’ is Dracula and it comes out of that coffin every once in a while.  I remember in a meeting, somebody gave somebody else the credit for something I did.  You know what?  Old ‘self’ rose up within me and said “Now listen, you ought to set them straight on that!”  Nobody is going to get the credit for something that I did!  Self!  Isn’t it wonderful not to have to look after number one all the time?  It’s a 24-hour job always making certain that I get everything that’s coming to me and that I get my rights; that everybody treats me right; that somebody doesn’t speak to me and I get mad and puff up and get my feelings hurt.  That can’t happen to you if you’re dead!

This is what Paul is talking about.  Friend, this is the key to triumphant living.  It’s first of all taking your position of death.  You say, “Well, is that some magic?”  No.  It’s just that when you, by faith, are willing to accept the position of death and reckon yourself dead.  The Holy Spirit then makes it real in your life.

I asked a young man who used to be a drug addict, “How is that you are able to overcome this temptation?  How is it that you’re able to have victory in your daily life?”

He said, “Well, you know, I just take the position that I’m dead and a dead man can’t be tempted.  When this old temptation comes to me and begins to knock at my door, I just tell the Lord Jesus, ‘Lord Jesus will you go answer the door?’”

This is what Paul is saying!  Paul is saying “I am crucified with Christ”.

Somebody comes up to Paul and says, “Paul, we’re going to beat you up”.  He says, “I’m dead.  The Lord Jesus will handle that.”

Now listen, Paul’s in prison in the book of Philippians.  Those people that are jealous and envious of the apostle Paul, they said, “Here’s our chance now to pull some people away from Paul’s church and get them into our church.  We’ll really make his imprisonment worse on him because we’ll take his followers away from him.”

So while Paul is in prison some of these other small-time preachers are going around criticizing Paul, lying about Paul, trying to draw people away into their own churches.

Somebody comes to Paul and says, “Paul, listen, don’t you know what’s going on out yonder?  They’re taking your followers away.  They’re leaving your church and joining their church.  Don’t you know what’s happening?”

Paul sits back and he says, “Well, for me to live is Christ.  As long as Jesus is being preached, that’s all that I care about.  I just want the Lord magnified in my body.”

So that bunch at Corinth comes along and they begin criticizing Paul, lying about Paul, slighting Paul, and insulting Paul.  What does Paul do?  Does old ‘self’ rise up and Paul get fighting mad and try to defend himself?  You know what Paul says?  Paul says, “This is a small thing for me that you judge me.  There’s one that judges me, the Lord.  What you think about me is unimportant.”

I will say that Paul was free.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful tonight to be free from worrying about what people think about you?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful tonight to be free from what people say about you, whether it’s good or bad?  That’s what Paul is talking about.  You will never get past first base in this triumphant living until you are willing to die to self.  You never will.

I told a class this one night, now I’m going to explain it to you.  There’s Jimell and here’s the pastor.  I’m alive and Jimell’s alive.  That’s two selves that are alive; that’s two wills that are alive.  I want my way and he wants his way.  What do you have?  Disunity and disharmony.  There comes a day when Jimell realizes what I’m talking about.  He takes the position of death:  “Not I, but Christ.”  He dies to what he wants; he dies to his ambition; he dies to his feelings.  But I haven’t died yet.  I’m still number one.  I still want my way.  I’m still selfish.  I’m still very much alive.  Before it was Jimell and I that were crossed, but now it’s Jesus and I that are crossed.

But there comes a day when I also come to this concept and I take my position of death.  I say, “Lord Jesus, not I, but Christ”.  I die to what I want; I die to self.  I’m just dead.  The only thing that’s alive in me is Christ and the only thing that’s alive in Jimell is Christ.  Now I want to show you how we can have unity and harmony.  The Christ that’s in me will gladly submit to the Christ that’s in Jimell and the Christ that’s living in Jimell will want what the Christ that’s living in me wants.  When it’s not I but Christ living in me, and when it’s not Jimell but Christ that’s living in him, there’s unity and there’s harmony.  Just to get ‘self’ out of the way, to take our position of death.  That’s the first key.  That’s the first step – the executed life.

II. The Triumphant Life is the Exchanged Life

Secondly, the triumphant life is the exchanged life.  First of all it is the executed life; secondly it is the exchanged life.  Notice what Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”  (Galatians 2:20a).  CHRIST LIVETH IN ME.  Well I thought Christ lived in all of us.  He does!  Now listen, the measure to which the life of Jesus is released in you is determined by the measure to which you are dead to self.

When you come more and more to this place of being dead to self and reckoning yourself dead, not what I want……I die to every ambition, then the life which is in you, the life of Jesus, can be released in all of it’s power and all of it’s glory!  And that power of Christ is released in you only to the degree in which you are dead to self.  This is “the exchanged life.”  Let me highly recommend Victory in Christ by Charles G. Trumbull.  One night I was sitting in my den and I just happened to pick this book up.  I had never read it.  But this is what I read:

I knew something had happened [paraphrase]…

“…At last I realized that Jesus Christ was actually and literally within me; and even more than that, that He had constituted Himself my very life, taking me into union with Himself — my body, mind, and spirit — while I still had my own identity and free will and full moral responsibility…”

“…My body was His, my mind His, my will His, my spirit His; and not merely His, but literally part of Him; what He asked me to recognize was, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth In me.”

Now this is the part that hit me like a bolt of lightning.

“Jesus Christ had constituted Himself my life — not as a figure of speech, remember, but as a literal, actual fact, as literal as the fact that a certain tree has been made into this desk on which my hand rests.”

I’d always thought about Christ being my life as a figure of speech – as symbolical language.  But when he wrote this and I opened the Scriptures, I saw that what he said is true.  That Christ constitutes Himself my life.  He is my life, not a figure of speech – not symbolical language, but literal, actual, my life is the life of Christ.  He is living in me.  He is living His life in me!  That makes the Christian life possible!  For what I cannot do, He can do.  That makes the Christian life practical.  For what I am unable to love, He is able to love.  What I am unable to overcome, He is able to overcome.  That makes the Christian life personal.  Because He liveth in me – in me.  Not in the church as a whole simply, but in me.  Every day that I live, every circumstance that I encounter, every temptation with which the devil attacks me – it’s Christ Jesus living in me.  Literal, actual, physical – not symbolical, not a figure of speech.

The exchanged life, what a bargain!  The Lord Jesus Christ came to me one day – I didn’t know it then and I wish I would have known it, because these past years would have been tremendous – and said Ron you’ve got a messed up, sorry, sinful, wicked life.  I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll make a deal with you.  I’ll kill that life; I’ll take away that life and in its place I’ll give you My glorious life!  Man, you can’t beat that for a bargain!  And it’s free.  All I had to do give up was myself.  And I’m so glad to be rid of it!

So I agree with Dr. Stephen Offord when he said, “There is not a demand made on my life that is not at the same time a demand made upon the life of Christ in me.”  That’s right, every demand that is made upon my life every day – whether it’s temptation, or problems, or worry, or insults – is really not a demand made upon me.  How can it be?  Because I’m dead.  It’s a demand made upon the life of Christ which is in me.  And so I say, “Lord Jesus, you’re equal and you’re sufficient, it’s your problem not my problem.  It’s your worry, not my worry.  It’s your church.”

Do you know that I don’t worry about this church anymore.  It’s not my church.  It’s the Lord’s church.  I don’t worry about my sermons any more, whether good or bad – they’re not my sermons, they’re the Lord’s sermons.  I don’t worry about my ministry any more, whether I’m going anywhere or not.  I may just be here for the rest of my life. I don’t worry about whether or not I’m ever going to be number one up yonder, president of the Southern Baptist Convention.  It’s not my ministry.  It’s His.  I can’t think of any place I’d rather spend the rest of my life than right here.  But, you know, it’s Christ living in me.  It’s not my life.

A fellow said to me today, “Well, I don’t know if the Lord is going to use me.”

I said, “It’s none of your business whether the Lord uses you or not.”

It’s not your life.  It’s not your ministry.  It’s the Lord’s.  It’s none of your business what He does with your life – with your body.  It’s His business.  You step out of the way and die to self and you will quit worrying about it.  It’s the exchanged life.

Well, only the Holy Spirit can communicate spiritual truth.  It’s Christ living in me and it’s the most tremendous thought that has ever entered my mind.  Christ living in me!  Every demand that’s made upon me is a demand made upon Jesus.

The opposite of my nature is Christ’s nature.  My nature is not one of love.  My nature is one of hate.  Jesus is opposite, His nature is love.  My nature is selfishness, Jesus’ nature is giving.  The opposite of my nature is in Jesus and Jesus is in me.

III. The Triumphant Life is the Empowered Life

One last thing, the triumphant life is the executed life first of all.  Secondly, it is the exchanged life.  It is Christ living in us, not me doing the living.  Thirdly, it is the empowered life.  Now I want you to notice something.  I read this verse for years and years and never saw what I’m going to share with you now.  “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20).  It doesn’t merely say that I live by faith.  He says that “I live by the faith of the Son of God.”  Whose faith is he living by?  Paul’s faith?  No sir.  I want to tell you for years I tried to live by my faith and I was a miserable failure.  I’m living tonight, not by my faith.  I’m living by the faith of the Son of God!

You say, “I don’t understand what that means.”

It means that I am counting on God’s faithfulness.  That’s what faith is.  Faith is counting on God’s faithfulness.  Faith is merely relying that God will do what He said He’ll do.  I am counting tonight on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.  This is what Paul is saying.  He said the life that I’m now living I’m living counting of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ – that He’ll do what He said He’ll do and He’ll be in me what He said He’ll be in me.  It’s merely taking Him at His word.

Now, God operates through faith.  We are saved through faith.  Everything that comes to us in the Christian life comes through faith.  Now all of this that I’ve been talking about tonight – your dying to self, being crucified with Christ, and Christ living and being released in you – all of this must be made real and effective by faith.

Let me illustrate what I mean.  Dr. FB Meyer was a saintly man, a Baptist preacher, in England a generation ago.  He had just come into this concept that I’ve been sharing with you tonight.  One day he was teaching a class of boys, and they were an unruly bunch.  FB Meyer realized that one of two things were going to happen.  Either he was going to have to get out of that room or he was going to blow his stack.  Now he didn’t put it exactly that way, but that’s what it amounted to.  He was at the end of his patience.  He was at the end of his rope and when he got to the end of it, he wanted to wrap it around the necks of those boys.  He just had had it.  And he recognized that he was about to loose his temper and blow up.  But he remembered what the Lord had been teaching him, just what I have been teaching you tonight.  He bowed his head and said, “Lord Jesus, I take your patience”.  FB Meyer says immediately there came to him a calm, and a tranquility, and a patience that he had never before experienced.  You say, “What happened?”  When FB Meyer faced it, the Holy Spirit did it – taking it by faith, counting on God’s faithfulness.

I want to give you my personal testimony that what I am preaching to you tonight is not theory and not high-sounding preaching.  Its actual fact and I want to give my testimony tonight that it works!  I have come to this place a dozen times when temptation comes, or a problem comes, or a worry comes and I have just tried it out.  I just said, “Lord Jesus, I take your patience.”  Now when I don’t do that, things go wrong.  I said, “Lord Jesus, I can’t face this temptation.  I know you’re equal to it and I trust in you to meet this temptation.”  The Holy Spirit, in a miraculous way, gives victory.  It’s the empowered life.  It’s not living by your faith.  You don’t have enough faith to do anything.  It’s counting on His faithfulness.

Paul says, “I live by the faith of the Son of God.”  When I take what He offers, He makes it real through the Holy Spirit.  There’s no reason why every Christian cannot experience daily the triumphant life.  If you’re not, then you’re living below what God intended for you to live.  Then you must come tonight to three things:

(1)  First of all, you are going to have to reckon with yourself.  Are you willing tonight to take the position of death?  Are you?  Are you willing to die to everything that you want?  Are you willing to die to every affection, every lust, and every desire?  Are you willing tonight to take that position and say, “Lord Jesus, I right now take my position of death.”

(2)  And then you must come to realize that it’s Christ who’s going to do the living in you, not you yourself, but its Christ.

(3)  And then you come to the place where you take it by faith, not by feeling.  I don’t care how lousy I feel.  I don’t care how melancholy I am.  I don’t care how depressed I am.  I don’t care how I feel, if I know in my heart that everything is right between me and God – I know I have victory, regardless of how I feel.  I know by faith that I have victory!  No matter how I feel, I just know that the Lord is adequate and sufficient and equal to anything that comes to me – wonderful release and blessed assurance.

© Ron Dunn, LifeStyle Ministries, 2005