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Welcome to day five of our look through Galatians chapter 2, verses 20 and 21.
You're going to be glad that you joined us today. Listen to what 20 and 21,
these two incredible verses in God's Word in Galatians chapter 2 have to say to
us.

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness
could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.

Now let's look at that last verse first before we get to Galatians 2, 20. In
verse 21, Paul says, "I'm not setting aside God's grace. If righteousness could
be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.

" This is the same argument we looked at at the end of chapter 1. If the law
could bring me salvation, Jesus didn't need to die. In fact, he died for
nothing.

If any other means could result in my salvation, Jesus wouldn't have come. He
wouldn't have needed to come. Jesus didn't die for nothing.

He died for you. He died for me. He did die.

He died because our need was real. And because he died, when I trust in what he
did for me, the result in my life is Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. Let me read
that verse again.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me. I really believe that this is one of the most personally
powerful verses in all of the Bible.

It talks to us about how you live out the life of faith in a daily way. In these
verses, there are two facts, one choice, and two motivations. The two facts are
these.

Fact number one, I have been crucified with Christ. If you are a believer in
Christ, if you've said to Jesus Christ, I trust you for forgiveness, I want to
follow you, if you prayed the sinner's prayer, that is a fact about your life.
It's not something you're trying to attain.

It is a fact. You were crucified with Christ. A death has happened in your life.

And the Bible doesn't paint that in pictures of something we're trying to
attain. It says it's something that has already happened. When Jesus died on
that cross, he died for my sin, he died for your sin.

And when I trust in Jesus Christ, there is a sense in which my sins are placed
there with him on the cross. And in dying for me, my sins died with him there on
the cross. My sinful nature died with him there on the cross.

Something has been put to death. Now you say, you look at your life and you say,
well, it doesn't always feel like it's been put to death. I still have
temptations and sometimes I even still fall into sin.

The way that God sees you, sees the history of your life, and the way you
experience your day life can sometimes be two different things. And the way God
sees you is crucified with Christ, your sins forgiven. That's why he accepts
you.

That's why he no longer condemns you. That's why he's looking forward to
eternity with you in heaven. And that's why you can begin to grow and more and
more to be like Jesus Christ.

Because of this fact, I have been crucified with Christ, a death has occurred.
But the second fact is this, Christ lives in me. That's again, not something
you're trying to attain or get to or accomplish as a Christian.

It is a fact. The moment you said, I want a relationship with you, Jesus Christ,
I repent of my sins, I want to live the life you've given me to live, that
moment Jesus came into your life. Revelation 3.

20 says, Jesus says, look, I'm standing at the door knocking. If anyone hears my
voice and answers the door, I will come in. Jesus came in immediately.

This is the fact of a resurrection. There's the fact of a death in your life,
and there's the fact of a resurrection in your life. Jesus lives in you to give
you a new power to live life, a new strength to live life.

The Christian life, listen, get this, the Christian life is not you trying to
live like Jesus. The Christian life is you allowing Jesus to live his life
through you because of the fact that he is in you. Those two facts, I have been
crucified, there's a death, Christ lives in me, there is a resurrection.

Those two facts should result in one choice. Here's the choice. Paul says, I
live by faith in the Son of God.

The life I now live in the body, he says, here's my choice, I live it by faith
in Jesus. That's the choice I have today. That's the choice you have today.

Now, I can choose to live by faith in myself, I can trust myself today, I can
choose to live by faith in someone else, I can trust what somebody else is
saying today, I can choose to live by faith in my feelings today, I can choose
to live by faith in my intellectual thoughts today, I can choose to live by
faith in a lot of things. Paul says, here's my choice, I'm living by faith in
Jesus, and he could make that choice because he had been crucified with Christ
and Christ lives in him. He wasn't making it on his own, he was making it
because of these two facts, I live by faith in Jesus.

You want to live by faith in Jesus today? You start with those two facts, you
make that one choice, but then there's two motivators. He goes on to say, here's
the two motivators, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me.

You want the motivation to live out the life of faith today? Remember these two
motivations. Number one, Jesus loves you.

No matter what happens today, he loves you. God's not going to love you any more
or any less than he does right now, ever, because his love has already been
entirely poured out for you in Jesus Christ. And I either recognize that love
today or I don't recognize it, but the truth is he loves you right now, in this
moment.

Whatever you did yesterday, however you feel about yourself today, he loves you.
And the motivation of his love, not my guilt, not my pride, not my feelings
about what others are thinking of me, the motivation of his love in my life.
There is no more refreshing, there's no more powerful motivator in life who
loved me.

That is the motivation. God loves you today. You want a stronger motivation even
than that?

For you and I as human beings, a stronger motivation is who gave himself for me.
That's the strongest motivation of all. Not only does he say he loves me, but he
shows that he loves me.

He gave himself for me. In your mind, focus on those last two words, for me.
John 3.

16, to many of us, the most familiar verse in all the Bible says that God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him
shouldn't perish but have eternal life. John 3. 16 says that God so loved and so
he gave his son.

Here in Galatians 2. 20, the Bible tells us that Jesus so loved and so he gave
himself. This is the Trinity.

It wasn't the Father sending Jesus and Jesus didn't want to go. No, Jesus gave
himself. He chose to go to that cross.

And also in John 3. 16, the Bible says God so loved the world and he does. He
loves the entire world.

But here in Galatians 2. 20, the Bible says he did it for me. That's the two
sides of the coin.

The whole world, but for me. And I don't want to miss either one of those. God's
love extends to the entire world, but it also extends to me.

I find some people who know he loves the world, but they don't know he loves
them. I find other people, they know he loves them. They don't know he loves the
world.

You want to hang on to both of those. And here in Galatians 2. 20, we are
encouraged to remember he gave himself for me.

How do I live a life of faith? I live a life of faith between these two facts
and these two motivations. The two facts, I have been crucified, a death.

Christ lives in me, a resurrection. That gives me a new power. And these two
motivations, who loved me, and then the second motivation, who gave himself for
me.

That is the motivation of my relationship of love with Jesus Christ. That's how
you live this life of faith. Now personally, what can this verse mean to you in
daily life?

How do you live it out? How do you see it day by day? I have been crucified with
Christ.

I cannot imagine a more powerful picture. We could spend the rest of our lives
discussing the meaning of that one phrase. But beyond discussing it, you have to
experience it.

Galatians 2. 20 is a verse about the reality of our experience of the Christian
life. So just for a moment, live this verse with me.

Take a moment to visualize Jesus on the cross, giving his life for you. It's not
too hard to imagine ourselves at the foot of the cross looking up and seeing
grace being poured out in the sacrifice of Christ. But this verse goes well
beyond our imagination.

Here we're not at the foot of the cross. We're on the cross, crucified with
Christ. Picture that.

The old person that I was, the old way of living that I had, all of my ugly sins
and bad habits and selfish attitudes died on the cross with him. He died for my
sins on the cross, and the sinful person that I was died on that cross with him.
It really happened.

This isn't a philosophy to debate or a religion to ponder. This is a truth to
believe, a fact that happened. Do you see what that means?

It means that sin no longer has the hold on you that it did before you came to
Christ. Of course you'll still be tempted, and sometimes that temptation looks
so good that you'll feel like you just can't help yourself. I have to follow
after that old way of sin.

I cannot help myself. But Galatians 2. 20 says, "Yes, you can.

" You can say no to that temptation. You can say yes to Christ. This verse
reminds us that something really happened on that cross that made you into a new
person, and you now have the power to live a new life because you are a new
person.

But I found I cannot apply that power to my life for the rest of my life all at
once. Wouldn't that be great? Right now I want to pray this verse and never be
tempted again.

Right now I want to pray this verse and never struggle again. No, you can't
apply it to every day, every week, every month, every year, the rest of your
life. The way you can apply this is right now, this moment, today.

So let's do that. In fact, as we pray today, I want to invite you to pray back
to Jesus Christ in faith, these verses we've just looked at. Just say to Jesus,
"Jesus, I believe what you tell me.

I believe that I have been crucified with you. Thank you for the death that
occurred on that cross, the death of an old way of living. I believe that I no
longer live, but Christ lives in me.

Thank you for the life that was given to me on that cross, a resurrection life.
And Jesus Christ, I want to say to you right now that the life that I live in
this body, I live it by faith in the Son of God because, and I thank you for
this, because you love me, because you gave yourself for me. Thank you, Jesus.

In your name, amen. " Join us next week. We're going to be looking at Galatians
chapter 3.

It's a chapter that begins, "You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? " So
buckle up and hold on for a passionate expression of faith in Galatians chapter
3 next week.