Australian Bible Church   March 25 - April 1,  2007   

Galatians 2:20-3:5, in the setting of Romans 8

A CONTINUATION OF THE THRUST AND BASE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
OF AUSTRALIA ON BIBLICAL LINES …

Sermon Notes

Matters of Life and Death

I   I am CRUCIFIED with CHRIST

Let us trace it. Starting off from normal life, you move to normal crucifixion.

1) You die. You cannot be crucified without doing so.

2) You die into Christ who, being the sin-bearer, produces new life in you.

3) Former things are not mandatory, but the Master, the Lord God Himself, has all mandate.

II   No Longer I but Christ Lives in Me

1) There is not the sensationalism and seduction, the searing or the devitalisation of sin; but the vitality of fresh reality, like fresh fruit as distinct from rotting exhibits, moves into your life (Romans 8:10-11).

2) It is His life, by design from the eternal Word of God, Creator of Life, intended to give power, energy, flow of grace, wisdom, knowledge and vitality, coming from Himself to His image-bearing creation (John 15:1-8). It ABIDES in Him, not merely attached but different in heart, unlike a branch reverting to old stock, but rather changed within and abiding as changed (I John 3:9).

3) It has His repugnance to foreign objects. In this, it is like the body, physically, even a small splinter in a finger rousing real resistance, as does a subversive virus in the spiritual blood stream, or very readily, a foreign organ, implanted in the physical body. Incompatibility of what is alien tends in many ways,  to be found. On the contrary, with spiritual health, by the power of the Holy Spirit you MORTIFY that sort of liberty that pleases itself, invasive, corruptive, not in the design (Romans 8:13).

This is the precise opposite to that whole hideous conglomeration of no morals, 'my' morals, the State's 'morals', substitute churches' morals, as in the USA Episcopalian Church which is not interested in ceasing to 'bless' perverted couples, or to ordain perverted bishops, and refuses even Canterbury's request! Schism appears quite likely. It resembles also the alleged Equal Opportunity Law approach. This insists that the most gross and outrageous misuse of the human body's specifications for action, may not be criticised without subjective dislike of your application of biblical morals making you vulnerable at law. This is vulture-culture, circling and seeking prey; and it tends to prey on what prays and proceeds to publish the word of God.

Christ, to the contrary,  with His lips pronounced what abides in His life, when He said (Luke 9:26): "Whoever will be ashamed of Me and of My words, of Him will the Son of Man be ashamed, when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels." Many have died rather than disobey, loving what they find in Christ, and His word above life.

4) In Christ, through prayer, you have IMMEDIATE connection: no delay! He is right there with you (John 6:56-57), and through the Holy Spirit, in you (John 14:17, Colossians 1:27).

5) In Christ, you are an island, He is the Ruler of the archipelago; He is the head, you a member of His body (cf. Ephesians 2, Romans 12). He governs. 

III  The Life  I now Live in the Flesh by the Faith of the Son of God

1) You are led to pray with depth and spiritual insight (Romans 8:26), not a mere mouthing, but something wrought in you through the Holy Spirit.

2) You are led by the Spirit out of self-centred pre-occupation, moral floundering, to delighted dependence on your Father, whom you are moved to acknowledge as your Father with relish (Romans 8:14-16).

3) You eagerly await (Romans 8:23), with inward longing, the redemption of your body, the resurrection, to occur when Christ Himself appears (I Thessalonians 4:14) and the elect, being gathered, are taken in the power of His might, resurrected to the wedding feast (Revelation 19:8), before His return to judge and reign.

4) In love, you eagerly await His actual coming itself (Hebrews 9:28), the second time, without sin to salvation (cf. I Corinthians 16:22). Without love, there is nothing available, since God is love: it would be like wanting to have a human body without blood (I Corinthians 13). You love Him, seek His early return, await it with patience, play your part with fortitude, by faith.

5) By faith, you realise that justification, the cancellation by decree of your sins by the ransom Christ provided, MEANS glorification, in a circuit nothing can break (Romans 8:30ff.): this is called Christian assurance, depending on nothing of your own, simply on Him and His word (cf. John 10:9,27-28).  Thus you look forward to an eternal inheritance, through grace, by gift, in Him (Ephesians 1:11).

6) You come to realise that if you love God and are called according to His purpose, then all things work together for good (Romans 8:29). Even the apostles, being whipped, were thrilled to be granted grace so to serve Christ: HE knows what He is doing (Acts 5:41, 32).

7) You don't try to save yourself, but rely on the power that raised Christ to work in you: Christ your cover and Director, Protector and King (Galatians 3:1-5).

8) You thus become aware of, alert to the divine power at work in you, to will and to do (Phil. 2:12). 

IV   Life is in the Loving One who Gave Himself for Me 

It is not mere hope but assurance in which you live, and HE is the source of it (Romans 8:16, I Thessalonians 5:9-10).

It is in love that you live; for if you were a fish, this would be your water. It is ludicrous to talk of living without it when this is the medium of its life (I John 3:16,18).

In this life, you may be grieved by others’ infidelity of heart, mind or body, but you hate sin, and not sinners. You seek for the apparently hopeless, and pray for the unremittingly wrong, if by any means, their darkness may be dispelled by a light not merely illuminative, but transformative!

This then is the way of it, as Paul briefly summarises with powerful impact, in Galatians 2:20.

·        "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself for me."