Dying To Live

"I have been crucified with Christ; and 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 delivered Himself up for me." (Galatians 2:20)

As far as entertainment goes, there is nothing quite like a suspense-filled movie. I saw in the theater, and recently on video, the movie "Dead Again." Though it was fiction, it was fascinating. Actually, it was not about two people who were dead again, rather it was about two people who were alive again and trying not to become dead again.

Life is indeed a valuable commodity. All of us want to be alive. But we really want more than that. Being alive is one thing, really living is another. Not everyone who is alive really lives. In fact, everywhere you go you encounter people who are desperately attempting to really live. They are actually trying to answer a basic question right out of Philosophy 101 - "What is the meaning of life?"

Many determine that the meaning of life is to be found in material possessions, so they set themselves to acquire them. Others determine that the meaning of life is to be found in pleasure, so they set out to indulge themselves. Still others determine that the meaning of life is to be found in career, money, or social standing. They become workaholics, greedy, and class conscious. And the thing that all these groups have in common is a relentless and desperate, even frantic pursuit of these things. The sad reality of it all is that, even when they attain a measure of these things, they find that they are still unfulfilled.

Christians want to really live, too. We have answered the question of the meaning of life, at least intellectually. We know that the meaning of life centers around Jesus. But that is such a general statement. What we really want to know is what the meaning of life is specifically for me. We know it centers in Christ, but how does it impact me? How do I live in Christ? We don't want to know how to merely exist as a Christian, we want to know how to really live as a Christian.

In the Bible, there are some foundational truths from which Christians should never stray. They stand out like a majestic peak on an otherwise flat horizon. I recall looking out of my window on a plane to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. After passing over the Great Plains we encountered a range of majestic, snow-capped mountains. It was beautiful. It certainly caught my attention. Looking down from 35,000 feet, most things on the ground are barely noticeable. Those majestic mountains were different. They leapt up at me. And the verse we are considering today is such a mountain peak in God's Word. I have come back to it again and again. I find that I cannot escape it. It is as if God is trying to tell me that I have only begun to scratch the surface.

In Galatians 2:20, we find the answers to the questions we have about life. We find the secret of how to really live. Unlike the movie where people were alive and trying not to be dead, we find here that only by being dead can we come alive. You see, the truth of Galatians 2:20 is that life comes from death. In order to be truly alive, we have to understand that we are truly dead. It's one of the greatest paradoxes of Scripture. It's the mystery of the Kingdom. Jesus said that we must lose our lives in order to find them. He said that if we seek to hold on to our lives we will lose them. Now, Paul is saying here in Galatians 2:20, that though we are dead, we really live. But how can these things be?

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend.
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Do you sense the longing for the Lord's life and the recognition of the powerlessness to attain it? This is the cry of our hearts too. Lord, take charge. Divorce me from Your enemy. Imprison me. Enthrall me. Ravish me. Make me Your own.

The good news is that God has not only anticipated that need but made a way for us. He has given us a new provision of life. And here He tells us that this life only comes out of death.

The key is understanding that the old me, with all my limitations and problems, has been put to death. This Scripture says, "I have been crucified with Christ." This is the first thing we must understand. It is a key to understanding who we really are, now that we are in Christ. It is a key to releasing us from the struggle of trying to live the Christian life by our own strength and power. That is more than we can do, and it is more than we have been asked to do.

Once every year the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies. Once he was in, he found himself in absolute darkness. Not a single ray of light from the world outside penetrated that holy cubicle. The light from the world was shut out - all of it! Before him was the mercy seat, the place of meeting with God. He could not even see it by the light from the world, but he did see it by the light of the Shekinah glory of God, that burned above that mercy seat. He saw in the light that God provided. And so, we too must see ourselves in that same light. We don't need to see ourselves by the light of this world's wisdom, we need to see ourselves in the light of God's wisdom.

God, in His wisdom, has solved the problem of our old self. He has killed it! You see, the answer for us is not to be found in reformation, or renovation of the old self. You can clean up the old self, perfume it, put new clothes on it, educate it, and otherwise seek to improve it, but all you have is still the old self! But what we need is not the old self, but a new self. And in order for the new self to come forth, the old self must be dealt with. The way God has chosen to deal with the old self is not to reform it, but to remove it. This is what it means to be crucified with Christ. We are now under no obligation to the old life. We have been set free from it. We are dead to our old way of living. Sin no longer has any control over us. Satan no longer has any right to us. We are no longer who we were. All that has been done away with. We are crucified with Christ.

God has done away with the old life so that He could give us a new life. Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ: and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." I'm dead, yet alive! This is what God has done for us. Out of death comes life. But it is not our life. It is the life of Jesus Christ being lived in us. Someone has called this the exchanged life. We exchange our life for His. What a deal! Now we can quit struggling to live by our own strength and begin to learn how to depend on His life in us. This is what Paul meant in Philippians 1:21, when he said, "For to me, to live is Christ." He meant that now Christ was living in him and through him. In other words, the meaning of life for me is that Jesus Christ is now my life. He lives His life in me.

It is like a glove, for example. A glove cannot do anything by itself. It needs a hand to fill it. When the glove has a hand inside, it is enabled to do all sorts of things. We are like a glove. What we need is the Lord to fill us with His power. Then we will be able to do all things through Christ, who is living in us. And that is precisely what we have now in Christ. Colossians 2:9-10 says, "For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete." In Christ we have all sufficiency. In Christ we have all we need. And the good news is that we have Christ living within us now. We must come to see that truth.

There are some things, that when we are impacted by them, leave us never the same. I heard of a North American Indian who said: "There came to our tribe a man and he told us about and extolled the God of the white-man. We told him to leave. And there came another man and he said: `Do not drink anymore fire-water, do not get drunk, and do not steal.' We paid no attention to him. Then there came a man and he told us about a God who came down from heaven to live among us, who so loved us that He shared our life and died in our place for our sins, and who opened the doors whereby we might be saved and enter heaven. And the Indian said, `I could never forget it.'" There are some things we can never forget. If you can have a revelation of the truth contained in Galatians 2:20, you will never forget it. And that is what we need. You see, what is true about us is only received by us through a revelation of that truth. When did you receive salvation? You received it when you realized that Christ died for you! When did He die for you? He died for you 2,000 years ago. But when did you appropriate it? You appropriated it when you saw the truth of it and began to act on it. It was a revelation of God to you and you have never been the same.

If we begin to see ourselves as those who are empowered by the living, resurrected Christ, who is alive in us, we will never be the same. When we begin to expect the Lord to live in us and through us, our lives will then begin to reach the potential God has always had for us.

Expectations mean so much. Even the expectations of others toward us make a difference. Did you ever see the movie entitled Stand Up And Deliver? It was the true story of a math teacher named Jaime Escalante. He teaches at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, a tough, poor Chicano ghetto. The school is filled with gang violence. But he did an amazing thing. He took a group of 18 unmotivated students, many of whom would have never graduated from school, and convinced them to take Advanced Placement Calculus. Some of them had trouble adding. Most of the students hated school. But what a joy to watch him motivate these students. He'd come along side a student working on a carburetor and say, "You know, someday you could be designing those things instead of repairing them." His love for them was constant and persistent. Throughout the movie his constant word to them was, "You're the best!" You know, they began to believe it. For many it was probably the first time anyone had believed in them. In fact, he got them to commit themselves to stay after school everyday from 3-5 PM, and come in on Saturday morning in order to prepare for the National Advanced Placement Exam in Calculus. When the test results came back, it was staggering. All 18 had passed. Never had so many students from one school passed that test. In fact, the test service didn't believe it, they claimed that the students had cheated. Six months later, Jaime Escalante convinced the students to take the test again and all 18 passed the second time. The results have continued to multiply every year, and each year over 100 students from Garfield High School pass that exam. Expectations! They are powerful.

Let me share another story. It is the true story of Teddy Stallard, who by his own admission was an unattractive, unmotivated little boy. He was difficult to like, especially for a school teacher who all day long faced his deadpan, expressionless, unfocused stare. Although his fifth grade teacher said she loved all her students, Miss Thompson had to admit that deep down she wasn't being honest. She didn't like him, and she had even received a certain perverse pleasure in marking his papers with red ink and writing F's with flair. Her view of him was already distorted by her perspective, but she should have known better. As his teacher, she had his records, and she knew more about him than she wanted to admit. First Grade: Teddy shows promise with his work and attitude, but he has a poor home situation. Second Grade: Teddy could do better. Mother is seriously ill. He receives little help at home. Third Grade: Teddy is a good boy, but too serious. He is a slow learner. His mother died this year. Fourth Grade: Teddy is very slow but well behaved. His father shows no interest.

At Christmas, her class all brought her presents in pretty wrappings, and gathered round to watch her open them. She was surprised when she received a gift from Teddy. It was crudely wrapped in brown paper, loosely held together with tape. When she opened it, out fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the rhinestones missing, and a bottle of cheap perfume. The children began to giggle, but she had enough sense to put on the bracelet and apply some of the perfume on her wrist. She asked the class, "Doesn't it smell lovely?" When school was over and the children had left, Teddy lingered behind. He slowly came over to her desk and said softly, "Miss Thompson, you smell just like my mother. And her bracelet looks real pretty on you, too. I'm glad you like my presents." When Teddy left, Miss Thompson got down on her knees and asked God to forgive her.

The next day when the children came to school, they were welcomed by a new teacher. Miss Thompson had become a new person. She was no longer just a teacher; she had become an agent of God. She was now a person committed to loving her children and doing things for them that would live on after her. By the end of that school year, Teddy showed dramatic improvement and had caught up with most of the students.

She did not hear from Teddy for a long time. Then one day she received a note that said:

Dear Miss Thompson: I wanted you to be the first to know. I will be graduating second in my class. Love, Teddy Stallard.

Four years later she received another note saying;

Dear Miss Thompson: They just told me I will be graduating first in my class. I wanted you to be the first to know. The University has not been easy, but I like it. Love, Teddy Stallard.

Finally she received another note:

Dear Miss Thompson: As of today I am Theodore Stallard, M.D. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know. I am getting married next month, the 27th to be exact. I want you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive. You are the only family I have now; Dad died last year. Love, Teddy Stallard.

Miss Thompson went to that wedding. She deserved to sit where his mother would have sat; she had earned that right. She had done something for Teddy that he could never forget.