And I would invite you to bring the book to Galatians chapter 2. We'll look at the end of Galatians chapter 2, and so we'll bring the book there together. And as we make our way to the text, the greatest person in history, is Jesus Christ. Out of the billions of people that have ever walked the earth or ever will walk the earth, he's the greatest. And the greatest event in his life was the cross. He did many wonderful things, but the height of his life was the cross. That's the reason why he came. And actually, when you look at the whole landscape of time, all of human history, from creation to the consummation, when Jesus returns, the greatest event ever is the cross. And so there is Jesus right in the center of all things where he belongs. There's nothing more central to Christ than the cross, nothing more central to Christianity, nothing more central to the Bible, nothing more central to the gospel than the cross. There's nothing more central to what we're about to do this morning at this table, the communion table. There's nothing more central to the Lord's table than the cross. And according to verse 20, there's nothing more central to my life and your life than the cross. And we see the centrality of the cross in many places in the Bible, but one of the hallmarks would be Philippians chapter 2, who God, being high, humbled himself and took on humanity. God became man and he dressed himself up in servanthood. God humbled himself, he left heaven, he came into this earth, and he emptied himself of any status and became a servant. And he was obedient in all things. And he obeyed even the call of death. even the death of the cross, Paul says. That there were no limitations to his duty, no limitations to his devotion. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. And Paul would tell the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1-18 that the message of the cross to them that perish is foolishness, but to us that are saved, the message of the cross is the power of God. That's why we love to talk about it. That's why we want to hear preaching about it. We sing about the cross because of its centrality. It does something in the people of God. It's powerful. And later on in this book, at the end of Galatians, Paul would say that I don't boast in anything but in the cross of Jesus Christ. That's where he made his boast. And even as we come to the communion table this morning, you remember what Jesus said. He said in the upper room as he instituted the Lord's table, Jesus said, as often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me." And what specifically are we to remember about him? It's the cross. And Paul basically says that in 1 Corinthians 11.25, Paul says, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do proclaim the Lord's death, his cross, until he comes. And you notice here in our text, in Galatians 2.20, what we looked at last week, at the end of Galatians 2.20, you see the Son of God, and there He is in His height, the second member of the Trinity, the Son of God. And what did He do? He lowered Himself by giving himself. The text says, the son of God who gave himself for me. From heights to the lowest part of the earth, he gave himself. And you may recall in Matthew 27, when Jesus was there on the cross with the nails and the sweat and the blood, As Jesus was on the cross, the crowd was there and they were yelling at Him and mocking Him and challenging Him. And they said specifically in Matthew 27, if you be the Son of God, come off of the cross, prove it, come down from the cross if you're the Son of God. And He didn't. He's the Son of God that gave Himself at the cross. And he gave himself because of love. The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me at the cross. And so that's the back part of Galatians 2.20. But if you notice in the beginning of Galatians 2.20, there is a very important word. It's the same word that you'll find some 50 times in the New Testament. It's the same word that was used at the trial of Jesus before Pilate. What was the crowd yelling? They were all yelling, release Barabbas and do something to Christ. They were yelling this word. And it's the same word that Paul said to the Corinthians. Remember, Paul said, we preach. So there's a lot of preaching going on throughout the churches today. Paul said to the Corinthians, we preach. But what was the message of Paul? We preach Christ. But there was something distinct about Christ. You could say a lot about Christ. But Paul said, we preach Christ and him crucified. And literally that word crucified means of the cross. And so Paul says, we preach Christ of the cross, the Christ that's on the cross. And it is the power of God. And brothers and sisters, when you look down at Galatians 2.20, in the beginning of the verse, you see that word, you see the word crucified. And so notice with me our text, Galatians 2.20, this is God's word. Paul, by the Spirit, says, 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 the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Amen. And as a church, let's pray. Our Father, we bow and we pause and we give thanks to you. We thank you for the day that you have made. May we rejoice and be glad in it. We thank you for the day of the church. We thank you for this day of the gospel, this day of worship, this day of rest. This day where we can come away and come together and be with you. We pray that we would worship you in spirit and in truth. We pray that you would help us. Help us now in all the means of grace and help now as we bring the book. Help now as we open up the book and we pray that you would open up our hearts and work in us. We pray God not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to your name be glory even now as we consider the communion table and as we consider the word of God and as we consider the cross We pray that you would bless us, bless us mightily and help us. And it's in Jesus Christ, the crucified one, that we pray. Amen. There is a problem in the book of Galatians, and it's a problem that Paul will not let go. He won't give up on it. And it's a problem that we have referred to many times in our preaching in these couple of chapters. It's a problem that Paul is dealing with in all six of these chapters. There's a problem here in these Galatian churches, not just one body, but many of the churches there in Galatia. They had this problem. But it's not just particular to them. It's a problem in all of us. It's a problem in every human heart. And it's a problem for every religion out there. This is a common problem that Paul is dealing with. And it's inside of all of us. And it's the problem of trying. Trying to do good. Trying to do good in order to earn favor with God. The natural default, the disposition in every single person in this world is that I must keep the law. I must do something to earn my favor with God. And that's what Paul is dealing with and that is in all of us. How many people have you talked to and they think if they can only be good enough and follow the 10 commandments, they'll get to heaven? And that's what Paul is dealing with here, and it's inside of us to think that if we can just keep the law, we would have merit with God. But actually, what Paul does all over this book, and what he does in these first two chapters, and what he does in our passage, is that he shows that the law does not love us or give itself for us. The law doesn't do that. The law is cold, it is harsh, it is matter of fact, and the law does not love you, it does not give to you, it demands from you. Thou shout, and it gives no room to wiggle. The law does not love me or give itself for me, it demands, and when it's all said and done, the law will render each of us guilty before God. And Paul says, there are limitations with the law, but there's something better. He says, it's not the law that loves and gives, but he says here, it is the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And so he points us to the gospel. He points us to the son who loved and gave himself at the cross, that Jesus and his cross are the better way, the only way. Back in the 1700s, John Wesley, brother of Charles Wesley, and together these two brothers have written so many hymns, thousands of hymns for the church, some of which the church still sings. But John Wesley, he was going through the book of Galatians, and he arrived at Galatians 220. And specifically, he arrived at the end of Galatians 220. And Wesley said, I labored and waited and prayed to feel these words. He said, I labored and waited and prayed to feel the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. And hopefully, we have the same mentality. Hopefully, we too, upon hearing these words, we would respond by laboring and waiting and praying to feel the gravity, to feel the weight of these words, that the highest person in the universe, the Son of God, would love me and do something about it. He would give himself for me at the cross. Do you feel anything when those words are spoken? Hopefully those words are not soon off of our minds and off of our lips. The son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. They become the doorway whereby we enter into heaven forever. Now you notice there, In verse 20, according to Sinclair Ferguson, what we have here is Christ for me. We're all familiar with that. Christ for me. When I use that language, when Ferguson uses that language, we get it. Christ for me in the gospel. The Son of God here in verse 20 is for me. But Ferguson didn't just say what is familiar to us. He didn't just say that verse 20 is about Christ for me. He also said that verse 20 is about Christ with me. Do you see that in verse 20, Christ with me? You actually don't have to look very far. If you look at the opening words of Galatians 2.20, you see Christ with me. Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. I have been crucified with Christ. Now I know that Christ has been crucified for me, but here Paul doesn't exactly say that. He says, I have been crucified with Christ. Now that begs the question, what in the world does he mean? What is he saying? I have been crucified with Christ. Whatever it is, it's true. So what is it? Well, interestingly, when you look at that statement of Paul, there are six words. I have been crucified with Christ. In the Greek, it's only two words. Six words are packed into two words in the Greek, so that in the Greek, this is all one word. I have been crucified with. That's one word, and then Christ is the other word in that statement. And it's interesting because that same word, I have been crucified with, is not just found here, it's actually found in Matthew, Mark, and John. The same word, the same terminology is used in the three gospels. When you think about the cross, you know that Jesus was on that hill, he was on Golgotha, he was on Calvary, and the nails were through him, and he was dying on the cross, he was crucified, but he was not crucified alone, was he? that when he was dying, the Bible is clear that to his left, there was a malfactor, and to his right, there was a malfactor, so that if you could back off that hill, if you could look at that scene, you would see three men, Jesus in the middle, with a man to the left, and the man to the right, and with the same language that's used here in verse 20, it says that they were crucified with Christ. Those two men were crucified with Christ. Now, with that language, Paul says something remarkable. I, we, God's people, we have been crucified with Christ. Now, when we think of those two criminals, they were crucified with Christ physically. You could see them there 2,000 years ago. They were crucified with Christ physically. We were not crucified with Christ physically. We were crucified with Christ, not physically like those criminals, but we were crucified with Christ vicariously. Now, that's a big word that some of you probably have heard of before in Christianity. We were crucified vicariously. Now, we could get a little more simple with that word because when you look at the word vicarious in the beginning, it's the word vicar, and a lot of you recognize that word vicar. A vicar is a representative of another person. So vicarious has to do with representation, one person representing another person as a vicar. We were not there physically, but we were there vicariously. I was crucified with Christ. I was there in the fact that Jesus Christ was my representative. He represented me so that I was there in my representative. In other words, he was my substitute and in him I was there by way of substitution. I think one way we could express what Paul is getting at, I have been crucified with Christ. I was there in his representation. I think how we could get to that is we're a member church of RUBU, Russian Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Union, and have been for a long time. That is our history, and we're glad to be that way. And there are lots of churches here in the United States, but it actually spreads into Europe and it actually spreads into South America. There are Rebu churches around the world. And let's say that Rubu was having a convention, as they sometimes do, they have conferences. Let's say they were having a convention. Now, I don't think the 50 or 60 of us would go to that convention, but if our church sent Roman, we would be there, our church would be there, all 60 of us would be there in our representative Roman. He is standing in the place of our church. He brings all of us in his representation. And in that sense, our church is at the convention with Roman. And in a similar way, I have been crucified with Christ, that Christ is my representative. This is a true story. If you were to go back 160 years ago to the days of the Civil War, There was a man by the name of Wyatt. His name was Wyatt. He had a large family. He had a wife and kids. And Wyatt was actually recruited and drafted to go to battle, to fight on the combat fields of the Civil War. And at the same time, there was this guy by the name of Pratt. He was a younger man. He was detached. He wasn't married. He didn't have children. And so Pratt felt sorry for Wyatt, who was called to duty having a wife and kids. And so Pratt volunteered to go on behalf of Wyatt, to fight the battle on behalf of Wyatt, to go as a representative. And so what Wyatt and Pratt did, they went officially to the government, and the government accepted that Pratt could go on duty in the place of Wyatt, and they gave Wyatt's number to Pratt. And Pratt went into battle with Wyatt's number, with Wyatt's identity. Legally, he was representing Wyatt. Well, lo and behold, Pratt goes out on the battlefield and he dies. He gave his life. Interesting, some time rolled by and the government went to Wyatt again and recruited him and tried to draft him to go to battle. And Wyatt said, look, I already have gone and done my duty. I actually already have died in the person of Pratt. And when the government looked it up, they found Wyatt's number that had been assigned to Pratt, and they let Wyatt go because Pratt had already done the service. Pratt had given his life on behalf of Wyatt. Wyatt was released from duty. He didn't have to go fight because of his substitute, Pratt. Wyatt was now released from obligation and free to live his life because of Pratt. And in the same way, that is what Paul is saying in verses 19 and 20. The law made demands. We were in trouble with God because of the law. Jesus died in our place in his representation. I am now released from my obligation, released from the law, and now I am free to live for God. The payment has been served, death has been rendered in Jesus, and now I am free to live my life. Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. He was my representative. Just like Wyatt could have said, I already have died in Pratt. And yet, there's more to what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying that we were crucified in Christ as our representative, but he's saying more. It's not just that my record of sin was crucified with Christ. That's so important. We're familiar with that. My record of sin was crucified with Christ. That is what Paul is saying, but it's more than that. He is saying here that the rule of sin in my life has been crucified with Christ. The reign of sin is everywhere in this world. It's upon everyone. We are slaves to it. We must sin. The only life that we know is a life of sin. And in Christ, when we were crucified with Christ, not just my record was laid to rest, but my life ruled by sin was laid to rest. I was crucified. My life of sin was crucified with Christ. That's what Paul's saying. Now let's explore that a little bit. One of the first verses that I ever learned as a Christian was Matthew 16, 24, and 25. It's a perfect passage to relate right here in Galatians 2.20. One of the first verses I ever learned was Matthew 16, 24, and 25, where Jesus says, if any man will come after me, What an invitation. Would you have Christ? Would you come to Christ? He says, if any man would come after me, let him deny. Now that's strong language, isn't it? We talk about denial a lot. To be denied, to be rejected, is strong language. And Christ takes up that language and he says, if anybody's gonna come after me, let him deny. And you and I usually think that our problem is with the world, and with Satan, and with all of the evil around us. And that's true. But Jesus doesn't say, if you're going to come after me, deny the world, deny Satan. He doesn't say that. The reason why the world and Satan are such a problem for every single one of us, all of humanity, the reason why the devil and the world are such a problem is because there is something gravely wrong with ourselves inside of us. And so we all have antennas and we receive the things of Satan and the things of the world. We respond to it. We're alive. We're stimulated by the things of the devil and the things of the world. In other words, our hearts are dialed in. Our hearts are in the same frequency as the world and Satan. And when the world and Satan send out their messages, it connects in my heart. Isn't that true? That's the story of humanity. The problem, fundamentally, is the self. And Jesus then goes right to the core of the issue, and he says, if you are to come after me, you are to deny yourself. Now, what does that denial look like? And in the next word, he tells us, if you're to come after me, you are to deny yourself and take up your cross. Think of that language, take up your cross, that's the denial. The cross was an instrument of humiliation. It was an instrument of shame. It was an instrument of death. What is Jesus saying? If you were to come after me, you were to deny yourself. And what it looks like? You were to take up your death. It's what Paul is saying here. I have been crucified with Christ. It's the same thing Jesus is saying. If you were to come after me, you were to deny yourself and take up your cross. You are to be crucified with me. Jesus is saying the same thing here in Galatians 2.20 with Matthew 16, 24, and 25. When Paul says, I have been crucified, what he's saying here is I have denied myself. I've taken up death. Just as Jesus said. And it's interesting because in Matthew 16, the very next verse, it says, if you're going to follow me, you are to deny yourself. You are to take up the cross, take up your death. And he says there, whoever would save his life, would you spare your life? Would you be just like the human tendency of self-sufficiency, self-actualization, self-preservation, self-satisfaction, self-centeredness? If you would live that way, Jesus says, you would lose your life. He that would save his life and make it all about me, you'll lose your life that way. And then he says, whoever would lose his life. Think about that. Did you ever use that language before? The loss of life, losing life. Jesus uses that word, whoever would not save his life, but whoever would lose his life. It's the language of death. It's the language of denial. It's the language of crucifixion. So that if you deny yourself by taking up the cross, taking up death, if you would spare your life, you would lose it. But if you would be crucified, if you would deny, if you would die to yourself, you'll live. That's what Paul's saying. It's the same kind of thing that Paul says in Ephesians and Colossians. He uses the language of clothing. And you and I, we go through the day and we get dirty and sweaty, and so we put off our dirty clothes and then we put on clean clothes. Now, there's a lot to say about that, and maybe we'll come back to that next sermon. But Paul, a couple of times, uses that analogy of putting off dirty clothing and putting on clean, putting off old clothing and putting on new clothing. And when Paul says to put off, he's talking about deny the self. He's talking about losing your life. He's talking about being crucified. You see, it's the same thing. We are to put off the old way of sin, the old life of sin. We are to put it off like a dirty garment. We are to have it crucified with Christ. We are to put it off and then put on Christ, put on the new life, the new way. So Paul, is saying the same thing, put off, be crucified in your old ways, your old man, put it off and put on the new man, put on Jesus Christ. And this is precisely, brothers and sisters, what Paul is saying in 2 Corinthians 5.17. We use these words so often, but do we really let it sink in? You know this text. Many of you are about to be able to quote this. He says there, if any man be in Christ. See, the non-Christians are in self still. Ruled by sin. Ruled by impulses. Ruled by their own flesh. Satan comes, the world comes, and it connects with the broken, messy, fallen self withinside all of us. But Paul says, if any man is in Christ, he is what? He is a new creation. In other words, he has put on something new, new clothing, he's put on Christ. Old things have passed away, are you seeing what he's saying? If any man's in Christ, he is a new creation. He's put on Christ. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. What does that language sound like? To pass away. Have you ever used that language of passing away? It's death language. We are new. Old things about us, the old way, the old Adamic nature, our sinful tendencies, they've passed away in the gospel, which is what Paul is saying here. I have been crucified with Christ. My old ways have passed away in Christ. I am a new creation. I've put on Christ and I've thrown off the old man, that dirty, wretched garment. Christ with me and me with Christ in His crucifixion. What died is not just my record of sin, but the rule of sin in my life has died. I'm a new creation in Christ. Now, if I can express it this way, we love our music team, our praise team. What would we do without them? Well, we would make noise, but we are thankful for them. And so at the end of the service, in a few minutes, Doresa will come up to the piano. Alex will come up here. Frank will come up and get the guitar. They'll set themselves up and get ready, and we will sing. And Don would come up, but I say, no, Don, just stay there. I'm going to play the drums. Now you probably know me, and if you don't, I don't know music, I don't read music, I have no idea about instruments, and I certainly don't know anything about the drums. So the team gets ready, I go back there, I'm fumbling around, I don't know where switches are, dials are, I don't even know how to turn it on. I'm looking for sticks, I'm looking for pedals, I don't even know which way I should face on the stool. Finally, I sit down, I look for sticks, I take the sticks, and as they start playing, I start to make a racket. I know nothing about music, nothing about the drums. Just bang, like pots and pans. Let's change the scenario. Because that's me all by myself. I can't play the drums. So what if then Don comes up here and he comes right to me and he puts his arm around me and he ushers me back there into the corner to the drums He moves the seat, he positions the seat, and with his arm around me, close to me, he sits me down, and he positions my whole body in the chair, and he positions my back, and he positions my shoulders, and he just sets me up. And he doesn't walk away. Because then, he puts my foot on the pedal, and he puts his foot over my foot on the pedal. And then there's the stick and with his hand on top of my hand, he moves my hand and together we pick up the stick. And then he puts his hand on my other hand and together we pick up the other stick. And then together he moves my hand to switch flips, to flip the switches, to turn the dials, to put everything on, to set everything up. He's moving my hands. And then he says to me, okay, here we go. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, and he moves my hand and he goes, tap. And we're tapping together. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And with the next hand, it's tap, tap, boom. Tap, tap, boom. Tap, tap, boom. What happened? I didn't know how to play the drums, but that part of me is gone when he comes. And he comes, and now I'm playing, yet it's not I that's playing, it's Don that's playing with me and in me and for me. And that's what Paul says here, right? I have been crucified with Christ. My old, skillless, lawless, sinful life has been laid to rest. It has passed away. It's been denied. It's been put off. It's been crucified. My old rule of sin. And Christ has come. All over my life, He is working with me and in me. So I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I'm living, yet it's not I, it's Christ that's living in me. My old ways of no drums are gone, and when dawn comes to me, I'm now able to play, yet it's not I, it's dawn playing in me, with me. My old way is gone in Christ. Now, as Don and I are playing the drums, any mistakes are my mistakes. Don knows how to play. Any mistakes are my mistakes. And when Christ comes to us, any mistakes that we make in our living is our fault. Any mistakes that I make when I'm playing the drums is my fault, not Don's. But think about this, with Don helping me and moving me around and positioning me, the mistakes are mine, but how many mistakes is Don keeping me from making? The mistakes are mine when it comes to Christ, but how many in Christ, how many mistakes and sins is Christ keeping you from? And it's not only that, but as dawn comes to me, I would be without him an embarrassment, I'd be a mess, it would be ugly. But when he comes to me, I have great confidence because now his strength, his skill, his mastery has become mine. And I have great confidence because he is working in me with me. And brothers and sisters, the same way with Jesus Christ, I can have this faith that verse 20 is talking about. I can have confidence because it is Christ living in me. He's the newness. We talk about the Christian life and a lot of us, we just kind of blow through the Christian life. We flop through the Christian life. We're so weak in the Christian life. We are a mess so often in the Christian life. We try to ground it out. I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying to live the Christian life. And I get it. But actually, if you look at this text, my old ways have been crucified with Christ. I am living, yet not I. It's Christ that lives in me. It's not so much you living the Christian life, It's Christ at work in you, living His life through you. That's why you're different. That's what makes you a new creation. It was Augustine that was a rascal. St. Augustine was, before his conversion, he was promiscuous. One time he was walking along and a prostitute said to him, Augustine, it is I. And Augustine said, yet it is not I. When the world comes and Satan comes and all that brokenness, all of that temptation, all of that sin that's around us when it comes, what we ought to do is answer with, it is not I, but Christ who lives in me. What does this look like? What does the life that Christ works in us look like? Well, you see what it looks like in verse 20. The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. And when Christ is working in us, when Christ is at work moving us, moving our hearts, our minds, our emotions, our lives, when he is moving us, we will be people that love and give. We will be people just like Christ who loved me and gave himself for me. I will start to love like he does. Because Jesus loves, I begin to love. And because Jesus is a giver, I become a giver. And so as we would close, brothers and sisters, this really is fundamental to our Christian lives, to our sanctification. It's not keep grinding it out, muster it out, and do all that you can. It's, oh Christ, fill me and work in me so that I live your life. I live the Christian life by the Son of God who empowers me. That's what Paul is saying. My brothers and sisters, we have been crucified with Christ. We live, yet it's not I that lives. It's Christ that lives in me and in you, which means our family should be radically different because Christ is there in us. Our church and our neighborhood and our job places should be radically different because Christ shows up in you. He represented you at the cross, and now we represent him every day. He's with us wherever we go. May the Lord give us grace. Father, bless it to us through Jesus our Lord. Amen.