Sin Got You Down

As a believer, is your life with God more like an elevator, where it's up and down with no consistency? One week, you're on the top floor in the penthouse suite, enjoying wonderful intimacy and communion with your master. Then incredibly, the next week, or even the next day, you fall into sin. Down you go, to the very basement of guilt and despair.

Where oh where is the victory? Where is the consistency? Where is the joy? Sin has got you down, sin's got you down again, and you feel like such a traitor to the Lord Jesus. And you read a verse like Galatians 2.20, and you don't know what to do with it. Galatians 2.20 declares, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

In 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. And we read that verse, and we agree with it in our mind, but we don't know what to do with it in a practical sense in our Christian walk. It's like a maze where once we enter, we get all turned around and we can't find a way out.

We wonder why we can't live the Christian life the way it's meant to be lived. It seems too high, too far, and out of touch to be really known. The best we can do is just limp along in a life of inconsistency where our hearts are right.

We want to do the right thing. We want to be pleasing to God, but we have this body, this nest of vipers slithering every way and everywhere when we don't want to. We can relate to the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7, but the evil which I would not that I do.

We see how powerful and influential our rune nature is, for it is as if God's word is describing us personally when Paul writes, But I see another law in my members, worn against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. And we hang our heads in shame at our seemingly inability to live above sin. No matter how many promises and vows we make to God, we're done with it forever.

We're brought under its power eventually, and down we go again. Finally, we cry in desperation with Paul, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? Unfortunately, there is a dearth in our pulpits today on the doctrine of the exchanged life, which is at the very heart of Galatians 2.20. Many pastors can't teach on the life of victory because they're struggling with victory themselves, but because we have a rune nature with a bent toward sin, there must be a higher power needed for us to have victory over sin. Left to ourselves, on our own volition, we will fail every time.

So what can we do? Fortunately for us, God has already given us what we need to live for Him in a life pleasing to Him. For Christ Jesus not only died for the penalty of sin, His death and shed blood is sufficient for power over sin. As we applied the remedy for sin when we came to Christ savingly, so too we can appropriate the necessary power here already available by the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit-filled life is an absolute necessity to live a life of consistency for God, a life of holiness unto the Lord, but it's not accomplished by any means of our own determination. For it is not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, sayeth the Lord of hosts. Well, let's take a look at that, friends.

Let's take a look at God's Word in Galatians 2.20 once more. I am crucified with Christ. Yes, this calls for a denial of the flesh.

This brings us over to Christ's teaching to His disciples. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. This statement of the Apostle Paul, I am crucified with Christ, is a reference to what Jesus taught.

It's a taking of the old man to the cross and dying there. But although we agree with this intellectually, we still stumble over it. We attempt to nail ourselves up there time and time again, but we keep crawling off.

But we fail because we fail to realize you can't live on a cross any more than you can live the Christian life in the flesh. It's impossible. One cannot live on a cross.

It's an instrument of death. You go there to die. That's why it's crucial in our understanding of this verse not to place the emphasis on I am crucified, but to make the centralized thought, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

It's the exchanged life. It's the life of God in the soul of man. An experiential knowledge of God lived out in the flesh through the very power of God by his Holy Spirit.

Paul even declares this fantastic truth when he says, I live by the faith of the Son of God. Paul answers the question of Romans 7, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus our Lord. And in Romans chapter 8, we see liberty and victory through Christ Jesus.

There is now no condemnation of them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. So this whole principle, friends, found in Galatians 2.20, can be entered upon in our walk with Jesus.

For it's Christ, the Christ, who by his Spirit lives in me, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that gives me power over sin. The power is not found in my determination or any part of my good resolutions. Apart from Christ, I have no power over sin.

It is Christ who now lives in me. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I hope this little message has been some encouragement to you, friends, and some help to you.

Let us pray. O great God, through the blood of that dear Son, Jesus, we come unto you now, Lord, and we ask that you make your holy word from Galatians 2.20. O great God, make it a reality in our life. Let each of us know your power over sin to live a life pleasing to thee, in consistency to you, Lord.

O we hunger for a life of consistency, but we can't live the Christian life in our own power. We need you, Lord. We need your holy ghost power.

We need it personally. We need it corporately. We need it in our churches.

Through sin and compromise, we've grieved your spirit away from our sanctuaries, from our personal lives. We need you, Jesus. We need you.

We need the same power of your resurrection in our lives come within our hearts this hour in your all-conquering power and share your resurrection in our heart. Give us a life of consistency unto thee, O Lord. Grant us a personal revival.

Give us revival in our churches across the land. O send a spiritual awakening to our nation that our nation will fear God and return to thee. I pray for our young people today, Lord.

Great God, get a hold of this pagan generation. Save them, Lord. Point them to Jesus, to the blood of Christ.

The only remedy is sin. We need you. We need your power.

We pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.