I hope that you have brought your Bibles to church this morning. You will need them, first of all, in Galatians, midway through the New Testament, and then a bit later on in Romans and John. Please have your Bibles at hand all throughout the service this morning, as we shall be turning from place to place in the Word of God. I want you to read with me, first of all, beginning in Galatians 2, verse 20. Galatians 2, verse number 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet, not I, but Christ liveth 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. I do not frustrate, thwart the grace of God. For if righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should believe a lie, that you should obey not the truth, the same thing. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you. This only would I learn of you. Receive ye the Spirit, that is, were ye converted, saved, by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. Are ye so foolish, having begun, been born again, in, by the Spirit? Are ye now made perfect, brought to completion, maturity, by the flesh, by yourself? And once again, verse 20 of Galatians 2. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth 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. I believe that Christianity is the thinking man's religion. There are some unique mystics that are particularly of the Christian ethic. Consider, for example, that it was only Jesus Christ that claimed to be the Son of God. No prophet. Mohammed, Buddha, no prophet ever claimed to be the Son of God. They said, I am a prophet of God, but only Christ said, I am the Son of God. Now, if I told you I was the Son of God, you would say one of two things. Either I was crazy, or I was a liar, one of the two. No one who has carefully examined the life and integrity and teachings of Jesus Christ has ever said either of these two things of the Son of God. He is unique, but his uniqueness is not stopped there. Furthermore, the genius of the Christian life is that this God -man really relives himself and his life in me. I do not live. I have been crucified with Christ. But I am yet alive. Nevertheless, I am still living. How? Christ is reliving his life in me. And that is the genius of Christianity. Every other philosophy, every other ideology, every other religion offers a set of precepts by which men ought to live. It gives us teachings that we are to follow and tells us to do our best to live up to them. But in Christianity, it is not hard to live the Christian life. It is utter foolish to think that sinful flesh could struggle and strive to live up to the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, to keep the teachings of the Sermon of the Mount, to live up to all that the law mirrors to us that we ought to be. It cannot be done. Jesus Christ says the Christian life is not a struggle. And Paul affirms, I do not even live. I am not even trying to struggle. I have been crucified. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me. And no man fully understands Christianity until he understands that, that it is not what I do, it is my life given up for him. I have traded all that I am for all that he is. Yes, he lives in me. He walks through me. He speaks through me. I am dead, but yet I am alive to Christ. He came to this world for 33 years. He showed men how they ought to live, but man on either side of Calvary had been totally inept and unable to live as Christ lived or as he taught that men should live. Then he died on the cross and shed his blood and opened up a race of grace through which all would come might be partakers of his nature, says the word of God. Then he went back to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit, came again if you please in the Holy Spirit, and now takes up the work of reliving his life through us. We do not do it. We are not to try to do it. It simply cannot be done. The Christian life is Christ reproduced and living in us. It is the Christ life for my life and is appropriately named the exchanged life. Now look with me once again in our text, and we find two divisions, two important words that we need to remember. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet I am not living, yet it is not me that lives. There is, first of all, the crucifixion of the self -life. There is, secondly, the substitution of the Christ life. I willingly allow myself to be crucified. I willingly exchange what does not exist in me anymore for the new indwelling existent life of Christ. Once again, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I. The crucifying of the old life. The crucifixion of the self -life. Secondly, the substitution of the Christ life. The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. Two words. First of all, for us to understand the crucifixion of the self -life, we must understand the termination of the self -life. It is a life that is substituted in its deceased condition. We take off the old, we put on the new. We reject the old, we appropriate the new. Now, to understand crucifixion, we must begin with condemnation. For God never crucifies what he has not condemned. He never brings determination what he has not judged. And the Bible tells us that God coming in the likeness of man came to condemn sin in the flesh. Our sinful nature, our fleshly nature, the inherent natural man is at war, rebellion with God, and is judged of God. Now, how does God come in Christ to do this? Turn with me to Romans 8, if you will, please, chapter 3. Romans 8, verse 3. You see, the law was never intended to save. And all of the Jewish people in the world keeping all of the laws can never be saved. And all of the Catholics trying to go to do their good works can never be saved. And all of the Baptists keeping the commandments of Christ and teachings of the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount thereby cannot be saved. For by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified because God does not accept sinful flesh trying to live up to a sinful, a sinless law. Now look, so then what the law could not do, Romans 8, 3, in that it was weak, it became weakened through the flesh because of us, because of our ineptness and inability to keep the law. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. Why? That the righteousness of the law might be completed, fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. You see, the problem is law. The reason of salvation is law. God has established a law. He runs his universe on laws. He has moral laws. He has spiritual laws. He has physical laws. And if you break the physical laws of God, if you defy the law of gravity, eventually you'll die. If you defy the laws of inhalation, you will die. If you defy the laws of the chemical makeup of a healthy body, you will die. You cannot break God's laws. The lungs must have air, and when they are filled with water, you break God's law and you die. And when we have broken the moral laws of God, our world will die. That's why we have the rebellion and the anarchy and the sin and the rotting society that we live in, because we have broken the laws of God and we're reaping what we sow. Now, God cannot and will not forsake his law. He has laws. You see, God is holy. God is righteous. God is perfect. God is a God of perfection. But man is unholy, unrighteous, and imperfect, and has no relationship and no concourse with God. Consequently, the law which stands in the way, God's holiness, which man cannot live up to, must be dealt with. And so the Bible tells us that God dealt with the law, the law of perfection, the law of what God expects, the law of approachability with God, which we were severed from because of our sin through Jesus Christ. He was the propitiation for our sins. He was the answer to the law. He was the fulfillment and the embodiment of the law. Now, let me explain it. First of all, he was the embodiment of the law. He was perfection. God said, here is what man ought to do, and no man save one. Jesus Christ ever did it. He was the totality of the law embodied in absolute perfection. Thusly, he became the connecting link between myself and God. There had to be a God -man, someone part God, someone part man, who could deal with the law to satisfy the needs of the flesh and the righteousness of God, that someone was Jesus Christ. He was the embodiment of the law. And everywhere that he went, the law went. Everywhere that he was, the law walked. When Jesus Christ walked among sinful men, men who did not even know they were sinful, became exceedingly guilty over their sin because the white purity of the righteousness of Christ, the law embodied in a man, exposed sin. And so he was the living, walking, breathing embodiment of the law. Peter fell in his presence and said, Lord, depart from me, for I am a man of unclean lips. And no man has ever come to God through Christ who has not, first of all, been exposed to the embodiment of perfection of the law and thereby come under conviction because of his own failure in light of his perfection. But he was the exposition of the law. That is, the completion of the law. And in every conceivable way, he dealt with the problem of God's law of righteousness, which we could not fulfill, which was the barrier between us and God. He was the exposition of the law. He didn't make it easier. He said, I come not to cancel one jot or tittle of the law. I come to dot the I's. I come to cross the T's. I am the exposition, the fruition, the completion, the fulfillment of the law. He didn't make it easier. He made it worse. He didn't make it better. He made it harder. He said, you have heard of them of old time that it has been said that if a man kills another man, he is to be put to death. Thou shalt not kill. Well, then he says, never mind taking a knife and driving it into his breast. Never mind killing the man. Never mind plummeting a dagger into his heart. You just hate your brother and you've committed murder already. And he adds, you have heard of them of old time. It has been said that whosoever committeth adultery has broken the command of God. He says, I go a step beyond that. I am the fulfillment of the law. I do not break that law. I am the exposition, the fruition of it. And I add to you that if a man so much as looketh on a woman to lust, and by that token, if a woman looketh upon a man to lust after him, they have committed adultery already in the heart. But there was another problem. Law meant penalty. And Jesus Christ bore that. For he was as well the execution of the law. The sentence of the law was death. The wages of sin was death. The thou shalt nots of God were carrying a sentence of death. and so someone had to die. And so Christ not only revealed the law, Christ not only fulfilled the law and amplified the law, He bore the penalty of the law. Judaism was all entangled in a thousand encumberments. They must come to the right altar by the right priest with the right sacrifice at the right time, but Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, was the altar, was the priest, and was the sacrifice. And in time on the cross, He took the execution of the law, for God could not set laws and then not punish them that break the laws. For you see, our God's glory was at stake. His word was at stake. His holiness was at stake. And so He had to experience the sting of death. Now, for us to understand the termination of the self -life, we must realize the condemnation of the self -life, about which I have been speaking, that God in Christ condemned sin in the flesh, but then the crucifixion of the self -life. For what God judges, He destroys. For what God condemns, He terminates. So I see that in this self -life, I am condemned. Now, the Bible says, I am crucified with Christ. Listen again to what Paul says. I am crucified with Christ. The more literal rendition is, I have been crucified with Christ. It is done. It is a finished reality. It is, first of all, a judicial fact to be experienced. It is a fact. It is a fact. It is a fact. Reckon this in your mind. Christ died on the cross for me. We have accepted that by faith, but we must accept by the fact that Christ lives through me. You see, for Jesus Christ to be my substitute in death entails the fact that He must also be my substitute in life. Oh, foolish Galatians, says Paul, having been begun by the Spirit, having started this Christian life, having been born of the Spirit of God, are you now brought to spiritual maturity by striving? No. It's not a struggle. And when I understand this, when I accept it as a judicial fact, it is a reality. I am dead. I have been crucified with Christ. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He opened up the federal head of a redeemed race of His grace that would be saved through faith in the blood of the cross. And all who become partakers of His life are partakers of His death. Those that are partakers of His death are then partakers of His life as well. It's Calvary reenacted. And I must establish in my fact that it is a judicial fact, and literally and simply and consistently believing this fact can and will change my life. Just coming to a comprehension of that, that my desires and my wishes and my wills and what I would do are dead. When I realized that I died in Christ, with Christ on the cross many years ago, it changed my whole life. Now there are many parts of the self -life that yet to have, have come under the sentence of God, that have yet in my own life to come under the execution of God. But there are some that already have. We grow daily in grace. You do not pastor a church in a metropolitan area of Oklahoma City or Houston. People know you without having those who criticize you. And letters come oftentimes. And every Monday morning, I have a little bonfire there on my desk. Some of them just burn, you know. Oh, I get it from the right, and I get it from the left, from those down the middle. And I just fall on my knees and say, thank you, Lord. I'm glad they don't know how bad I really am. You see, I don't care. I died. It doesn't matter. It's Christ that lives his life in me. When I understand this, the second thing is that this judicial force becomes an effectual power. An effectual force. when i comprehend that when in the daily realm of experience the old man the old flesh the old me starts to come back merely acknowledging in my life i am dead to sin i am dead to self i am dead to the flesh that power has no power over me then it becomes an effectual force released in my life to put down the flesh but i must accept it as a force because that is the soul basis upon which the spirit of god releases it as a force in your life having accepted it as a fact you're going to have to grasp it you're going to have to comprehend it you're going to have to come face to face with a great theological truth that you are dead you were crucified with christ you say i don't want to be dead i want to live they that through the flesh of the spirit have mortified the deeds of the flesh shall live that's the way you live by death that's why he said seek me first and you'll have the physical things of the world but by seeking them you may lose them and your own soul reckon this in your mind that you have been crucified understand it go over and over day after day after this is a reason you may have got married they shall be judged or ex answer, a kind word, an apology comes through. That's Calvary again. That's Christ living in me. That's what Christianity is all about. Now, the last word is this, the substitution of a Christ life. Before I can receive the life of Christ within me, there must have come to the time that I have experienced by constantly affirming the fact and understanding it in my heart that I have experienced the crucifixion of the self life, then I can experience the substitution of the Christ life. It is to give up all that I am for all that he is. It is to exchange my defeat for his victory, my poverty for his riches, my frustration for his fulfillment, my restlessness for his boundless joy. And it is done in faith. I have accepted everything in the word of God by faith. I was saved by faith. I accepted by faith the fact that Christ died for me. I now accept by faith that Christ lives in me. And it is done in faith. I have accepted everything in the word of God by faith. I was saved by faith. I accepted by faith the fact that Christ died for me. I now accept by faith that Christ lives in me. And believing that has become a power in my life, more fully realized and understood in these five days as I prepared this sermon for today that has changed my life. I confess to you that the work of our Lord in Wichita, Kansas is not the most prosperous in the world. It has been a struggle. It's not been easy. About Tuesday night when God began to give me this sermon, I went home and I quit struggling and I said, it's your baby. I didn't die for them. This is not my city. Oh God live in me. Do what you want to be. Let me be your Western Union boy. Let me deliver your telegram. Just do what you want to do through you. I saw new things begin to happen. We've had more happen the last three nights than the first six or seven put together. I found it in my own life, a calm, a peace, when I understand I'm dead. I do not exist. Christ lives in me. He is reproducing his nature in me every day. The exchange life. Two last words. To understand the receiving of the substituted life of Christ for my crucified life, I need two things. One is an appreciation of the Christ life, and the other is the appropriation of the Christ life. See, I've been studying. The appreciation of the Christ life. Who is this life that lives in me? Do I really need Him? First of all, it is a divine life. Peter said it like this, we are partakers of the divine nature. First time I bought a house, it was in Tulsa. It's a little $9 ,000 house, $9 ,500. I put up $500 when I signed the papers. I said, what's that for? They said, that's earnest money. I said, and? They said, well, when the deal closes, you only pay $9 ,000. And that $500, the earnest goes on the whole. It's a part of the real thing. The Bible says the Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance. You sing a little popular song called, God, a little bit of heaven. I got a little bit of heaven. I have the down payment, a part of the real thing. Christ living in my life. And just believing this has released a power in my life with a calm and a composure and a direction and a new peace and power that you wouldn't believe. It will in anyone's life. It means that down in the ghetto or on the campus or behind the pulpit or behind the desk or in the office or in the high school, wherever I have, I have no problems. There will be nothing placed on me that Christ is not demanded to solve. They are his problems. They are his bills. It's his life. It's his church. It's Christ. It's Calvary all over again. And I need an appreciation of this divine life that lives in me. Turn quickly to Romans 1, 4. Romans 1, 4. Hurry now. We're about out of time. The Methodists are getting ready to come on the air and I've got to get off. Romans 1, 4. Jesus Christ was declared to be the Son of God with power. According to the spirit of holiness. By the resurrection of the dead. Now that word horizoned, that word declared is horizoned, exalted, raised up. He's the Son of God with power. He's the Son of God with holiness. He's the Son of God with resurrection life. He lives in me. And this, this is not a dead authoritative dictatorship. This is life. This is a live relationship. Myself willingly giving up for himself. Christ reliving in me. It's a divine life. It is a dependent life. I've understood fully only recently another new thing. Jesus Christ lived a dependent life. He lived in utter dependency upon the Father. And I must live in utter dependency on me. Did it ever occur to you why Jesus Christ prayed all night? Because he had to pray all night. When Christ came to this world, listen closely. He was not acting as God. He was acting as man. He limited himself to the abilities of mankind. He took up on himself no reputation. Thought it not something desired to be equal with God. He became like a man formed in the fashion of sinful man. If that was not the case, if he did not wrestle with temptation, if he was not fraught with problems, as am I, then the incarnation was a force. Jesus Christ was a man for 33 years. Now, to understand that, turn quickly. John 6, 57. John 6, 57. Listen to the word and the testimony of our Lord himself. John 6, 57. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me or partaketh of me, even he shall live by me. Now, let's run that by again. As I live by the Father. He didn't live of himself. He had no innate, inherent powers to do anything he did in heaven he does now but he didn't on earth he got that power by god else explain this why did he say these works that i do shall ye do and greater he said you can do all of this and even more we can we have printing presses jet airplanes radio television we can do more if we live by him as he lived by his father it was a dependent life i turn also over to john 5 19. john 5 19. then answered jesus and said unto them verily verily i said to thee the son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the father do the son can do nothing of himself turn to john 14 10. john chapter 14 verse number 10 believest thou not that i am in the father john 14 10 and the father in me the words that i speak unto you i speak not of myself but the father that dwelleth in me he doeth the works he worked not on him of himself he lived not of himself he spoke not of himself he did what he did by the power of his father he said what he said by the word of his father he chose it that way he came to be one of us for 33 years and he says what i do i do in my father and ye can do nothing unless you do it in me that's why he said without me you can do nothing contraction of two words no thing meaning a thing that does not exist that's what you can do without christ that's what you are without christ that's how well you can sing without christ that's how well you can eat without christ that's how well you can sell without christ that's how well you can live without christ you are a thing that does not exist nothing now it is a life of total dependency on him one must have a an appreciation of of the substituted life for when man tried to substitute himself for his self he fell in eden but the apostle paul granted added the grand and glorious exclamation of the new testament thank god i can do all things you say paul was a bragger through christ which strengtheneth me sure he bragged i wouldn't give you a man dying for a man that had a wife he wouldn't brag on or a car he couldn't brag on or a power from heaven he couldn't draw on brother i can't like paul and this church can't like paul god do anything but it is through christ who strengthens us as christ lived through his father who strengthened him it was a divine life and a devoted life it is the crucifixion of the self -life the substitution of the christ life it comes by condemnation of the self and then crucifixion of the self believing it acting on it as a life of perpetuosity it goes on and on not an act wants to be done it is a way of life for which we commit ourselves christ living through me and just believing it releases a force and a power in your life that changes you the substitution of the christ life you need an appreciation and an appropriation to believe it to have it is one thing experience it as something else to release it as something else an appropriation of that substituted christ life to appropriate what is in us a man from south africa went to england he bought a 35 000 rolls royce he was a very wealthy man he did not think much of it because he thought the car was worth the price and he paid it he got the papers he said to the salesman i would like to know some things about the car how it runs how it works how it operates everything about it he gave him the information he showed him what the car would do he told him all about it he gave him some statistics he said i want to know please sir the horsepower the salesman said sir i'm sorry we do not release the horsepower of a Rolls -Royce. He said, I have bought a $35 ,000 Rolls -Royce. I demand to know. Yes, sir. He went back and he looked through his files. He went through all of his records. He could find no such information. And he sent a cable. Sending the cable, he gave the description, the serial number. He gave everything about it, all the details, and said, request to know the horsepower of this Rolls -Royce. Just about an hour, an hour and a half later, came back the telegram. One word, adequate. That's all you need to know. He's adequate. There hath no temptation. That does not mean merely the enticement to do evil. It means problem, tribulation, difficulty, adversity. That is not common to all men. Jesus Christ faced every problem you do. He's adequate. He's adequate. He's adequate. Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord. Oh, to be lost in thee. Oh, that it might be no longer I. Christ lives in me. He's adequate. He's adequate. Adequate. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, this day we pray that we shall open our hearts in faith to the Christ whose life substituted for our selflessly crucified, judge, condemned, given up, self -life in all things, in all situations, is adequate. May we believe it. May we begin to act upon it and feel and sense and daily experience the refreshing power that comes because of it. In Christ's name we pray. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Heads are bowed. Eyes are bowed. Amen. Amen. Thank you.