The Exchanged Life | Galatians 2:20 | Justin Leitch

Amen. Well, a couple years ago, my wife and I started the process of buying a new to us car. We had a third kid on the way and the two seats in the back weren't gonna be able to fit three seats in that back row. So we had to find a new car. Actually, while my wife was in the postpartum room, after having Lydia, our third child, I hopped across the street and bought us this car.

We had to bring home our baby in style, right? Gotta get a new one to take her home. So we got home, we took this car home, and unfortunately after that, I took it to the mechanic, asked them to give it a once over, let us know what we're dealing with. And he came back and had some bad news. He said, justin, you made a horrible decision.

Your car is rotting from the inside out. The frame is just eaten by rust, and it's like a cancer that's just going to destroy this car in the next couple of years. So I was like, all right. Any good news? He said, no.

So I was like, all right. At this point, I have a couple of options. I can spend the next three to five years, however long this car has to last, working really hard to improve this car and make everything I can about at work, you know, clean the salt out of the rust so it doesn't spread any further. Maybe take it to get some treatments. There's something I learned about where you could get it sealed to stop the kind of the corrosion of the rust from moving forward.

So that was an option. But there was another option. CarMax offers a 30 day money back guarantee. It's not lost on me that many of you UNC fans may be wishing that that existed for head coaches too soon here. All right, but.

So of course I take advantage of this money back guarantee. I take the car back, drop it off, we get a new one, similar make, similar model, but without rotting from the inside. Right. Rather than improving the car, we exchanged it. All right?

And that is what we are going to see today in Galatians 2:20 that following Jesus is all about all right. Following Jesus is not about your life improved. Following Jesus is about your life exchanged. All right? Following Jesus is not about your life improved.

It's about your life exchanged. As we were praying through what passage or verse to teach from on this grand opening day, we reached out to a couple mentors and friends. You know, when you're walking through a book of the Bible, which will be our normal pattern, it's kind of easy. You get to the next thing you Teach that passage. This I have, you know, the 66 books.

I'm like, I don't know where to start. What do we do? And so some of the advice that we got was, hey, what's a verse that's been meaningful to you? A life verse? Or what's a verse that really shows why you planted this church and took this step of faith?

And right away, when a couple of people gave that advice, Galatians 2:20 came to mind. Now, this verse has been a life verse of mine from early on when I started following Jesus. And I think as we walk through, looking at it today, you'll see that it is the heart behind King's Church. So go ahead and look at Galatians for us, then we can go ahead and jump in. It says this.

I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. All right, this short verse packs a real punch, right? It reminds all of us who are followers of Jesus something that we need to be constantly reminded of again and again.

What I mentioned earlier, it reminds us that the Christian life is not about try harder, do better and a new program of self improvement. It reminds us that the Christian life is about trusting harder. It's about resurrection, power flowing through us from Jesus. It is about exchange. All right, the message of the gospel, the message of Christianity is not Jesus cheering you on, handing you a bottle of rust remover and saying, fix up that life.

The message of the Gospel is that Jesus takes your broken and rotting life and you get his perfect one. All right, here's the challenge though. Here's the difficulty. This is the difficulty. Every one of us who follow Jesus and have heard the message of the Gospel and believed it, you know those words.

I remind you, you know that's the answer. But there is a gravitational pull in every one of us, even though we know we have access to the exchanged life to start again living the self improvement life, right? Have you been there? Have you walked on that exhausting treadmill of seeking to build your own record and reputation before God rather than remembering the Gospel. It has been settled.

I have been crucified with Christ, but we go back again and again to the mentality of self improvement. I think we all struggle with this in one way or another, but here's just a few symptoms to kind of peg if you struggle with operating from this self improvement mentality in your faith. One thing that might pop up in your life is that you feel close to God when you perform well spiritually and you feel distant and disapproved when you fail, as if God's love was something that you had to earn again each and every day. Or maybe when you sin, your response is overwhelming and crushing guilt, and then you promise to try harder and you get trapped in a cycle of recommitment and burnout again and again. Maybe your spiritual life feels like a heavy list of chores to do rather than a joyful relationship that you get to walk in.

I know as a professional Christian, that's a struggle that hits close to home, right? Oftentimes when I clock out of work or preparing a message rather than going to rest in God, I want to get far away from him and just turn on Netflix on the couch to relax. He feels like an employer or a CEO, a taskmaster rather than a heavenly father I can enjoy. Or maybe it looks like this in your life. Your spiritual successes don't lead to humility and gratitude, but instead it leads to a feeling of pride and superiority as you compare yourself to others.

This gravity toward the self improvement mentality exists in all of us. And actually, it's exactly why Galatians 2:20 was originally written. You see, this verse was not just the apostle Paul waxing philosophical about whatever came to mind, but he was writing into a context and in the church in Galatia that was falling under the temptation of this false teaching. There was a group of people there who actually came in to intentionally teach this false idea that Jesus is not enough. But you need to have Jesus plus extra obedience to the law based on your own strength and effort in order to impress God.

Paul heard about it and he wrote this letter to correct them. And he was not happy. Galatians 3 the couple of verses just to show you how he's feeling. In this verse he says, o foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It says bewitched in the Bible.

It's right there. Who has bewitched you? It's before your eyes. You saw that Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified. He asked him a question.

He said, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? He says, are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now going to leave that behind and be perfected by faith? You were saved through an exchange? And are you now going to believe this false teaching that says you have to operate by self improvement? Don't move past grace to rely on your flesh.

You weren't just saved by the Gospel to start a self improvement regimen, be saved and continue to walk in the exchanged life. All right. This false teaching was no small joke. It didn't just lead astray some weak minded new converts. But actually in Galatians chapter two we see that the apostle Peter, the rock that Jesus said the church was going to be built upon, that one, he caved to the peer pressure from these false teachers, fell into a self improvement mentality.

Him it says that before certain men they came from James, Peter was eating with the Gentiles and the freedom of the exchanged life. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself fearing the circumcision party, right? He was overwhelmed by the false teaching. He was saved. He was an apostle for goodness sake.

And though he did not ultimately reject the gospel, he left behind the freedom and joy of the exchanged life in Christ to live under the self improvement law abiding rigid instructions of these false teachers. Every single one of us has to remember again and again that following Jesus is not about your life improved, it's about your life exchanged. All right. Galatians 2:20 is not just a theological statement, it's the antidote to performance based self improvement religion. Galatians 2:20 is the bridge that connects the historic doctrines of our faith.

That Jesus died on the cross for us brings us down into the real day to day life. And in this verse, Galatians 2:20, Paul is gonna give us three postures to live in to enjoy the fullness of this exchanged life. So that's where we're gonna head with the rest of our time. We'll look at the posture one here. First posture number one he gives us is you have to die.

All right? You have to die. It starts, I have been crucified with Christ. So what is the Apostle Paul writing here? Very clearly he is alive and breathing to write this letter to the Ch.

It exists. So he is not physically dead, but there is a sense in which he has died. So what does that mean? Just the verse before tells us. It tells us that he is talking about a death to the law with Christ so that he can live to God.

I have been crucified with Christ. Here means that through Christ, through faith in Him, I am dead to the law. Alright, so in the book of Galatians there are two ways that we can relate to the law that Paul talks about. The first way to relate to the law is we can relate to the law of God by using it as a means to prove ourselves before God. All right.

This is the self improvement mentality with the law. It's kind of a teacher's pet mentality with the law, right? Look God, how great I am at obeying the law. You should pay attention to me and like me. Give me some bonus points.

The problem with this though, as you know, if you've read your Bible much before, is that no one can live according to the law in a way that impresses or pleases God. We may think that we do a pretty good job compared to other people, but on the grand scale, we fall short and we cannot follow through on all of God's commands. Just shooting straight. Isaiah 54. 6 says that our most righteous deeds are filthy rags when we bring them to God, right?

We are corrupt and twisted. We like to think about Me, myself and I first. We have this pool in our hearts always to be concerned with ourselves. And Romans 3 sums it up. The apostle Paul there says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Using the law to prove yourself is like trying to long jump the Grand Canyon. You might be able to jump a little further than the next guy, but in the end we are all going to fall short. When you try to use God's law to prove yourself, all that does is leave you with a long record of sin and of failure. I think some of you here tonight have not been back to church for a while because that's how you felt, right? Every time I come to church, I'm reminded of my sin, my failure and my weakness.

Every time I go back to church, people are singing and clapping and celebrating, but I leave with a pit in my stomach because I'm just reminded of how far short I fall, right? This first relationship to the law is how we exist apart from Jesus. But it is just the first half. It is true, it is a reality. But it is also the bad news that sets up the good news in the scriptures.

In the book of Galatians, there's a second way that's introduced to us to relate to the law. And that is what Paul says here. You can die to the law. How does that work? What does it mean to die to the law?

Well, this gets right to the heart of what it means to be a Christian. It gets right to the heart of the Scripture's teaching and of biblical faith. This is what it is all about. This is the gospel. Jesus lived the perfect life that we couldn't live.

He's the one who kept the law perfectly. And then he died the death on the cross that we deserve to die, he paid the penalty that we deserve to pay. The heart of the Gospel is substitution Jesus in my place. So when Jesus died on the cross, he took the debt of your sin on his shoulders, paying it in full. And when you trust in Christ, you died with Christ.

Here's what this means. When you were alive, the law condemned you. And now dead with Christ, the law has no power to condemn you anymore. For example, if I walk out here tonight and get hit by a car and die, Wrightsville beach can't come after me for that parking ticket anymore, right? In the same way, when you die with Christ, the law has no bearing or hold or grip over you anymore.

In Christ, your old debts cannot come after you. Your old record of sin and failure are canceled, gone and paid. When you trust in Christ, God changes the way that he evaluates you. Before he saw you fall short of the law. But now when God looks at you, he counts Jesus righteousness on your behalf and welcomes you as an adopted son or daughter through Christ.

Look at that verse again. I have been crucified with Christ. Alright, the verse here, it's in the present tense. The tense describes a past completed action that has continuing present results. I was crucified with Christ and I still am is kind of what it's getting at.

This is a question that I've struggled with throughout my walk with Jesus. The question is this. What confidence do you have that when you go stand at the pearly gates that God is going to let you in and pat you on the back rather than sending you to the bad place? The grammar of this verse, I have been crucified with Christ is the bedrock of our assurance as followers of Jesus that God will accept you. All right, believers here in this room, hear me.

Your standing does not rise and fall before God day to day based on your good works or your bad works, your good prayers performance or your bad performance. Your standing before God was settled once and for all when God saved you, when he opened your eyes to the truth of the gospel, when you repented of your sin and you trusted in him and you were adopted by him and filled with the Spirit. All right, that is settled once and for all at a time in the past when you believed in Jesus. Paul says here, I have been crucified with Christ in Christ. There is nothing that you can do that would make God love you less.

And there's nothing that you could do that would make God love you more. Because God's evaluation of an acceptance of you are no longer based on self improvement, but exchange. You can overflow in worship and gratitude. Right? Your obedience to God no longer has to be based on fear of a coming judgment, but can be a thankful heart in response to what he has done for you.

All right, when you come in here to worship, when you are in here right now, you don't have to worship based on the week that you had. You don't have to. It is not as if you need to come in here and say, I looked at porn again this week, so I need to cower in the corner and keep my hands in my pockets and hide. You don't have to because your old record of sin and debt are gone. Jesus Christ paid for it.

You can worship with thanksgiving because though your sin still expresses brokenness, God's love is setting on you and he's working his power through you and working out that unrighteousness from your life over time. It's also not as if you led someone to Christ this week. So you can come in here, grab the flags and run up and down the aisles. Whether you had a good week or a bad week. Your standing before God is settled because of what Jesus has done.

So we can come in here and praise and worship him. Because of what Jesus did on the cross for us, our old record of sin and failure are canceled. God receives you today as if you lived the life of Jesus this week if you trust in Him. So whether that looked like practical victory or practical defeat, you can always give thanks and praise to Jesus. Does this mean that God doesn't care if you sin?

No, not at all. It's the opposite what the Bible teaches, that true righteousness and holiness that springs from the heart actually comes after you experience the freedom of the exchange. When you work through the perspective of self improvement, you might be able to put some sin to death at the surface. But the righteousness that Jesus is looking for in his people, the people who are zealous for good work, that's only created when you know that you've been forgiven by the blood of Jesus and you've been filled by the Spirit living the exchanged life, starts with death. It starts with death to the law, death to our self righteousness, death to our claim that we are good enough on our own.

It's where the exchanged life starts. And this is because the Holy Spirit does not give you power to live first. The Holy Spirit gives you power to die first because he can't raise anything with power that hasn't yet died. Christianity is a faith of resurrection until you die to your self righteousness. You can't truly live until you get to the point of the end of yourself.

You won't give Jesus the full surrender that he deserves. Jesus does not offer improvement for struggling people. Jesus offers exchange and resurrection.

I know there are some of you in here who have been resisting the call to trust Jesus for too long. And I'm here to tell you that the invitation is open. You can stop trying and you can start dying. Lay your deadly doing down down at Jesus feet Stand in him and him alone Gloriously complete, weary, working, burdened one why do you labor so? Cease your doing all was done on a cross long ago I have been crucified with Christ.

The exchanged life starts with death. The next part of the verse, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Posture number two is you have to yield. Yield.

Here's some incredible news. When Jesus saved you and you died to your old self and you were raised to life with Jesus, Jesus did not just save you and send you on to a second chance and say, good luck next time out there though, that would have been incredible and a gift of grace. Actually, Jesus did more than that. He made you a new creation. He filled you with the Holy Spirit, and he prepared your heart to love righteousness and to start honoring God.

So the question here is, what does this new life look like for a believer after we've died? What does this life that's living look like? And I think the best word to describe this new life, what this verse is getting at, is the word yield. I can remember learning the meaning of the word yield very clearly, like it was yesterday. It actually happened with my parents having a small marital argument in the car over traffic.

Who would have thought? We've had a but. So we're driving down the road and as we're merging into different lanes of traffic, you know, my dad's merging in a little too hard that my mom didn't like. And then my mom, if she's merging, it's not quite aggressive enough. And so we get into a conversation about the meaning of the word yield.

Is it go, go, go, or is it wait your turn? You know, I actually don't remember how the conversation played out after that, but I did look up the definition of yield. And yield simply means to give way. All right? Yield means to give way.

And it's a great word to describe what the Apostle Paul is saying in this verse. All right? This is our role as followers of Jesus, when Paul says, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, he's saying, live a life of yielding to Jesus. John 16:7 is one of the hardest to believe verses in all the Bible, all the New Testament. And this is what Jesus told his disciples there.

He said, it's to your advantage, disciples, that I, Jesus, go away. For if I don't go away, the helper, the Holy Spirit, will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. On its face, that statement by Jesus is ridiculous. It's crazy.

Jesus being here would be awesome. If we have potluck meals as a church taken care of, no need to plan, no worries. Just a couple loaves of bread, couple fish, we got it taken care of. Sick kids, have to miss church. Don't worry about it.

Just bring them to Jesus. He'll heal him, you'll be ready to go. We'll be back at it. Jesus being here, it would be awesome for all of you. I would probably be unemployed, but it would be great for everybody else.

But Jesus being here would be awesome. It would be crazy. So why does Jesus tell his disciples that it's better that I leave? He tells them that because he says, for when I go, I will send the Spirit. He says that the Spirit inside you is better even than Jesus beside you.

Why is that? Well, it means that the resurrection power of Jesus has taken up residence in your life. Right? Romans chapter 8 tells us that if you're a follower of Jesus, you've received the spirit. And the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in your body and gives you new power and new abilities that you did not have before.

Jesus deals with sin in the Gospel in a lot of different ways. He deals with the penalty of sin. He deals with the presence of sin in some different ways. But I also want to remind you that he deals with the power of sin. Before you believed in Jesus and received the Spirit, you were unable to not sin.

It was the only choice he had. Romans 14 tells us that everything apart from faith is sin. We didn't trust in Jesus, so we couldn't honor him. The good things that we did were still corrupt by our twisted motivations. Even the good things that we did were kind of advancing the wrong team rather than Jesus team.

So just everything is blanket sin apart from Jesus. That's what he says. But when we receive the power of the Holy Spirit in us and we're a new creation, we have a new ability that we didn't have before. You Know, before you could only sin. Now you have the ability to not sin, right?

As followers do, you get how big of a deal that is. As followers of Jesus, you have a new ability to do what is good and right and true. You have a new ability to walk in righteousness and holiness that you didn't have before. And that's an incredible gift. You know that.

What the people around you need most is a godlier, holier, more faithful, more loving version of your kids need that more than anything else. Your spouse needs that more than anything else. Your co workers, your neighbors need that more than anything else. Because you've been filled with the Holy Spirit, you are now able to be an agent of God's restoring power in the world. All right, because you have the Holy Spirit of Jesus inside you because Jesus went away and he sent the helper.

Now you get to play a part in the kingdom of God in so many different ways. What a vision for marriage. You are a means of grace in the life of your spouse. You are going to make an eternal mark on their soul because you can walk in righteousness more deeply instead of sin. What a vision for parenting.

You are going to raise kids that love and treasure and follow Jesus and launch them into the world as missionaries and disciple makers. And you can do that because you are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. What a vision for work. God has placed you in a workplace where you have relationships with people who are close to you now but far from God. And you might be the closest they ever get to Jesus.

And you have the opportunity to share the hope of Christ with them. And you can do it because you've been filled with the Spirit. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So how do we live this life? Do I just work really hard to improve myself back to that word?

And allowing Jesus to work through you means that you give way day by day, seeking to do good things in the places that God's given you. You don't seek self improvement, but you seek self denial. You don't seek to prove yourself. You seek to get out of the way so that the life of Christ can be lived through you. The Bible describes Christians as an oxymoron, living sacrifices.

Sacrifices are things that are dead, but we are living. It's a moment by moment, yielding to the life of Jesus through us. The invitation of Christianity is an invitation to yield or to deny yourself. And yielding to Jesus, denying the flesh is not an easy thing to do. It is not an easy thing to do.

We swim in a culture where the main command and wisdom of our culture is the exact opposite. Right? The main command of our culture is follow your heart. But the Bible says that our hearts are deceitful. One and second are often conflicted in themselves.

Right? What do I mean by this? On one level, I want buffalo chicken dip a lot. On another level, I want to see my grandkids when they're a little bit older. Right?

They're conflicted. There's a shallow desire and a deeper desire. But that's true in our hearts and so many different ways. It's true in sexuality and gender. It's true in generosity and career.

It's true in friendships and forgiveness. Our hearts are conflicted and it is a lie. It is advice from the pit of hell to say, follow your heart. Right? Feeding your fleshly desires always leads to heartbreak.

It leads to bad decisions. It leads to regrets. The loving God who created you knows the way to true life. He's the good shepherd who is not here to steal, kill and destroy and get a head off of you. He came to lay down his life so that you could find it.

You can trust him. All right? This is the beauty of yielding. We get the joy of knowing that we are safe in God's hands. Elizabeth Elliot summed it up best.

If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back as though it were in peril in his hands, but would be safer in mine. So where do you need to yield today? Where do you need to give way? Maybe it's the prompting of the spirit.

Maybe it's the direction of the word of God. Maybe it's a relationship that you know you shouldn't be in. Maybe it's a habit that you've picked up over time that's become destructive that you gotta get away, yield to Jesus. Maybe there's a sin that you just can't beat. Maybe for you, like for me, it's impatience with your kids, and you don't need to try harder to do it on your own strength.

You don't even need to pray a prayer like, help me be more patient. You need to pray a prayer like this, Jesus, you are so patient with me today. Show your patience through me to my kids for your glory. All right. The second posture of an exchanged life is you have to yield.

Third one, let's keep reading the verse. I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I Live by faith in the Son of God. I don't think this will come as a surprise to any of you, but faith, that word is a big deal in church and for Christians, it's one that we talk about a lot.

Paul was crucified with Christ and now Jesus lives through him. It's not all like, super spiritual and mystical in the clouds, though. Paul says, says in the flesh. I am living by faith. So what is faith?

It's important. What is it? Many misconceptions. Oftentimes we talk about faith as this like pie in a sky, hope in a prayer idea. I have faith that it'll work out.

I have faith that my kids will turn out. I have faith that I'll hit this lottery ticket. There's no substance behind it, there's no truth behind it. But I'm just believing against belief that this is going to work out on my behalf. We were, Bailey and I, we were watching a.

A cop show this week, and they hit that point in the episode where another lead falls apart and it looks like they're not going to solve the crime. One cop, big man, is upset, so he breaks a computer and they're disappointed. And another person walks up to them and said, just have faith, we're going to get them. I'm like, well, the whole point of the episode has told us the calculations and expectations of what is about to happen is you're not going to catch that person. You have no lead, and all you have is dead ends.

But that is often our perception and our use of faith. Good news, that is not the biblical view of faith. Faith is not just winging it on a hope and a prayer. Faith is not even primarily about intellectual belief and evidence. Faith, here's a definition for you is trust without reservation.

Faith means trust without reservation. Very simply, faith means trust. The operating principle of the exchanged life is trust in God. If you are going to live the fullness of the exchanged life that God has for you, you have to trust him. This means taking God at his word and taking your next step that aligns with it.

This means betting your life on the promises of God. So what does trust look like? Trust looks like my kids at the pool who can't swim, standing on the edge and jumping in without fear into my arms. Do they know the calculations and the physics and the dynamics that are going into me catching them and keeping them above the water? No, they don't know every answer.

They don't have it all figured out. But what they do have is a track record of my Faithfulness, being there for them, to care for them and make sure that they don't get hurt. In fact, make sure that they're going to have a great time. So they hearts full of faith jump off the ledge of their control into the arms of their father. Faith looks like Noah, man named Noah in the Bible.

One day God came to Noah and said, without a cloud in the sky, I'm bringing a flood. Start building a boat, right? If Noah uses his personal experience, thinks back across his life about how floods work and clouds work and things, it would make no sense to start building a big boat that he had no hope of moving at that point. Point in time, right? But he had heard stories from his grandparents and his great grandparents about this God who always came through according to his promise.

And so he said, though I might look like a fool, and though there's not a cloud in the sky, I know that God is trustworthy. So when he says, build a boat, I'll do it. And sure enough, there came a day when the rain started to flow. Trust looks like a woman named Kathy on our launch team who lived in Columbia, South Carolina in the same home for the previous launch, 30 years or so, had a great church where she was thriving and connected and had a number of awesome friendships and relationships there, who had no intention of moving to Wilmington, North Carolina to be a part of a church plant or for any reason whatsoever. But as she was praying to the Lord about this next season of her life and how God might use her in his kingdom, God placed an undeniable and unmistakable call on her heart to, to be a part of this church plan.

She believed the promise of God, Matthew chapter six, that as she seeks first God, his righteousness and his kingdom, Jesus will take care of the rest for her, Right? So she bet her life on the promises of God. She took God at his word, took her next step. Now she is serving in meaningful ways to help us make an impact here in Wilmington. That's Noah's story, that's Kathy's story.

But God is not just the God of the Bible stories, and God is not just the God of the person sitting next to you. He's actually inviting you right now to your next step of trust. So the question isn't just what does trust look like, but what does trust look like for you today? Maybe for you, trust looks like finally having that hard, loving conversation you've been avoiding for months. Maybe for you, trust looks like opening your finances and being generous, trusting that God will be your provider and not your paycheck.

Maybe for you, trust looks like forgiving that person who wounded you deeply, not because they've earned it, but because you're obeying God and entrusting them into his hands. Maybe for you as a single person, trust looks like continuing to honor God with your purity even in the midst of a culture that laughs at you that you wouldn't test drive a partner before you married this. Maybe for you as a parent, it looks like loosening the anxious grip that you have on your kid's future and entrusting them to a father who loves them so much more than you. Maybe trust for you looks like the very first step. Maybe it looks like finally admitting that you don't have it all together and the life that you've built on your own terms is leaving you empty.

Maybe it's laying down your doubts and your self reliance and just saying, okay Jesus, I'll trust you. I see the cross. I see your love for me. I see how I fall short and in spite of that, you still loved me. Then I trust you more than I trust myself.

Trust is not a vague feeling. It's a concrete step of obedience in response to the character and the promises of God. Psalm 37:5 is another one of my favorite verses. It says, commit your way to the Lord. Trust in and he will act.

But here's the question. How do we know that when we launch ourselves off of the ledge of our control, how do we know that the Father is going to catch us? How do we know that as we take a step of trust and a step of faith, how do we know that we are going to be taken care of in the arms of a good and loving Savior? Well, I know that God will take care of you. I know that God will take care of me because of the price he paid 2,000 years ago on the cross of Calvary, look back at the verse I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. If you are going to live the exchanged life, you have to be utterly convinced that God loves you more than you could ever imagine. Maybe here today, you're feeling defined by your failures. You're seeing the rust in your frame.

You see the anger, the shame, the addiction, the decisions you've made that you can't correct. You're exhausted from trying to improve a life that's too far gone and too Broken. Or maybe you're on the other side. Maybe God is calling you somewhere that you're scared to go. Maybe God's put a call on your life to take a step of obedience, to move overseas, to take the gospel or to be a part of a church plan in the future, to leave a comfortable career and to step into vocational ministry full time, building his church and his bride.

How do you know that when you jump, God will catch you? Well, it's this. Jesus did not just see your mess and brokenness, but he stepped into it. The Son of God, the Bible says right here, loved me and gave Himself for me. Notice how personal that is.

The cross wasn't a generic event for a faceless humanity. It was targeted for you. As Tim Keller said, we are far more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe. Yet at the very same time we are known, loved and accepted more in Jesus Christ than we ever dared. Hope so.

Look at the cross right? Don't just think about the cross, but look at the cross. See the thorns on the brow of Jesus. That was for your anxious thoughts. See the nails through the hands of Jesus.

That was for the things you've done that you cannot undo. Hear the words from his that was for every time that you have thought I am not good enough. Jesus went to the cross for you. He loved me, gave Himself for me. It's wildly personal.

Put your name in it. That's what Paul did. That's true. Jesus loved me, gave Himself for me. Jesus died on the cross to love and forgive you.

Jesus loved Justin and gave Himself for Justin. The greatest display of life love in the history of the world was laser focused on you. When Jesus went to the cross. It was not just for the world. It was also for all who would repent of their sins and trust in Him.

Jesus went to the cross for you. This love does not just ask for your improvement to kick you into a second chance. It doesn't ask for your performance. It actually invites you you to surrender. A love like this, a death like this, a salvation like this.

The only right response is to fall on our knees and worship him. Following Jesus is not about your life improved. It's not one of a million self improvement models. It is about your life resurrected and exchanged for Jesus. I want to invite you to bow your heads.

Want to just give you a chance to reflect on your own prayerfully consider what the spirit might be putting on your heart and I'll ask you these questions. Are you ready to jump off the exhausting treadmill of self improvement into the arms of a Savior who is ready to catch you. For some of you that's gonna mean trusting in Jesus as your Savior. For the very first time today you can confess your sin and receive his forgiveness. For others of us it's just gonna mean focusing our eyes on the cross.

The gravitational pull of self improvement is strong and it's oftentimes gets into you and you simply need to look at the cross and tell Jesus. Do it now. Tell Jesus again. Today I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Father, fill this room with faith. Stir our hearts with love and affection for you in response to the love that you've shown us. Spirit, open our eyes to your never stopping and never giving up love toward us in Christ. Lead us to worship.

Amen.