Phil: A big part of me is wanting to sit there and listen. So if somebody has something, speak up if the Lord’s really put something on your heart. I’ve had some thoughts as well, and on the surface they don’t sound like they quite fit, but I believe they do. I believe with all my heart that God longs to fill us, longs to share Himself with us and work in and through us. The question is, how do we get from here to there?
And somehow my mind went to something that probably doesn’t sound like it fits at all, but I guess a good place to start is in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, where Paul, before launching into a letter in which he had to deal with a lot of real practical things, had to lay some foundation, had to lay a groundwork. And I believe it’s the same groundwork that the Lord wants to lay in us in a deeper way, certainly in me.
And Paul talks about what his emphasis was when he went to the people. I mean, he didn’t say, Hey, I want to just lay my hands on you and you’re gonna be filled with power. There’s a pathway to that. The pathway to power might be a title. I hadn’t really thought about until the other brother spoke.
But here’s Paul wanting to bring the message and the hope of the gospel to a people. What is it that he emphasizes over and over again? In fact, he says it’s the only thing he emphasizes. Yeah. And so he comes in the beginning of the chapter, I’ll go back to where he got into this.
It says, “And so it was with me, brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom.” So it didn’t come depending on human ability. This wasn’t a matter of learning the right words to say and coming up with, you know, using human eloquence to try to drive them home to people’s minds and hearts. There’s something that has to go way beyond that.
In fact, that gets in the way. You know, I think that’s the biggest thing that I believe the Lord wants us to know that what is it that’s standing in the way of God’s power at work in us? We are. So how do you deal with that? How do we get us out of the way? And this is what Paul was dealing with.
And it goes not just to salvation in the sense that we think of it, just entering into the kingdom of God, but the whole journey between here and there has everything to do with what he’s talking about. There has to be a foundation. There has to be something that literally, well, it’s like the helmet of salvation. It’s the way we think.
My God, you know, Doug was talking about the ideas that are brought in the world today. This world has been taken over by doctrines that come straight outta the heart of Lucifer. They’re designed to block us, to hinder us, to help us see the world through his eyes and not through God’s eyes. But there’s one thing that God wanted to emphasize to these Corinthian believers, and I believe to us, and it’s what Paul’s about to get into.
So, “I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God, for I resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” That’s the whole message. It’s not, come down and we’ll lay hands on you and you’ll get it. There’s got to be this bedrock conviction about the true meaning of what happened at the cross, what it’s all about.
I believe God wants to, as it were, to fit us with a new set of glasses. Satan would provide them. The mention was made of the whole education system, but it’s the whole culture. This culture wants to fit us with glasses that will help to define our world, what it means, what our place is in it, who we are, how we are supposed to conduct our lives, what’s meaning and purpose. All of those things are all defined in natural terms that leave God out of it completely.
And here’s Paul laying a brand new foundation and says, Listen, this needs to be the foundation of everything that I will ever tell you. If you don’t get this, you’re gonna miss everything else. Now, think about Paul, who had come out of a religious background that emphasized what you’re supposed to do and not do. And there was a purpose in that, was there not? The purpose was to let us know that we got a problem. It wasn’t to solve the problem, it was to let us know that we’ve got one.
And so, Paul, what a revelation this was when he saw not only who Jesus was, but what He had done and what it meant. It changed everything in his life. It opened up a pathway to life that did not exist. You can’t keep the law of Moses and have life and have power. There’s gotta be something that goes way beyond that, because again, I’m the one that’s in the way. It’s not God’s problem in the sense that He’s not willing. He is more than willing to share Himself with us, but I’m the one that’s in the way. And He’s got to do something about that.
Well, what did He do? The cross is the center of everything. It absolutely has defined history. It has defined the destiny of every human being on this planet. When Jesus came, He said, “Now is the judgment of this world,” okay? This was absolutely the world on trial and God rendering His judgment, His valuation of the world. He wants us to see what He has done and what He has accomplished at the cross.
So first of all, we need to absolutely have the ability, because if God gives it to us to see what the cross meant, to see, that God was literally rendering judgment on our planet, on everybody, everything that is done, every value that is held here, yes, there are things that maybe in a distant way reflect his character, but this world has been so corrupted that it is beyond saving. God didn’t come here to transform this world into His kingdom. God came to destroy everything.
And what he did on the cross, Jesus died, as we’ve often said in the past, As a representative of this creation. I know that we use the words where, you know, if I be lifted up, I’ll draw all men into me. There’s a deeper meaning to that. He drew up. In the very beginning, all the creation was in Him and He had but to speak it out, we said that recently, but there came a day when this creation needed to be dealt with because it had been absolutely corrupted.
And so He came down and all of that was in effect drawn into Him. He became the very representative, the representative, the embodiment of this creation. And when God poured out judgment upon Him on the cross, something He willingly embraced for us, thank God, when God poured out that judgment, that was God’s judgment against you and me in our natural state. God didn’t look at you and me and say, Well, there’s somebody, there they got some good in them. God’s valuation of every single human being, except Jesus, that’s ever been born, all that society has stood for, all of the ambitions of man, everything.
You know, we are the ones who tend to say, well, this is good and this is bad. We need to see that in the light of the cross. God’s not going through and picking out and sorting out the human race and saying, I’m gonna take this over here, ‘cause this is good. Folks, it is all corrupt. Everything that even looks good is still corrupted. The motivation, the spirit behind it is still absolutely corrupted by sin and we need deliverance. We need deliverance here.
Again, what’s the hold up? What’s holding back God from moving in our midst? It’s us. Oh God, help us. God, help me to see the true meaning of the cross.
You know, I think of young people, we often speak of them, and those of us who are older, obviously, if you got any memory at all, you remember what it’s like. There was a time when we had to make choices in our lives. We had to begin to think about direction and not just go through the, okay, now I’m supposed to do this, now I’m supposed to do that, now I’m growing up, I gotta make some choices.
Do you think maybe, just maybe God wants every young person to have this truth about the cross and what it means so embedded in your minds that you see everything in its light, you see the vanity of this world, you see the vanity of those who think the world is about personal pleasure and what can I do to make myself happy? Happy has nothing to do with anything except circumstances that make me feel good. And oh, how temporary all that foolishness is. God wants us to have something so much deeper than passing circumstances that make us feel good in the moment.
And how many traps does Satan lay for people who pursue happiness in that sense, in a selfish way? Oh God, help us to see when we make the choices that define our lives, who we’re gonna marry, who we’re gonna be with, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna seek? Are we gonna seek after possessions and status in the eyes of others, and pride, and all the things that people seek after so readily, or are we gonna say, Lord, my life in this world, the life that I would possess and live by my choices is defined by that cross?
You already told me what you think about that. That’s not just simply a little interesting religious fact of history. That is something that absolutely, the cross looms over everything about this world. It was a final decision on the part of God. Everything that has happened since has been nothing but the unfolding of what God has already set in motion. There’s not a thing anybody can do to change God’s mind or God’s purpose.
In fact, doesn’t Paul talk about the mentality of how he sees the world and how he sees people? You go over to 1 Corinthians Chapter 5, and you will see where he doesn’t see people just as you would see them naturally. He understood that when Christ died, He died for how many? All. Well, what’s the implication of Him dying for all? Therefore, He says, what? All are dead. All are dead.
Now, some are made alive, but the pathway to life is to embrace what God did as being the right choice for me. He put me to death because I needed to be put to death. Oh, how we are the ones who value people differently. We’ll see somebody in the gutter and somebody who’s doing great charitable things and we’ll try to make this difference between them, but God sees everyone the same.
There’s not one of us here who can look in the mirror and say God has shown me favor because I am something and I am different, I am better than. Oh, the cross, the message of the cross puts us all on exactly the same level of one who needs a savior, one who could never possibly earn our way. I need Him this morning. I need Him. I needed Him to even come to know Him.
Folks, when we come to know Him, isn’t it about dying? Isn’t that what baptism means. When someone confessed Christ and they were openly to profess Him, what did that involve? It involved baptism. What does that mean? That represents my death and resurrection. It means that I am totally identified with what the cross stands for. I embrace its meaning. I embrace my own guilt, my own need. And I am willing in the light of that to lay down this life, to let it go, to understand what God did there. He’s killed me and I deserved to die.
Oh, thank God it doesn’t end there. That’s a doorway into life, into the very purpose of God. Thank God for His mercy. Thank God for everything that He has done. Thank God that there is a hope. But, oh God, when I get up in the morning, I need to remember what the cross is about. Did not Jesus say, If you are gonna follow me, do what? Take up your cross.
See, we’re talking about power this morning, but here’s Jesus saying, You wanna follow me? What does it take? There has to be an instrument of death that we take up every day. That must have sounded strange. I mean, think about when He said this. This was a long time before He went to the cross. And even when He went there, He had told them about it and they still didn’t get it. They forgot what He said. And here He is long before that, or sometime before that, saying, Take up your cross.
Well, they knew what a cross was. It was a Roman method of execution. It was designed to be humiliating and utterly painful. And here He says, Take up your cross and follow me. What was He saying? Did not Jesus deny all that would have come from the life He got from Adam. He allowed Himself to be born in Adam’s family, but He never ever gave expression to that life. And there He was, the sinless son of God. There was an instrument of death that He carried every single day, where He said no, no to self, no to whatever wants to come from Adam’s nature. Yes to God.
Folks, there’s so many people in religion that want power without death, without dying. It doesn’t happen. God wants us to have such a sense of what He did there that it can become the defining helmet. It’s the way we see ourselves. It’s the way we see one another. It’s the way we see the world.
So we don’t get carried away with what’s happening. We’re not dismayed by the news, as bad as it is, and as crazy as some of it is, because we know that God already decided how this is gonna turn out. All we have to do is look at the cross. It’s history, it has happened. God did that. There’s not a thing Satan can do to undo what God has set in motion. His power is absolutely gonna make it happen. The devil knows it and he’s angry. That’s why things are happening.
But oh, we’re seeing the world reject the message of the cross. More and more people are saying, No, I’m going to live my life. I’m gonna live for the values that I see in this world, what I can get out of it. That’s gonna define my thinking in my life. And what happens when people persist in thinking like that and acting like that and making those choices? Sooner or later, these are things we’ve said many times, God takes His hand off.
That’s what’s happening. We’re gonna wind up with people who have embraced the hope of the cross on the one hand, and people who have rejected it, and their destiny is absolutely set by that. Praise God!
Lord, guide this ‘cause I want to get to where this ties in with what’s been said, but think about what He says leading up to those words in 1 Corinthians. I’ll go through this a little bit quickly, but I want to just focus for a moment. In verse 18 of Chapter 1, The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, all right?
So here we have people that just, they shut their minds to the gospel, it doesn’t make any sense to them. But here’s others that have an openness of heart. Somehow God has worked in their heart and they’ve embraced, they’ve recognized, yes, I am in need, I am a sinner. What God did there was just, it was right. I needed somebody to die for my sins. I could not possibly deserve any of His favor.
And what does he say? The message of the cross is the power of God. The message of the cross to us who are being saved. That also reminds us that this is a process. Anybody here needs some saving today? Yeah, there are things that come up in our lives, things we become aware of that perhaps we were not as aware of. And here we are saying, God, I need more power. Lord, I wanna be a better channel.
And what the Lord does to get us to that place, most of the time, is to focus on things that are getting in the way, okay? There’s a channel there, but you got a bunch of rocks in there. And so the Lord wants to refocus our attention on the need.
But I wonder how many times we get bogged down right at this point, Lord, I want more of You. And He shows us the problem and then we get stuck. Does that sound familiar? What do I do about it? How do I deal with this awful self that just wants to get in the way? Every time I wanna do something, there it is, trying to jump in and take credit, or jump in and do it its way and just absolutely get in the way.
You know what I believe that God wants us to do to get past that, at least in part? First of all, to be honest, not to hide, not to duck. ‘cause it’s not like God’s showing us a need, saying, Fix it, and then I’ll come around. We’ve talked about that many times. I can’t fix it. That’s why I need a savior. I’m helpless. How could I possibly change myself? What’s the answer to all of that?
Oh, do you see why Paul had to go back to the cross every time? Because what he was saying was, I know you can’t take care of it. I did. Are you gonna surrender to what I did and embrace it and believe in it in a practical everyday sense? Ooh, way too simple. Couldn’t be that simple.
But do you see where I believe the enemy gets in and he turns need into futility, into condemnation, into a “try harder” kind of thing, or give up kind of thing? When God wants us to go, to take every need to the cross and to understand what God is saying is, You have a need, but I took care of it. I’ve already put you to death there.
Yes, I put away the guilt of your sins. Thank God when we do come short, and we all do, where do we go? What do we do about it? How do we get free from that?
[Audience Member] Confess it?
Yeah, confess it. Agree with God about it, but on what ground? Because, okay, I’ve confessed it. I’ll try harder, Lord. No, we’re gonna have to go right back to what You did, Lord. You’ve already taken care of that, but I am embracing what You did for me back then. I embrace it. I believe in it in a practical sense that what You did back then can make a difference in my heart right now.
