Phil: How many times have we said and how often do I need it to say to remind ourselves that the cross is not just about the forgiveness of things that I have done. He didn’t just put him to death to pay the penalty. Yes, that’s part of it. But he put me to death. The problem is not the sin, it’s the sinner. I need deliverance, not just from the guilt of the thing stuff I’ve done I need deliverance from this guy.
[Audience Member] Yes. Amen.
That’s the meaning of the cross, folks, to embrace salvation. That’s at the heart of it. You see why Paul had to emphasize this in such a deep way. Said, I don’t wanna know anything among you except this. I’ve got a lot of areas of truth that I want to tell you about, but everything comes from this. This is the hub.
You think of the old fashioned wheel with the spokes. You got a lot of things that come out from that. Christian service, family life, body life, all those wonderful truths but every one of them grows out of the hub. You try to do anything and forget about the hub, who we are, who He is, what He’s done in history and it gets messed up because we get in the way.
Everything Paul talked about went right back to this. How much I need him, how much I have the right to go to him and say, Lord, I thank you for what you’ve done to cleanse me, but I thank you for putting me to death. Think of something that I’ve....
I guess I’ve I pointed out a passage in the past and it’s one of those things that what I see so much need in me, it’s like I’m afraid to say it. But Romans 6, what was Paul’s, what was Paul’s prescription for Christian living? When we still live in bodies that have a nature, the life that animates these bodies still has a nature that hates God and wants to do its own thing, what do we do about that?
Well let’s go back to this. We sin, what do we do about that? What do we go back to every time as a foundation for getting forgiven for sin? The cross. We go right back to the cross. So that’s part of the meaning of the cross, but there’s something so much deeper because again, I need deliverance, not just from the sin, but from the sinner.
And so Paul says, Don’t you know that when you were baptized, you died with him? I had to paraphrase. You actually died. There was something that happened there in history. God’s allowing something to work out that actually happened.
Wait a minute, Lord, do you mean, I’m still in the middle of this, and you say you already did it? Well, I just messed up and I need forgiveness. You mean you already took care of that. And I need to go back and I need to believe it and I need to reckon on it. I need to... I’ll say, treat it as true rather than act like it’s true for Ron’s benefit.
We need to treat it as something that is real, that we can lay hold of right now and say, Devil, I do not have to listen to you. And it’s not because I’m strong, it’s not because I deserve anything it’s because I’m reckoning on what He did.
That’s what salvation is about. It’s not about what I’ve gotta do to somehow make God like me and accept me. It’s what He has done. That’s the emphasis. The word of God is all about what God has done for us and everything that stands in the way of His living in us and empowering us to be channels of His life in all the ways that have been talked about. We are the one that’s in the way, what do we do about it?
Can we not take it to Him and say, God, I thank you for what You’ve done. I believe it. Devil, I do not have to listen to you. Not because I’m strong, but because He’s already put me to death. God has taken away Satan’s fuel if we can believe it and understand it.
You know, I thought about a picture I have in my mind, and I don’t know how much of this is old stories that I’ve read and maybe probably saw it in an old TV movie, but it had to do with people who lived in the prairie back in, you know, days of the old West. And obviously one of the terrible threats to life on the prairie was, you get a dry season and then a fire and a wind. What do you do about that?
And one of the ways they learned to deal with that was to create a backfire. Now what does that mean? That means they could see this thing coming, but somehow they would go out between themselves, between the house and the fire and set little controlled fire, so they’d burn up all of the fuel so that by the time the fire got there, there was nothing left to burn. And the fire would split and go around the house. Seemed like I had this picture in my mind.
Again, I don’t know how much of it’s what I read and how much of it’s what I saw. But anyway, do you see the connection? God has obviously, has already done something about my need. He knew I was gonna be in need. He understood, I’m saving somebody who doesn’t deserve it and can’t do what I want them to do in themselves.
They don’t know that. I’m gonna have to bring them through circumstances that reveal their own need to themselves. And when I do, what I want them to do is to turn and look and realize, just like I can look to the cross for forgiveness, I can look to the cross and see that he has already burned up Satan’s fuel. The thing that Satan would try to pull on me, I have every right to look to that and say, that is a fact, that is something God did. I didn’t do that. I don’t deserve it. But it’s still a fact and it’s history.
And I have as much right to look to that in a personal sense, practical sense right here, right now, I have as much right to look to that for victory over this thing that wants to rise up in me as I have a right to look for forgiveness when I mess up. Praise God!
God is going to, God is gonna put his finger on things that are in the way of His, the working of His power. Don’t be discouraged. Go back to the root of what Paul saw that he needed to emphasize. God inspired him.
And I won’t go through the passage, but God spoke about how out of tune this was with the world. Some people look for signs, some people look for wisdom. They had all these philosophers that tried to explain it all, Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle, whoever. They were the ones who were smart guys who were gonna figure out what life was all about.
And he said, Not one of these could figure this out. They had no idea what I was up to. Eye has not seen ears, not heard. See, it’s God who has to reveal these things.
[Audience Member] Amen. Amen.
And oh, there’s a heart that will humble itself before God. God can plant in you the knowledge of what the cross is about. But all the knowledge of that is not just a doctrine that we affirm, it’s not just something where we say, Okay, now I get the cross. Now let’s go on to other stuff. The cross is always going to be at the root of every single aspect of our service to God.
And it’s the one thing that gets us past all that’s wrong with us, all that’s lacking, it’s the pathway to power. Because when we die, then He can live. For I have been crucified, how? With Christ. In other words, that’s really what happened. It wasn’t just him dying there. I died there too. I have been crucified with Christ. That’s history.
That perfect tense in that Greek verb right there has to do with both something that happened in the past, but it’s an ongoing result. I have been crucified with Christ and I’m still dead. That’s what it’s about.
I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live but is no longer I but Christ that lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
There is no way to get to life except through death. And that’s what we shrink from. That’s what the devil will do everything in his power to bog us down with. But I pray that God will give us a fresh appreciation for what He’s already done. Folks, this is history. This is not something that yet to happen. And we hope it’ll happen, hope it’ll turn out all right. This is something God has already done.
In fact, His Word says He did it from the foundation of the world. Do you think that God can set something in motion and Satan stand in the way somehow? He didn’t even have a clue. He walked into God’s trap and crucified Jesus, opened the very door of hope that gives us a reason to have hope this morning.
Where’s my hope that I can be a good religious person? No, Jesus died and the blood was shed. And when I mess up, I have the right to go to him and look up at that cross and just honor him and praise him and see the blood that flows from his wounds and realize he did that as my representative. And I have the right through that blood to stand there as if I had never sinned.
But then he wasn’t just crucified, he was buried, wasn’t he? And God wants us to understand in a deeper way we were buried with him. Are we willing? Do we know that what we need to let go of? Talking about things that stand in our way. Every one of us has more self in operation than we would dare to realize. And the Lord doesn’t tell us this to condemn us. That’s why He saved us. He knows all about it. But what He wants us to know is that He’s taken care of it. He has already gone to the cross as and in Him you and I have died.
Like I said, everybody’s died. The question is, who’s gonna live? Everybody’s died. You wanna know the destiny of this world, you look at the cross. You wanna know how God values the thing, the accomplishments of the human race in rebellion against God, you wanna know what He thinks of that? Look at the cross. You want to know what God thinks of the very best of humanity as people value it. God says, It’s gonna perish just like Jesus, my Son, did on that cross.
That’s the destiny of this planet. Folks, I don’t wanna live for this. And that doesn’t mean I’m gonna be, you know, mean, angry, condemning. God wants us to have the same spirit of Jesus, to see people in need and to have his love and his mercy. I can speak the truth and stand for the truth without being hateful.
See if I’m saying, oh yes, that’s wrong, that’s wrong. And boy, I’m gonna get you over it. I’m gonna tell you all about it. Where’s that coming from? Self. (chuckles) That’s just the old human nature wanting to kick in and help God out. Folks, we can’t help him out. He needs to deliver us.
And He is delivering us. I mean, even talking about something like this this morning is not our heavenly Father looking down and saying, What’s the matter with you? Straighten up and fly. It’s God saying, I know what’s wrong with you and I love you. And when you look at the cross, I want you to see what it really stands for in terms of, yes, you have a deep need, but I also want you to see that it’s the measure of my love and the mercy that I wanna show you here right now.
And when you face the things this afternoon, tomorrow, the next day that wanna rise up in you, what are we reckoning on? Oh, there it is again. That’s just me. You got so many people out there that their way of dealing with human nature is just to emphasize the love of God. The love of Jesus. Oh, He’s so loving. He just accepts everybody.
Folks, I need a savior. Amen. I need a deliverer. But thank God I’ve got one. God sent his Son who willingly went to that cross in my place. When He died, He took me with Him. And the more I sense things wanting to rise up and get in the way of him doing something and using me and believe me, I deal with him, and not always very well. But I know it’s... I’m on the way. I’m like Paul. I hope I press toward the mark. I haven’t arrived.
Lord knows we haven’t either. But He also knows that we need to learn more about the power of His resurrection. But how do you get to that? Fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His what? To his death. To his death. That’s me coming to a place where I’m embracing his death as mine. And I realize I don’t have to listen to, I don’t have to obey this old nature. Satan can knock on my door and I can say, Sorry, nobody home. That fuel’s already been burned up. It was burned up at the cross. I don’t have to listen to you anymore. I have the power to serve God not because I’m able, but because He is in me.
And we learn gradually day by day, issue by issue how to be more and more His. You think about Paul in the scripture, the passage we’ve used so many times in 2 Corinthians 4 where he talks about how death has to work in him so life could work in others. See, that was an ongoing thing. This isn’t Paul saying, I had this grand and glorious experience back there and it’s all gone and I’m just free to serve the Lord now. No, there was a constant having to make choices and having to believe in the power of what happened at the cross.
Do you see how that’s the... Why he said, that’s the only thing I’m preaching? This is it. I have one message. If you understand this, everything else will fall into place. I just pray that God will help us and our desire to be better channels and our desire to have more of his life and power in us to realize: Number one, this is where the need is. Number two, God’s already dealt with that need and we have every right to come to him in faith and treat that as the history that it is, as the accomplished fact that it is. Did Jesus say it is finished?
[Audience Member] Yes he did.
Yes he did. What can you add to something that’s finished other than our embracing it as our experience? See, as somebody, a sinner that comes to Christ, has to come to a place, a point in history where we look, we’re able to look back and we see what he did for me, but now it needs to become mine. God wants to make the death of His Son ours in a deeper way.
And you know, part of me would like, like so many, to preach this as an experience and we could have experiences. There may be times when there are great leaps forward, if you will, but Paul mostly presents this as a day by day kind of I’m pressing forward toward the mark. I know what He’s called me to and I know what He did for me. And on that foundation and that foundation alone, I’m gonna press forward because I am expecting.
Now what is he saying by that? I’ve just gotta try. It’s futile. I can’t possibly do it, but I got to try. No, there was this sense that I know what he did and I know that if I press, he’s going to empower me to do and to agree with him, and I’m gonna make actual progress.
Wouldn’t that be nice if we made actual progress in our lives and things that used to hold us back and used to have power over us, suddenly they begin to lose their power. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t that be a step in the direction of having more of His power in place of ours?
You see why Paul preached nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified because everything, everything flows from that. And I pray that today every one of us will be able to take hold of what He did in a personal way and say, Lord, I don’t have to live in guilt. I can be honest and bring that to the cross and know that you’ve taken care of it.
I don’t have to live under the power of something that has held me because I’ve already died. Satan, you don’t have any right to me because Jesus’ blood was shed. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and they did not shrink, love their lives so much just to shrink from death.
O, how opposite this is to human wisdom and human nature. The idea that in order to live, I gotta die. But O, how freeing it is. And the Lord doesn’t want us to wallow in the process of that, but to see beyond it and be able to rejoice and be able to say, God, I know what You’re doing. I know I can, right in the middle of this, I can have your joy, I can have Your peace. I can have Your victory and You can begin to use me in a better way, in a deeper way. I can experience Your life flowing through me to somebody else.
Thank God it isn’t an all or nothing kind of thing. I believe God is unclogging channels right now. I believe He’s going to do it.
[Congregation] Yes.
And He’s gonna do it not because we try harder or we learn more theology, but because we see what He’s already done, and we begin to reckon on that and treat it as the truth.
[Congregation] Yes.
And we understand, we enter into something that’s already been finished. Praise God!
I’m so thankful this morning for His mercy and His goodness. And I guarantee you, I’m in as much or more need of this as anybody here, but I also know where my help comes from. It’s not in me. It’s in Jesus who is lifted up on that cross. I died with him and I have every right to come outta that tomb with him and to begin to live for him.
So Lord, I just put that in your hands and pray that you will do what is needed, because I know that we need more power, we need more life. Open our eyes to see what this is about, to understand in a deeper way what you did for us at the cross. Lord, so we can literally ask you and thank you and embrace and take hold, lay hold of what you’ve given to us and make it actually a practical thing in our lives.
We just need you Lord. And we’re trusting in you to help us right today where we’re at, just to take the next step forward and believe in you and trust you in the journey to know that you’ve laid out our journey for us and you’re with us all the way, and you’re for us all the way. Nothing can hinder, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ. Thank you for that finished work. Help us to believe in it, understand it more than we do. We’ll thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen!
