The Cross in the Life of the Believer — E.A. Johnston

The message you are about to hear will be greatly foreign to you. It's a forgotten message in the American church, but a much-needed one, especially at this crisis point in which we live, where society is spinning out of control and our nation sits on the brink of judgment.

The Neglected Doctrine of the Cross

To which I refer is the doctrine of the cross in the life of the believer, the crucified life, the way of the cross. Listen, friends, the Christian life is lived via the cross. The main reason the American church lies in the grip of worldliness is the neglect of preaching this message on the cross in the life of the believer.

The main reason why so many in our churches today live lives of antinomianism is a lack of preaching this message on the cross in the life of the believer. The main reason why church people don't act any different than lost people is the lack of preaching this message in this land of the cross in the life of the believer.

The main reason why many pastors today lack power in the pulpit is the neglect of this teaching of the cross in the life of the believer. How can a man full of himself preach to Christ who emptied himself?

The self-life must go the way of the cross. My message this morning is the cross in the life of the believer. Listen, friends, the only way to live in this world as Christ would want us to live in this world is to live the Christian life via the cross.

Self-Denial and Taking Up the Cross

Self must be crucified, mailing every desire we have to the cross, mailing every lust we have to the cross, mailing every rebellion in us to the cross, mailing every hope, every goal, every gain, every loss to that cross to which Christ spoke of to his disciples when he said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

There was a time in the church in another century, the 19th century, when Christians understood the message of the cross. It was a time of missionary enterprise where young men and young women were leaving their homes and families, forsaking everything to go and plant their lives on foreign soil for the sake of souls and the gospel.

It was a time when to be a Christian meant that you lived a life of self-denial, a life by way of the cross where self was crucified daily. Today, in our churches, the first thing you encounter in the lobby is a coffee bar.

Everything is centered around man and his comforts in our churches today. Millions of dollars are spent in our efforts to make our churches the most attractive, the most comfortable in our cities today.

We live in a day of the country club church where the church exists primarily to make you happy and to meet your needs, just like a country club, and no expense is too much to achieve this aim. We have to have the best sound system, the best lighting system, the best seats in our sanctuaries, the finest carpeting available, leather lounge chairs line our church hallways for the weary pilgrims who are too exhausted to stand while they wait on their children.

How does this line up with the words of Christ who said, foxes have holes, the birds of the air nest, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head? The main message preached in our pulpits today is a direct antithesis of the message of the cross and the life of the believer.

Christianity spoken of today from our pulpits is a comparable brand of Christianity where Jesus is here to serve you, to make your life a little better, and the church is here to make your Christian journey a little less bumpy along the way.

The Man-Centered Church and the Neglect of the Holy Spirit

Listen friends, the church has no power today to influence society because she mirrors society. The church has no power today to transform lives because the gospel of our hour is a man-centered perversion of the New Testament original, everything centers around man and his comforts.

I challenge you to go out and visit as many churches as you can in search of a pastor who is preaching the message of the cross and the life of the believer. You will be lucky if you can find one. The last time I heard a preacher preach that message with any authority was Stephen Olford and that was over a decade ago.

Dr. Olford once told me that when he would face temptation, he would stop everything, look heavenward and say, nail it Lord, nail it. The most neglected person in the church today is the Holy Spirit. The most neglected doctrine in the church today for believers is the message of the cross and the life of the believer, the crucified life.

The cost of discipleship is not preached anymore in this country. Our pulpits present you with a watered down gospel that offers a cheap salvation and a shrunken Jesus and many will casually accept that cheap salvation and live their lives the same way they lived them before they took the name of Christ.

They still hug their sins and have no desire to part with them, but the apostle Paul told his disciple Timothy, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Paul further explained to Timothy the cost of discipleship in following a crucified Savior.

He said, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, no man that woreth entangle himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

And if a man also strive for masteries, yet he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully, the husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits. Listen friends, each of those illustrations, the soldier, the athlete, the farmer, each speak of a denial of self.

The soldier is in complete subjection to his commanding officer. A soldier learns how to sleep on the hard ground and be content in any environment. The athlete must deny his body, train his body to compete for the prize.

The farmer must labor with great effort to have a full harvest. Early rising and hard work is necessary to partake of the fruits. But the verse to me which typifies the crucified life is Galatians 2 .20 which declares, 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.

Crucifixion of Self Through the Spirit

The only way, friends, to live the Christian life as Christ intended us to live it is by his Spirit and via the cross. Our spiritual pride must be put to death via the cross. Our lust must be mortified by the Spirit via the cross.

Our self-life must be nailed to that cross on a daily basis so the Christ of the cross can live his life and power through us. Paul declared, I am crucified with Christ. That means there must be a crucifixion, friends.

And whom do you suppose must be crucified? Self. The self-life must be crucified. Take a piece of paper and write out the word selfish. Go ahead, take out a piece of paper and find a pen and write out the word selfish.

And as you do, look at it very carefully until you find the letter which best sums up that word. It is the letter I. We are a pampered people today in the West, and we do all we can to serve the I-life, the self-life, the selfish life.

Our needs are put over the needs of others. If there is a financial need in the church, we typically look in our wallets and see what we can spare, and we give that. We're careful not to give as to deny ourselves something.

Our main focus is self-preservation. And when we give our money, it's usually given from our abundance, where we don't actually have to deny ourselves something to give it, or have any faith to give it.

We seldom give sacrificially. Allow me to use an example which occurred in my own life some years back. My family was going through a great financial crisis. We had no money to pay our mortgage, let alone other bills and expenses.

I was going through a period where I had no income. Things were getting pretty bad and pretty desperate. So I called up four Christians whom I knew of my family's great financial dilemma, and I told them I needed some help and would they pray about it.

I said if perhaps they could loan me some money, or if they could have just give it to us, but we sure needed some help and would they pray. The first man was a millionaire, and he said he could not help us at all and became very distant to us.

The second person also had the means to help us, but she refused to offer aid as well. The next person was a pastor here in America, and he heard about the need and he sent us $50. The fourth person was a pastor in Africa who's now in glory.

Sacrificial Giving and the Example of the African Pastor

This is why I can tell this story. He telephoned me and related the following story to me, and as I related to you friends, I want you to take note of the difference between American Christianity and African Christianity.

The former being self-centered and the latter being self-crucified. Bear in mind as I tell you this story that the annual income in that region of Africa is $350 a year. He telephoned me, this African pastor did, and said when he and his wife heard of our great financial need, they spent the night in prayer and felt led of God to do the following.

He said his mother had just died, and he had just received his inheritance of $500, which by the way was more than his annual income, and he and his wife wanted to send my family that entire amount right away.

Listen friends, that pastor in America knew my need and he gave me $50. The pastor in Africa knew my need and he gave me his entire inheritance. A few hours later, he called again to say this, my brother, my wife and I have laid this before the Lord, and he's still telling us to do more for you.

The expense of a funeral in Africa is $500. I have had this money set aside for my mother's funeral expenses, but we have decided to send you the full amount of her funeral cost, and trust God that he will supply our need here to bury my mother.

We are sending you today $1 ,000. My family was humbled under this sacrificial giving from Christians who led crucified lives. Did you hear that friends? Did you hear just what that pastor in Africa did?

Would you do that? The difference between American Christianity and African Christianity is this one thing. There's a cross in the middle of African Christianity, and there's a big selfish eye in the center of American Christianity.

Now, I have seen Christians in America give sacrificially before. I'm not saying there are no Christians like that here. I'm not saying that. I'm just relating to you a picture of the American church, which is predominantly self-centered, and the African church, which is self-crucified.

The main reason why the church in Africa has such power is because its members are living crucified lives as they follow a crucified savior. It's the same way in China. Chinese Christians are well familiar with the cross in the life of the believer.

The church thrives in countries where there's persecution, like Africa and China, and the church slumbers where there is prosperity, like America and the West. There used to be a book years ago that was a Christian classic.

Everybody read it in those days. Now, nobody's even heard of it. It's been out of print for years. It was published back in 1945 by Moody Press. The book was written by L .E. Maxwell, and it was called Born Crucified.

The Cross, Sin, and Harmony With Christ

In that book, L .E. Maxwell speaks of a coming to the end of ourselves through the work of the cross in our lives. The book makes the following comment, and I will quote it to you now, friends. The constant reassertion of the self-life can be dealt only by the cross, and that only in the measure in which we enter into the death union with Christ can we know the resurrection life of Christ.

Listen once more, friends, to L .E. Maxwell's message of the cross in the life of the believer. Christ was willingly, said it not, willingly classed with criminals. He willingly died to rid me of sin.

Let me then not pamper, but pour contempt on all my pride. Let me go once and humble myself if I will not take my sin to the place of shame. Cost me what it may to get rid of it. How can I claim the cutting off power of Calvary?

I am clear out of harmony with the cross. Confession of sin implies rejection of sin. Its power is broken only as we come into harmony with the cross. Listen, friends, our teenagers in our churches see no need of living any differently from their lost schoolmates.

They go to the same parties, grind on one another like dogs in heat, and see nothing wrong in that behavior. They can do drugs and drink alcohol and cuss like sailors and still be in church Sunday morning and believe themselves to be saved individuals on their way to heaven.

Why is that? It's because the church in America today has utterly failed to preach the doctrines of the sinfulness of sin, the cross, and the life of the believer, the need of repentance, and the necessity of regeneration.

That's it in a nutshell, friends. That's the biggest failure of the church in America today. We have no power in the pulpit because we preach a powerless message void of the scandal of the cross. The cross is an offense to sinful man, so we hide behind it.

We don't mention it. We just say, come to Jesus, come to Jesus. God loves you. All you have to do is come to Jesus. That's the church in America today, and she is reaping what she has sown for the last 50 years by neglecting these great doctrines of the Bible and the gospel.

Repentance, Regeneration, and the Cost of Discipleship

Jesus never preached a crown without a cross, but we do. Jesus never preached the sin in religion, but we do. Jesus said, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish, but we don't mention the need for repentance.

Jesus declared, you must be born again, but we don't preach the necessity of a supernatural act of regeneration upon the heart. We are silent on these things, and that's why the country's in the shape she's in.

It's our fault. The church's fault. The blame lies at our door. It's our fault. We dropped the ball, friends, and we might as well admit it. This message of the cross in the life of the believer is not new.

It's as old as my Bible. The self-life must be crucified, friend, and it must go the way of the cross. The Christian life is lived only one way, and that is via the cross. I will close this message with good old Puritan Samuel Rutherford, who preached wisely on this subject.

Samuel Rutherford on the Idol of Self

Listen to his words from his message, The Idle Self. Oh, what pains and what a death it is to nature to turn me, myself, my lust, my ease, my credit, over unto my Lord, my Savior, my King, and my God, my Lord's will, and my Lord's grace.

But alas, that idol, that whorish creature, myself, is the master idol we all bow to. What hurried Eve had long upon the forbidden fruit, but that wretched thing, herself? What drew that brother murderer to kill Abel, that untamed himself?

What drove the old world on to corrupt their ways, who but themselves and their own pleasure? What was the cause of Solomon's falling into idolatry and multiplying of strange wives? What but himself, whom he would rather please than God?

What was the hook that took David and snared him first in adultery, but his self-lust, and then murder, but his self-credit and self-honor? What led Peter on to deny his Lord? Was it not a piece of himself and self-love to a whole skin?

What made Judas sell his master for thirty pieces of silver, but the idolizing of a rapist's self? What made Demas go off the way of the gospel to embrace the present world, even self-love and a love for gain for himself?

Every man blames the devil for his sins, but the great devil, the house devil of every man, the house devil that eateth and lieth in every man's bosom, is that idol that killeth all himself. Oh, blessed are they who can deny themselves and put Christ in the room of themselves.

Oh, sweet word, I live no more, but Christ liveth in me. Those words of Samuel Rutherford, Summit of Friends, the last thing Rutherford quoted in his message was Galatians 2 .20, on the cross and the life of the believer, I am crucified with Christ.

Like I said, the Christian life is a life lived via the cross. And I will say this, friends, many religions are pleased to gather at the foot of the cross, but true Christianity gets up on the cross. It's a life lived via the cross.