Tape 4 - Crucified to the World

The Prayer for God’s Will and a Week Around the Cross

Evening. You're quick. Open your Bibles please to the book of Galatians chapter 6. Been thinking much about this week and what we want the Lord to do and what we hope the Lord will do and confident that he shall do.

My prayer has simply been and always is that whatever God wants to do he will do. Whatever God's will is that's what I want accomplished in your life and in my life. As we said at the very first part of the week God will only do in your life what you let him do.

God can do whatever he wants to do. I mean God could explode and he can make us a robot but you know love that is forced is not love. If God has to force a person to love him that love is not worthy. God wants a love that's given to him voluntarily out of gratitude and expression from the free will that he's given us to express it with and he wants us to love him in some small way or at least in a human way as that great love exists between the Father and the Son.

Between the Father and the Son and this was the prayer of Christ of course in John 17. It's been a good week. I've been counting up the number of times we were talking about it this afternoon and at the close of this week God will have given us together if we count about an hour and a half each evening.

We've been doing this for about five evenings then we had Sunday evening so you figure up those hours an hour and a half each night for six and then we've been spending two hours in the mornings. The folks have been so patient and we've been doing that and then Saturday morning of course we've got tomorrow morning at 10 talk about King Solomon how he's a picture of the millennium and then Saturday morning we'll be talking about the Middle East, Lebanon, Israel, Syria, what's going on, what's happening and then we'll throw it open and you can ask the questions that you have concerning the Middle East situation.

You can just ask a question about that that you want and what we don't know we'll tell you we don't know but we'll write it down and we'll get the answer for you and we'll get it back here to you. We stay very close to that situation of course and I was just down in Corpus Christi whenever Syria began to bring the PLO in and I was in about an hour and a half conversation with the Israeli consulate and we do have some information sometimes and I do have some available to me that I will share with you Saturday morning that has not been published in the international press at all there is some information that available that we can share with you some exciting things that Christians have been praying about for some 2 ,000 years and they're about to happen and we'll share some things with you that will utterly amaze you and it's contrary to what you have heard concerning the nation of Israel and the gospel witness and the presentation of the Word of God and so you come be with us Saturday morning then Saturday evening we'll have the pulpit removed and we'll have the large table here and we'll have the entire Passover table laid out for you and we'll go through it together and we will show you how every element within the Jewish Passover celebration speaks very plainly and clearly about the Lord Jesus Christ and so it's a very beautiful portrayal of the life of Christ in a ceremony that was given to Moses back in Exodus chapter 12 and so you'll see it and it'll make the Bible come alive to you it'll seal the Old and New Testament together and it'll make the Lord's Supper Holy Communion far more meaningful to you as we participate.

The Cross, the Call to the Cross, and the Book of Galatians

So we've got a lot of time left together even though this is Thursday evening. We also have a Bible study time during the Sunday school that will be coming back together again and picking up our elements of the cross as we've done all week.

And then we'll have our morning worship time together on Sunday morning. And so we'll have spent some 23 to 24 maybe even 25 hours together which would take you about seven months of Sunday school time to accumulate that much time.

I don't believe it's possible. I just don't believe it's possible for you and me or anyone to spend that much time around the cross of Jesus Christ and something not happen. I just don't believe that.

And so I believe that God is doing something he's doing something in my life and I trust he's doing something in your life. And so we just trust God that he'll have the freedom to do and that we will be available to him to do whatever he wants to with our lives whatever that is that he wants to do.

It'll be good and it'll be pleasing and it'll bless the Lord's name and it'll bring praise to the name of Christ. And we're going to continue tonight now and talk just very briefly. This will be a short one.

You'll be out quite early tonight. It's we're getting it about 727 according to my time. And that's the time we go by not yours. It always interests me. People keep looking at their watches and I never know why.

Because I don't follow your watch. You ought to know that no one in a pulpit does. And yet you look at you don't. Sometimes they'll get brave. They'll do this. I mean you know they'll hang it on the aisle.

You know. Or something like it's going to affect somebody like it's gonna do something. You know time is immaterial isn't it. I mean time is immaterial in an instant that we restrict God and say Lord you got to work between seven and eight.

Why did we ever believe that Sunday morning worship service is from 11 to 12. I've never figured that out in my mind. Yeah. God has to work between 11 and 12 and God forbid that they'd ever go to one.

And yet Paul preached all night. You know he just preached all night long. The great brush arbors that preached for two or three weeks. Four or five preachers come in preach all in 24 hours a day. People come and go come and go come and go.

Have you ever been in a meeting like that. You ever seen anything like that. Why. It just destroys people. Why. What do you mean. I've got to sit through preaching all night long. Some people. It takes them that long.

You know some of you been here all week and it hadn't done anything. So I you know I can ride what 24 hours would do. But Paul talks about the cross. And this is what we're talking about. So let's just pick it up.

We've talked about many things. We've talked about the foreshadowed Lamb of God. We talked about how the Lamb of God was pictured back in the Old Testament. We've talked about the twofold message of the cross.

How the church has emphasized one part not emphasized the other part. The twofold message is what the twofold message is. Our past sins are forgiven and we have victory over our present sins. We can have deliverance over our present sins.

And that's the twofold message of the cross. And then we talked about being crucified with Christ. And then we talked about the cross and the and the powers of darkness and how the cross gives us victory over the powers of darkness.

And then very basically setting ourselves up for tomorrow night because tomorrow night will be one of the most crucial nights in our time together when we talk about the call to the cross there are five calls to the cross and the scripture and only five.

Five is the Bible number of grace. And Jesus gave all five of those calls. And so you and I will need to be here the tomorrow evening or this week will not have meant what it should have meant to us. So in prepare preparation for that and prepare for preparatory to it we're talking about being crucified to the world.

And we've already touched on it in so many ways this week. But notice with me please in the book of Galatians chapter 6. Now Paul wrote the book of Galatians for a particular reason. He wrote it primarily to prove to the people that we're under grace and not law that the law system does not bother us.

It's not that God has done away with the law. It's just that he has fulfilled the law in Christ and not only has fulfilled it but Jesus Christ has re-amplified re-taught re-clarified the law and put it into such a perspective that it is possible for us to live that grace concept which actually does fulfill the law which brings out the love of God which is the fulfillment of the law as it operates in our heart.

Now notice what Paul said in Galatians 6 verse 14. He's spent the whole book of Galatians talking to them about the fruit of the Spirit by being under grace and not law and so forth. And then he just begins to close it all down and he says.

But God forbid that I should glory save in except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Now of course we've said that Paul has already passed on to the resurrection side of the cross.

He came to the cross as an unbeliever as a haughty Pharisee and he came through the cross. He died to himself. He died on the cross with Christ. He recognizes Christ's death on the cross to him he was crucified to himself.

Now he tells us he's crucified to the world. And as he stands and sort of spiritually with the eye of faith he scans the world he sees all of its allurement he sees all the enticements he sees all of the amusements he sees all the pleasures.

I mean he looks at everything the world has to offer to him. And he's standing there and he's gazing at it with the eye of faith and he just stands and he looks at it. And then all of a sudden he looks at the cross with that eye of faith and he sees the light of God streaming from the heavens and shining in glory upon the cross of Jesus Christ.

And it moves him deeply within his heart. And all of a sudden he can constrain himself no more and he just cries out God forbid that I should glory in anything except the cross of Jesus Christ. I don't care about the world and I don't care about what the world has what the world is doing where the world is going.

It is not going to take me with it. I'm not going to get involved in it. I'm going to glory in one thing only. And that is the cross of Jesus Christ. And that's a startling statement. Because many people many Christians in those days were shirking persecution for the cross.

There were many of them who even denied their faith in Christ so that they could escape persecution. You see the cross was an offense in the days of Paul and it's not today. You and I don't suffer very much.

When we tell people we're Christians we act like we do. We have a martyr complex. You know somebody's coughs around us or sneezes or something all of a sudden you know they're persecuting us and we're in trouble.

And but we don't understand. But in Paul's day the cross was an offense in a very special special way. Because to proclaim the cross to share the cross or to preach the cross or to teach the cross whatever words you and I want to use in those days meant one thing.

It meant pleasing Jesus Christ rather than pleasing people. Pleasing him rather than pleasing people. May I insert something in here for your edification in mind tonight. Your biggest problem in your life is deciding whether you're going to please people or please your Lord.

That is the biggest question you will be answering time and time again as you walk through your pilgrimage on the planet earth. We have to struggle with it day by day. And the Apostle Paul struggled with it.

But you know I noticed something about Paul. Paul was even crucified to the religious world. He was not only crucified to the secular world. He was crucified to the religious world. It seems to me that Paul saying if I go out and share the cross if I go out and proclaim this cross the way God's revealed it to me if I share it the way the risen Lord Jesus Christ has revealed it to me when he went into Arabia for three years in that desert.

And Christ himself taught him. And he said if I go out and share that the greatest possibility is that same cross that cost him his life is gonna cost me my life. I too will die if I proclaim it the way I know it ought to be proclaimed.

And let me insert something else. That's exactly the reason Christians today want to water down the message of God. They want to water down the Word of God. They don't want to stand on anything. And they go through these noble ideas and they're just afraid of conflict.

They don't want to stand here. They don't want to stand there. And what they're doing is compromising and watering down the Word of God. They are afraid of that conflict and a stand that comes from standing on God's Word and what God's Word says.

And so they back away from it. And because of that a creeping paralysis has come across Christianity. And Christianity is having far less effect today that it's ever had in its history. And there are fewer Christians on the planet Earth today in proportion to the population than at any time in human history.

And there are more and more lost people coming into the world every day and fewer fewer Christians. So that one of the greatest pastors who's ever walked the planet Earth made this statement he said by the year 2000 in proportion to the population.

Unless something drastically happens in the numbers field in the numbers game you won't even be able to tell their Christians on the planet Earth in the proportion of numbers. And you can't even hardly tell it now.

Why. Because we don't want to stand on the cross of Jesus Christ. And Paul just seems to be saying to me that it seems like it'll probably the instrument of my crucifixion as well as it was Jesus Christ.

And so Paul just says I am crucified to the world. You see it there in Galatians 6 14. And the world is crucified to me. They were dead to each other. The world could not pull it. Paul and Paul was not drawn to the world at all.

In Christ Jesus all things are passed away. Listen to me carefully. We quoted all the time. Therefore if any man been Christ he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold all things become new.

And we turn right around and make a mockery of that. It isn't so. My dear people the churches are filled with people that say old things are passed away. Behold all things become new. You still spend as much time in the movie theaters.

You still spend as much time in the dances. You still spend as much time card playing. You still spend as much time smoking. You still spend as much time criticizing. You still spend as much time gossiping.

Your life hasn't changed one bit. Most of the time they are just words. And you do what you believe. And the rest is religious conversation. Excuse me. But it's true. Where is the changed life. Where is that separation from the world of which the Bible speaks for your life your mind.

You see we struggle with it. We don't want to be different. We want to be loved. And there's nothing wrong want to be loved. And who wants to be hated my soul a man's nuts. It wants to be hated. We all want to be loved.

But dear people we cannot sacrifice the cause of Christ just to be nice to people just to get people to like us. We must stand upon what God tells us to stand upon. And God will give you those friends he wants you to have.

And the ones he does give you they'll never leave you. They'll never leave you. They'll love you for who you are not for what you think they want you to be. And what I'm saying to you is the new spiritual creation in Jesus Christ is all in all to the Apostle Paul nothing means more to him than the new spiritual creation that has come about.

And such a view of Calvary of which I'm speaking right here can only be known on the life side of the cross. It is when we pass into that sphere where we begin to walk in the light as he is in the light.

And you see we stand there in the light of God. And we see the cross standing out in all of its glory as the wisdom and the power of God. And there is no other way of finding Christ except through the cross.

There's no other way of getting peace with God except through the cross. There's no other way of knowing the power the will of God in the life other than the cross of Jesus Christ. There just is no way of escaping it.

And yet as young Christians we become a Christian we are born again. And what happens. We begin to shrink very quickly from the cross. And the reason we do that because it makes such demands upon us. It seems like when you first get saved it you can't do this and you can't do that.

And it speaks of separation. It speaks of death. And it has seemed sort of a dark connotation to it. But as we move on and as we walk in intimate conversation and as we walk on into an intimate walk and fellowship with our Lord and we begin to grow with our living Lord and he begins to illuminate the message of Calvary and his death upon the cross.

And we get a heavenly vision of this. And we sit with a heavenly eye of faith and God shines his light on it. Our vision grows more and more acute and we are able to see clearer and clearer and we begin to see into the very depths of the sufferings of Jesus Christ himself.

And we know that if we suffer the glories will follow. There are no glories in life without the sufferings. Jesus Christ never ascended to glory until he first went through the cross. And you and I are never going to know the glory of the Lord in our hearts.

We're never going to know the joy of the Lord in our hearts until we suffer the death to self and the death to the world until we die to self crucified with Christ and also crucified to the world. You can't get crucified to self and not be crucified to the world.

One results in the other. It just simply does. You can't have Christ and play games with the world. You cannot have the glory of the Lord in your heart and walk according to the standards of the world it just will not work.

It will make you a spiritual schizophrenic and it will not work. God doesn't bless us if we're obedient 80 times in our life and disobedient 20 or you can be obedient 99 times. And if you're disobedient once then that breaks the fellowship with the Lord.

God doesn't bless the 99 and overlook the one. He just doesn't. He wants all that we are given to him. He wants us to serve him in our entirety. So as we've said earlier this week to Paul the cross to him was a great gulf fixed.

He just saw it as a great gulf fixed between him and the world anytime I believe Paul's mind ever darted back to go in the world. He just saw the cross as a great gulf and he knew he couldn't go back.

And and I'll promise you the moment you are tempted and the moment problems come in your life you just kind of mentally get a picture of the cross and get a good glimpse of it in your heart. And you just start thinking about that cross.

And it's strange. It's amazing. But I promise you the world won't even pull you. I mean it just loses its allurement. It has no comparison to the cross. There's just something about the name of Christ.

There's just something about the cross of God's son. And so crucified with Christ not only to be delivered from the tyranny of sin and the claims of the law but we ought to be delivered from the world itself and in all of its aspects.

Now listen to me carefully. We are not crucified to the world in the sense of worldly things. I am not talking about worldly things. I am not even talking about worldly ways. That is not what I'm speaking of.

I'm saying you. And I are crucified to the world itself not ways or things but the world itself. The way the world looks the way the world acts. All that's in the world its value system everything in the world.

It has nothing to do with you. This is not your home. You just passing through here your home is in a better place. And this is a small part of the great program of God's living for you. It is only a little bit and that little mound of dirt out there that they call a grave.

Solomon said when he wrote the great book in the Old Testament he said as far as a human being can see that little grave that's it. There is nothing else. That's all there is. But then amazingly in the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 7 he says.

But when the body returns to the dust the spirit returns unto the Lord who gave it. There is more to that for a Christian. A Christian doesn't look out and say oh the worm and the canker they are thy reward alone.

It doesn't say like the great poet said it's a fearful thing to see the human soul take wing. That's not the voice of the Christian. That's not the language of the Bible. The Bible says absent from the body and present with the Lord.

This world just doesn't mean all of that. But I find that most Christians are camped out down here. They kind of like it down here. Well I believe you ought to enjoy your life. Sure. I mean God's put us here.

I didn't ask to come. He put us here and we ought to enjoy it. But dear people there's one thing in doing what God wants you to do. And there's another thing in falling in love with it. There's a big difference.

Now let me ask you a question. I mentioned this early. I don't see if you caught it. What is the big thing that people say. Well I want to be happy. I'm here to be happy. You're not in this world to be happy.

You're in this world to glorify God and to magnify Jesus Christ and to witness unto him. And that's the only reason you're here. Nothing of yourself. Well we're here to raise a family. No you're not. That's just an incidental of living.

William Carey the great founder of modern missions. They asked me. I said what do you do for a living. He said I witnessed for Jesus Christ. They said no. You misunderstood the question. What do you do for a living.

He said I witnessed for Jesus Christ. They said well how do you eat. You know kind of perturbed him somewhat. Well how do you eat fool. He says oh I'm a cobbler. I work on shoes. They said what with me.

He said no. I only do that to pay the bills. My living is I serve Jesus Christ. What a difference. What a difference. What do you teach your children moms and dads. You teach them to go to college and university.

Why. So you get an education to make them more money. That's not what the bible says. The bible says study to show thyself approved unto God. A workman who need not be ashamed. What. So he can rightly divide the word of truth.

Why does the kid go off and be a lawyer so he can win lawyers. Why does he gotta go be a doctor so he can win doctors. Why is he. That's all we're doing. That's what it's all about. And the only education God authorizes is a Christian education.

Well you can send them to LSU. I don't care. Send them to Texas. It doesn't make a difference. They'll come out the same way. They'll come out with a bunch of humanism and godliness and agnosticism and everything in their mind.

Turn their mind over to some secular school teacher for eight hours a day and just say here's my kid's mind. Do with it whatever you want. And then excuse yourself. Oh well I never could do anything with them.

That's not what the bible says. You see we love the world. We love the world. And we love what the world offers. And yet we'll sit right here in church night and agree together that this world is not our home.

We're just strangers here. We're just sort of pilgrims down here. Well what I believe is that we must expect this world to look upon us just like it looked upon God's son. It'll look upon you just like it looked upon him.

It crucified him. And it's not gonna love you. And Jesus plainly stated did he not. In that great intercessory prayer in the gospel according to John he says the world hated me. And it'll hate you. And if it hates you don't be discouraged because you know that it hated me long before it ever hated you.

It hated the master. And it will hate his disciples. And if you are loved by everybody in this world you're not living for Christ. If everybody likes you you're not walking with God. Because when you walk with God the holier you get your life.

The fewer friends you're going to have mark it down the closer you get to God. And the more you walk in the bible and the holier you get your life the narrow the circle your friends become. And if you're a good joe and like everybody you're not walking in the bible.

You're a compromiser. And you're backing away from God's word and you won't stand. It's just that way it always has been and it always will be. Got Daniel thrown in the den of lions. You got Meshach Chedrek in the bed to go thrown in the fire furnace and all the way down the line.

He got the christian stone to the lions and the martyrs. He got the apostles killed. And you and I are no different except we think different. We're just not as committed as they were. We talk it and we just don't do it nailed with a cross.

We're nailed there with Christ. And we know we're crucified with him. We know we're crucified to the world. We know we're crucified with Christ. But likewise you and I must look at that world from the cross just like he looked at it.

How did he look at it. He said father forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And you and I must pray for a world. And we must look at a world as a world for whom Christ died even though it would crucify us and nail us to the very cross itself even though the world would hate us and care less for what you believe and they are not interested in what you believe.

You still must love them for what they can be for Jesus Christ. That is not a weakness. This pseudo love where I know. Well I love this. And I love that. No a pseudo love is not what I'm talking about.

A false love is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a loving people are loving the world for what it can be for Jesus Christ. Not an excuse for weakness. The world system has no value to the christian.

But as I said there's a religious world that you must be crucified to. Also there are those christians in the ministry and out of the ministry. There are those christians who are preachers missionaries evangelists conference speakers.

What have you. There are those christians that are deacons sunday school teachers. Yeah. And even in the wmu. And they are all around who are not willing to be crucified in the lord. They refuse and resent it.

And it smacks of heresy or self-righteousness to them. And they love the chief places. They love the chief seats. They love the salutations in public places. They are those who say and do not. And they seek after and to do all their works to be seen of men.

The love of power and the praise of people is contrary to the spirit of the cross. The love of power position popularity and prestige and the love of the praise of man is totally contradictory to the spirit of the cross of Jesus Christ.

All the elements of this present evil world were gathered at the cross. It hasn't been any different. What was at the cross. All the fleshly element. Everybody lived for the flesh. They were there. The criminal element they were there.

Oh yeah. They were there. The criminal the wise the intellectuals. They were there to cross. They came by. They quoted to him they snapped at him. They were there debating. Oh yes. And also the traditional religious they were all there.

Every one of them they were gathered there together. All of them joined forces with the evil one as they cast him upon the cross nailed him to the cross and were revolt against him whenever he was given his life on their behalf.

And once again those who stood by the cross were a very small band and you know how they knew them. They call them what an Antioch Christians followers of the cross. What do they call you and me. We Baptist we Methodist we Presbyterian we Episcopalian Roman Catholic charismatic.

Are we all that. Yeah Christian doesn't mean the same today as it meant then when you claim to be a Christian then and somebody called you a Christian then you had the stamp of death on you and they knew they knew.

May I share this with you. I happen to be a Southern Baptist and I don't apologize for that to anyone. But whenever I first became a Christian whenever you saw a person who called themselves a Southern Baptist person you know what.

There were two things you know about them. One is that they love the Bible and they walk with God. But today we just like any other denomination we just like all the rest of them now all the rest of you know why.

There's a man Jack Kennedy is pastor of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. The great church started evangelism explosion in Florida stood in Texas the great convention. There he spoke to the pastors from all over the great state.

And he says you people as Baptists are now making a decision where we Presbyterians made it years ago you are now deciding whether you're going to follow the Bible or not. Follow the Bible. We decided not to and we've never recovered.

We've never recovered anytime you go to a Southern Baptist convention and you got to spend a whole convention deciding whether you believe the Bible or not. You're in trouble. You're already in trouble.

You're gone. You're gone and it's very difficult to recover. But dear people you and I both know that there is no neutral ground at the cross of Calvary. We come to the cross and we let Jesus Christ be Lord.

We don't have to worry about the trivialities of life if we'll just let him be Lord of our life. Turn with me please to Colossians. And I want to point out something about the elements the elements of the world that creep into the Christian life.

And these things you know so well all I'm trying to do is just to to bring back to your remembrance things that you already know quite well in Colossians chapter 2 verse 20. Wherefore there's what Paul says.

Watch him carefully. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why. As though living in the world are you subject ordinances touch not taste not handle not. Which are all parish to after the using after the commandments and the doctrines of men.

These things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship and humility. They look humble. Oh they look spiritual and neglecting of the body not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. Suffice it to say that the Galatian Christians were in danger of going back into reliance upon the works of the law for their growth in their Christian experience.

That's where the Galatians were going. But the Colossians were being drawn aside as I mentioned the other evening by another movement. There were the Gnostics and the Gnostic says you've got the gospel but we got the full gospel.

We've got the message. You've got it. But we got some more. And that's nothing new. It is nothing new under the sun. They're saying yes you're saved. Yes you've done this. Yes you've been baptized. Yes you're walking with the Lord.

But we got some new information. And it was traditions of men. It was philosophy. It was their own thinking it was their own surmising. And it had no foundation in the word of God whatsoever. It was just leading the people off into the areas that they wanted them to go.

And Paul wrote that Colossian letter and said if you have Jesus Christ in your heart you have everything you'll ever need. You don't need anything else. And I find people running around looking for everything under the sun when they've got the son of the living God in them and the life of God in them.

You have God in you dear people. You can't get any more than that. God lives in you. By the third person of the Trinity. There is nothing else available but that there is no more. All you gotta do is be available and let him use.

You just open up and let him take control. That's all that's necessary. Out of the innermost being flow rivers of living water. It doesn't come from out here in. It comes from within out. That's what the scripture says.

Let's get things in priority. Let's get them in order to both the Galatians. What would answer. How would you answer all this. Would you debate them Paul. Well Paul could do it. Why Paul won't you debate them.

I'd like to have Paul handle my debates. Paul you come and handle the Colossians. You know what he told them both. He said go to the cross. Just go to the cross. Look at Jesus. If you want your life who.

You gonna picture your life at be like Paul. You're not supposed to be like Paul. You're supposed to be like me. You're not supposed to be like me. I'm not supposed to be like you. You're not supposed to be like the Corinthian Christians.

You're not supposed to be like the Colossian Christians. You're not supposed to be like these. You're supposed to get Christ's character in your life. He's your standard. He's the one we want to be more like than anyone else.

He's the one. Keep your eyes on him. Get your eyes off of people. Paul he never pointed about him. He didn't say do like me. He said go to the cross. Look at Calvary. This is what he's telling us. Look at Colossians chapter 3.

You know what Paul asked him. He said if you died with Christ why are you acting like you still living in the world. If you died with Christ. He says why are you going back to the childish lessons. That's what he's saying in Colossians 2 20.