Cross and Gospel 2

He is the focus, He is the center, He is the all in all. But we have perverted that gospel so that it no longer revolves around Him but it revolves around me. So that God and Jesus and the cross and the message of the gospel and what He... it's all about me.

God really needed you. God had a hole in His heart without you. You have great value and God has a great plan and purpose for your life.

God saved you because He needed you. That is not the gospel. And in fact that is blasphemy because it suggests that God is incomplete and imperfect within Himself.

And that God somehow needed you and me to make Him perfect and complete. God had perfect fellowship within Himself and God does not need your ministry or my gifts in order to do His work or in order for Him to be who He is. But by His infinite grace and mercy when we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Not because we had any value but simply because He loved us. The only part we played in this whole thing according to this definition is that we had sinned, that Christ died for our sins. That's the only part we had in this whole deal.

And you say, well brother what about faith? Don't we believe that it is by faith that we are saved through grace and not of works? But we forget what that verse is really saying. He says it is not of yourselves. Faith is something which follows.

That is not the essence. The essence is that God loved us when we were unlovely, unworthy, filthy, vile, wretched sinners, unable to save ourselves and sent His Son to die upon the cross of Calvary. Now we heard reference this morning made to the fact that there is no more preaching of repentance and I've just published, I write a little devotional every week and it goes out to thousands of people all over the world and I just completed a short series on the subject that repentance is no longer being preached.

And the reason why repentance is no longer being preached is because we no longer believe that we are sinners. The message is that we're all basically good and what we need to do is discover our potential and what the gospel and what the church is all about is to develop the potential that God has placed within us. And so what do you want to repent for? Now that is the message that's being preached.

And just to make sure that I still had the message right, I switched the television on this morning and I listened to the Crystal Cathedral and once again heard how wonderful we are and how great our gifts are and all we need to do is just exercise our faith and place within our hearts this positive seed of faith. But in fact the message of the gospel is that I am wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked and that unless he comes to me and changes me I will continue in my sin. You see the problem with the message that we are preaching today is we're saying you can take my old Pontiac that I have in California and you probably it doesn't seem to be so big here but in California it's a big thing to to pimp your ride.

I'm learning the language and so you do a new spray job and you put all the bling bling on there and new tires and new new rims and a new sound system and it's quite crazy when you watch some of these tv programs because they spend about five times more on the car than the car originally cost. But you know at the end of the day it's still going to be a 1995 Pontiac Grand Am and it's still going to have 160 000 miles on or whatever it is. It's never ever going to be a Bentley and you can change your life and you can change your lifestyle and you can change your attitude and your way of thinking and you can try and pull yourself up by your own shoelaces but you will never be what God wants you to be.

It's only he who can make you a new creature and the only way I can ever get a Bentley is if I get rid of my Pontiac and get a Bentley and that is the message of the gospel and that is the power of the gospel. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature the old things have passed away behold all things have become new. He doesn't just take us and panel beat us and put a bit of bondo on us and a little bit of a little bit of spray paint and make us look better and unfortunately the church is filled with people who have been pimped who've had a little bit of bondo and spray paint but who are not new creatures whose lives still exhibit the traits and the habits and the lifestyle and the thinking of the world and that's part of the message that Paul is preaching here is that if any man be in Christ he is a new creature.

The message of the cross is that he was crucified that he was buried that he rose again and in the same way I need to die and be buried and that's the bit we don't like because we like to resurrect the old man all the time but we need to bury the old man get rid of him that we might walk in newness of life. This is Paul's definition of the gospel in the book of Romans . There is no shortcut there is no bypassing death to self. I'll come back to that I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

So the message of the gospel is Christ-centered it's not about me and it's according to the scriptures. Twice in these verses he says that this happened according to the scriptures according to the scriptures and that is the only way that we can come to an understanding of God's will for our lives is according to the scriptures not according to Rick Warren or Robert Schuller or Norman Vincent Peale or whoever else you like the only understanding of the scriptures is in the scriptures. But today people are able to quote modern preachers and teachers more than they can quote the scriptures but it's according to the scriptures and if your experience does not line up with the scriptures I suggest to you that it is not a valid experience.

You see because my God is limited unlike the God of some preachers today who says my God is unlimited my God is limited by his word. He will not go beyond his word he will not function and operate outside of his word.

He says I have set my word above my name and the very cross illustrates God's commitment to his word because you remember right at the very beginning one of the first things that God said to us is the day you eat thereof you will die and if God could change his word and operate outside of his word he could simply say well Adam you know I did say that but I've changed my mind you don't have to die but God having given his word was bound by his word and the only way he could find out of that dilemma was to send his son to die on the cross of Calvary the death that we would have had to die that was the degree to which God is bound by his word and what was it that held him to the cross well we say it was not the nails but it was his love for us and in a sense that's true but it was really his

word because if God could have changed his word he could have spared his son but he cannot change his word and there is nothing for us outside of this word now 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 18 and I don't have the time this morning to speak about the other aspects of his death his burial and his resurrection those are all very important and very wonderful parts and let me just jump to the resurrection very briefly make a few comments about that that is our hope the resurrection together with the rapture these two things happen at the same time and that is our hope but unfortunately there are many who are saying we have a better hope our hope is for a new world our hope is for creating heaven on earth and I've heard preachers say we're not like some of those people out there who have

nothing better to do than to wait for the rapture well I have nothing better to do than wait for the rapture that is our hope that is what keeps us getting up in the morning that is what keeps us facing the day that is what keeps us true and keeps us faithful is the hope of the resurrection that though they kill our bodies we will rise again and we will live forever and when we put our hope in anything else it is shaky and it is an unstable and uncertain hope and people are being given hope and things that are not a hope hope in prosperity hope in a better life on this earth and I have bad news for you this morning it's not going to get better it's going to get worse because that's what the scripture tells me but I have a hope that Jesus is coming again and if I die before he comes that

one day I will hear the sound of that trumpet and I will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye and I will be like him and I will see him face to face let's get back to the cross 1 corinthians chapter 1 verse 18 for 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 the message of the cross is no longer being preached because it is foolishness for it is written I will destroy the wisdom the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent where is the wise where's the scribe the disputer of this age has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world for since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who

believe for the Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness but to those who are called by Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men there are two kinds of people in the world those who are emotional about their religion and those who are intellectual about their religion I'm of the latter kind those who are emotional want to see signs and wonders and get feelings and those who have an intellectual approach think that they are more spiritual because they're not carnal like those people who want to have the feelings we want to understand things and reason them out and work them out

with our minds and we think that's more spiritual Paul says both of them are foolish and weak he says I haven't come to give you clever arguments he could have done that he was he was a clever man well trained a good scholar a good orator but he says I refuse to come and give you clever stories clever arguments clever philosophies he could have given them the power he could perform miracles but he says I haven't come to draw you by those things I'm going to come back to those those points in a moment