The Cross: Where Liberty Begins, Part 1

And that's podcasting time for Monday, June 27. Today we continue to study the book of Galatians as we learn to follow the Lord more closely would be reminds you of where we started. Paul was writing to the churches of Galatia and because the Judaizers had come up from Jerusalem and saying that in order to be saved. You must know and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior but you must likewise take upon yourself the bondage of keeping the law. Then in order to solicit the stage for the key thing he's going to say in these verses. He says as many and many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised unless they should suffer persecution of the cross of Christ was referring do not you recall that the Judaizers from Jerusalem came up to the churches, then glacier and were trying to put these believers back in bondage live up to the law. Here is what God expects and so they were in a state of great discouragement and so Paul is referring to them him out. He says as many as desire to make a fair show and what he saying is, as many as desire to make a show before others and that is the stand well with men.

He says as many as desire to make the show already in the flesh they constrain. You be circumcised. He says these Judaizers are coming up here and he says they're not concerned about you, then just trying to make a big show that they were able to convince you and persuade you that you should be circumcised and that is in order to keep the law and add that to your faith in Jesus Christ and what that would do as these Judaizers would go back to Jerusalem. I just pat themselves, was chosen as there will we straighten out all those Christians out there who will listen. The Paul and we've got them under the law, and everything is going to be all right. He says Leslie should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ what he saying is in order that these Judaizers coming up from Jerusalem because they want to place their crap back in Jerusalem available to be persecuted because of what they were teaching what they were doing they were putting the little all others getting other people to bondage and causing them to compromise to say their own hands is exactly what to say. So he says in verse 13. For me that they that themselves who are circumcised keep the law desire to have you circumcised that they make glory in your play Jesus not only are they a big show all the pat themselves in the back, he says, but none of that. He says that in order to escape persecution themselves and he said besides that, they don't even keep the law and of course Paul knew that because he knew that no man can keep the law of the law wasn't given to keep, but to expose the wickedness of man's heart disposal exposed man's inadequacy that will drive him to desperation to the cross of Jesus Christ that had his sins forgiven and the trust in the grace of God and not in the works of man. He says, so they come to you. They don't practice what their preaching there much are cowards.

They are scared they going to be persecuted. Besides that, they will let people use something that they can glory in themselves. And he says what they really want to do is to glory in the flesh that God isn't going to allow any of us to go in the flesh, not to get one when he cut that out to begin with.

He sent for by grace are you saved and that not of yourselves, not of works lest any man should boast Jesus Christ for the grace of God plus nothing get semantical so he says here they are growing in the flesh teaser that will get you anywhere you see or is said that all through 1 March happens there. He says a man is justified not by works. He's not declared righteous Naz of God by works but by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Verse 14 but God forbid that I should glory in anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world perfect passive indicative in the Greek has been crucified unto me once in the past and the effect of that crucifixion the past is still operative and effective and bearing fruit in my life at the present time.

That's what the tense of the verb means something that happened once in the past and the effect of that is still presently going on in my life right now. Paul says about whom the world back you on the once was crucified on to me and I'll unto the world. I want to explain what that verse means, what did he mean when he says, God forbid that I should glory in anything but the cross of Jesus Christ, God could be that I should boast in anything but the cross. You see, sometimes we Christians are prone to boast about the Paulson, he said, but I only will boast in one thing and that is in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything else in life pay you into oblivion.

He says when I look at the cross, so the cross wasn't just an incident in Paul's life. The cross became the heart of his life.

Paul look at the cross as the one experienced in his life that made the difference in the future of his existence and back his eternal existence. Now what is he mean by that. Simply this, then, when he saw Jesus Christ for who he was an Christ death on the cross as man's only hope of salvation and not only that but the cross of Jesus Christ which was the gift of God. It was God who arranged the death of his son.

It was God who arranged the crucifixion of Jesus.

It was God who arranged the whole affair at Calvary and when Paul sold, he understood that his whole life was wrapped up in the cross of Jesus Christ because that's where he found lying is the only place any man has ever discovered life since that time is the only place to find everlasting life is the only place to have your name in the Lamb's book of life is the only place where a man can exchange them for life is the only place where man's whole of eternity can become a living final reality within his life, is the only place where a man can be everything that God intended in the end because it was all about the Paul is what he said.

He says, speaking of Jesus Christ, by whom the world perfect passive indicative has been crucified to me. The world is what it means he says because of what the cross means there came a time in my life. Paul says when I die to the world's pleasures, the world's allurements, the world's pull its magnetic powerful tug at my heartstrings. He said I died to that and he said not all of that.

But when I died to the world. He says the effect of that was the world died to me, my friend limitation with all of my heart of what you missed God the father who saved you through Jesus Christ.

It is his heart's desire that everyone of us could say that I have been crucified with Christ which all of us who were saved had but can we say as he says here, I have been crucified to the world that is an execution took place in my emotional affections in my mental thinking in my will, whereby the shades came down and I die, the world's pleasures, which told its pull its appeal its praise and its I… Don't you not know that the biggest battles we have, even after we say is still the toad in the pool and the allurements and the mag medic pool of the world you turn on the radio and they just bombard you with all the junk that have turned the television, is the same story walked down the streets with the billboards, the magazines, you name it. The world is constantly doing this, the world is telling us over and over and over again how we need. We can do without it. We must experience this. We must have let me ask you this, when you agree that we probably compromise the whole lot more than we wanted that the world has a much stronger appeal to was that we want to admit. Paul said, if you recall back in relationship to verse 20 he said am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not but not Christ lives in me and the life which I now live. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up because I was crucified. That is, he exchanged the old Saul of Tarsus for the new Paul what he was saying is, he says, I've exchanged my whole life for and when I did Paul said the world lost all of its appeal and Jesus Christ became everything in my life and when the world lost its appeal to me and Jesus Christ became everything all of my worldly friends choked me off for not only have I been crucified to the world but the world cut me loose the power of the Holy Spirit will only work where there is purity of heart. He just won't work any other place he won't, and I wonder if one of the reasons the church of Jesus Christ is so weak and so flimsy and feeble and so powerless is because we are courting the world on the side and got on that side.

We don't ever really want to make the final death break and that's why we who are parents need to teach our children very very very very very early in life to old a God because after the world gets its tentacles around them, its claws into. And it's deep down inside. Then mom and dad, you try to pull them out of the world, and friend the deeper into the world our children go, the more difficult it is for them to die to it, but the same thing is true of you and me. He's only going to use somebody you anybody you to the maximum of your potential.

If you willing to call it all off with the world. If somebody is pulling you away from God, you better break that off right fast. These are longer to get them converted.

Dante what you let God convert them and that they love you they'll come back and if they don't, you don't want them anyway. Are you dating somebody tonight it's pulling you away from God. Are you working around somebody and their influence is so powerful in your life. They've already begun to lead you in the activities of thoughts and thought patterns that you know that's not health and not of God. Are you in business with somebody that you know if you listen to them you going to violate the word of God. Are you running with the group in your social life that acts like they have it all together and you are a vital part of the group.

In fact, made all of your being there but you know to run with them. You got to compromise your convictions in some maybe small little ways in God saying to you. I want you to die to that and I want to ask you somebody because I'm here to tell you that somebody hit a night that God has his finger right in your heart and he's telling you you need to die now before you get yourself in so much trouble.

It's going be delayed. You say will how you die is what you do, by faith. You tell God that you accept your position on the cross, which is where he placed you when he took you as one of his children and that you willing for him to work his work of surgery in your life and by faith you claim death to everything in your life that displeases and dishonors God all will lead you into a place in a position to hurt your testimony disappoint true believers who love you and who will grieve the heart of God is see to yield mama's yields my life to the cross. Listen to this definition of yielding. It is the voluntary transfer of total possession. Total control and total use of my life to God.

That's death that's death to the world and all of its allurements and all of its offers and what we do is we exchange what the world has to offer what God has to use either comes times in our lives and not just once but will be many times in life when God says it's time for you to face this and I want you to Dr. and then you not have to decide what God's best, one God uses to the maximum. I want to taste that kind of guy is the most free liberating joyful experience on the coast.

It is amazing how instantaneously, what tug at your heart five minutes ago is is if it no longer existed. I said you want to leave you with this question. What is the strongest tug in your life to the world and are you willing to die to that for Jesus to become what he want you to become in the put yourself in the position whereby he can use you to the maximum of your potential, and I simply want to ask you, are you willing to say with Paul the apostle. I want to be crucified to every allurements of the world that would endanger my use before God, hinder my testimony before my brothers and sisters and hinder God using me to the maximum. Let me ask you one last question.

I close what in your life could be so important to you that you would be willing to hold to and lose the experience of knowing happy and enjoying God's eternal past.

Thank you for listening to part one of the crime where liberty begin. If you like to know more about how family ministries and text data lighting is not The presentation and intense ministry advantage of