Thrilled to be here at Times Square Church
with Pastor Tim and Cindy and the elders
of the church and the worship team.
Just God is moving here so richly.
It's such a new and fresh wind of
the spirit moving and that is a God
thing, right church?
That's a God thing, we're so thankful for
it.
Let me pray and then we're gonna be
talking about glory only in the cross.
It's the afterglow of Easter.
It's a pastor who loves teaching the word
up here in the pulpit saying, I really
wanna make sure that we understand why Jesus
had to die.
I really wanna understand the power of it
because it's one thing to sing the glorious
songs, even when we sing tonight, I am
free.
And then if we were to ask you,
why are you free?
You might say, I feel free or I
think I'm free or but maybe there's some
truth, some doctrine, even some, here's a bad
word in some circles, even some theology.
Theology simply means the study of God.
Who doesn't wanna study God?
I mean, he's brilliant, he's wonderful, he's amazing.
And so there are various types of theologians
and we're gonna be talking about that tonight.
We'll start in Galatians chapter six, if you
have your Bible, Galatians chapter six and verse
14, let me pray for us first.
Heavenly father, I thank you for the grace
that might come upon me tonight to proclaim
your word in such fashion that our minds
would be open to revelation, our hearts would
be palpitating with the vigor and vitality of
the newness of life that has been received
through the blood of Jesus, through the cross,
through the death, through the burial, through the
resurrection, through the ascension, through the being seated
at the right hand of the father.
These things are all realities of this singularity
that we call the cross of Jesus Christ
and we only glory in the cross.
We don't glory in our power, we don't
glory in our eloquence, we don't boast in
our own abilities.
We just know that it is all of
you and I just thank you for the
grace to proclaim your word in Jesus' name.
Everybody said together, amen.
Galatians chapter six, verse 14, only glory in
the cross.
That's exactly what this verse says, but God
forbid that I should glory only in the
cross of Jesus Christ, except in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the
world has been crucified to me and I
to the world.
Some translations say I boast only in the
cross, others say I only glory in the
cross.
In 1518, a young monk was struggling with
a very universal question, a question that all
of us now 500 years later are still
asking.
It's a question that's asked in the corridors
of every university and high school campus, every
family member, every person walking down the streets
of New York City, everyone riding on a
subway, really may not pay attention to this
question, but deep down inside they are asking
this question that this young monk was asking.
Basically, this universal question was, what's wrong with
me?
Why do I have this nagging sense of
not being complete?
What is this thing inside of me that
feels empty, that I'm not enough, not a
sufficient person?
I'm not adequate to live up to the
calling on my life and as a result
of that, this young man in the 16th
century was depressed, he was self-loathing, he
was a perfectionist who could never find himself
doing enough.
As a result, he was deeply unhappy and
he was trying to find the root cause
for his ailment.
As he began to explore what this thing
that was ailing the deepest part of the
recesses of his heart, he came to a
crucial reality that all of these questions he
was asking actually have their root in one
question.
And this one question became, he said, the
fundamental question we are all asking is, how
can I arrive at the righteousness that will
enable me to stand before a holy God?
What he's saying is that all these other
questions are subsets of the deepest question that
oftentimes theologians, and again, everybody here is a
theologian, even if you're an atheist, you're a
theologian, you're studying God in the sense of
saying he doesn't exist or you're studying him
in the way of saying that he is
good or the way, whatever it is.
And so he's saying this fundamental question comes
down to, are we righteous before God?
And the atheist or the agnostic or the
lukewarm Christian probably doesn't really understand they're asking
that question, but they are asking it because
we know you're asking it if you're asking
these other questions.
What's this thing inside of me that doesn't
feel right about myself?
Why do I wake up sometimes in the
morning on the wrong, we call it what,
the wrong side of the bed?
Who would think that those things are attached
to this deeper root question of what does
it take to stand righteous before God?
How can I be accepted by him?
How can I be in right standing with
him?
How can I stand before him one day
at the judgment seat and him say to
me, well done, good and faithful servant?
Again, these are not questions that are formed
and articulated by everyone, but they're in the
heart of every man.
God says that eternity is set in the
heart of every man.
So we are all asking this question.
The root of all these other nagging questions
that disturb our souls are this one thing.
How do I become righteous?
How do I get right with God?
This young man in 1518 had a spiritual
breakthrough that set his soul free, that turned
his mind to a calm and accepting mind.
His acceptance before his holy God had become
secure.
He answered the most fundamental question, how can
I become righteous before God?
And his heart was set on fire and
joy filled his soul and a song entered
into his heart.
He began to study the word and preach
the word with a freedom and a victory.
And he began to write songs about it
like one that you may have sung growing
up in the church, a mighty fortress is
our God.
And he could realize he could put his
trust in the righteousness of Christ to redeem
him from his lostness and heal his brokenness
and restore his corrupt mind and get rid
of his depression and his anxiety and his
fear and his stress.
That fundamental question that we're all asking was
answered by him in one thing, it is
found in the blood of Jesus Christ that
makes me righteous.
What a glorious spiritual breakthrough he had.
And what he proposed is revolutionary.
What he proposed, I would suggest to you
is probably the most important reality and truth
ever discovered in the history of mankind.
More important than gravity, more important than the
nuclear bomb, more important than any other scientific
or psychological or relational reality.
This one thing that he, this revolutionary idea
that he proposed, I would argue is the
single most important message even for this generation
over 500 years later.
And he went to a city called Heidelberg
in Germany.
And there he met with his other monks.
There was about 30 young monks who were
with him and he began to what is
called dispute with them.
He brought out about 25 different points that
basically rocked the whole Catholic world.
In that audience were some young men who
at the power of this revolutionary message were
set free themselves and joined Martin Luther in
a revolution called the Reformation that is still
the roots of this church, these messages, these
songs, this prayer meeting, you're being saved, you're
being set free, you're coming to know Christ
has its roots.
Yes, in the New Testament church, more importantly
in the gospel, but it was the reforming
or the revival or the reawakening of these
simple gospel truths that we are justified by
grace through faith alone in Christ alone.
And this revolutionary idea came down to this.
He told these 30 monks or so, came
down to these two things.
There's two types of theologians.
And again, these were all theologians, these monks,
but everyone here tonight is a theologian.
And everyone in this room has either one
of these two types of theologies in your
life.
Every church has one of these two theologies.
First one he called is a theology of
glory, theology of glory.
The second one he had was called the
theology of the cross.
And he was saying that the invitation was
that all of you men, I want you
to become, to turn away from being a
theologian of glory and become a theologian of
the cross and bring that to your church,
bring that to your nation, bring that message
of the cross of Jesus Christ to the
world.
Now, when I speak of the glory, not
boasting in glory or not glorying anything except
the cross of the Galatians passage we started
with tonight, I'm not speaking of honoring the
glory of God, praising the glory of God,
singing the glory of God, getting on your
knees and honoring God.
That's the kind of glory we are to
pursue.
But what Martin Luther was talking about here
is a theology of self-glory, of how
to become a person that has glory, that
gets glory, that obtains glory.
Men and women are created in the image
of God.
And our first parents, Adam and Eve, were
created in the garden, filled with the glory
of God, the presence of God, the honor
of walking with Him daily in the garden.
They found love and they found acceptance, they
found a completeness, they found a peace and
a joy, a contentment with God and with
one another.
They needed no marriage seminars, they needed no
marriage counseling, they needed no revival or spiritual
awakening because they were complete in God and
walked with God in the garden.
And then as we know the story, they
fell into temptation in the garden and then
they fell into sin and the sin brought
separation and brokenness in relationship with God and
relationship with one another.
You see, immediately they begin to blame one
another.
They begin to cover themselves because of the
shame and there was a brokenness of the
glory.
Many, many years later, Paul writes about this
that we all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God.
We're no longer walking in that glory, we're
no longer experiencing the fullness of that glory.
There's something missing in our heart and I
would suggest to you that this loss of
glory, it's that sense of something deeply missing
in our hearts.
There's something we once had that we say,
I wish I could obtain that again, I
wish I could get back to the glory,
I wish I could get back to the
presence, the joy, the painlessness, the sorrowlessness, the
contentment.
I want that kind of life.
So what we are longing for really is
glory and ever since the loss occurred at
the fall, there has been in us an
attempt to claw back to that glory or
to climb that ladder and say, what is
missing in me?
I will do anything to experience that.
Some will take drugs to experience it, some
will live a life of sexual immorality to
experience, some will try to get rich to
experience, some will attend church to experience it
without really understanding that their righteousness is not
in a church service, in a prayer meeting
and singing songs, it's in the blood of
Jesus, cleansing us from all sin and becoming
righteous in Christ.
And so we are attempting, as I said,
to claw our way back.
A theologian of glory is someone who is
seeking glory through human strength to enter back
into the garden after the fall.
We came from glory, here's how it goes.
We came from glory, now we're temporarily derailed,
but we believe it's only a slight setback,
it's just a temporary inconvenience and it could
be remedied.
So clearly, if we could just have the
proper human effort or willpower or striving in
our own strength or proper religious understanding or
religious activities or moral obligations or duties, if
we could just do it right, if we
could just do life right, we could get
back into this glory.
And that's why even many churches are more
about doing life right, 10 steps to a
better marriage, how to be moral, how to
overcome this problem, how to do better at
this.
They're preaching a theology of glory that you
can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, by
human will and moral effort, you have the
ability in yourself.
Yes, you could be aided by God's presence
and power and grace, but substantially you could
do it yourself.
And so there's a pursuit of restoring self
glory.
And it says this, I can access this
glory through human efforts, through self-achievement, through
self-fulfillment, through self-will and the Bible
has a name for this, it's called being
self-righteous or another verse we'll look at
a little bit later, putting our confidence in
the flesh.
Basically we're saying, I want that former glory.
Basically it's saying, I know I can get
it.
It's basically saying, I know how to get
it.
And then it's basically saying, I know what
it takes to achieve this glory that my
heart longs to be restored.
A theologian of glory believes all we need
to answer this nagging question of what's wrong
in the deepest recesses of my heart and
life is positive reinforcement or bolstering a sagging
ego or a constant voice surrounding us of
optimism.
You can get your glory back by believing
in yourself.
You can get your glory back by believing
in God.
We are bombarded by this message from our
parents.
When we are children and we paint the
ugliest picture and they put it up on
the refrigerator saying, you're going to be an
artist.
And then we sing a song and it's
totally off key.
And they say, maybe you're going to be
the next Beyonce.
That we're bombarded with this optimistic message.
And then we go to our schools and
they're putting gold stars on our F grade
things.
And in our sports, they're no longer keeping
score.
When I see my grandson play, I am
in my own mind keeping score.
We're winning 13 to five.
And so we're bombarded with this message of
glory.
You're glorious, you're worthy, you're wonderful, you're amazing,
you can do anything.
And then we go to church and God
help us.
We're hearing messages that I could hardly tell
whether it's Oprah preaching or Joel Osteen.
Hardly can tell the difference, same message.
You can do it.
Just try hard enough.
Just smile more.
Just be happy more.
Just claim your inheritance.
Just believe in yourself.
Just know that you, it's heretical.
It's false teaching.
It's what Luther said was killing me.
It's killing me.
It's killing the church.
It's causing this nagging sense of something wrong
in my soul.
And what it is, it's that this glory
hunger inside of me thinks that I can
obtain it myself without the cross of Jesus
Christ.
Without the glory of God being present in
my life.
And so we have pop psychologists, we have
a whole self-help industry.
And I would suggest to you, many of
the most popular preachers today try and prop
us up with self-esteem, with unceasing optimism,
optimistic platitudes, pronouncements and pleasant sounding melodies of
praise.
Calling us good when we're walking in evil.
Not calling out sin any longer.
Not calling out unrighteousness.
Not calling out our hopelessness.
Not calling sin, sin.
Yet more and more people seem to be,
the more we prop up people through praise
and adoration and affirmation and optimism, the more
we prop people up, even in our churches,
the more depressed people are becoming.
The more self-esteem they're lacking.
We're getting lower than ever in self-esteem
the more we try to raise up self
-esteem.
Because we don't understand to live is Christ
and to die is gain.
We got it backwards.
We think we're trying to live.
We're trying to get that glory back rather
than the, later on, we'll talk about the
theology of the cross.
And don't hear me as unsympathetic, even though
oftentimes I can be.
But hear me as one who's saying that
optimism has its proper place.
I learned a new word last week.
It's called penultimate.
I'd never heard it before.
Have you heard the word penultimate?
Basically, penultimate is when something is ultimate, penultimate
is right behind it in second place.
It's not like unworthy or not good or
worthless or to be abhorred.
It's like right there, but not quite.
It's not the ultimate.
And so optimism is good.
I don't want people walking around me saying,
you're lousy.
You're worthless.
You're no good.
Who wants that, right?
Raise your hand if you want that.
No, don't raise your hand if you want
that.
Optimism has its proper place, but it's penultimate.
It's close, but it's not the best.
We really need something more than that.
We really need more than a pep rally
or pop psychology.
We need to get to the core of
this nagging question of what makes me righteous
before God?
What makes me acceptable?
Because once you get that right, then all
these other questions fall into place.
We're no longer feeling all those things.
There's something wrong with me.
Why am I worthless?
Why am I no good?
Why am I not satisfied with life?
Why do I need more stuff to make
me happy?
All those questions fall to the wayside when
we answer this one question of being righteous
through the power of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
The danger we have in our life, in
our schools, in our churches, in our culture,
is that secondary things such as optimism become
primary and the primary thing becomes secondary.
And so the theology of glory becomes primary,
even in our churches.
You can do it.
Be better, be stronger.
Optimism cannot cure or nor answer the nagging
question nor fill the missing place of the
heart.
It cannot go to the ultimate need of
the question of how do I become righteous?
A theology of glory operates under the assumption
that what we need is optimistic encouragement, some
flattery, some positive thinking, some support to build
self-esteem.
It operates under the assumption that we are
not seriously addicted to sin and that our
improvement is both a necessary possibility with a
little boost in our desire to do good
and to be good, we can do anything
we set our minds to.
Real quickly, I'm gonna be careful not to
go over time here but I usually have
six pages of notes and I have 10
tonight so I'm gonna go fast.
Wow, I have never been applauded for that
before.
Usually people start getting their phones out.
No, that's gonna be a long one.
Let's see what's on the internet.
Very briefly, I believe in our society there
are at least three or four current prominent
ways that we are pursuing being a theologian
of glory.
The first is moralism.
Philippians chapter three, if you have your Bibles,
look at Philippians or it'll be on the
screen.
Philippians chapter three and verse three, it says,
we glory for we are the circumcision which
worship the spirit of God and glory, where
does it say to glory?
Glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence
in the flesh.
A theologian of glory puts confidence in the
flesh and you even go to churches and
hear sermons about really they don't guise it
this way but it has to do with
putting confidence in the flesh.
You can do it, you can make it
happen.
If you'll go to some of the most
popular websites of the most popular preachers and
the most popular churches today, you'll find a
plethora of sermons, things like you can have
the most healthy marriage in your life, you
can become wealthy with these three easy principles,
you can find your destiny, you can find
a problem-free life, you can find your
future, the brilliance of your future.
I have done this, I've looked at several
websites and I found that probably 95%
of these places that are theologians of glory,
every sermon starts with a you, you can
do it, you can make better, you can
make it, you can have it, blah, blah,
blah, blah, I get so sick of it.
I don't wanna talk about me, I wanna
talk about Jesus.
I don't come to church to get improvement
or self-help or feel a little better.
I can go to the bookstore and read
a thousand books about how to have self
-improvement.
I don't come to church for that, I
come to hear about Him, about the cross,
about Jesus, about His power, about His life.
And so this confidence in the flesh is
basically, again, what Martin Luther talked about, the
whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation has two
truths in it.
One is the law and the other is
the gospel.
And we need to learn to distinguish between
the two because if you're living under the
law, you're going to be a theologian of
glory.
What he's saying there is if you're living
under the law, you're going to hear, do
this, try harder, become that.
And the law, Scripture makes it so clear
to us, the law demands, the law requires,
the law speaks actionable things into our life,
but it never gives us the power to
do them.
And if we're living under the law, we're
going to always be under this weight, what's
wrong with me?
Why aren't I righteous enough?
And what the stirring in our heart will
be is, I'm going to have to try
harder, I'm going to have to repent more,
I'm going to have to pray more, I'm
going to have to read more, I'm going
to have to go to church more, and
I'm going to have to give more, and
I'm going to have to go on more
missions trips, and I'm going to have to
witness more.
And none of that should ever be anything
you have to do, it should be, I
want to do.
And that's the difference between law and the
gospel.
Law is, here's the cross in the middle,
and I'm on the law side, trying to
earn my way to get to the favor
of God on his cross, I'm going to
get righteous by doing all these good works,
and then I get, yay, I made it
to the cross, and now Jesus accepts me,
his blood is finally working for me because
I did all this stuff.
And the reality is, on the other side
of the cross is where our power comes
from.
Jesus finished the work, it is done, it
is complete.
And now on the other side, on the
other side, these good works become righteous, good
deeds.
On this side, Paul calls them filthy rags.
Exact same work, giving on this side, filthy
rags.
Giving on this side, the joy of the
Lord, the blessings of the Holy Spirit.
Trying to love your wife on this side
is law and is strife, and it's a
burden.
Loving your wife on this side, still a
little bit of a burden, but much easier.
It's the opposite wives to their husband.
I'm gonna hear it from my wife tonight,
she's sitting over there.
The confident assessment of the theologian of glory
is that good works and self-righteousness and
effort done by obedience to the divine law
must be the way back to glory.
And I can do this, I can keep
God's law.
But you see, God's law was never meant
to be kept in one way on this
side of the cross.
God's law was meant to show you that
you can't keep it, that you're insufficient, that
the problem isn't in your inability to keep
the law, the problem is that you're a
sinner.
The problem isn't that you don't feel good
enough about yourself, the problem is you don't
know how bad you are.
The problem isn't you're working to get free
of sin, the problem is you don't know
how bad a sinner we really are, that
we really need help.
This is not a self-help project.
This is out of our control, this is
far beyond us.
And until we understand that, we can sing
till we're blue in the face, but these
songs about the cross and the power of
the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ
will be encouraging, emotional, but they won't have
the depth of meaning that this is what
this means.
I once was lost, but now I'm found.
I was blind, but now I see that
he saved such a wretch like me.
And then we live in a culture that
churches wanna change the word because they don't
like the word wretch in there.
So such a one as me, it's happening
in churches all across the world.
The law only produces a powerlessness in us.
Galatians chapter 3.10, let's look at that
on the screen here, says, if you rely
on the works, not only are you not
making a reality, making it happen, but what
does it say?
You're cursed, everyone who's under the law is
under a curse, all right?
So these two distinguishing features of law and
the gospel, those who are trying in their
own strength to be a theologian of glory,
not only are striving and stressful and anxious,
but you're cursed.
It is under the Deuteronomy 28 curse.
Everything that, every sin that you commit is
going to be punished.
The wages of sin is death.
And I will never be able to phantom
the children of Israel when in Deuteronomy 27,
28 and nine, Moses gets up there and
says, here's the law of God.
And I'm gonna repeat the laws to you.
And when I'm done, you say, amen, we
will do everything written in the law.
And he says, you shouldn't lust after another
woman or commit adultery.
Amen, we promise we'll never do that.
And if we do that, we're under a
curse.
And he goes on and on, all these
different laws.
Well, amen, I'm gonna do that one too.
That's not just the Israel church, right?
That's you and me.
Amen, I'm gonna keep that law.
How about Luke chapter, I think it's 10,
maybe 12, where a man comes to him,
he's a lawyer.
And he says, what must I do to
receive eternal life?
That's grace, that's the message of the gospel.
But Jesus doesn't answer him with the gospel.
He answers him with the law.
What does he ask the question, what does
the law say?
You see, because the law had not finished
its work in the scribe yet.
He still thought he was good.
I've kept all of these laws.
Yes, Lord, I can do all those things.
If I was Israel, if I was a
man, I would not make any of those
promises.
If I say yes to this and I
don't do it, a curse is coming upon
me.
A curse, like my fingernails will get mildew
under it.
My ears will explode.
I don't know what the whole curses are,
but those were not some of them.
I was trying to be funny and did
not succeed.
But I would not want to be under
any of those curses.
I wouldn't make those promises because I've learned
enough about myself to know I don't keep
my promises before God.
I don't keep his divine law.
And so there's a curse in Romans chapter
seven, verse nine.
Not only is there a curse, but under
the law, it says here, I was once
alive apart from the law, but when the
commandment came, sin came alive, or another translation
is that sin revived and I died.
The law kills me.
It makes me miserable.
It makes me feel no good about myself,
but it's meant to drive us to a
solution that's not of ourselves.
And lastly, Romans chapter five, verse 20.
And it says there, now the law came
in to increase the trespass, or another translation
says to increase the sin.
Isn't that amazing?
That the law actually, when it does its
work in you, it increases your sinfulness.
Number one, it increases it by saying to
you, here's some sins you didn't even know
were sins and you're committing them.
Secondly, it also increases the sin you're trying
to stop.
I remember when I was a young man
and I was having problems with pornography, I
would look at pornography and I'd feel so
guilty.
I'd just be so ashamed.
And I promised God, I'd never look at
that again.
I just, that's so bad.
And I'm so miserable, I hate myself.
And those bad feelings made me need it
even more.
Does that make sense?
Like, hey, I feel so bad about myself.
Pornography makes me feel good for a little
while.
Maybe there are others that's drugs make me
feel good for a little while.
Lying makes me feel good about it.
Cheating on my income tax makes me feel
good for a little while.
But the law makes sin increase.
Like for a drug addict, the law is
this.
Thou shalt not use drugs.
Thou shalt quit.
The law is good, right?
What I just said, is that not a
good thing for an addict?
It absolutely is a law of good.
But it's powerless to set the addict free
from his addiction or her addiction.
The law proclaims something to be done, but
doesn't give us, doesn't show us, doesn't empower
us, doesn't grace us with the ability to
accomplish the thing that God calls us into.
And it's intentional.
God is doing that to get rid of
the theology of glory in your heart.
That no one should boast in the flesh.
That no one should boast in their self
will, their self power, but that righteousness comes
from God and God alone.
I'm gonna pass that one.
And I'm gonna start just real briefly.
Materialism is one of the things.
I'll feel good about myself.
I'll return to glory if I have enough
money, success, fame, fortune, that seeped into the
church and made a thing called the prosperity
movement, where it's a secular idea.
I'll feel good about myself when I obtain
enough wealth and success.
And then now that's absorbed into all types
of things that are happening in the church.
Another one is Christian nationalism.
It's a move from personal prosperity and faith
into a national sense of morality.
It's taking the law and saying, America can
become great again if we just have morality
and if we just get the bad people
to do good things.
I don't want bad people just to do
good things, although I want that because I'm
a good American and I have patriotism.
I still cry at the national anthem.
I still put my hand on my chest.
I love America, but I don't believe the
hope for America is a moral revival.
It's a spiritual revival.
It's an awakening of the soul.
The hope for sexual immorality, the hope for
perversion, the hope for addiction, the hope for
violence is found in Christ Jesus, not in
taking the theology of glory and put it
on a national scale to get those things
done.
So lastly, as we get ready to close,
I want to talk about the thing I
really came for tonight.
I hope I've convinced you that a theology
of glory is not a sufficient way to
live your life.
What is the alternative?
Luther talked about a theologian of the cross
or a theology of understanding that is at
the cross of Jesus Christ, that I find
my hope, that it's not in self-help,
that it's not in the movements of our
own flesh or in our own ability, but
it comes from the grace that is found
in Jesus Christ as the cross.
The cross is dying to every form of
self-merit or of glory aspiration or ever
being thinking that it's possible to obtain it
by self-effort.
The cross puts those things to an end.
Theologians of the cross know that they can't
be helped by mere optimism, by appeals to
seek glory or strength or wisdom or positive
thinking because these things in themselves are the
problem.
And the cross is striking at the root.
The cross extinguishes the flame of self-achieved
righteousness.
It burns the flesh out, the confidence in
the flesh, leaving us helpless and hopeless and
desperate for the alternative, which is the cross
of Jesus Christ.
The cross is the only true right means
to restoring what is missing.
Righteousness is found not in self-worth, but
through Christ's work in us.
The cross of Jesus Christ.
The cross does not coddle false optimism, but
calls sin, sin, and it calls sin to
be put to death.
And it calls the sinner to be put
to death so that new birth becomes a
possibility.
It's not tinkering with or fixing or some
self-improvement project that it's actually a death,
that we become crucified with Christ.
But nevertheless, then we'll live, not I live,
but it's Christ who lives in me.
That is the work of the cross.
Theology of the cross tells the truth.
It tells the truth.
When you look at the cross, it tells
you the truth, that you feel bad.
This question we ask ourselves, why do I
feel bad about myself?
The theology of the cross is the only
way that tells you the truth.
It's the only message that tells you the
truth.
You feel bad because you are bad.
And no one else will tell you that.
They'll try to convince you that you're good,
and then your self-glory gets rekindled inside
of you.
The cross says, no, there's no hope for
you.
And we live in a culture now that
we don't understand how lost and rebellious, how
we are sinners of enmity with God, that
we are dead in our sins, that we
are hopeless, helpless, lifeless, truthless, and that there's
a total inability to live righteous or to
strive for righteousness in acceptance with God by
our own powers.
It shows us how broken and truly unfixable
we are.
No matter how good we are, how successful
we are, how moral we are, or the
nation we live in, we cannot restore glory
of the righteousness unless Christ does something for
us.
The cross is actually God's attack on sin.
The cross is God's attack on sin.
Two types of sin he attacks.
Number one is unrighteousness, vile sins, sexual immorality,
perversion, murder, divorce, child abuse.
He attacks unrighteous deeds of evil men and
women.
The cross does that, but the cross has
a second attack that we don't like to
hear about.
It's one that we wanna close our ears
to.
It's not the attack on unrighteousness, but to
the attack on self-righteousness.
And self-righteousness is more insidious and more
dangerous because it confuses us and it oftentimes
convinces us that we're okay, that we're kinda
right, that we're kinda, we can make it,
we can do this, we're good enough, we're
strong enough, we're happy enough, and it gives
us false hope.
So therefore, the cross has to do a
deeper work in those of us who struggle
with self-righteousness.
That's been my lifelong struggle.
Not so much unrighteousness.
I've never committed adultery, I've never done fornication,
I've never done drugs, I've never been drunk
in my life, but I've been full of
self-righteousness.
I can do this, I can be better,
I am better.
I am better than you.
That's self-righteousness, and it's abominable to God.
It's more dangerous.
Jesus did well with the unrighteous.
He had a big difficulty with the self
-righteous.
He had a hard time because they would
not come to him for the work that
he could do for them.
And therefore, we live in a culture that
doesn't understand the depth of our sinfulness.
And not only do we not understand it,
but we, in our safe zones, wanna do
away with difficult words in the scripture.
Words like sin, like law, like accusation, judgment,
condemnation, wrath, guilt, repentance.
If we get rid of those words to
try to make us feel better as theologians
of the glory, we get rid of half
the scripture.
And we don't have the full word of
God.
And we don't have the cross because without
understanding who we are and the trouble we're
in, the cross is not supplying all that
we need for the resurrection life that Christ
gives to us.
Worship team, if you'd come back, the theology
of the cross is an offensive theology.
It offends the righteousness that we want in
our own strength, the confidence in the flesh.
It attacks us in saying, we're saying we
can do it.
And the cross attacks us and says, you
cannot do it.
Only Christ can do it through you.
Only the power of the cross.
Jesus died to deal with these two things.
Our unrighteousness, that's the sin.
There's a debit.
And we can't merit getting out of that
sin.
In Luther's time, they tried to do that.
Your sin is way down here, pay penance,
do some good works, do some good deeds,
and your unrighteous deeds will be cleansed.
The problem with that is only half the
battle.
You see, you're still not righteous.
You're just, you just don't have a sin
that needs to be forgiven anymore, although you
actually do.
So you're just at level ground, but you're
not still acceptable for God.
And see what Jesus did is on the
cross, he took your sin upon himself.
And what he also did is dealt with
our self-righteousness saying, you can't be self
-righteous and get to heaven in yourself.
You need perfect righteousness.
If you're gonna obey the law, you have
to keep it perfectly, every 100% of
it.
And if you fail in one thing, you're
under a curse.
Your sin increases in you and you are
lost and will die in your sin under
the law.
And so Christ comes along and says, not
only did I die for your unrighteousness to
forgive your sin, but I lived a perfect
life.
I did what Adam could not do.
I lived sinless, spotless, kept every single law,
ceremonial law, civil law, moral law, the divine
law of God.
I kept it all perfectly.
And so now when I come to the
cross, I have no debt to pay.
And so I can use my merit to
give to somebody else.
And that merit has been given to you.
And we've been talking about theology here today,
but I wanna close with an illustration I
heard from another pastor.
It's not my own, but he was talking
about when Jesus died on the cross, we
celebrated that this past weekend.
And when Jesus died on the cross, there
were two thieves next to him, two criminals,
and one cursed God and the other said,
don't stop cursing him, he's a righteous, he
uses the word, he's a righteous man.
And Jesus says to him, today you'll be
with me in paradise.
And the story goes, what if we were
there in heaven when this sinner on the
cross who was a thief and really didn't
know much, when he gets up to heaven
and he says, the angels in heaven say,
what are you doing here?
And he goes, I'm not real sure.
He goes, well, how'd you get here?
I don't really know.
Well, do you understand justification by faith alone?
I don't know what justification is.
Do you know about substitutionary atonement that Christ
died in your place?
I don't really know what substitution.
Do you know what Pastor Gary was talking
about tonight, a theologian of the glory or
a theologian?
Nah, I'd never heard about either one of
those.
And the angel says, well, how are you
here?
And the man simply says, I don't know,
but the guy next to me on the
cross said I could come.
Isn't that amazing?
Yes, that's the cross, his sufficiency, not yours.
Him saying it is finished, not I'll finish
it.
Him, that is the ultimate.
Stand with me if you would, please.
And all over this auditorium today, I want
to give an invitation, an invitation for you
to say, I probably, if I'm real honest
with myself, I probably walked in here, and
I'm not asking whether you're a Christian or
not, but you're honestly assessing yourself.
I probably walked in here as a theologian
of glory, but I wanna walk out of
here as a theologian of the cross.
I've been trying to my own strength and
it's made me miserable, but I wanna lay
all that down and let Jesus say to
me, it's finished.
He's made me righteous.
He's answered that nagging question.
And if that question has been nagging in
your soul, I want you to step out
of your seat right now.
Don't wait till the music starts.
Come now, and I wanna pray for you
that God would do a miracle in your
heart today.
I'm believing him for a miracle of freedom.
We sang it today, but I believe you're
gonna understand it like you've never understood it
before.
Come on down now, and we'll just pray
for you in a second.
Don't be afraid, come on ahead.
Come on down, come up closer.
Hang on a second, hang on a second.
I'm not trying to boost the numbers of
righteousness, I'm not trying to boost the numbers
of people coming forward here.
That would be the glorying, that would be
self-glory.
Oh, I want bigger numbers.
But I'm just gonna be real blunt with
you.
There's a whole lot more people here that
are dealing with self-righteousness, that are trying
to earn it themselves, that haven't really come
to lay it all down at the cross.
And I really want you to receive this
today.
So come on ahead, we're gonna sing this
song, and as we're singing it, step out
of your seat, and let us see this
miracle take place in this house today.