The Cross: Where Liberty Begins, Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, June 27th. Today we continue to study the book of Galatians as we learn to follow the Lord more closely. Now let me remind you of where we started, that 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 not only 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 sort of set 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, only lest they should suffer persecution of the cross of Christ. So what he's referring to now, if you recall, that the Judaizers from Jerusalem came up to the churches there in Galatia and were trying to put these believers back in bondage, live up to the law. Here's what God expects.

And so they were in a state of great discouragement. And so Paul is referring to them here now and he says, As many as desire to make a fair show. And what he's saying is, As many as desire to make a show before others, and that is to stand well with men. He says, As many as desire to make, to show off really in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised. He says, These Judaizers are coming up here.

And he says, They're not concerned about you. They're 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, they just pat themselves on the shoulders and say, Well, we straighten out all those Christians up there who will listen to Paul and we've got them under the law and everything is going to be all right. He says, Lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. And what he's saying is, in order that these Judaizers coming up from Jerusalem, because they didn't want to face their crowd back in Jerusalem, and they didn't want to be persecuted because of what they were teaching, what they were doing, they were putting the law on others, getting other people into the bondage and causing them to compromise to save their own hides.

That's exactly what he was saying. So he says in verse 13, For neither they that themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised that they make glory in your flesh. He says, And not only are they a big show off, not only they want to pat themselves in the back, he says, but not all that he says they ought 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, the law wasn't given to keep, but to expose the wickedness of man's heart to expose expose man's inadequacy that will drive him to desperation to the cross of Jesus Christ, to have his sins forgiven and to 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 they're preaching, they're a bunch of cowards, they're scared they're going to be persecuted.

Besides that, they want to heap on you something that they can glory in themselves. And he says, what they really want to do is the glory in the flesh. Now God isn't going to allow any of us the glory in the flesh.

And I'll tell you one way he cut that out to begin with. He said, For by grace, are you saved, and that not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast, Jesus Christ, by the grace of God plus nothing gets a man to glory. So he says, here they are glory in the flesh, he said that won't get you anywhere.

And you see, he'd already said that all through the first five chapters here. He says the man is justified not by works, he's not declared righteous now as 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 in the past is still operative and effective and bearing fruit in my life at the present time.

That's what that 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, by whom the world back yonder once was crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Now 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 forbid that I should boast in anything but the cross. And you see, sometimes we Christians are prone to boast about things. Paul said, 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 pales 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 experience in his life that made the difference in the future of his existence, in fact, his eternal existence.

Now, what does he mean by that? Simply this, that when he saw Jesus Christ for who he was, and Christ's 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 saw that, he understood that his whole life was wrapped up in the cross of Jesus Christ, because that's where he found life. It is the only place any man has ever discovered life since that time. It is the only place to find everlasting life. It is the only place to have your name written in man's book of life. It is the only place where a man can exchange death for life. It is the only place where man's hope of eternity can become a living vital reality within his life.

It is the only place where men can be liberated to be everything that God intended them to be. And because it was all of that to Paul, here's what he said. He says, speaking of Jesus Christ, by whom the world, perfect passive and negative, has been crucified to me and I to the world.

And here's what he means. He says because of what the cross means, there came a time in my life, Paul says, when I died 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 only that, but when I died to the world, he says, the effect of that was the world died to me.

And my friend, let me tell you something. With all of my heart, I want you to listen to me. God the Father who saved you through Jesus Christ, it is his heart's desire that every one of us could say that. I have been crucified with Christ, which all of us who are saved have. 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 died to the world's pleasures, to its tug, its pull, its appeal, its praise, and its honor.

I died to that. Don't you and I know that the biggest battles we have even after we're saved is still the tug and the pull and the allurements and the magnetic pull of the world. You turn on the radio and they just bombard you with all the junk they have.

Turn on the television, it's the same story. Walk down the streets, whether it's 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 it. We can't do without it. We must experience this. We must have that.

Let me ask you this. Wouldn't you agree that we've probably compromised a whole lot more than we want to admit? That the world has a much stronger appeal to us than we want to admit. Paul said, if you recall back in Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, he said, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but now 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 for me. Paul said, I was crucified. That is, he exchanged the old Saul of Tarsus for the new Paul. And what he was saying is, he says, I've exchanged my old life for a new life. 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 chalked me off. For not only have I been crucified in the world, but the world cut me out. Now listen, 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 do it. 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're quoting the world on this side and God on that side, and 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 obey God. Because after the world gets its tentacles around them, its claws in them, and it's hooked 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're willing to call it all off with the world. If somebody is pulling you away from God, you better break that off right fast. If you say, oh, I'm going to get them converted, I'll tell you what, you let God convert them, and if they love you, they'll come back.

And if they don't, you don't want them anyway. Are you dating somebody tonight that'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 into activities or thoughts, 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're going to violate the Word of God?

Are you running with a group in your social life that acts like they have it all together and you're a vital part of the group? In fact, they'd love your being there. But you know to run with them, you've got to compromise your convictions in some maybe small little ways. And God's saying to you, I want you to die to that. And I want to ask you somebody, because I'm here to tell you there's somebody here tonight 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 to be too late. You say, well, how do you die?

Here's 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're 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, or will lead you into a place and a position to hurt your testimony, disappoint true believers who love you, and who will grieve the heart of God. You see, to yield my, I must yield my life to the cross. And 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, but what God has to offer. And you see, there comes times in our lives, and not just once, but there'll be many times in our life when God says, it's time for you to face this, and I want you to die to it. And then you and I have to decide. We want God's best. We want God to use us to the maximum. And I want to tell you something.

That kind of dying is the most free, liberating, joyful experience I know, because it is amazing how instantaneously what tugged at your heart five minutes ago is as if it no longer existed. And I simply want to leave you with this question. What is the strongest tug in your life toward the world? And are you willing to die to that Lord Jesus, to become what He wants you to become and to put yourself in a 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 allurement 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 of my potential?

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 and having and enjoying God's eternal best? Thank you for listening to part one of The Cross Where Liberty Begins. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.