Don't think just because you come into a building with a cross on front, you're closer to Christ. Dr. Tony Evans says coming to church is no substitute for coming to the Lord for forgiveness. When you discover the cross, it is the epitome of how God feels about sin. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. The cross isn't just the symbol of Christianity, it's the very heart of Christianity. And today, Dr. Evans helps us understand why.
Let's join him. Paul, in writing the book of Galatians, wants to remind those who are his audience about the centrality of the cross. Says in chapter 6, verse 11, as he prepares to close the book, see with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. As I close the book, Paul says, I want to write this thing big, large, because I don't want you to miss this.
This is a transcendent truth that summarizes everything. The cross. In fact, his statement in verse 14 would be the key.
But may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has been saved for some time, and yet he's saying, I'm still bragging on the cross. Now what caused him to even talk about this was something that was happening in the church of Galatia.
Galatia Bible Fellowship. There was something taking place there that made him have to make a big deal about the cross. What was getting in the way of the Christians in Galatia from experiencing the fullness of Jesus Christ reality in their Christian living and Christian experience, what was keeping them from realizing all that they had in their salvation was religion. Religion had gotten in the way of the cross. Whenever religious activity, however sincere, trumps relationship, Christ no longer is experienced by the Christian. One of the great dangers in a church like it was in the church of Galatia was that religion would replace an intimate relationship with the Savior. But what I want to do through our understanding of the cross is set you free to be a Christian. Am I saying church is not important and obeying God's rules are not important?
Not at all. And if you follow me, you will understand. But the motivation for doing it is different. One is a motivation out of fear. The other is a motivation out of love.
It may be the same activity. It's not that God doesn't want you worshiping with his people. It's not that God doesn't want you involved in ministry. It's not that God doesn't want you following him. He wants it motivated out of relationship, not out of religious duty.
He wants it motivated differently. God doesn't want you serving him. The Bible says serve the Lord with gladness. He doesn't want you serving him because you're supposed to. He wants you to be glad about it, serving him because you want to.
Because it's predicated on relationship, not on religious duty. And that's a freeing concept. Somebody ought to feel free right now.
I'm still in my introduction. You ought to feel free. He says in verse 14, May it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. He says I'm going to only boast in the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ is what I'm going to brag about.
I'm not going to glory about what I'm doing, how great I am, how educated I've been. He says if you want to know what defines me, Paul says, it is the cross of Christ. Now I know some of you are wearing crosses, got cross necklaces.
It's part of this series. I want you to revisit the cross. Cross is not the sanitized thing you wear. That's jewelry. Nothing wrong with jewelry.
Just call it what it is. Don't think because you bought a cross somehow you closer to Christ. Don't think just because you come into a building with a cross on front, you closer to Christ. Because as we will discover when Paul talked about the cross of Christ, he's talking about the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Here's what you're going to discover as we go through this series about the cross. When you discover the cross, it is the epitome of how God feels about sin. He says when Jesus was crucified on the cross, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
In other words, I looked at the world as if it were on the cross and the world looks at me as though I was on the cross. The word world in the Greek cosmos was used of a system, an organized system or arrangement designed to promote a specific emphasis or philosophy. For example, we talk about the world of sports. When we talk about the world of sports, we're not talking about a location. We're talking about a focus.
The world of sports means the focus is athletics. We're talking about the world of finance. We're not talking about a place. We're talking about a focus, a system that revolves around money. We're talking about the world of politics.
We're not talking about a place. We're talking about a system, an organized philosophical worldview that focuses on matters of government. That's the concept of the word world. When Paul says, I was crucified with the world, he is saying that this world system that wants to leave God out, that's what the Bible means by world or worldliness. Worldliness has to do with God being independent or God not being included in the system. He says, I was crucified to the exclusion of God. I was crucified to an endless system that tried to make me acceptable to God independently of God. The world doesn't mind religion. The world will tolerate religion. It will not tolerate the cross of Christ.
That's a whole different ballgame. Because the moment you introduce Jesus Christ to the equation, you become too specific. Now, see, with God, you can stay generic and vague. Once you introduce Jesus Christ, you've gotten narrow and specific. It's safe to talk about God. You can get into some issues bringing up Christ. He says, I have been crucified to the world.
That is, this system that excludes God is no longer the way that I live my life. Now, what makes the cross? The cross is who was on it. He says, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The key to the cross is not the two sticks, vertical and horizontal, it's who was on it. The cross is on the cross because of who died there. It is the person of what he says, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We'll come to understand that better. What did Christ die for? Notice in chapter one of Galatians, verses three and four. Grace to you and peace from our God and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us from this present evil age.
Guess what? Jesus died on the cross to deliver us from the world. To forgive our sins but also to deliver us from this present world. In other words, to not let this system determine who we are and what we do and how we do it. This system has been set up, even though it may use the name God, in invocations and benedictions.
The system has been set up to exclude God. He says, the reason that the cross is central to me is that it is now the defining point of my life. It is my point of reference. As long as the cross is your point of reference, you draw near to Christ. When the cross is no longer your point of reference and religion has replaced Christ, you draw far from Christ. In fact, the more religious you become, the further from Christ you go.
So what happens when we let our point of reference wander? We'll hear more about that in just a moment. Don't go away. As we anticipate the new year, we want to take advantage of all the opportunities that God has brought our way for the transformation of individual lives, for the building of strong, biblically-based families, for strengthening churches, and that's what we're committed to do. Your generous financial support will help us to be strong because we're not going to back down, we're not going to back away, and we're not going to compromise the truth of this book to placate the secularism of the society.
Stand with us, will you? Stand strong by us with your generosity and your prayers, because you know we hold tightly to this word, a word that the world desperately needs today. Visit tonyevans.org to give. That's tonyevans.org. Thank you for your generosity.
The alternative is entirely listener-supported. We rely on your generosity to keep this ministry going. Visit tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222 to show your support today. As our way of saying thank you, we'll send you the top 24 of 2024, a collection of the year's most requested messages, along with Anthony Evans' inspiring new Christmas album, The Greatest Gift. You'll even have an opportunity to upgrade your package to include a hardback copy of the Tony Evans Study Bible. But this is the final week we'll be offering this year-end collection, so get all the details right away when you visit us at tonyevans.org or call us at 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that contact information for you after the second part of today's lesson.
Here's Dr. Evans. See, we're living in a world today where the world system is defining us. We get our cues from the system.
The system tells us who we are, how we ought to talk, how we ought to walk, how we ought to act, without it being analyzed through the cross. If you have children today and they become teenagers and they bring stuff home that is unacceptable to you and then they always have a line, they always have a line, my friends, and what do you say? Something like, yeah, but you live here. I'm your mother. They're not your mother.
I'm your father. They're not your father. And if they bring their friends up too much, they're going to kick you off.
Why? Because that means their friends are defining them. Their peer group is defining them.
Their posse is defining them. They're being defined by a system antithetical to the place where they live. He says, God is saying you live at the cross.
That's where you live. Don't let this system out there define you. When that system comes up with something, check it out with the cross. Now, maybe the cross will say it's okay.
Yeah, that part of the system you can deal with, but check it out with the cross because that means you never leave the cross because once the child chooses their peer group and walks away from the house, they lose some of the benefits of being home. Once you leave the cross, you lose the benefits of being home. Let me tell you something about the world. It's like you go out and swim. You put your head under the water. Don't stay there too long because those fish aren't going to help you. Those fish aren't going to help you. You know why? Because that's not where you belong. You weren't made for that. Now, a bunch of realities were made for that. Fish were made for that.
You weren't. There's only one way you can go there and stay there, and that's if you got a tank on your back because that tank is filled with oxygen, and oxygen comes from the world that you live in. So in order for you to make it in their world, you must bring your world with you. In order to make it in the world of the water, you must bring your world with you because if you start sucking in their world, their world will kill you. And you can't call on them while you're choking to help you because them fish don't care about you.
Until you die, now they care about you because they're going to eat a brother up. The deeper you go, the more pressure you feel. And if you go deep enough, the water will collapse you like a tin can, and all of your innards will come out because the deeper you go, the more pressure you're going to feel. So you know what divers do?
They get into pressurized capsules where the pressure on the inside is greater than the pressure on the outside so that when the water is trying to squeeze them in, there is so much pressure on the inside that it repels the pressure on the outside. I'm not saying don't go to the top. I'm just saying make sure on your way up there that you got the inside right so the outside doesn't crush you. That means you have to carry the cross with you.
Why are we not making it in the world? Because we leave it all in church at the benediction. Many of us are like submarines.
We come up to the surface on Sunday. He says, no, I am crucified to the world. I carry the cross with me.
That is my point of reference. Christ and him crucified. Verse 15, for neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. He says religious titles don't mean anything. External paraphernalia, circumcision with external, external activity doesn't mean anything in and of itself.
He says neither identification marks, that doesn't mean anything. You know, whether you wear a suit or a collar or a shirt doesn't mean anything. All that's extra stuff, not essence stuff. We get all bent out over extra stuff.
Nothing wrong with extra. It just doesn't carry the meaning we give to it. It doesn't carry the meaning we give to it.
It doesn't carry the clout we give to it. He says, I'll tell you what carries clout. He says the new creation. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Second Corinthians 5, 17 says the new birth, your new relationship, the new creation, your new life in Christ. For Paul, the cross and his new relationship with God through Christ was the key to victory. Your victory is tied to whether you carry the cross with you.
But we're not talking about the jewelry. We're talking about the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Verse 16, in closing, and those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. He says, if I can get you to think and function like this, walk by this rule, and the Bible walk means operate by this way, that this is your frame of thinking and frame of moving. The cross is your framework now, is your point of reference for your life.
Walking is your course of life. If I can get you to operate this way, then you will experience the benefits of God, the peace and the mercy of God, he says. Why does God seem so far away?
Why does he feel more like Pluto than Mercury? Because we don't operate by this rule, walk by this rule. We do not use the cross as our point of reference. We are satisfied with religion, and while we're having all this religious activity, we're being severed from Christ, and we have fallen from grace. Let me tell you what falling from grace means.
Falling from grace, grace is your provision. The two concepts can be understood by the term electricity. Electricity is the flow of power that makes everything else work in your house. Virtually everything in your house works because of electricity. Your appliances work because of the electricity, your lights work because of the electricity, your heat, your air conditioning, all that stuff that you benefit from works because of electricity.
If you are severed from electricity, the flow of the power stops, even though you still own the appliances. When you are fallen from grace, that means the flow that God wants to flow in your life is not flowing because you've been unplugged from Christ. He says, but those who operate by this rule, stuff that was dark gets lit up, stuff that was powerless becomes powerful because now we've replugged in, and now the flow has reoccurred. And then you'll know God is at work in you, with you, through you, to you, and for you. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about the true source of our salvation in a message called The Centrality of the Cross. Now, if you're ready to see God get to work in you, Dr. Evans is here with a prayer to get you started. If you have yet to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, we can resolve that right now.
I'm going to say a little prayer. I want you to pray it after me, but you've got to mean it for yourself. Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner, and I know I need a Savior because I can't save myself. So right now, I trust You alone because You died for me and arose for me to be my sin-bearer. You are now my substitute, and I am believing You to forgive my sin and to give me eternal life. Thank You for the free gift of salvation that You have given to me.
Help me to live a life to please You. In Jesus' name, amen. Welcome to the family, and we'll keep ministering to you for your spiritual growth through our broadcast. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer just now, we encourage you to visit TonyEvans.org and follow the link that says Jesus.
There you can download some free follow-up resources that'll help you get your brand-new life started right. And TonyEvans.org is where you can also request your personal full-length copy of today's teaching on CD or downloadable MP3. It's part of our popular message compilation, The Top 24 of 2024. As I mentioned earlier, today's the final day we'll be offering this giant collection as our gift to you when you help support the ministry with your year-end donation.
In addition to the 24 audio messages, if you contact us today, we'll also include a copy of Gospel recording artist Anthony Evans' new Christmas album, The Greatest Gift. Just visit TonyEvans.org to get the details and make the arrangements. Or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are ready to help you 24-7. And don't forget to ask about how to upgrade your offer to include the Tony Evans Study Bible. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. Dr. Evans believes that one of the best ways to satisfy your spiritual appetite is to sometimes say no to your physical one. Be sure to join us Monday for an enlightening biblical look at the importance of fasting. That's coming up next time here on The Alternative. .
