The Centrality of the Cross, Part 2

The Bible says, serve the Lord with gladness. That's what you serve Him because you're supposed to?

Dr. Tony Evans says our submission ought to grow out of celebration. He wants you to be glad about it because it's predicated on relationships, not on religious duty. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Christianity can seem very complex, but Dr. Evans says it can all be boiled down to one vitally important concept.

He'll explain as he begins these lessons from his definitive series, Returning to the Cross. Let's join him. As a boy growing up in Baltimore, I had a regular Saturday regiment. I had to finish my housework, home responsibilities that each of the kids were assigned. We would always try to finish it by noon because every Saturday, weather permitting, at noon, we all went down to the diamond. The diamond was a large field located a few minutes from my house where the guys gathered every Saturday to play football. On one occasion, we had all gathered down at this field called the diamond.

For our Saturday afternoon games that went on from noon till dark, we had, as we always did, chosen up sides. And it was time for the game to begin. Only to discover that on this particular Saturday, nobody brought the football. Nobody brought the football, and so while we had taken the time to go to the location, while we had chosen teams in order to get the battle on, everything got stopped because this blown-up pig was missing. We were not able to do what we had gathered to do because the main thing wasn't there.

Isn't it amazing that something so small can carry so much weight? Nothing happened because the main thing wasn't there. The people were there, the place was there, the plan was there, but the thing that would make everything else work was not there.

And so it was a wasted trip to the diamond because the main thing was missing. You see, in football, the football determines everything. First downs are measured by where the ball is placed. Touchdowns are measured by whether the ball crosses the plane. Out of bounds is tied to your control of the ball and the ball's relationship to the feet of the person holding it. Fumbles are determined by who grabs the ball.

Field goals are measured by whether the ball goes through the uprights. Men fight over it. Men rejoice because of it. In other words, if the football is missing, everything else is a waste of time. It's not that we're not in the right place, the church house. It's not that we haven't gathered for the right reason.

It's not that there's not a program or a plan, and it's not that the people aren't here. But if the main thing is missing, it doesn't matter that we're in the right place, and it doesn't matter that the people have gathered, and it doesn't matter that there is a program and plan that has been ordered and structured. Paul, in writing the book of Galatians, wants to remind those who are his audience about the centrality of the cross. Over and over again in this book, in one form or another, he brings up Christ and his cross. We want to clearly understand the role of the cross, particularly in the believer's life. For far too many Christians, the cross is a historical event that's going to take them to heaven, and that is the only benefit that they get from it, and the cross is so much more.

Far too many Christians are missing the main thing. Paul, in writing the Galatians, 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. See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. In other words, this thing is capitalized. As I close the book, Paul says, I want to write this thing big, large, because I don't want you to miss this.

I want to capitalize this or highlight this. I don't want you to miss the conclusion, which is the summary of all I've been saying through the five and a half chapters that I've spoken thus far. 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. He did not let the historical reality of the cross get lost in his mind, his thoughts, his function, his teaching, or his training.

I want to return us back to 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. You'll see it threaded throughout the book, but he summarizes it here in verse 12. Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.

For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. He's going to make a statement that if you get this little statement I'm getting ready to make and understand its ramifications and implications, it will send you on a whole different direction for your Christian life. 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. Circumcision was the external symbol of religious commitment and involvement in the Old Testament. There were a group of people who would follow Paul around whenever he would start a church, and they were known as the Judaizers.

These were Jews who were still attached to the religion of the Old Testament and who tried to get these new Christians to conform to external religious observances symbolized by the chief one called circumcision in order to maintain religious ritual. The Judaizers, those to whom Paul is saying that these have come around and they're trying to subvert the message of the cross, these were not folk who had lost sight of religion, but they had no relationship. 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. If religion brought you here today, and by religion I mean external adherence to exercises in the name of God, if you came here because it was the religious thing to do, you have now joined the Judaizers who had no intimate relationship and who were keeping other believers from experiencing it themselves, which is why Paul must return to the cross. When Dr. Evans continues our message in just a moment, he'll share a personal story that illustrates the danger of missing that point. Don't go away. Imagine having the latest smartphone that can take gorgeous pictures, connect to the internet, send out texts, emails, browse social media, virtually anything you want to do.

It has all the features you want, but until you power it up, it's totally useless. Dr. Evans says that's the way many Christians live their lives. In his transformative book, The Power of the Cross, he spells out why truly understanding and appreciating Jesus' sacrifice is the very key to the Christian life, the difference between a vibrant, victorious living faith and a dead, empty religion. In The Power of the Cross, Tony shows you how to access all the benefits, blessings, and power the Lord died to give you. Best of all, for a limited time, we're offering this life-changing resource as our gift, along with all 14 full-length messages from Tony's current two-volume teaching series, Returning to the Cross. They're available right now to anyone who makes a donation to the ministry. We depend completely on our listeners' support to make this biblical teaching available here each day. So contact us right away to get information on how to receive this special offer, The Power of the Cross book and the Returning to the Cross audio series. Visit tonyevans.org or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that information after part two of today's lesson.

Here's Dr. Evans. I was given an assignment in seminary, and it was a major assignment that the whole class had to do. And I worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and studied and studied and studied because I was determined on this major assignment to make an A and an A-plus, if possible. I turned in the paper, and I felt good about myself. When I got my paper back, there was a big, fat zero on it. I was working hard to get the highest score possible. I wanted his full acceptance of my hard work.

Beneath the zero was a note from the professor. It said, much hard work was done in the preparation of this paper. However, what you wrote about was not the assignment. It wasn't that I didn't work hard. It's that what I was working hard on wasn't the right thing. I was frustrated that I wasn't getting recognition for my hard work.

He was frustrated that I was working on the wrong thing. It's not that we're not working hard to be religious. It's that many believers are working on the wrong thing and wonder why they're not getting credit.

He says in verses 12 and 13 that these folk who were insisting on external observances of the rules of religion were actually getting in the way of a relationship. This external process is called legalism. Legalism measures your spirituality by your activity.

With legalism, you always must do more. You must read the Bible more. You must pray more. You must go to church more.

You must work more. And then it goes on and on. See, the problem with legalism and the list of more is that you never know when you come to the end of it because you can keep adding to that list.

And you gotta do this while you're doing this and while you're doing that and while you're doing this and while you're doing that and while you're doing this and while you're doing that. And you can be tired trying to be a Christian. One of the things you'll always know about a cult is that they keep expanding the list. And the list that they expand always will involve controlling you.

You get real suspicious when you get an expanded list that controls you. That's why the message of the book of Galatians is the message of freedom in Christ, not slavery in Christ. Paul's concern is that these believers would be set free from this kind of religion.

Let me explain to you. There are only two kinds of religion. You can call it whatever you want, but there are only two kinds of religion. One is the religion of human achievement and the other is religion of divine accomplishment. The religion of human achievement talks about what I have done and what I must do.

So it's tied to my performance. The religion of a divine achievement is tied to what God has done and what God will do. The problem with the religion of human achievement is that it depends on me.

The beauty of the religion of divine accomplishment is that it depends on Him. Paul wants these believers to know that if they follow the Judaizers, the legalists, they will lose out on Christ. Look at chapter 5, verse 2 and verse 4. Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Verse 4, you have been severed from Christ. You who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. He uses the term severed from Christ, fallen from grace, Christ is of no benefit to you. In other words, if you are seeking to make yourself acceptable to God through a list of legalism, then you have now disconnected yourself from Christ. Religious activity can actually keep you from the Lord. Church can actually keep you from Christ. 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. When a wife does A, B, C, and D things in the home because she is under pressure or under threatening by her husband, if you don't do this, the results will be this, that, and the other.

That's one thing. If she does those very same things because she loves her family and loves her mate, it can be the same thing, but it's a different motivation. 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 worshipping 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. Don't just 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. He says, I'm going to only boast in the cross of Christ.

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?

Got crosses dangling from the rearview mirror of your car? That's a sanitized cross. As part of this series, I want you to revisit the cross. Cross is not the sanitized thing you wear.

That's jewelry. 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. It is the epitome of how God feels about sin.

Now, we're going to get into that more. I just want you to understand right now that it is the centerpiece, and he says not only was Jesus crucified on the cross, he says when Jesus was crucified on the cross, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. He says there's another crucifixion that occurred. When Jesus died on the cross and then I identified with the cross when I trusted Jesus Christ as my sin bearer, I got crucified to the world and the world got crucified to me.

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. 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. 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.

That is, this system that excludes God is no longer the way that I live my life. It's 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. Jesus died on the cross to deliver us from the world. Today's message was just the beginning of Dr. Tony Evans' popular series, Returning to the Cross, and this two-volume, 14-lesson collection is available to own on either CD or downloadable MP3s. The set contains bonus material we won't have time to present here on the broadcast, and if you'd like to access the full-length copy of these messages, visit tonyevans.org to request them. Remember that in return for your contribution to the ministry, we'll send you not only all 14 messages in this collection, but also the companion book I mentioned earlier, The Power of the Cross. This is a limited-time offer, so I encourage you to take advantage of it while it's fresh on your mind. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222, where one of our team members will be glad to assist you. That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, tomorrow, more from Dr. Evans on why the cross needs to be our point of reference for faith, life, everything, along with a look at what happens when we let that reference point drift. Be sure to join us.