If you don't see yourself as a sinner, then you don't see you need to be saved. Dr. Tony Evans talks about why God gave us a set of standards we could never perfectly meet. God wants us to clearly see the meaning of the cross. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans.
With enough discipline and commitment, most debts can be paid off eventually. But not the most important one of all, and that's the one Dr. Evans will talk about today. The biblical substantive essence of our faith. Sinners don't fully understand it, because if they did, they'd run to it.
Saints don't appreciate it, because if they did, we would live differently. It is because the cross has been reduced, it has been lowered, that we do not understand its pragmatic, practical relevancy for life today. Why the cross? That is the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
Why? The first thing you need to understand about why the cross is necessary is that you have to understand the standard of God. He says in chapter 3 of the book of Romans, he says, verse 21, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made manifest. You cannot appreciate the cross until you start with the righteousness of God.
The cross makes absolutely no sense or very little sense if you do not understand the righteousness of God. That is God's holy standard. When God reveals His holiness or makes His holiness known, that's called righteousness. That is, He is holy by nature. Righteousness is the standard that men are called upon in order to recognize His holiness. And the way you knew what was righteous was by the law. God gave the law so that men would know His righteous standards, so that knowing His righteous standards, they might respond appropriately to His holy nature. So He's holy by nature. I mean by that, He is intrinsically holy.
He can't help it. What blue is to sky, what is to water, and hot is to sun, holiness is to God. The sun doesn't try to be hot, that's just what it is. The sky doesn't try to be blue, that's just what it is.
Water doesn't strain to be wet, that's just what it is. It's nature. God is holy by nature. Therefore, His requirements are righteous. Therefore, He set guidelines in place that reflected His righteousness so that there would be an awareness of His holiness. It says that God has a righteous standard in verse 21.
It is revealed in God's law. God is so righteous that He does not just judge our actions, He judges the motivation behind the action. That's why the Bible says even our righteous deeds are contaminated, because even the stuff we do that's right is regularly contaminated with attitudes that aren't. That's why when Jesus got in trouble, He came and He said, He said, it's been said, thou shalt not kill. I say unto you, if you even wish somebody were dead, you've committed murder.
Now, there may be nobody in the house who has stabbed or shot anybody, but I bet you there is a rare person in the house who's not a biblically defined murderer. Because God defines murder not only as the action of taking a life, but the attitude of wishing a life were taken. So if you even wish somebody dead, God holds that as an action against His character. God says you're not just immoral when you engage in a physical relationship.
He says when you look at a woman and lust after her, when you desire to be immoral with her, you have broken the law of God. So see, God's standard is so high, men don't want to deal with that. So what they do is dumb God down, reduce God, so that means I don't have to feel like I'm that bad. So in order to appreciate the cross, we're getting there in a second, you have to appreciate the standard of God. And that is a, here it is, an unadjustable standard. In other words, He does not reduce it so you can feel better about you.
He does not reduce it so you can say, I'm not as bad. So first is the standard of God. The second reason why we must go back to understanding the necessity of the cross is the sinfulness of man. Verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
That means you're not an exception. In order to understand the sinfulness of man, you must measure it against the standard of God. He says all have sinned and the reason all have sinned is they don't meet God's glorious standard. Whenever we do not reflect His glory in attitudes or in actions, the Bible calls that sin and all have sinned. In fact, in chapter 3, verse 12, He says there is none that does good, there is not even one.
So let's get something straight. God is not measuring you and me by our neighbors. He is not measuring you and me by our friends.
He's not measuring you and me by our co-workers. He's measuring you and me against His standard and when that standard is measured against us, God says nobody meets it. God wants us to clearly see how sinful we are so we can fully appreciate the meaning of the cross. If you don't see yourself as a sinner, then you don't see you need to be saved. If you don't see yourself even as a Christian as sinful, then you will lose sight of the cross.
Why is it that so many of us as Christians don't see the value of the cross even though we saw it when we first got saved? Because somewhere along the line, we lost the substance and significance and importance of understanding the nature of sin against the standard of a holy, righteous God. And so there is, first of all, the standard of God. He is absolutely holy, which means He has a standard of righteousness, which is expressed through His law.
There is the sinfulness of men, and no matter how sophisticated your sinfulness is, it is an affront to the glory of God. God is sterilized like an operating room, no bacteria allowed. You don't want to go in an operating room even with invisible bacteria because it still infects you. So they sterilize the tools, the equipment, and the room so that you're not affected by the evil even in the atmosphere of the room. So it is with God. He is in a sterilized, perfect, pure environment. Then this brings up the point, the cross.
What is it? It is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He says in verse 22, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. In chapter 5, verse 6, for while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Verse 8, but God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Verse 10, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. The cross refers to the sacrificial death of Christ for sin. But if you don't understand the standard of God, and if you don't understand the sinfulness of men, you won't appreciate and benefit from the death of Christ. It says Jesus died for sinners. Now the question is, stick with me here, stick with me here.
Why did Jesus have to die? Remember, let's put it in financial language. How many folk here in debt raise your hand? That is, you owe anything to anybody for any reason. Okay? I'm talking about your house note, your car note, whatever it is.
Okay, I see just about everybody's hand go up. You're in debt. How many who are in debt have been in debt a minute? Okay, you've been in debt for a while. How many who are in debt, been in debt for a minute, see no end in sight? In other words, you ain't paying this off tomorrow. In other words, you have accumulated expenses that you are perpetually paying for. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but as soon as you think you about to get out, as soon as you think you done worked your way down, something else breaks, something else goes wrong, you're right back in debt again. Sometimes it's unintentional debt.
You didn't do anything to make it break, it just broke. Other times it's intentional debt. I just want it. If you're in debt, that means there is a bill that must be paid with interest. One of the reasons why we stay in debt is that we have to pay for the right to pay.
That's what interest is. Interest is you paying for the right to pay. They charge you for giving you the right to pay over time whatever you have purchased. So you pay for the right to pay, and it accumulates. The Bible describes sin as a bill. Remember the Lord's Prayer? Forgive us our debts. He's referring to sin, but he uses it as a bill.
You and I are in debt to God because his standard is non-negotiable. It's a bill that's owed. Every time you sin, you ring up a bill to a holy God, whether it's a sin of action or a sin of attitude.
So you can still have the right action, but if it's the wrong attitude, it's still sin. And you ring up a debt. Now what do we want? We want the debt to be forgiven. Why? Because it's too much.
It's too much. Dr. Evans will explain what we can do with this debt we can never pay off when he comes back in just a moment. Well, Easter is just a few weeks away now, and as we approach it, a lot of people will begin thinking about bunnies and eggs and the coming of spring. But as we've been learning, that couldn't be further from the true meaning of Easter. That's why Dr. Evans wrote the book The Power of the Cross. It'll show you why truly understanding and appreciating the purpose, preeminence, and power of the cross is the only thing that can turn empty, meaningless religion into something vibrant and alive.
Learn how to access all the benefits, blessings, and power the Lord died to give you. Get in touch with us and get a copy of The Power of the Cross. Right now, for a limited time, we're offering it as our gift to anyone who comes alongside our ministry and makes a contribution. And as an added bonus, we're including all 14 full-length messages from Tony's current teaching series, Returning to the Cross.
You can get them on CDs or downloadable MP3s when you make a donation at tonyevans.org. All the details are right there on the homepage, or if it's easier, call 1-800-800-3222. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that contact information for you after part two of today's message.
Here's Dr. Evans. Guess what? Your sin and my sin is too big a bill for us to pay. You can't pay that—well, you can pay it, but let me tell you how long it's going to take to pay it. Eternity. To pay what we owe God is like some of the bills we have. We won't get out of this life without it being paid off. You can't get out of the life to come without it being paid off in full, which is why it takes forever.
Why does it take forever? Because God is an eternal God and sin is an eternal crime. So the crime must fit the punishment against the person against whom it was committed. Watch this now. But God demonstrated his love. God says, I can't compromise my character. I've got to stay God. I'm holy. I'm righteous. But I love my creation.
So how can I demonstrate my love without compromising my character? I've got to get full payment. They can't afford to pay because it'll take them forever. But I can't change the bill. Somebody else then must pick up the tab. But the person who picks up the tab can't be in debt themselves. You can't pay my bills off if you can't pay your bills off.
So somebody's got to pick up the tab. And since Romans 6 23, the wages of sin is death. Therefore, the bill is death because of sin. Somebody's got to die who's not in debt.
But the only person not in debt is God. But the problem with God is God can't die because God is a spirit. So I need somebody with the perfection of God but who's a man like me who can die. So guess what God did? God became a man. His justice demands death.
His love offers mercy. Therefore, there must be a person who is perfect but who can also die. So God becomes a man in the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ. Now stay with me here. Jesus Christ is the perfect Son of God.
Now watch this now. Here's my verse. My verse is 2 Corinthians 5 21. He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God in him. He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we would become the righteousness of God in him.
Let's break that down for a minute. He who knew no sin. Now, if you're a dirty person, then being in a dirty environment doesn't mess with you because you're at home. But if you're a clean person, I'm talking about zestfully clean. I'm talking about squeaky clean. If you are a clean person, then a little bit of dirt messes with you because you don't like stuff raggedy.
You want stuff, you want your house clean, so even a little dirt messes with you. Can you imagine what it was like for the perfect Son of God, that's as clean as you get, to have to live in a sinful world? Jesus grew up with four brothers, and the Bible says several sisters.
Doesn't tell us how many sisters, but it says several. So he has a number of sisters, so he is a perfect person being raised with children who live, children who are selfish, children who have all the sinful, and in the middle of that, for as long as he was home, he was being raised in a sinful environment. He had to hang out around sinful people.
This is the perfect Son of God. He, for 33 years, has had to live in a sinful environment. Then on the cross, watch this now, I don't want you to miss this, he who knew no sin became sin for us.
Please don't misread that. Most of the time when we talk about the cross, we talk about Jesus bearing our sins. He bore the sins of the world. Well, he did that, plus, that verse says he became sin. The definition of sin is what he became.
So he didn't just bear our sins, he became sin. There are currently close to seven billion people on planet earth. The amount of people who live on planet earth today is equal to the amount of people who have lived on planet earth since the beginning of time is the guesstimation. So let's just round that up to 15 billion people.
The seven and a half that live now, the seven and a half that have lived up till now, that's 15 billion people. All the sin of 15 billion people, not counting the people yet to be born, that is everything they have done or everything they have wanted to do or thought about doing, both motives and actions were accumulated on that day when Jesus Christ hung on the cross and all of the sins of 15 billion people, actions and attitude, were hurled at Jesus Christ. In addition to that, the sins of the people not yet born have been collected and the sins you haven't gotten to yet have been collected and 2,000 years ago on the cross they were hurled at Jesus Christ.
How bad was that moment? See, we think that the pain of the cross was the cat of nine tails that stripped his back, was the cross on his head that crushed his skull, were the thorns in his hands and feet and spear in his side. All that was painful, but it was nothing compared to that one moment when Jesus looked up to heaven and said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? At that moment, Jesus became sin.
What do I mean? When the whole sin of the whole world was hurled at Jesus Christ, the father turned his back on the son. God, stop being God so that he could be God for you and me. Jesus Christ experienced hell so that you and I could experience heaven on the cross because he became the very embodiment of sin.
So this cross is no small thing. It was a problem you couldn't fix, a debt that you couldn't pay, a situation you could not remedy, so that now not only can you be saved, but let me finish the verse. He who knew no sin became sin for us, watch this, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So when a sinner comes to the cross, trust Jesus Christ as Savior, two things happen, not one. The first is they are forgiven of their sins. That's number one.
But here's number two. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That was a credit transfer. God transferred or credited to Jesus our sin, but when you came to Jesus, he credited to you the righteousness of Christ. So you and I stand before God as though we've never ever committed a sin. Even though we are sinners, I got a credit, and it's a Jesus credit.
That means it's a perfect credit. When God looks at me, he's looking at perfection, not because I'm perfect, but because I got a credit in my account from Jesus Christ on deposit, and I stand before God as righteous. What God wants us to do is to live up to our status in Jesus Christ. Dr. Tony Evans talking about the sacrifice it took to pay the price for our sin as he wraps up this lesson from his current teaching series, Returning to the Cross. This two-volume collection focuses on the most important concept of the Christian faith. You can receive all 14 full-length messages in this series when you make a donation and request them at tonyevans.org. And as a reminder, we'll also include a copy of Tony's companion book for this series called The Power of the Cross. Don't forget we're offering this resource bundle as our thank you when you support the alternative with a financial contribution. Visit tonyevans.org today or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our friendly team members help you.
That's 1-800-800-3222. Any Christian can tell you that Jesus died for our sins. But next time, Dr. Evans takes a closer look at what the cross accomplished on our behalf as he continues his series on Returning to the Cross. Be sure to join us.
