The Accomplishments of the Cross, Part 1

Grace is what God gives, not what you earn. Dr. Tony Evans says grace isn't an excuse to sin.

It's the best reason not to. When you understand grace, you do the right thing, not because you're driven, but because you're grateful. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Any Christian can tell you that Jesus died for our sins, but today Dr. Evans takes a closer look at what the cross accomplished on our behalf. Let's turn to Romans chapter 3 as we join him. Beginning in verse 24, Paul, the author of the book of Romans, sets forth a number of key words to help you to understand the cross in a deeper way.

He uses what we might call technical terminology to explain why the cross is so significant and substantive for your life and my life, both for salvation and then, as we will go along, for sanctification, and it will ultimately lead to glorification. The first word he introduces us to is the word justification. Verse 24, being justified. Say justified. Justification is a theological, a technical theological term, a legal concept, because the word justification is related to a court venue. Justice, when we talk about justice, we're talking about a legal concept. I want fair and equitable treatment.

People talk about the justice system, a system that is supposed to enact fairness. Justification is connected with justice. If I were to put it in everyday language, justification is just as if I've never sinned. It's just as if I've never sinned. The problem is I have sinned. You have sinned over and over and over again. So God had to satisfy his perfection in a way that sinful men could be made so righteous it would be just as if they never sinned.

Justification. Since that is not our reality because we have sinned, God had to come up with a way to make that real or condemn us. So what God did was came up with a legal means to equip the sinner without skipping the sin, to declare the sinner innocent even though the sinner is guilty. The way that a holy God came up with being able to equip a sinner even though the sinner has sinned and to do it legally was through the doctrine of imputation or credit.

To impute something is to give credit to something. Justification occurs not because the sinner hasn't sinned but the sinner has gotten a credit on his account that has addressed the debt that sin has incurred. Sin has created a debt that we can't pay. The best we do is minimal payments like our credit cards, okay? We try to do a little something good here and a little something good there and a little something good there, not knowing interest is accumulating because like paying off one bill, something else breaks down and that's got to be fixed and I've got to get right over here and I think I'm right over there and then I mess up over here.

Then I get right over there but I keep throwing these minimum payments and wondering why the bill's not going down. Because against the standard of God's perfection, sinful men can't meet the standard of perfection. So what God did was come up with a legal means by which the sinner could be declared righteous and that legal means is called justification in which he can pardon the sinner through the imputation or the credit of righteousness.

He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God through him, 2 Corinthians 521. So what God did is he credited my sin and your sin onto Jesus Christ and then he credited Jesus' righteousness onto us when we accept Christ. It's a double credit.

Let me explain. You're not going to heaven because of single credit. If you're a Christian, you're going to heaven because of a double credit. God credited our sin onto Jesus on the cross and then took the 33 years of perfect living that Jesus lived when he satisfied all 613 of the commandments, which were summed up in the 10 commandments but they were 613 statutes and ordinances, and he credits the perfection of Christ onto my account. Not because I'm perfect am I going to heaven. I'm going to heaven because I have a perfect credit score and the reason I have a perfect credit score is by imputation. The righteousness of Christ has been imputed or credited to my account. Let's see if we can understand this and appreciate it because see, the more you understand the cross and the more you appreciate the cross, you're going to discover the more you benefit from the cross.

The less you understand the cross and the less you then appreciate the cross, the less benefit you're going to have from the cross even as a Christian. Let's say you're hopelessly in debt to which many of us can readily identify. You are hopelessly in debt. You're even having trouble making minimum payments, but you're getting by and you really are doing the best you can. Somebody comes along who has limitless resources and they know that you are in debt and they love you.

They hate the pain that the financial crisis is causing you and you can't pay the bill. You throw a little something something out there every month, but you can't satisfy the bill that keeps on accumulating. Because of the love that they have for you, they say, show me what you owe and you show them these multi-thousand dollars worth of bills that has been accumulated over years and they say, I am going to write you a check. I am going to write you a check for every bill that you owe.

Now that's exciting right there, but that's a limitation because I'm still at ground zero. I'm starting all over again. But suppose he came to you and says, not only am I going to pay your bills for everything you owe, but I will put enough in your account for everything you will ever owe. I'm going to pay for the past bills you've accumulated, but the bills you haven't made yet, I am going to put enough in the deposit so you can spend more than I paid for. And it will carry you through the rest of your life. See, when you understand what the cross has done and you understand its implications, then you understand its ramifications. Look, what God did in Christ was he not only paid for the sins you have committed, he's paid for tomorrows that you haven't gotten to yet. In fact, he has put so much in your account, it's called grace, we're getting there in a moment, but he has put so much in your account that your account can't be overspent billions of years from now. It has an eternal credit. It's good news to know that I not only have a salvation that's paid for my yesterdays, I've got a salvation that's paid for my tomorrows. God can declare me righteous because the deposit of Jesus Christ into my account has covered me for a lifetime. It's covered me for a lifetime.

He has gotten to my not yet. That is why the Bible says Jesus was crucified before the foundation of the world. The reason why he had to be crucified before the foundation of the world in the mind of God, although it was 2,000 years ago in history, in the mind of God is he had to cover the whole world after the first person was born. So God is covered before the world.

He's covered after the world so that all through the world you become covered, everyone in the world who trusts Jesus Christ for their lifetime through the world. So great a salvation that I am declared righteous even though I'm not practically fully righteous. God looks at me, but he can't see me until he looks through red. He's got to look through the blood of his son in order to see me. But since I'm covered in the blood, I am covered. My sin has been covered by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ because you've been justified if you're saved.

You've been declared legally righteous. There's a little book in the Bible. It's only got one chapter. It's the book of Philemon. Philemon. Trust me, it is in the Bible. It's the book of Philemon.

It's only one chapter long. Philemon is a fairly well-to-do Christian man and he had a servant called Onesimus. And Onesimus stole from Philemon and ran away. While Onesimus was running away, he ran into Paul. Paul shared the gospel with Onesimus and Onesimus became a Christian. Paul tells Onesimus, you need to go back to Philemon and make this right. So he sends Onesimus back and he sends a letter.

He says, Philemon, I am sending Onesimus back to you who's now a brother in the Lord. And I know he stole from you, but whatever he owes you, put it on my account and I'll pay you when I come. That's what Jesus Christ has done. What God has said is, God, Father, I know mankind owes you because of a debt called sin. On the cross, Jesus said, but put it on my account.

I will pay the bill for their indebtedness and for the debts that they have not yet made. That's what God has done, which then freed him up to justify. When Dr. Evans continues our message in just a moment, he'll tell us a story that illustrates what that justification is all about.

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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 informative 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 are 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 Tony's 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 call us at 1-800-800-3222.

I'll repeat that information after part two of today's lesson. Here's Dr. Evans. The true story is told of a man driving around Europe in a Rolls-Royce, and he starts to have trouble out of his vehicle. His very valuable car is now giving him a whole lot of trouble. He calls back to England and says, my Rolls-Royce is giving me problems.

This is a noise here, noise there. I desperately need for it to be repaired. They then send a repairman by plane over to Germany, who's a specialist in Rolls-Royces, to fix this very expensive Phantom 5 Rolls-Royce. He then begins fixing the car and impeccably repairs the car, gets on a plane, and flies back to England. After a month, a man has noticed he has not gotten an invoice or a payment statement from Rolls-Royce. He picks up his telephone and calls Rolls-Royce and says, you sent a man here to fix the problem with my car, but you have not yet sent a bill. He said, well, hold the line.

I'll be right back to you. He goes and comes back to the phone, and then he says, we have checked our records and according to our records, we do not have recorded a problem with any Rolls-Royce. Now you have to understand what he was saying. What he was saying was, that's so valuable and our reputation is so important, we don't even have a record that something was wrong with your Rolls-Royce.

Now, was something wrong with the Rolls-Royce? Yeah, but we're not going to charge you for what was wrong because the man we sent to you was able to fix it and we have absorbed the cost ourselves. Something was wrong with each of us and it was called sin, but God sent a man named Jesus Christ to repair the problem. So when we stand before God, he has no record that anything was ever broken, although something was broken because the man he sent to fix it took care of it and didn't leave a bill behind. Somebody ought to praise Jesus for the cross.

How are we justified? He says, here it is. He says, by his second big word, grace. What is grace? The statement usually given, it's God's unmerited favor. It is the inexhaustible supply of God's goodness whereby he does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Watch this now. When people try to earn their way to heaven, they're skipping grace because grace is what God gives, not what you earn. Why does God want to do things by grace? He tells you, if you'll go down just a couple of verses to verse 27, where then is boasting?

It is excluded. The reason why God wants to do things by grace is so there are no peacocks in heaven. God wants to do things by grace so that God gets the glory and God gets the credit because God made the supply. It was God provided, therefore God gets the glory.

If you get to heaven because of what you did, you get the credit. So you can brag, God, you know why I'm up here? I was good. You know why I'm up here? I went to church. You know why I'm up here? I sang in the choir.

You know why I was up here? I was preaching. God said, no, by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not according to works, so that no man should boast.

But not only is that true of a sinner becoming a saint, it's true of a saint becoming sanctified. What this means is we're trying to earn from God stuff he wants to give us. We're trying to earn from God. Do you know there is a lot of stuff God would love to give, but we keep trying to get the credit through our human efforts to earn it, which cancels him giving it because he's not going to share the credit.

You say, well, where do my works come in? Aren't there things God expects me to do? Absolutely, but he expects you to do it because you're responding to grace. He expects you to do it because I'm so grateful for his goodness, I can't help but love him. I can't help but serve him. I can't help but worship him.

I can't help but give to him. When people don't know grace, you got to force them with law. See, when people don't know grace, you got to make them and threaten them and make them feel guilty and pressure them and say, well, you know God's going to get you. You got to keep law, law, law. So they may do it, but they do it under pressure. When people understand grace, they do it, but they do it and enjoy it.

Why? Because they're responding to something, not being driven to something. Law drives you.

You better, you better, you better right now and if you don't, I'm going to do this. And so you live under the fear of the law. In the Old Testament, they lived under the fear of the law.

They quaked at the law because the law was always threatening. When you understand grace, you do the right thing, but not because you're driven, but because you're grateful, because you're responding to him. He says that we are justified by his grace, by his endless supply. In fact, let me show you the greatest verse on grace in the Bible and this was written to Christians and we're going to get to this a little later, but I got to show you now because it is, it is, it's a mess. It's 2 Corinthians chapter 9, the greatest verse on grace in the Bible, 2 Corinthians chapter 9, and this, this blows my mind. He says in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 8, these words, and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good deed.

I got to read that again. God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good deed. Every time you need some oxygen, it's more than enough. It's not just more than enough for me. It's more than enough for everybody in this room, everybody in this city, state, country, and world.

God has built the world in such a way that there is an abundance of freeness. How much water is available for fish? Do fish hunt for water?

No, because there's more than enough. The ocean doesn't run dry. There's more than enough free rain coming down from the heaven to supply generation after generation after generation of schools of fish.

Let me ask you a question. How much foliage is there in the forest? How come the animals don't run out of green grass or limbs on a tree or branches or vines?

Why is it that when one limb is eaten, another limb grows? Why is it that it just keeps on coming? The reason why is that God has built the world in such a way for it to automatically resupply itself for free. All the things you need don't cost. It's the stuff that you want that puts you in debt, but the stuff that you need, God has a way of replicating that very naturally and very automatically. According to this verse, God is able to provide all the grace, all the supply you need to be. There is nothing like experiencing God giving you what you couldn't get on your own, because then you know there's nothing for you to brag about, and God becomes real to you, because he has broken through in ways you didn't expect or plan for, and guess what? He says he's got an abundance of grace. Why don't we experience the grace? We don't experience the grace because we're still trying to force it and make it happen by law.

Grace is God's supply, the supply of God's goodness, more than enough. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about how grace works in our lives, thanks to the cross. Now, if you'd like to review the full-length version of this lesson, copies are available on CD or digital download. In fact, you can get them as part of that entire two-volume, fourteen-message series I told you about earlier.

It's called Returning to the Cross. Remember, when you help support this ministry with a contribution, we'll say thanks by sending you this powerful audio series, along with Tony's insightful companion book, The Power of the Cross. But this is a special limited-time offer, so don't wait. Drop by our website, TonyEvans.org, to let us know you'd like to take advantage of this exclusive deal. Or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where the friendly people on our resource team are ready 24-7 to help you. Again, 1-800-800-3222. On Monday, more from Dr. Evans on why the accomplishments of the cross set us free to do the right thing for the right reason. Be sure to join us.