SPEAKER_00: Listen, I'm going to invite you to take your copy of God's Word and turn with me to the book of Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: Just probably the best thing to do is to look down at verse number one.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be reading some verses around that particular passage.
SPEAKER_00: Man, what an incredible study God has given us to walk through as we prepare our hearts for the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Several weeks ago, as we started this study, I told you my objective, like really what I want to come out of this, is to create within each of us this aptitude, this desire, this press to worship for not just what God has done at the cross, but how he did it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in fairness, every single time we open up God's word, it should provoke us to worship.
SPEAKER_00: But with this material here, to examine what God did at Gagatha is to really learn something about his heart as well as ours.
SPEAKER_00: To be honest with you, people share their thoughts with me about a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm not always ready to hear the things that people share with me, and that's cool.
SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to death, it's a topic that, man, I'm I'm eager to discuss.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I'm excited about it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like you are.
SPEAKER_00: The older I get, the more I look, and like I want to see what comes next.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm eager to see what happens, and I'm so convinced of the truth of Scripture that I has not seen and ear has not heard.
SPEAKER_00: Like no one knows what God has in store for his elect.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking forward to seeing that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the it's the transition to get there that concerns me.
SPEAKER_00: Am I alone?
SPEAKER_00: Are you all with me on that?
SPEAKER_00: Here, let's try this pop quiz.
SPEAKER_00: Um, answer this question, fill in this blank.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes my time to go, I hope blank.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're like most folks, words like um, I hope I go too quickly, I hope I go too painlessly, um, I hope I go um in my own home and in my own bed.
SPEAKER_00: Now I can tell you that unfortunately, because of the state of the world we live in and the fact that technology, while it has been able to extend living, sometimes it creates situations where that goal isn't achieved.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I read an article several um probably about a year and a half ago in uh Scientific America uh where they're discussing the fact that most people don't die at home in their own bed.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, less than one out of four of us are going to be able to achieve that goal.
SPEAKER_00: So when we say, when it comes my time, I hope, blank, we know the truth is we have no control over when that happens or what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00: If we did, we know how we would ride it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, right, I'd be asleep, a very, very old man in the middle of the night, the day after the Lord called Kim home.
SPEAKER_00: Like that would be that would be how I would go.
SPEAKER_00: Either that or I would die in this pulpit, right?
SPEAKER_00: That one of those two ways, good for me.
SPEAKER_00: God pick A or B.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't get to choose, do we?
SPEAKER_00: Now, we don't get to choose, but Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: He, of course, is God.
SPEAKER_00: And as we read when we first began this series, as he knelt in the garden and called out to the Father, he said, All things are possible for you.
SPEAKER_00: Let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: And so that prayer was in the context of the cup he was about to drink.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, that prayer was in the context of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: All things are possible.
SPEAKER_00: Like whenever God picked up the whiteboard and began to sketch out the plan of salvation before creation, scripture tells us, before the foundation of the world, he sketched this stuff out.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever he began to sketch it out, he had no limits and could have chosen any way he wanted to go.
SPEAKER_00: And whenever Jesus completed that blank, when it comes my time to go, he said, I choose the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we say he chose the cross, we don't mean like it was a binary choice, like I can do it or I cannot do it.
SPEAKER_00: When we say he chose the cross, we mean he chose, he designed, he planned the cross.
SPEAKER_00: This was not accidental, it was intentional.
SPEAKER_00: And since it was intentional and such a key focus of Scripture, we know that like everything about it must have been rich with meaning.
SPEAKER_00: And so we began to look at specifically Luke's description of this moment when he said, when they came, the Romans and the Jews, those who represented the hope of government to fix our reality, and the hope of religion to fix our reality, those who represented what we would do if we were at the cross, that if we were there, we would also kill God, because scripture tells us we are born at enmity.
SPEAKER_00: We are born at war with God.
SPEAKER_00: I know you think you wouldn't, but the reality is when your heart is triggered, when your heart is provoked in the absence of the Spirit, what we really want is to be our own God, to stand at the top of the hill.
SPEAKER_00: And for us to stand at the top of the hill, God has to be dethroned.
SPEAKER_00: We would kill him given the chance.
SPEAKER_00: Just like the Romans would, just like the Jews would.
SPEAKER_00: And then last week we looked at not only they, when they came to the place, that very precisely chosen location where Abraham had offered Isaac, where David had prayed for mercy on the city, and where Solomon established a prayer for the entire world, the entire world to be to experience grace and mercy there in that place.
SPEAKER_00: And then today we move forward in this phrase that Luke gives us.
SPEAKER_00: They, when they came to the place that is called the school, there, they crucified him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I had the chance to choose how I was going to leave this world, there's a long list of options that I would check before I got to crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: Because crucifixion is perhaps, if not absolutely, the worst form of execution man has ever devised.
SPEAKER_00: And you were in as much pain as they could inflict.
SPEAKER_00: So that as you were up there, the spectacle of your death wasn't just people could see you and be afraid, but they could hear you groan as you passed out.
SPEAKER_00: And the momentary silence might lead someone to believe that you finally expired until they could hear the groan of your body reacting against the open wounds on your back rubbing up against the rugged cross.
SPEAKER_00: It was a brutal, brutal way to go.
SPEAKER_00: Which raises the question why would he choose this way?
SPEAKER_00: Why was this the pathway to redemption that he chose?
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know what some of you are saying, Major, it's obvious this is the way that he chose because this is the way Scripture said he would go.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, let's let's get into some infinite regression here.
SPEAKER_00: And let me ask you the question: who wrote Scripture?
SPEAKER_00: God wrote Scripture, which means this was his plan from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_00: What was the reason for it?
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what I want to do in the next few minutes that we have together.
SPEAKER_00: I want to look at a passage in Colossians where Paul sets Jesus up as the one who brings our salvation by himself.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna notice the phrase in him repeatedly used throughout a couple of verses that we're going to read to set this up.
SPEAKER_00: And when we when we get down to verse number 15 of chapter two, we're gonna skip some verses, but when we get down to the end of the verses, what you're going to see is that Paul reveals two reasons why the cross was used by God to accomplish redemption.
SPEAKER_00: The cross said this another way.
SPEAKER_00: The cross accomplished two purposes for God that were necessary for our redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: If you will, look with me down to verse number 15 of chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: So roll back to chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: This is an ancient hymn.
SPEAKER_00: As Paul writes to Colossae, a church he had never visited, which he did not establish.
SPEAKER_00: He's writing in response to a conversation that he had had with the church planter, the apparent church planter, a man named Epaphres.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul learned was that there were cultural pressures that were causing people to take half measures in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: We have the same pressure today, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: There are cultural pressures which push us to take a step back, to turn the volume down, to maybe not be so, you know, so dedicated and so um out in our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is writing to a culture very similar to ours, and early in the letter, he gives them a hymn, a song that they would have sung.
SPEAKER_00: And as we read this, I want you to watch for the phrase, in him.
SPEAKER_00: He, he's talking about Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
SPEAKER_00: For in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether throngs or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_00: And he is the head of the body, the church.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: Again, for in him all things, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
SPEAKER_00: What's he saying there?
SPEAKER_00: And throughout this entire passage, he's saying, Jesus, his power, his authority, his rule created everything.
SPEAKER_00: And that same rule, that same authority now sets at the head of the church.
SPEAKER_00: If we are involved in an organization that is being led by someone of such great power and magnificence, that gives me a lot of hope for what the church does.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not necessarily talking about us, but I'm talking about God's people collectively.
SPEAKER_00: But when we think about God's power, Jesus' power, it's not just that he sits at the head of the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's something far deeper, something far greater.
SPEAKER_00: All of that power, all of that authority dwells in him, in his personage, and through him to reconcile, we're told himself to all things.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, peace by the blood of his what?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's all about the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: This is how God did it.
SPEAKER_00: God brings the power that spoke everything into existence and delivers it to the church and lives inside of the individual, the individuals who make up the church and he did this through the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is that important?
SPEAKER_00: It's important because the next command tells us, verse 6 of chapter 2 tells us that as we received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk, and here are the phrases again, in Him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Why are we called to use the same power that gave us access to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Why is it that we still lean on that same power after we've been baptized and came to faith?
SPEAKER_00: Why is it that this that that the the 90-year-old Christian who was saved whenever she was eight continues to walk by the same power that that the individual who just today prays the prayer of salvation?
SPEAKER_00: Like why is it that same?
SPEAKER_00: The reason is because the same power that saves us sustains us.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't saved and placed on a plateau where we exist kind of on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Sin's no longer a problem, so we're good.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: It takes more than sin not being a problem.
SPEAKER_00: Sin must not be the problem and the Savior be the solution at all times.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why we're told about the power of Jesus, that the same power that created this world now lives in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at verse number nine, as Paul sort of drills in on this idea of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
SPEAKER_00: Like he is very God, a very God in the flesh, and you have been filled with him.
SPEAKER_00: Did you catch that?
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus, all of that power that we just sung about here earlier in Colossians dwells in Jesus fully.
SPEAKER_00: And you and I dwell in him.
SPEAKER_00: We've been filled in him who is the head and rule of all authorities.
SPEAKER_00: In him also we were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, that's confusion, confusing for those of us who were in this context.
SPEAKER_00: But essentially, what Paul is saying here is that same power that lives within you has marked you for covenant.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that because I don't want to have to get up every morning and mark myself for covenant to do something that identifies the fact that, okay, that makes it so that God and I are still good.
SPEAKER_00: I want the burden for that to be on Him.
SPEAKER_00: And so we've been marked for covenant by the power of Jesus Christ now.
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, Paul's already told us that happened by the cross.
SPEAKER_00: But what exactly happened at the cross?
SPEAKER_00: What did God accomplish at the cross?
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
SPEAKER_00: We've been buried with him in baptism, in which we were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what God did at the cross for you.
SPEAKER_00: Here is what he accomplished for us by choosing the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, he um it tells us what he did at the cross tells us what he did with our record, and number two, it tells us what he did to the rulers, what he did with the record, and what he did to the rulers.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse number 13.
SPEAKER_00: And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your heart, of your flesh, God made alive.
SPEAKER_00: Please read that in the context of the power we just read about earlier in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: That the same power that created the universe that fills Jesus, that now fills you, has made you alive, which means when Jesus makes you alive, you are really alive.
SPEAKER_00: It has made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.
SPEAKER_00: That's important, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because the real question about how do we connect with God is how do we deal with our sin?
SPEAKER_00: Because it is our sin that has made a breach between us and God.
SPEAKER_00: Something has to be done with our sin.
SPEAKER_00: The past sins that we have committed, right?
SPEAKER_00: All of those things that you thought that you should not think, do that you should not have done, that the lies, the cheating, the images, the thoughts, the stuff that didn't belong to you that you took.
SPEAKER_00: Something has to be done with that.
SPEAKER_00: What gets done with that?
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, not only what has to be done, something has to be done with the sins that you have committed, but how many of you plan on committing sins later today?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't plan on it, but you know what's going to happen or later in life.
SPEAKER_00: Like something's got to be done with all of that.
SPEAKER_00: What happened to it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul tells us that he got rid of it, that he removed it, that we've been forgiven, and he did this by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with the legal demands.
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course there were legal demands, because the consequences for crime were brutal.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever Paul says here that he removed it, that he removed, that he canceled the debt, the record of debt that was against us, it's the same word that's used whenever an amanuensis, an author was using a parchment to write something down, and there was already something on that parchment, but it was an old note, an old letter, something that could be could be erased.
SPEAKER_00: He would take the parchment and he would he would clean it thoroughly and wipe off all of the old print and all of the old ink so that he could put a new message on there.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word that was used here that the record of our sin has been wiped clean.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I need that.
SPEAKER_00: Because whenever I open up the book of Revelation and I see about the, I see the time whenever the dead are going to be brought before the Lord, and in great and small, wealthy and poor and influential and insignificant, they're all brought before the Lord, and their books are opened.
SPEAKER_00: And the dead are judged out of those books.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you think you think the NSA has a record on you, you should see the one that God has on you, like it's thorough.
SPEAKER_00: And so that that's that's like you're going to be judged out of that book, and that is a frightful, fearful thing.
SPEAKER_00: The only alternative is if you don't want to be judged out of those books, is to be judged out of the book that is open beside of that library, the Lamb's book of life, for the names of those who have who've been sprinkled with the blood of the Lamb is written.
SPEAKER_00: I know what some of you may be thinking right now.
SPEAKER_00: You may be thinking to yourself, well, that's okay, Major.
SPEAKER_00: I can I'm not great, but I really think my good works outweigh my bad works.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to tell you there is no amount of good works that you can do to outweigh the bad works that you and I have committed.
SPEAKER_00: Can't be done.
SPEAKER_00: There's no amount of water that you're going to pour into a glass, no amount of pure water that you can pour into a glass and Hand me and then tell me that there's a small amount of poison in the bottom of that cup first.
SPEAKER_00: No big deal.
SPEAKER_00: It's mostly pure.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not drinking it.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's true for me, and I'm wicked and ignorant in so many ways, the holy, pure God is not going to be satisfied no matter how many pages of good works you fill out.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is, if we're honest, most of us fill out fewer pages of good works than we think we do.
SPEAKER_00: We need this gone.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is an image, of course, of what happens at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Because at the cross, whenever the criminal is affixed to the to the members of that instrument of execution, over top of him is placed a bill of indictment so that everybody can know that if you don't want to wind up where this guy is, you need to make sure you don't steal horses.
SPEAKER_00: You need to make sure that you don't cause an insurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't do that, like if you do, if you do those things, there's a good chance you're going to wind up in that same kind of spot.
SPEAKER_00: And that individual has been so beaten and so mangled that the sounds that you hear, that the sights that you see, that the smells that you take in from that execution tell you, I don't want any part of that.
SPEAKER_00: And that bill is nailed to the top.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul picks up on that image and says, our bill of indictment has been nailed to that cross that stood against us with all of its legal demands.
SPEAKER_00: You know what the legal demands are?
SPEAKER_00: The wages of sin is what?
SPEAKER_00: The wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: And this, Paul tells us, it has been set aside, nailing it to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: See, through the cross, this image of punishment and pain.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever Jesus was nailed to it, they affixed an indictment against him that says, he said he's king of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: He says he's Rex.
SPEAKER_00: There's no Rex here except for Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the Jews came by and said, you need to redact that.
SPEAKER_00: Not that he is king of the Jews, but that he says he's king of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: This was his indictment.
SPEAKER_00: The irony there, of course, is very clear that he is king not only of the Jews, but he is king of the entire universe.
SPEAKER_00: And in the place of that truth is placed our error.
SPEAKER_00: He died for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is the perfect image for what happens, what needs to happen to our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Someone needs to bear them.
SPEAKER_00: Someone needs to lift them up.
SPEAKER_00: He canceled the record of our death that stood against us with his legal demands.
SPEAKER_00: This he set aside.
SPEAKER_00: The word set aside here is the Greek word arrow.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word for bearer.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word for carry.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations will say bearing it on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word that's used in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever Jesus would heal someone laying on a mat, and Jesus would say, Be healed, stand up, pick up your mat.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus carrying our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to talk more about this next week or in two weeks, but this tells us something significant about the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: That he's not just in your business because he's opinionated or you annoy him or because he's angry or wrathful.
SPEAKER_00: He is in your business because he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: And you know that because he did this for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: See, the cross tells us something about what God did with our record.
SPEAKER_00: And what he did with our record is he bore it in himself.
SPEAKER_00: But not only does it tell us what he did with our record, it tells us what he did to the rulers.
SPEAKER_00: To the rulers.
SPEAKER_00: No way are we going to be able to do a thorough examination of all that could be meant here, because it is so powerful and liberating.
SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
SPEAKER_00: So there it is again, in that phrase, in him.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations will say in it, referring back to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The ideal here being is that this instrument of violence became an instrument instead of victory.
SPEAKER_00: This instrument that the leadership used to create compliance became an instrument of genuine heart change.
SPEAKER_00: This instrument that was used to create fear became an instrument of faith.
SPEAKER_00: This instrument that was supposed to conquer him, he used it as a weapon against those who would disobey God and cause others to do the same.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's look at this real quick.
SPEAKER_00: He disarmed the rulers.
SPEAKER_00: The idea for disarm there, the Greek word, is actually a word that means to disrobe.
SPEAKER_00: It's really more of a metaphor than anything.
SPEAKER_00: It was used in other places throughout this time period to talk about disarming people, but literally it means they've been disrobed.
SPEAKER_00: They're up there for hours.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, I don't want to get too visual here, but if you're up there for hours, like there's a lot of there's a lot of things that are happening to your body.
SPEAKER_00: And it's all happening out in the open.
SPEAKER_00: Paul takes that image and he shifts it around and says, Jesus wasn't the one who was disrobed.
SPEAKER_00: They were disrobed.
SPEAKER_00: And in their disrobing, they were disarmed.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that weird?
SPEAKER_00: In what way were the rulers and authorities disarmed?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that raises the question that we will cover very, very quickly: who are the rulers and authorities?
SPEAKER_00: Every other time that Paul uses the terms rulers and authorities throughout the epistles, it appears to reference the rulers and authorities in spiritual realms.
SPEAKER_00: This may refer to the divine counsel that we learn about in the Old Testament and this system that we don't know much about of spiritual beings who God has allowed them to have certain control over certain territories, and they're supposed to manage those territories.
SPEAKER_00: But there was a rebellion in that realm, in that layer, in that unseen realm, as there was in our realm.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul seems to refer to these rulers and authorities in Ephesians chapter 4, whenever he talks about the power of God to overcome these spiritual beings.
SPEAKER_00: That here's the point: that you and I are engaged in a warfare that is not political, that is not economic, that is not social.
SPEAKER_00: Principally, our warfare is spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're here right now thinking to yourself, oh, I just don't know that I believe that's a good interpretation, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: It may not be.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're believing like if you refuse to consider the possibility that Paul is saying that these spiritual warfare was completely, the spiritual rebellion was completely crushed at the cross, because like you think to yourself, you know, the devil's not that big of a deal, or maybe you imagine there is no devil.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just tell you if that's your belief, you have fallen into the devil's trap?
SPEAKER_00: Long before Kaiser Sosay said it, uh a famous French poet said it in a work called The Generous Gambler, that the greatest, the most the loveliest trick the devil ever performed was convincing, convincing people that he did not exist.
SPEAKER_00: You were part of a spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_00: And according to, I think what Paul is saying here is that he put them to open shame through it.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: He did it, the context seems to tell us, by doing in the cross what they could not do.
SPEAKER_00: See, these rulers and authorities were called to rule and have authority over the world and different areas and principalities and states and those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, even if Paul's not referring specifically to the spiritual realm here, and he's talking about the rulers and authorities that wear crowns in this world, the truth still holds, it's still still the same.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus was able to conquer, Jesus was able to accomplish through his blood what no nation has ever been able to accomplish by shedding the blood of a million soldiers.
SPEAKER_00: He is able to accomplish not just change from the outside in, but change from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: It must have been compelling to go by an intersection like the corner of 77 and 81, where thousands of people come by every single week.
SPEAKER_00: It must have been compelling to go by an intersection like that and look up and see a group of individuals bloodied, beaten, barely looking like they're human at all, with an indictment above them saying, you want to behave.
SPEAKER_00: Trust us, you want to be.
SPEAKER_00: Like that must have been a compelling experience.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is it cannot change the heart.
SPEAKER_00: It can force capitulation, but it cannot change the heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what Paul says in Colossians chapter 2, verse 23, at the end of this argument.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says there.
SPEAKER_00: He says, These have all indeed an appearance of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: What's he talking about?
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the things that we do to force people to look like they're doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: We would call it legalism.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, you know, things that you shouldn't touch and you shouldn't do, and you shouldn't like this, all these rules that religion sets up, and all of these rules that government sets up, that all of these things may have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, severity to the body makes me want to mind.
SPEAKER_00: But they are not there are they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: What's he saying there?
SPEAKER_00: The world cannot accomplish what the Son of God has.
SPEAKER_00: That whenever you come to a place where you acknowledge in humility that I cannot be my own God and you lay down your arms fighting against the one true God, it's at that point where the real change occurs.
SPEAKER_00: That does not feel natural because everything about this life tells me that it's through my blood, sweat, and tears that I have to work to change things around me.
SPEAKER_00: But that's how it works in this world.
SPEAKER_00: When we're talking about the world, the kingdom that Jesus is setting up, it's not through our blood, sweat, and tears, it's through his blood, sweat, and tears.
SPEAKER_00: You must, we must trust Christ only.
SPEAKER_00: Not only to come into a relationship with him, but just as Paul says here in the middle of all of these in him phrases, we must be willing to walk in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the same way that you came into Christ, continue to walk in him.
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, I need Jesus every single day.
SPEAKER_00: Every single day.
SPEAKER_00: See, the cross reveals both the depth of our sin and the limits of our strength.
SPEAKER_00: See the beauty of that?
SPEAKER_00: The cross reveals the depth of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: The bloody, mangled body underneath the indotment of Jesus that truthfully announced who he was placed there by a group of individuals who would do anything that they could to be their own God.
SPEAKER_00: In the middle of that, while they were pouring out their wrath on God, God was pouring out his wrath on sin and pleading for them, Father, forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: For they don't know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: What depth of sin would allow that thing to happen?
SPEAKER_00: What a depth of sin would cause the sovereign God to rise up from his very safe abode and come down and tarnish himself with our sin, the depth of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: And it also tells us simultaneously in the in the same instrument, the limit of our strength.
SPEAKER_00: The cross, if if you didn't get any of that, please hear this.
SPEAKER_00: The cross represents man's very best effort to create change.
SPEAKER_00: And it failed.
SPEAKER_00: No saying, well, I'm okay, I'm not that bad, maybe I could be a little better, and one day it's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: The writ of my lawlessness has been nailed to the cross, and I am very thankful for that.
SPEAKER_00: How about yours?
SPEAKER_00: How is your writ of indictment?
SPEAKER_00: Whenever you stand and it's going to happen, this is real.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is real.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is real, it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever you stand, are you going to be okay being judged by the writ, by the record of your actions?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you want to be judged by the grace of his?
SPEAKER_00: The cross simultaneously crushes our excuses and puts to rest our efforts.