Pastor Allan Kircher
Shell Point Baptist Church
23 March 2014
Gal. 6:11-16
The Centrality of the Cross
Goal/message/Hope/Cross/Today
• Learn how/make/cross central in our lives
• we can experience/power, peace/mercy
• Comes through a relationship with Christ.
In football, the football determines everything.
• First downs/measured/ball is placed
• Touchdowns/measured/ball crosses/plain
• “Out-of-bounds” tied/your control/ball/relationship/feet
• Fumbles/determined/who grabs the ball.
• Field goals/measured/whether/ball goes through/Up Rights
Men fight over it, rejoice over it, and strive to possess it.
• In other words/football/missing there/no football game
Without/football, everything else/goes/stadium/field/waste/time.
• In football, the football is the main thing.
• In Christianity, the cross is the main thing.
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Want/share something incredibly important with you:
• In Christianity, the cross is the main thing.
• What Jesus satisfied and gained at cross/main thing.
Without it
• no power/freedom/forgiveness/authority/strength/victory
• Nothing at all.
• The cross is the main thing.
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Every year around Easter time, people typically focus/cross.
• We remember/Christ’s death paid/penalty for our sins.
We meditate on how/reality/cross enables those who believe and trust in Jesus to spend eternity in Heaven.
• However, once Easter passes
• we frequently go back to doing our own thing
• Trying to live our lives without the cross as the central focus.
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1. THE CROSS IS CENTRAL TO THE CHRISTIAN
• Remember Christ and the cross
• Paul wrote to the Galatians in large letters
• He boasted only in the cross of Christ (Galatians 6:14)
• Paul recalled the historical reality of the cross
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Make the cross central in your life
• To Paul, the cross was not a decoration or an icon
• it was/centrality of his very existence (see Galatians 2:20)
See, it isn’t enough:
• Gather together/right place each Sunday—the church
• Gather together/right people in our lives—fellow believers.
• There/program/plan/books, seminars
• Worship/personal devotional time on Sunday/thru out week.
All of that is good, and all of that is critical
• All that means nothing without centrality of the main thing—the cross.
• If we leave out the cross
• We are only left/empty shell called religion.
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Without/cross, we/left/empty set of rules, laws, requirements, and judgments
An attempt to legislate spirituality without
• Power/intimacy/grace/ability/live spiritually victorious lives.
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As a result, believers find themselves in perpetual defeat
Never:
• Measuring up--fully overcoming/struggles
• rising above/circumstances---fulfilling/destiny
• achieving the complete manifestation of their significance
Because they/operating without/power/deliverance of the cross.
trying to live/Christian life without the main thing—the cross.
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2. THE CROSS PROVIDES POWER
…………….Look to the power of Christ
Church/Galatia looked/their flesh instead/Christ’s power Gal 3:1–3
Galatians focused/what they could do in their flesh instead of what Christ already did…Gal. 6:12
Many believers today want to live in victory yet continually live defeated lives.
Problem we face/modern, contemporary Christian culture
• We/forgotten/purpose/preeminence/power/cross
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We view/icon reflecting something/happened thousands/yrs ago
• Little relevance/us today other than/communion or Easter
• That’s only/produce feelings of guilt or appreciation.
• Far too many Christians view the cross/historical event
• Take it for granted/something they deserve.
• Rather/current event wielding everything they need to bring heaven to bear on earth.
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Electricity/flow of power/makes everything work in your home.
• Virtually everything/house operates because/electricity
Your appliances/lights/heat/air conditioning/computers/television work because they are receiving electricity.
If you are severed from electricity
• Flow/power stops even though you still own/appliances…..
It’s not/you no longer possess these items
• Nor is it you didn’t pay for/purchase them
• You can have something you have paid for/Not enjoy it
• Simply because/flow/electricity/no longer there.
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To be severed from Christ or to fall from grace:
• Means/flow of what God wants to do in you and through you is no longer flowing.
• You have essentially been unplugged/disconnected
• From/power/Jesus even though you still have all of the paraphernalia of religion.
Therefore, your:
• hope is gone/peace is gone
• Courage is gone/faith is gone/authority is gone.
In writing to his audience at Galatia, Paul urged them over and over again, in one form or another, to remember Christ and the cross.
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3. CROSS PROVIDES A RELATIONSHIP AND NOT RELIGION
Don’t let religion replace the cross
Judaizers had religious rules but not/relationship/Jesus
• Group/people/still attached/religious rules OT
• Judaizes were trying to subvert the message/cross
• Trying to convert new Christians/circumcision.
• They had religion. They just didn’t have a the relationship
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In school, we may be asked to write a research paper.
• To accomplish this assignment/perform due diligence
• Control/material/analyze all/arguments.
• After our hard work, we feel great about our paper.
Suppose/get/paper back/professor/big fat red zero/top
• Along/smaller note/bottom scrawled
• “Great work. Great preparation. Wrong assignment.”
It wasn’t that/hadn’t done great work
• You had done great work/wrong assignment.
• You/researched/wrong topic.
• As a result, you didn’t get credit for what you had done.
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Christianity is no different.
It’s not/aren’t/lot/people doing excellent things.
• Attending church, helping the hurting
• Saying all the correct spiritual platitudes.
• It’s just they’ve missed the cross.
• They’ve missed Jesus Christ
• then they wonder why they aren’t getting any credit
Wondering why they aren’t experiencing any victory, power, hope and authority.
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Focus on your relationship with Christ
Religion is anything you do for God/does not stem out of a heart connected to God
Religious activity can sever us from Christ’s strength, intimacy, and power. Gal 5:1–2, 4
Serve God out of love rather to duty
God wants your morality, prayer life, dedication for Him and all else to be predicated on your relationship with Him rather than on religious duty
Don’t be defined by what you do—be defined by knowing Jesus
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4. CROSS PROVIDES A NEW WORLDVIEW
Let yourself be spiritually crucified with Christ
• Paul says/two crucifixions that need to occur
• Jesus and your own. Gal. 6:14
• Paul/crucified to all things belonging to this world
• Align yourself with Christ
The world here means: Organized world system
For example, we will often talk about the “world of sports,” or the “world of finance,” or the “world of politics.”
• These phrases/not referencing a location/place
• Referencing/organized system inclusive of certain definitions, regulations and philosophical worldviews.
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When Paul states he has been crucified with Christ, he is saying
He is no longer alive to this world’s system wants/leave God out
• He/crucified/strategies/rules/set up to try and make humanity acceptable to God
• Independently of God.
Being “crucified”/Christ creates a disconnect from/world’s order
• subsequent attachment and alignment with Him
• Crucifixion involves no longer living/worldly life/leaves God out
===================================
Romans invented crucifixion.
When/Romans/put a condemned criminal on public display to humiliate him, they paraded him down the street carrying the crossbeam of his cross.
• Carrying/cross/place/execution/was public display
• You were guilty/crime you were condemned for.
To carry your cross means to bear/reproach of Jesus Christ.
• Be/identified/Him when they accuse you of being/Christian,
• You are found guilty……
• When someone accuses you of being His disciple
• You say, “You got me.”
• To carry your own cross/admit publicly you are guilty
• Guilty/crime of being committed to Christ
• Guilty of placing Him first
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5. CROSS PROVIDES YOUR IDENTITY
Carry your cross daily
• Ongoing identification/Paul pointed out 1 Cor. 15:31
• Get busy dying…..
• cross represents/Moment-by-moment connection
• identification/Jesus Christ
• purpose of His life, death, burial and resurrection
Cross/acknowledgment of complete and total dependency on Christ and His sufficiency, along with recognition of personal sin
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FINDING IDENTITY IN THE CROSS: Have you ever gone swimming in a deep lake or in the ocean?
• If/chose to swim several hundred feet down/depths/water
• You wouldn’t survive your body/not made for/environment.
• Without/proper equipment/you wouldn’t last..minutes.
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The cross is your equipment in this world.
• It is your GPS. It is your identity.
• It is your oxygen/point of reference/life.
Why/so many believers/struggling/live victorious lives/world?
• They are leaving the cross at the benediction
Jesus said, “’Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
• Didn’t say/pick up your cross/set it back down.
• He said you are to carry your cross.
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Carrying your cross:
• is to identify/Jesus so when they accuse you of being a Christian you are found guilty
• is to admit publicly that you are guilty of the crime of being committed to Christ, guilty of placing Him first
• is dying/yourself and what you want and putting Jesus first
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• Recognize you are a new creation
• Your identification/Christ means you/new creation
• Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17
Your victory in your daily life, decisions, emotions, finances and in all things is tied to the new creation within you, not to the flesh
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6. CROSS PROVIDES PEACE AND MERCY
Walk according to the rule of the cross
You will experience peace and mercy when you align your frame of thinking with the centrality of the cross
Functioning by rule/cross provides/peace/passes understanding
Guard against trusting in religious activity
Trusting in religious activity to earn favor with God results in severing yourself from Christ
Being severed from Christ means you’ve been disconnected from the power of Jesus
Let the Holy Spirit empower you
When the Spirit permeates all that you do, you will think, act, live, and love differently and see yourself in a different light
The Spirit, who comes to us by way of the accomplishment of the cross, will empower you
