Two Parts of the Word of the Cross: Zac Poonen (Transcript)

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He’s almighty. He’s powerful. He can remove the guilt of your sin.

But if he says, “That’s great, but I have other problems. I’m always defeated by sexual lust. I’m always defeated by anger in my home, in my office.” And I say, “Oh, well, Jesus can’t save you from all that. He’s not that powerful, but he’ll forgive you.”

He can he’s got every right to turn around to me and say, “I don’t want your Jesus. If he can’t help me there, that’s my biggest problem. But just to imagine this invisible thing called my sins are forgiven, how do you know you’re not fooling me? Because there’s no clear proof that my sins are forgiven. You convinced me some word in scripture and something, my sins are forgiven. How do I know? Prove it to me by Jesus delivering me from the power of sin. Then I’ll know that the first part is true.” He’s got every right to ask that. And that’s where the Christian witness is powerless in many, many cases.

The Two Parts of the Word of the Cross

And that’s why many Christians live a very shallow life. The word of the cross, there are two parts to it. And it’s the first part that most have accepted and been satisfied with. There is another part to that word of the cross. And just like the first part is foolishness to the unbeliever, the second part is foolishness to most believers.

But it is “but to those who are being saved” I believe it’s a pretty accurate translation in the NASB here. To us who are being saved. I don’t know whether any of you think of this being saved. We usually think of ourselves as saved. What about being saved?

Those who are being saved, it is the power of God. The gospel was not meant to be a message. To many people, the gospel is a message. We talk about the gospel message. But if you turn to Romans 1:16, you know, where Paul calls it, something more than a message.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it’s not a message. Romans 1:16. It is the power. It is the power of God.” And I don’t know how many believers there are who think of the gospel as not a message, but the power of God.

It’s one thing to study about electricity. It’s quite another thing to have electricity in the house. You can have all the books on electricity that you like and still have no light in your house. You can have all the knowledge of electricity and have no power. And that is how it is with many believers because they’re not serious, their Christianity.

The False Gospel vs. The True Gospel

They’ve taken lightly the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. They’re self-centered, selfish. They only think of, I’ve got to go to heaven when I die. There are two types of preaching I find in Christendom. One is a man-centered gospel. It’s a false gospel. And the other is a God-centered gospel. Repentance is the part which is not preached in most of gospel preaching. And repentance is to turn from being man-centered to God-centered. And until we turn from being man-centered to God-centered, we’ve not really repented.

I mean, we may have repented of gambling and drinking and smoking and a few external things. It doesn’t deliver us from the real root of the problem. When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden and he chose the tree of knowledge of good and evil and rejected the tree of life, I want you to recognize what he chose and what he rejected. He chose to be centered in himself. He said, I want the knowledge of good and evil resident within me. I will decide what is good and what is evil.

And we have so many decent people on the earth, decent atheists. You know, there are I’ve met atheists who don’t commit adultery, who don’t murder people and who don’t even tell lies. They’re pretty upright and you wouldn’t externally, you wouldn’t think there’s much difference between them and those who claim to be born again Christians. I met born again Christians who tell lies and pastors who commit adultery. And I met atheists who don’t.

So where is the difference? It’s when, the atheists have the knowledge of good and evil and they say, well, there are certain things that are wrong. I won’t do it. Adultery is wrong. I won’t do it.

But the tree of life was where if Adam had chosen that, it would have been saying, I’m not going to choose what’s good and evil. I’m going to let God tell me what’s good and evil. And that’ll be a much higher standard, what I know, what I think is good and evil. For example, when Jesus lived on this earth, he didn’t just live a life where he didn’t commit adultery and told lies and, didn’t steal, just kept the ten commandments. It, his life wouldn’t have been better than the lives of some unconverted people if it was only that.

The Main Principle of Jesus’ Life

The main thing in Jesus’ life is in this verse. If you can understand it and be gripped by it, I promise you it will change your life radically. Turn to John chapter 6 and verse 38. This was the main principle by which Jesus lived his entire earthly life. And this is foolishness to a lot of believers. John 6:38, Jesus said, I came down from heaven and let me paraphrase it.

I didn’t come down from heaven just to live a decent life. Many Christians are happy with a decent life. My testimony is good before the church. I don’t yell. I don’t fight. I don’t quarrel. I’m not running after money. I’m pretty upright in most things. I tell you, most Christians are happy with that. But Jesus said, “I came from heaven with one purpose to my entire life, never to do my own will, but always to do the will of him who sent me.”

That is foolishness to most believers. That is the word of the cross to believers. The word of the cross to unbelievers is whatever you may do, you’ll never get forgiveness for your sins. You can go on pilgrimages, burn candles, give millions of rupees to God’s work. It’ll never buy you forgiveness.

It’s free. You’ve got to acknowledge you’re a sinner, that all the millions of good works you do will never forgive one sin of yours. You’ve got to believe that Christ died for you, took your entire punishment. And the proof of it is that he rose from the dead. That’s foolishness to most non-Christians.

They think, how can that be? We got to pay a price. How can I escape all that? It’s free. They can’t accept it. And they’re unwilling to turn and receive that. There’s a pride in them, which says, I’ve got to do something so that I can stand before God and I did something to get my forgiveness. And God says, no. If you’re going to be proud, you won’t get forgiveness. You got to be willing to humble yourself and say, I can do nothing.

You know, like you’re singing that song, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Nothing in my hands I bring. Nothing. Simply to thy cross I cling.” That’s the only way to get forgiveness.

The Hidden Life of Following Jesus

That is what is foolishness to the unbeliever. And here is where the word of the cross, which believers don’t accept, that if you really want to follow Jesus, there is only one way. It’s not by giving up those ugly sins which even the world considers ugly. Even if you, by the grace of God, conquer anger in your life so that you never get angry, by the grace of God in your home or in your office and you think you have reached great heights when you come there and you don’t lust after women anymore and you imagine that you have come to great heights above other believers, you haven’t. If you really want to follow Jesus, it’s in the hidden life where you say, I will never do what pleases me, but only what pleases God.

And those are secret decisions that you and I make in the hidden areas of our life, which other people never see. But like Jesus said, your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And he sees those secret sacrifices, the secret denial of self in different areas in your life, and he rewards you openly with an anointing, with the aroma of Christ that comes forth from your life, which is much more than just a decent life. And, people are blessed by that aroma in a lasting way, not in a temporary way. And God can use the weakest person to build a church that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

The One-Sentence Autobiography of Jesus

So this is the secret. I’ve come not to do my own will. I always call this John 6:38, the one-sentence autobiography of Jesus Christ’s life. There are many people who have written a biography of Jesus’ life, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. But here is Jesus’ autobiography where he writes about his own life himself in one sentence.

What did I come to earth for? Never to do my own will. Right from birth to death, he was the one person, as we know, who could choose where he was going to be born. You and I never had that choice. There was only one person who came to the earth who could choose where he was going to be born.

And he was born in a place where I believe no other human being was ever born in a cow shed, kept in a trough where the cows ate their food from. I don’t think the poorest man in the world has ever had a birth like that. He came lower than everyone. Why did he choose that? Why did he plan for thousands of years that when his mother arrives in Bethlehem, every room should be occupied?

He planned it. You think it’s so difficult for God to plan to have one room available for privacy for Mary to deliver a baby? He planned that the donkey should be a little slow on which Mary was sitting so that by the time they reach Bethlehem, every room is occupied. And, that Caesar Augustus should pass this crazy rule that when they take a census, everybody should go to his hometown. Imagine if in the United States when they’re taking a census of the people, they told everybody to go to their hometown and get you don’t need to go everybody to go to the hometown to get a census of the people.

You can do it anywhere. But this crazy rule, which probably was made only once in the history of the world, you got to go to your hometown and get registered there. There was only one reason for that because Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem and Mary was at that time in Nazareth. The amazing thing God does to fulfill his will. And that ensured there’d be no room there because if it was at any other time, there’d have been room.

But everybody, all the people who were whose families were in Bethlehem landed up there. It was God’s plan. Jesus planned it from heaven that I have to come beneath everybody so that I can show them that all the things that man considers big in the world is an abomination in God’s eyes. Even things like where we are born or what type of home we live in, all that is big and great in the eyes of men is an abomination to God. That’s Luke 16:15.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

And so Jesus demonstrated that throughout his whole life. And I often thought about his death as well. He had to die for our sins. But why did he have to die in such a cruel way? You know, why did he have to be stripped and beaten and with a crown of thorns?

All that was not necessary. I mean, he had to be forsaken by God and that’s taken by punishment for our sin. That could have been done in a decent way without all that struggle. Why be stripped to an underwear and hang naked almost before people to be laughed at and mocked? And that was not necessary for the punishment of our sin.

The Depths of Christ’s Sacrifice

He didn’t have to be laughed at to bear the punishment of our sin. He had to be forsaken by God. That’s the punishment for our sin. The punishment for our sin is not to be laughed at by other people. But in everything he was determined to go down underneath other men to be born in the most shameful way, to die in the most shameful way so that no human being could ever say that you don’t understand what I’m going through.

He came underneath everybody so that he could serve them all. And this is the failure of so many people in Christian leadership today. They want to be on top of everybody and serve them. It’s a lot of rubbish. And that’s why Christianity is in such a pathetic state because its leaders don’t understand going underneath everybody.

They want to get more money from others. They want to take money from the poor like all these television evangelists so that they can fly in jet aircraft while the people they take money from travel in old third-hand cars. It’s so different from true from Jesus Christ. We need to say that, see that and stand against it. The word of the cross, I will not seek my own pleasure.

I will not seek that which will give me gain. I will not — the world is full of people who want to seek their gain. And like Paul says, even in his day, there were people who considered they would use even godliness. 1 Timothy 6. To use that as a means of gain for self.

The Foolishness of Self-Denial

So the word of the cross where you serve God and you don’t gain anything, you lose everything, It’s foolishness. Most preachers that I’ve met, they think, well, why can’t I gain something? I’m serving the Lord. Uh-huh. Is that how Jesus lived?

So this is the word of the cross. It’s foolishness to people. The word of the cross, it says you deny yourself and you gain nothing by serving the Lord except that you please God. That’s it. You don’t even expect gratitude from people whom you have served.

You know, we think that, if you have served somebody, at least they could be grateful to me. I remember some years ago the Lord, showing me how wrong that was in my own life. There was a young brother who we used to — we used to often stay in our house in the days when the church was meeting in our home. Six years, the church met in our home and we had lots of young people who would just stay overnight in our home because it was too late for them to go home by bus, etcetera. And, we help those young people in so many ways.

And there was this young brother young chap. He was a college student, and he would stay overnight and, go to college from our home. Then he grew up, he got a good job, and he went away and to another place. And then he seemed to forget all about us. We never heard from him, and I was thinking, boy, what an ungrateful person he is. After all that we did for him for so many years, he doesn’t even think of keeping in touch with us and, you know, saying thank you.

And the Lord spoke to me and said there was something wrong with me. I said, Lord, what’s wrong with me? We served him to the best of our ability. And the Lord said, that’s right. But you served him expecting gratitude from him for your service. That part was wrong. “In as much as you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you should have done it unto me.” So it was you did it as a service unto him. It should have been a service unto me. And if it was really a service unto me, you wouldn’t be expecting gratitude from him.

You’d be expecting it from me. If I’ve served A, I don’t expect gratitude from B. I expect gratitude from A. So if I’ve served people as unto the Lord, why am I looking for gratitude from people? Why am I upset when those people don’t thank me for the way I sacrificed and served them?

It’s because I didn’t serve the Lord. I served people. And that day I understood what it means to serve the Lord. That even in serving people, I should be serving the Lord. I’m not expecting anything from people.

The True Jesus vs. Another Jesus

That’s how Jesus lived. He never expected anything from people. And that’s the tragedy of Christian today and Christian ministry particularly. Christian preachers expect from people gratitude, money, service, so many things. It’s not the way Jesus lived. It’s another Jesus.

A lot of Christendom is following another Jesus and their leaders are the ones who are fooling them by showing them this another Jesus. And when you show the real Jesus the way he lived, that’s foolishness. And that’s why they cook up all types of theories to show that Jesus was actually a very wealthy man. He wasn’t poor for me, even though the Bible says he became poor.

Because they themselves feel guilty that they are so, they’ve become so rich through preaching the gospel, and they feel guilty that Jesus, their master, wasn’t and that the apostles were not, didn’t become rich through preaching the gospel. So that’s just just one area. The word of the cross has got two aspects to it. Let me turn you to Galatians in chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2.

The Foundation and Superstructure of Faith

And when I say two aspects, there’s something like the foundation and the superstructure of a building. There’s a lot of difference between what you put in the foundation and what we put in the superstructure. We never confuse the two. Any person who’s building knows that. For example, you don’t put windows and doors in the foundation.

That’s ridiculous. And the type of stuff with which you break the foundation, that’s not what you put into walls and the superstructure. It’s different. So there is a difference between foundation and superstructure. Or like the roots of a tree and the upper part of a tree, you don’t get fruit in the roots of a tree. It’s in the upper part in the branches.

Or the difference between joining school and graduating. To me, being born again is like, okay. I joined school. I got accepted in the kindergarten. And lots of Christians, that’s all there is. I got accepted. I joined the kindergarten. Well, what’s the purpose of joining the kindergarten? Why do you put your children into kindergarten? It’s so that they go all the way and finish school.

And many have not understood that. The word of the cross that brought them into the kindergarten, that’s forgiveness of sins and Christ dying for us. But there is another aspect of the word of the cross that gives us an education that goes all the way up. So you see that in Galatians chapter 2. The first aspect of the word of the cross is verse 17 and a little expression, justified in Christ.

Justification vs. Forgiveness

How am I justified in Christ? Not just forgiven. Forgiveness is one thing, being justified is another. It’s way beyond forgiveness. And like the illustration I’ve used probably used it before here as well.

Let me repeat it. When I’m guilty, I’m like a person who’s one billion dollars in debt. My bank account is minus one billion. And when this person to whom I owe this one billion forgives me, I come to zero. That itself is a fantastic message that all my debt of one billion dollars in a moment is wiped out and the certificate of debt against me is torn. That’s what Christ did on the cross. That’s forgiveness.

But justification is that this wonderful man who forgives me and wipes out my one billion dollar debt now puts one billion dollars into my account. Can you believe that? That’s the difference between forgiveness and justification.

Forgiveness is being brought from minus one billion to zero. Justification is being taken further to plus one billion. It’s not two steps. It’s one step. It’s from minus one billion to plus one billion, and many have not understood that.

That is what it means for the righteousness of Christ, to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. For years, I lived with my own righteousness and I was one million in debt. When I was forgiven, that was great. But to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ is to stand before God, just like Jesus stands before God. Completely accepted, completely forgiven.

The past blotted out, not only past blotted out, but accepted in the beloved. It’s a beautiful expression in the King James, in Ephesians 1, accepted in the beloved. But that’s just the first aspect, justified in Christ. And we must be absolutely sure of that. If you’re not sure of this is the foundation.

The Importance of a Solid Foundation

If you don’t have this foundation, I tell you, you’re going to have trouble with the superstructure. Maybe the cracks in the wall don’t come in the first floor. They’ll come on the second floor or the third floor. Maybe ten years from now after you accepted Christ, you’ll have something cracking on the wall or the building beginning to shake because you were not properly established in the beginning. I’ve seen so many cases like that.

I’ve had people, number of people who come to our church in Bangalore who say, “Brother Zac, I never really understood salvation till I came here. Even though I accepted Christ ten years ago and I thought I was born again, first of all, I never understood what repentance was till I came here. And I never understood what repentance was because nobody explained what sin was to me. They just talked about a few external sins and most of them just said, say these magic words, ‘Lord Jesus, come into my heart.’ And that’s it.”

And we never understood repentance and we never understood justification. But now we have understood that. And I see many people who have come to us, many, many, many people, their real experience of salvation came after they came to the church and they understood what forgiveness and being forgiven and being justified was. It’s not properly proclaimed. Repentance is not properly proclaimed.

True justification is not properly proclaimed. So but that’s very important for all of us to understand. It’s very important for the children growing up in our church. I’ve been telling the elders in our churches and where we work in India, I say, don’t say in your church, well, I don’t need to preach that because I preached that five years ago. You have to repeat in the church what you preached five years ago because there are some children who’ve grown up in that church who couldn’t understand it five years ago.

The Necessity of Repetition in Teaching

And now they’ve grown up to the place where they can understand it. What’s he saying? We preached that five years ago, so I’m not going to preach it again. That’s preachers who seek honor. They always want the honor of preaching something new.

That’s one of the things the Lord told me. Die to seeking honor in the church that people say, oh, brother Zac is always preaching some new subject. I don’t want to preach a new subject. I want to preach what’s needed for every single person in that church, which may include some five-year-old who could not understand it five years ago, who’s ten years old now and who can understand or a ten-year-old who couldn’t understand it five years ago, who’s fifteen years old now, who can grasp the truth. It’s like a kindergarten teacher or a second grade teacher.

The second grade teacher is teaching the same thing every year because there’s a new class sitting there. Every year imagine teaching the same thing for twenty years because every year there’s a new class there. And it’s not only because children are growing up in our midst, there are new people coming into our church all the time. We have visitors coming into our church all the time who gradually become members and they haven’t heard all those things that we preached years ago. So there’s a great need.

And I believe this is the reason why so many people and many churches don’t get a solid foundation in the Christian life because the preachers are seeking honor in what they preach. They don’t establish people in the foundation. There’s so much of honor seeking in Christian preaching today. Well, you need to really establish our children. I want to say to all of you parents, please establish your children in a clear understanding of repentance, forgiveness, and justification.

The Importance of Repetition in Teaching

And you probably need to repeat that year after year after year all the way till they leave your home because they may not understand everything right at the beginning. And newcomers who come, we must not assume. Of course, they know that. What do you mean they know that? You cannot assume anything.

They must be clearly taught. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free, free from condemnation, free from guilt. For example, this wonderful truth that “their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” It needs to be clearly taught that God doesn’t say “I will forget your sins.” We should not misquote scripture.

Hebrews 8:12 says, “I will not remember your sins.” There’s a lot of difference between God saying “I will not remember” and saying “I have forgotten.” I’ll tell you honestly, God hasn’t forgotten about my sins. If I can remember the things I did fifty years ago, you think God’s memory is poorer than mine or yours? Not at all.

That’s insulting God to say he’s forgotten about all the sins I committed fifty years ago. And I’ll tell you something. The Bible says that God can put back upon a believer the sins he has forgiven. That’s another thing that’s not taught to people. If you do not forgive others, Jesus said in Matthew 6:15, your heavenly Father will not forgive you.

The Consequences of Unforgiveness

And Jesus taught the story of a king who forgave his slave, let’s say, a billion dollars, completely forgiven. He says, you’re released from that debt. And that guy went and caught the throat of his fellow slave who owed him ten dollars and said, locked him up in jail. And the king heard about it. You read that in Matthew 18.

The king heard about it and said, “Come back here. I forgave you a billion dollars and you couldn’t forgive somebody ten dollars? I’m putting the billion dollars back on your head and you’re going to be locked up till you pay the billion dollars” and where is he going to pay it? And then at the end, never forget the last verse of Matthew 18, “so shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you do not forgive every one of your brothers from your heart, their debts to you.” That’s the message that’s rarely preached. Now how could God put all my sins back upon me if he’s forgotten about it?

That’s the proof he hasn’t forgotten about it. What he says is, “I will not remember. I choose not to remember.” But if God sees at some point in my life, I don’t forgive somebody for something he did to me, the ten dollars he owed me and I catch him by the throat, You can be pretty sure God will put all those sins back upon my head. He doesn’t say if you commit adultery, I’ll put all the sins back on your head.

No. He doesn’t say if you murder someone, I’ll put all those sins back on your head. No. The only sin he says is if you don’t forgive someone, then I’ll put it all back on you. Did you fall into adultery after you were born again? He’ll forgive you. Just repent of it. Come back to him. Did you murder somebody after you were born again? Bad.

But he’ll forgive you if you repent and come back. But have you got this unforgiving spirit towards someone who hurt you twenty years ago? Do you know the unforgiving spirit there is in the hearts of many, many so-called born again believers? I want to tell you, don’t delude yourself that you are forgiven. You’re not.

I want to speak the truth in love. I don’t want anybody’s blood on my hand in the day of judgment. I know one brother in our church who once said to someone, “Brother Zac, which is so hard.” So I called him and I put my arm on his shoulder and said, “Brother, I don’t care whether you think I preach hard. I know one thing. In the day of judgment, you’ll thank me for what you heard. You may not appreciate it now. But in that day, when you discover the number of people who go to hell because they listen to false preachers, that day you’ll appreciate what you hear in the church. I can wait. I don’t need to listen to your appreciation now.”

The Lord’s Prayer and Daily Forgiveness

So it’s very, very important to forgive others. It’s a condition for being forgiven. It’s one of the things the Lord taught us to pray, to have the spirit of it every day. You know, the Lord’s Prayer, we don’t have to repeat it mechanically like a parrot or like playing a tape recorder, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” But the spirit of that prayer must be with us every single day.

And now why do I say every single day? Because there’s one request in that prayer, which is something we ask for daily. You remember that? “Give us this day our daily bread.” He didn’t ask for bread for two days. He didn’t ask for the whole week. “Give us this day our daily bread,” which teaches me that one sentence teaches me that that prayer, the spirit of that prayer, even if I don’t mechanically repeat it, must be with me every single day of my life. Hallowed be your name every day. Your kingdom come, Lord. That’s what I’m living for.

Your will be done and not mine. That’s the cross what Jesus speaks of, the way of the cross. I will not do my will, but your will every single day. That’s why he said you got to take up your cross every day and give us this daily our daily bread and forgive us our sins every day. You know, I wake up every morning and ask God to forgive my sins.

Sins of Commission and Omission

And you say, “Brother Zac, you mean to say you’re sinning every day even though you preach victory over sin?” There are two types of sins. That’s what I’ve discovered. One is sins of commission and the other is sins of omission. Both are mentioned in scripture.

1 John chapter 3, it says sin is transgression of the law. That means I committed a sin. I did something wrong, 1 John chapter 3 verse 4. Those are sins of commission and most of the sins that we confess are sins that we have committed. Lord, I yelled at that guy. I told a lie. I cheated. Sins of commission.

But then there’s another type of sin mentioned in James 4:17, which says the one who knows what the right thing to do is and does not do it. It’s not — this is not talking about something he did. It’s something he did not do. That is sin. Is it possible that something I don’t do is a sin? Well, when we come close to God, we get more sensitive to sin in our life. That’s why Paul said at the end of his life, “I’m the chief of sinners.”

He didn’t say “I was the chief of sinners forty years ago.” That we can understand. “I am the chief of sinners.” How in the world did he say that? Let me take you through the stages of Paul’s development.

Paul’s Spiritual Growth

When he was around 55 years old, he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, “I’m the least of all the apostles.” And, ten years later or seven, eight years later in Ephesians 3, he says, “I’m the least of all the saints.” He’s going down now from the least of all the apostles to the least of all the saints. And then another after five years later, when he’s around 65, he says, “I’m the chiefest of all the sinners.” He’s going downwards.

Paul’s holiness was a growth in recognition of his own sin. How is that? Because he was getting closer to God. The further away you are from God, you don’t have much light on your sin. You can do all types of things and you think, I’m okay.

Paul didn’t feel like that. The closer you come to God, the more sensitive you become. Your conscience becomes more sensitive. It’s like, I often think of our when we are not converted, it’s like our conscience is like a weighing machine. You put one ton on it and the needle doesn’t even move.

You can do the most terrible things and your conscience doesn’t convict you. But the moment you’re born again, that weighing machine, becomes more sensitive and, boy, you put now you put just five hundred pounds on it and the needle moves. The thing wouldn’t move with a ton of weight on it before. And if you’re really walking with the Lord, that needle begins to flicker when you put ten pounds on it now. And one pound and wow.

When I put one ounce on it, the needle’s moving. Then you know you’re growing. When little, little things disturb you, just the tone of your voice. You didn’t say anything wrong to your wife or husband. Just the tone of your voice convicts you.

And you apologize not for what you said, for the tone of your voice because there was something sinful. It was not Christ-like. The definition of sin in the Bible is coming short of the glory of God. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The glory of God is seen in Christ.

Sensitivity to Sin

And anything less than what the way Jesus would talk or that Jesus would behave, a sensitive person becomes aware of that. So there are a lot of sins we omit to do. For example, I’ll give you one example. There could be many others. You know, it says in Hebrews 3:13 that we should encourage one another daily. That’s a command in scripture. Encourage somebody every day. How many of you have done it? I’m not asking you whether you slapped your wife. I’m asking you, did you encourage her?

Did you ever feel that one day you didn’t encourage your wife that was a sin? I don’t think most people ever confess it. Ask yourself, did you ever confess, “Lord, I’m sorry. I didn’t encourage my wife today.” I don’t think such things even occurred to us because we are so far away from God.

First of all, we don’t read the scriptures carefully. Do you see what it means to being saved? That’s why I say we need I say, Lord, there are so many things I get light on. I’m unconsciously not consciously. I’m not talking about conscious sin. I’m not talking about holding somebody’s throat and asking them to pay this ten dollars back. I’m talking about, Lord, there are things in scripture I’m supposed to do and I didn’t do it. Think of the story of the good Samaritan. What was the sin of the Levite and the priest who walked by that beaten man? Can you tell me?

They didn’t go and kick him. They didn’t go and steal anything from him. The sin of the Levite and the priest was they did nothing. Can you sin by doing nothing? Do you have you ever — do you ever meditate on these parables?

There’s a sin of doing nothing. That’s why I say every day, “Lord, forgive my sins.” There could have been a lot of things I’m not even aware of yesterday that I should have done. I mean, the things I did consciously, that, of course, we confess immediately. You don’t have to wait till evening or morning. But by the end of the day, you say, “Lord, there could be a lot of things today I should have done. I shouldn’t. Is there somebody I should have reached out to? Is there somebody I should have encouraged?” I’m not sending anybody on a guilt trip.

I don’t believe the Holy Spirit sends us on guilt trips to make us feel I don’t feel guilty. I’m just aware that I’m in a development progression and becoming like Christ. I’m not guilty that I haven’t become totally like Christ yet. I have zero sense of guilt in my life. I know I’m a child of God.

I know I’m justified. I know I’m accepted in the beloved, but I also know that I haven’t become like Christ completely. And that keeps me broken at the foot of the cross on the cross rather, broken and aware of my need all the time. That’s what it means to be poor in spirit. There can be no arrogance in a believer who recognizes just one thing, that he hasn’t yet become like Jesus.

The Two Aspects of the Cross

And all the arrogance that prevents fellowship between a husband and wife or between brothers is because one fellow thinks he’s pretty much like Christ. That’s it. It’s pride. So here is the first one I told you. Galatians chapter 2 verse 17. Justified in Christ. That’s the first aspect of the cross. And the second is Galatians 2:20, crucified with Christ. You see both these things there? You know, this is how it is in scripture.

If we read through scripture very fast, we don’t even notice these things. I have had many people tell me, “Oh, brother Zac, I never even saw that in the scriptures even though I read that so often.” Well, you’re not looking for it. There are some people who come to India and say, “Wow, we saw so many tigers.” And there are others who come to India and say, “We never saw one tiger in all that trip there.”

I said, they were looking for it. You were not. You just came to see people. Those fellows came to see wildlife. So when I’m really searching the scriptures to know the mind of God, I’ll tell you it will humble you.

A lot of Christians who act as though they know everything and think that they have got an inward sort of looking down on others who they think don’t know as much as them. They haven’t read the scriptures. That’s all. They don’t know Jesus. But if you really know Jesus, it’ll really bring you down on your face.

Understanding Scripture Deeply

It’ll make you poor in spirit, needy every single day of your life. Lord, I don’t even see something. I read the scriptures and I don’t even notice it, that I must be justified in Christ and crucified with Christ. And Paul says there, if I rebuild, verse 18, Galatians 2:18, what I destroyed once, I prove myself to be a transgressor. Have you ever thought that that verse means?

Whenever you read a verse that you can’t understand, look at it like a red light, a traffic light that’s red. Stop your car. Don’t go past that red light. Say, Lord, I don’t understand that verse. I’ve sometimes just read one verse as my daily meditation.

That’s it. And the next day when I try to go to the next verse, the stoplight is still there. I haven’t understood this one. What would you say to your child who hasn’t understood addition? Little child learning addition.

“Oh, is addition too difficult for your son? Forget it. Let’s move on to subtraction. Subtraction also is too difficult for you. Let’s forget it. Let’s move on to multiplication.” What’s your child going to learn? This is how a lot of people study the Bible in a way you’d never teach your child. “Oh, you didn’t understand that? Never mind. Let’s move on.”

Rebuilding What Was Destroyed

If I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. What are you rebuilding that you once destroyed which would prove that you’re a transgressor? I told you the two aspects of the cross. One is forgiveness is not by keeping the law.

See, that’s what he’s speaking about in verse 16. “For man is justified by the works of the law, it’s not by that, through faith in Christ.” So if I think that in addition to Christ’s death on the cross, there’s something else I have to do in order to be forgiven. I’m building again dependence on the works of the law to be justified. I’m a transgressor.

You don’t need the works of the law. That’s why I don’t agree with my dear friends, the Seventh-day Adventists, who say you got to keep the Sabbath. Only then God will accept you. That’s a work of the law. You don’t need to keep that to be accepted by God.

Christ’s forgiveness is complete on the cross. There are some Pentecostals who say unless you speak in tongues, you won’t go to heaven. I’m sorry. I disagree with you. I will not rebuild what was destroyed by Jesus on the cross.

Living by the Spirit, Not the Law

He finished with the law. People say, why don’t you keep the Ten Commandments? I say, because we live by a much higher rule. It’s the law of the spirit. Moses went to the mountain and brought down Ten Commandments. Jesus went to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit. And if I have the Holy Spirit in my heart, I don’t need the law. It says that very clearly in later on in Galatians in chapter 5 and verse 18, if you’re led by the Holy Spirit, you’re not under the law. It’s clear. If I finish with lusting in my heart, why do I need a law which says don’t commit adultery?

I have finished with it inside. If I finished with anger in my heart, why do I need a law which says don’t kill people? I finish with it inside. I compare the old covenant and the new covenant to a tube of ointment and an antibiotic. If I’m getting sores all over my body and I have a wonderful ointment that just gets rid of it, I need to keep rubbing it all the time.

And then one day somebody discovers an antibiotic and the doctor says, “Hey, you don’t need this tube of ointment anyway. Throw it away.” And they take this antibiotic and the sores stop coming out. I don’t need the law. I got the antibiotic. I got the Holy Spirit. But if you haven’t been filled with the Holy Spirit, brother, you better keep that tube of ointment. You need the law. Sure. Otherwise, you’ll be a terrible Christian and a dishonor to Jesus Christ.

A lot of Christians need the law. I’ll tell you that. Many, many born again believers need to live under the law because they don’t live under the whole by the leading of the Holy Spirit. They’re always doing what they want to do. They haven’t understood the second aspect of the cross that I do not do my own will, but I do want to do the will of the Father.

Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus

They do not understand the footsteps of Jesus. Like in the military, they teach left, right, left, right. The footsteps of Jesus were not my will, but God’s will. Not my will, but God’s will. Every footstep of his was that.

So to walk in the footsteps of Jesus means to say the same thing. I will not do my own will. I will do the will of God as I understand it. In many areas of God’s will, I’ll discover only as time goes on, just like a child says. I’m only in the first grade.

I don’t understand geometry and trigonometry and physics and but I understand a little bit now in the second grade and next year I’ll learn some more. Give me ten years and I’ll know about physics and science and trigonometry and all that. It’s like that in the Christian life. There’s a progression. But there’s a progression in knowing more about what I need to deny myself, what I need to do.

Because I’m I, this I has been crucified. So just like in being justified, I destroy, what — I don’t rebuild what Christ has destroyed, which is being justified by the law. I don’t rebuild that. In the same way, just like I finished with the law, in the second aspect of the cross, I finished with self. I need to finish with the law.

I need to finish with self. Now many understand that I want to finish with the law, but they haven’t understood that I got to finish with myself. That’s foolishness. What do you mean I’ve got to — you mean I can never please myself to be a Christian? I say absolutely right.

I say that’s ridiculous. Call it what you like. It’s foolishness. Right? It is foolishness to people who don’t and that’s why their lives are so pathetically shallow.

The Shallow Christianity of Self-Pleasing

That’s why they don’t know God. That’s why they don’t understand humility. That’s why they don’t have grace to be overcomers in their life. That’s why they live lives defeated by sin constantly and say, “Well, Jesus forgives me.” I heard of a story in an asylum meant for people who are mentally unstable and lunatics that they had had a little test to find out whether this guy had come back to his senses or not.

And, these are not seriously mad people, but people who couldn’t understand certain things. They said they would put him in — they put him in a room where the tap was open and they give him a mop in a bucket to wipe the floor dry. And if he tried to dry the floor without closing the tap, you know, he was still not ready to get out of that lunatic asylum. You understand that? If you wanted to dry the floor, the first thing you do is close the tap.

How does Jesus forgive us? Keeping the tap open, always sinning, sinning, sinning, and the mop, the blood of Jesus cleanses me, cleanses me, cleanses me. There’s something wrong with that gospel. There is more. Just like the devil hindered Israel who had come out of Egypt from entering Canaan saying escape from Egypt. That’s all there is to the gospel. It was a lie.

There was another aspect of the gospel and that was entering Canaan where the giants would be slain. They could have their own land instead of wandering in the wilderness. I see a lot of believers who’ve been redeemed by the blood of the lamb out of Egypt, baptized in water and through the Red Sea, even baptized in the Holy Spirit, the cloud coming down upon heaven, but they haven’t entered Canaan.

Overcoming the Giants in Our Lives

The giants are still ruling in their body. The land of Canaan is our human body. There are giants — this should belong to God from head to foot, from Dan to Beersheba like it says. Head to foot should belong to God. But there are other giants occupying this that have occupied it for ages.

God says you got to drive them out. This land belongs to me. You won’t kill all the giants in one day. Even after Joshua went in, he didn’t kill all the giants in one day, but one by one. And the giants you could not see hidden in the cave somewhere, what we call unconscious sin.

One day we discover them, we kill them. You can’t kill the giants you don’t see. You can’t deal with unconscious sin. It’s such a perfect picture of the Christian life. So there’s more to the Christian life than just them coming out of Egypt, redeemed by the blood and baptized in water, even baptized in the Holy Spirit.

There’s more to it. So overcoming the giants. To every one of the seven churches, the message is “he who overcomes, overcomes.” And then it ends in Revelation 21 saying, “he who overcomes shall inherit all things, and he’ll be my son.” I want to be a son. I don’t want to be a baby all my life.

I was born again when I was a baby. God wants me to be a son. And you know the difference between a one-year-old baby and a mature son, a responsible son in your home. That’s what God wants in the church, many, many responsible sons and daughters. But you’ll never get there if you don’t see the second aspect of the cross.

Conclusion: The Two Aspects of the Cross

I am crucified with Christ that God not only put my sins on the cross, he put me on the cross, my will. And just like there was a time in your life when you accepted that he put all your sins upon Christ, we need to come to a place in our life where we see that in Christ, my self was crucified. And when I keep on doing my own will, I am rebuilding, Galatians 2:18, what was destroyed. Then I prove myself a transgressor and like it says in verse 21, I nullify the grace of God. I want to encourage you, my brothers and sisters.

Please consider Galatians 2:17 to 21, 16 to 21 in the light of what you heard today and meditate on it, it can change your life. It changed mine. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for showing us that the gospel is not just a message, but the mighty power of God that is not just forgiveness, but the power of the Holy Spirit to walk as Jesus walked on this earth. Help us each one.

We’ll never be able to build a church or even build our home the way you want it to till we understand this. Open our eyes, Lord. We’ve understood in our minds so clearly today, but to get revelation in our heart, we pray that your Holy Spirit will give us revelation. Give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation that the eyes of our heart will be enlightened, that we may know your truth and be set free, and walk in the freedom of the Holy Spirit, and be a blessing in the church and to others. We pray in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

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