Lord, since we are at the place of struggles, at the place of metamorphosis, at the place of transformation and dying to self, arising in You, denying self, and finding life—since we are in this place—we know that the one great blessing of it all is that we meet the lowly Jesus.
Never had we imagined that You would come down so low to meet us, help us, love us, and bring us to the end. We pray that You will give us a revelation of that tonight as we study Your Word together. Thank You, Lord, for this time. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Part two: the work of the cross, continuing on.
“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
That is our word.
Actually, when I received this theme from those preparing the conference, I knew something was screwy. I saw something screwy, as Elmer Fudd used to say: “Something screwy about that little rabbit.”
Now I understand. For some of you, this is your first time. For some of you, you may simply be aware that there is a whole bunch of people around here. But this is a very special time. You may mark it on your spiritual calendar as you look back over the years.
I think, obviously, God is gathering a remnant of young people all for Himself—a peculiar treasure. You guys are a peculiar treasure. Wonderful. His own possession.
I hope you do not just think, “Hey, this is great,” having a great time playing volleyball and singing songs. There is something deeper going on. It seems to me the Lord is gearing up for the end times, and He is finding precious ones who love Him with all their hearts.
It is wonderful to be here worshipping with you. And this topic is so—well, that is what I mean. The topic is so ridiculously deep for a teenage conference. That is how I got suspicious. There was something screwy. And I knew it was not just John.
So, you are listening, and whatever you can receive, please do receive. Those of you here for the first time, please feel right at home. You are in the midst of people, and basically we are all in over our heads. So just start to swim. You find that if you go like this, you can tread for about forty-five minutes.
Last time, we looked at the work of the cross as it begins to change our identity. The issue that comes up first is identity: to whom do you belong—the world or the Lord? Is it Kaisar Kyrios, or Christos Kyrios?
Ah, yes, you said Christ is Lord. That is why you are going to have your head chopped off tonight.
Three outward steps were taken to help us discover our new identity in Christ:
We were baptized—praise God. I hope all of you have been baptized as a testimony before angels, before God, and before the saints.
The old loner got happy and had to speak up. It is no fair being happy and not saying the Lord did it, especially when you are a miserable, introspective—you know—one of those people. God gets hold of you, and now you need to speak up.
The angry rebel got unchained. The foolish wanderer was healed and became wiser. The self-centered achiever was humbled. They all came back and said, “I have been redeemed because the Lord delivered me.” Wonderful.
Then there is witnessing. We just touched on it as a third way in which we declare the identity of who we are in Christ every time we witness. It actually does more in us than it does in the other person.
When you first come to the Lord, there is a lot going on. It is bigger—bigger than you can imagine. We are a new creation. What does all this mean?
There are new dynamics in your life. There are new powers at work. There are new dimensions and things that we cannot fully grasp. But in Romans 5, we see a wonderful introductory passage.
There are at least four things written there: faith, grace, glory—and I wanted just faith, grace, and the Holy Spirit, but I ended up putting love and hope and glory and all this other stuff in there.
Here are three dynamics in your Christian life:
These are tremendous dynamics in a Christian’s life. Sometimes people do not realize that. Sometimes they get whacked by the Holy Spirit, and you know it. It is different in everybody’s life. I got whacked, but there you go.
First of all, you are standing in grace. Wonderful. Are you standing in the grace of God? Not just visiting it—you are standing in the grace room. This is the grace room. There is all kinds of stuff. It is a buffet.
Look, it is better than a Chinese buffet—even that sushi. But beyond that, they have Indian food. Well, I mean, they have peace with God. They have forgiveness. There is joy. There is love. Oh, the grace room is full of things, all given to you freely because you are a child of God. You should pick it up anytime you want.
“Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Praise God. No more war with God. It is over. You have peace.
I just put these three goodies on the table, but there is a lot more. You know, there are all kinds of ways the Chinese can wrap up buns and stuff. It is just all grace. It is all, “Eat, eat.” One price was paid. Now you are in there.
But you do not only have an hour and forty-five minutes, and then they kick you out. No, no, no. You stay in the grace room. How many of you Christians, do not get out of the grace room. Do not be like that Chinese buffet: an hour and a half and you are out.
Not the case with the grace room. You are in there. Enjoy the hors d’oeuvres—the whole thing is all yours. And you entered by the door of faith. It says you received your introduction by faith.
Faith is very important. You need to exercise faith, and faith gets more important as you go along, because you will find that many times you have to act by faith—without feeling.
Maybe you do not feel so saved or so spiritual, and the Lord says that by faith you stand. And you do, and you find God with you. That is an amazing thing.
And the gift of the Holy Spirit—wow. The Holy Spirit has so much to do with your life, inside and out. It is amazing.
Now, we could stand in this grace room and eat hors d’oeuvres off the buffet for the rest of our lives. The only trouble is, one day we look through the window. And what is that window? It is the window of hope. And what is it looking out to? Glory.
You are not only saved and in the grace room; you are going to glory. It is right over there. Look through the window. There you go.
Once you see the glory room—well, you know, it is like the grace room. It has wonderful stuff. But the glory room, everything is gold. Everything is glorious. Everything is beautiful. There is a God of glory, Jesus of glory, saints in glory—there is glory. And you say, “I want to get to glory.”
Then the Lord says, “Okay, well, here is how you do it.”
“And not only so, but we also rejoice in our tribulations.”
Tribulations are the road from grace to glory. So we go through some things, like self-denial and various things. Why would you rejoice in tribulation? What are you, some kind of masochist? You say, “Yippee, I am going through tough times. Come join me.”
No. It is because you know the goal. You have tasted the glory. Every Christian has tasted just a little bit of glory. It is wonderful. It is wonderful. It is better than marzipan. It is just wonderful.
Once you taste it, you gain a taste for it. You kind of like that sauce. “I think I want some more.” And you have to go through the hallway of tribulation right into the glory room, where you and I may soon go—at least me.
By God’s grace, and standing in the grace room, we live as the new creation. You should never move out of the grace room. It is always there for you.
By the grace of God, you go from a sinner to a saint. You go from grace to glory. Grace provides an inward witness that you are a child of God. By grace, you know that God loves you and is encouraging you in the walk. That never changes. God never stops encouraging you—never, never.
Grace’s inward surge of life strengthens you to do the will of God. The things you could never have done before, you can do now by the grace of God within you.
So today, we want to see a little more about this cross and self-denial.
Some of you found out that you need to ask forgiveness for your sins, and you are going to be saved, and one day you are going to go to heaven. Now, that is only part of the package.
Here is the next part of the package: you are going to be tied in to a whole bunch of other people that you can never get rid of.
When they weep, you are going to weep. When they rejoice, you are going to rejoice. So hope that all your brothers just rejoice, and you can have a great time.
You become a Christian and say, “What is happening to me? It is pandemonium.” Ah, yes. So it would be.
I was asked to share on denying yourself in terms of the body of Christ in the church. It is hard to do because it has to do with our personal lives. And Jim is stealing most of my stuff anyway. He goes into my room at night, slips my notes, and puts them up on his crummy little thing. He has three words up there, and he goes for ten minutes. I am moving. I am moving, you know what I am saying?
I love Jim. I really do. But I am touching on some of the same stuff, so I hope he will understand. My perspective is a little different regarding body life.
You have entered into something, and man, it is really something.
“For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body.”
That is everybody in this room, plus Aunt Elizabeth. Everybody. You have been incorporated. That means embodied.
You are part of something big—something much bigger than yourself. And it is going to involve some self-denial. Yeah, for sure.
The strange thing, the mystery, is that the church is the only living corporate entity in the world. There is no other corporation in the world that is alive. You might think Apple is alive, or Google is alive, but they are just ogles.
The body of Christ is alive. That is to say, Jesus Christ is alive in His body. It is a living mechanism—a living organism.
“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.”
We say, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought He was talking about the church.” Well, He is. But the church is Christ. Now this has gone a whole other level beyond us.
You are now part of Christ Himself.
You remember when Paul was persecuting the Christians and Jesus spoke to him on the road to Damascus: “Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Paul could have said, “Oh, Jesus, I never persecuted You. I persecuted the people in Your church.” And Jesus, de facto, said, “When you touch somebody in the church, you are touching Me.”
This is a living thing. The Lord Jesus is the Head, and He knows exactly what is going on. He wants your total cooperation. That is why you can imagine there is some need for some crunch and some self-denial.
You are part of a mystery because you are an individual, and yet you are included in something that is one big individual crossing the globe. Every time we break bread together and take the Lord’s table, we are actually taking the Lord’s table with every person on this planet who has taken the Lord’s table during that day, because we are all one together. It is an amazing mystery.
Our life as this new creation is interrelated with Jesus and the saints. It is no longer your own life. You have been bought with a price.
How do we enter into body life? Objectively, from the moment you were saved, the Spirit baptized you into the body of Christ. But now, in your experience, how do you enter into the body of Christ? By consecration.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice.”
That is consecration. You present yourself to God—your body. I present my body; you present your body. We present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice.
I love this translation. Sometimes The Message makes things very clear. This is Romans 12:1–2, according to Eugene Peterson:
“Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an