Loren Larson - The Basics of the Cross: Part 1 (Romans 5:20-21)

Where grace abounded or where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death Even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life By Jesus Christ our Lord chapter six one. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid? This morning on the message of the cross, we were discussing several things about the message of the cross.

And as a pastor, as a teacher I know that we can quickly fall prey to a mantra or a line or a f or a statement without really understanding what it is that we're saying. We could say the message of the cross, the message of the cross, the message of the cross, and not really understand what we need to understand unless somebody explains it to us. And no matter how many times it's explained to us, so one thing that I've found about the message of the cross.

And the things that are contained in the Word of God that detail to us what Christ has done. Those things, every time we study them, it's like a well. We just keep going a little bit deeper. We keep going back, getting a little bit deeper, grabbing a little bit more out of it. I know over the last fifteen, maybe twenty years. I have probably preached, taught from this passage, I I kid you not, sixty, seventy times.

And each time it's fresh and new to me. Each time it solidifies what it is I'm supposed to believe. And it solidifies what Christ has done for me. And I'd just like to take a few minutes tonight. Again, I won't overburden you, but I want to challenge you to think with me. Because if you don't really understand what I'm about to explain to you, there's no way.

That you can live a successful, victorious Christian life. Didn't say you couldn't be saved. Didn't say you couldn't make heaven your home. Didn't say that Jesus wouldn't help you and assist you as much as he possibly can.

But when we talk about the message of the cross Sometimes it flies over our head and we lose the definition. So I just want to take a few minutes tonight and tell some of you what you already know. And reinforce some truth to you that you need reinforced. The only hope for our nation Is that believers learn how to live for God? It falls upon us to be the example. It falls upon us to exhibit what Christ can do in a life. We're the the world hasn't seen Christ in the church.

It's seen everything but. And I know there's exceptions to that, so please don't take umbrage with my statement. But as a whole, the hope for America is that we the body of Christ began to live out before others. This that we call the message of the cross. And if we understand it, we can do that. And if we understand it, we m we won't do it perfectly. I'll teach over here. We won't do it perfectly. But with the help and grace of God.

We will make an impact on our nation and an impact on the sinful condition of the church, but it has to start with you and I. It has to begin with me. This revival has to begin with me, and I must understand the basics of the cross. And I'm just going to teach for a few minutes tonight the basics of the cross. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for the opportunity that we have.

To look into the realm of your word. And we ask tonight that the power of God would come, that the teacher would come tonight, the one that makes explanation easy, the one that reveals. And Father, we thank you for this opportunity. We thank you for the people here. And we pray that you'll bless them tonight through your word. Bless them tonight by your spirit. And I'll give you the praise for it in Jesus' name, amen and amen.

I've noticed that down through the years as we've been what we refer to again teaching the message of the cross that others have come and said, Well, oh, I've preached that all my life. I've I've taught that all my life. I've I've preached that and I've taught that. And sometimes we even revert back to the idea of Uh well I preached the message of the cross for salvation, but I never preached it for sanctification.

Ladies and gentlemen, the message of the cross includes the totality of what Jesus Christ did for us at Calvary. And if we weren't preaching the totality of what Jesus did, we weren't preaching the message of the cross. I look back I and I'm not happy about that, but I've got to be honest and I'm speaking of myself. I look back fifteen, twenty years ago. I preached

Jesus saves, and that's exactly right. And I preached you can be saved because he died for you, and that's exactly right. That's what I should have preached. That's the right thing to preach. I preached Jesus heals. I preached Jesus is coming again. I preached the baptism with the Holy Spirit. All those things were right and correct. But it wasn't until sometime around 1996-97 that the understanding of what Christ did for us, for every believer, not just some.

For every believer, not just for a few. What he did for us began to become so apparent to me. And I think that one of the difficulties that we have is The message of the cross requires a revelation from God.

It requires an illumination from God. And when I say that Right away people get the wrong idea. Well, you're saying that you've had a l an illumination, you've had a revelation, and other people haven't, so you are some kind of spiritual giant. You need to understand something. God reveals things to you when you're desperate to see them.

Now you need to let that sink in a little bit. Revelation and illumination, Jesus said in Matthew chapter 11, came to babes, men who didn't know what they needed to know. God comes to the rescue of a man who's of a broken and contrite spirit. Who trembles at his word? Not someone who has it all together and can dot every theological I and cross every theological T. The message of the cross.

Is for those who have come to the end of themselves and are absolutely desperate because what they have received from Jesus is so great, but they come To the understanding that they're missing something because something isn't working the way it's supposed to work. I can't seem to have victory over an area or I'm struggling with something.

And the truth of it is, ladies and gentlemen, that struggle maybe some of you are there tonight, is there to bring you to the point of desperation that will lead to revelation. God loves you so much that he's got to show you that you're not all that. That you don't have it all together, that your theological uh uh uh Correlation and all of it, that's so important and right and real is not as important as the attitude of your heart.

It's not as important as the status of of your dependence upon him. And when his people aren't dependent upon him, God has to break us before he can fix us. The qualification for revelation is brokenness. And end of selves. When Brother Swagger talks about the day on the radio program, and I can't honestly speak for him, I can only speak for me. When he talks about the day on the radio program where God opened up Romans chapter 8 and verse 2 to him,

We weren't qualified that day for that revelation because of how grand and grandiose our status was. We were qualified for that revelation because of our brokenness and failure. Gloria a Dio! Gloria a Dio!

It doesn't take a revelation, it does, but it's minor. Oh, that's the wrong way to say it. Nothing about God's redemption plan is minor. It doesn't take great understanding, that's the way to say it, to get saved. It doesn't. All you have to know is that you're a sinner. And you've been convicted of being a sinner. And that's why we still need to preach that men are sinners, and our problem is sin.

And that somehow you remembered that there was a man 4,000 years ago that came from heaven and died on an old rugged cross. And if I'll place my faith in him, he'll accept me because his death, I don't even know this. Death paid my payment. He paid, he took my place. He's the savior. And I don't even, I can't even have to, I don't even have to define that. All I have to do is say, Jesus And he can save me. Doesn't take a whole lot of thought, but again, it takes a revelation of my sinfulness.

and my lack and an understanding that he can supply what I can't supply for myself. Are you following? So I come into this and I don't have to have a lot of theological understanding. I need absolutely no theological understanding to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. A lot of times people aren't baptized with the Holy Spirit because they overthink it. We try to make it happen and instead of just receiving and yielding. But on the day of Pentecost, they didn't know anything.

About God's redemption plan. Not anything like they were supposed to know and would know when the ministry of Paul the Apostle came into light. And they were baptized into Christ? Didn't have any idea what happened to them because they didn't have the understanding, the revelation of what occurred, which you can have now. And they got filled with the baptism with the Holy Spirit immediately after.

That was the norm, filled or baptized into Christ, baptized with the Holy Spirit. They didn't know, they didn't even know for ten years that Gentiles could get saved. So it didn't take a whole lot of knowledge and understanding to receive salvation or the baptism with the Holy Spirit. But when it comes to living for God,

There's no way for you to live the cross, thus your message is going to be an inconsistent one.

And our hope is that we'll get the message. That we'll go back and take a look at the details because the details of what Christ did as explained by Paul solidify the object of our faith. Are you with me? So that I know each and every day what to place my faith in. That day on the radio program when Brother Swigert spoke what he did, I understood grace because I'd been learning grace for years.

I had to seek grace as a result of a problem I had in my marriage that I almost destroyed it in the first two years. Because g while God was using me to win souls in prisons all around the area and see people saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. I had believed, and I won't go into details, a lie regarding my wife and my family, and I would get extremely irate at her.

And so much so I would lose my temper because the devil sits on your shoulder and he speaks into your ear and he tells you the lie and you buy it and the next thing you know you're out of control. And I didn't understand why I couldn't maintain my temper, why I would keep losing my temper. Now I can look around and tell there's nobody here who's ever done that on a consistent basis. I see the halos and the angel wing.

But I opened myself up to you to again explain to you How the cross was opened up to me. Grace became Necessary. Because of my idiocy and my failure. And self-righteousness, even though I was, I had disciplines, I had, I fasted once a week, I had a prayer life, I loved the word of God, loved God. But I couldn't stop from believing the lie and losing my cool. And she put up with stuff. She had to think, who is this idiot I marry?

And I just ultimately had to fall down and say, God, help me. And God took me to Hebrews chapter. Four. And he said, Come to me. In time of need. Come to the throne of grace. In your time of need and receive mercy and grace to help. And God had surrounded me. I don't have time to get to it tonight. Didn't intend to even come here tonight and say this, but I only I need to. God had put men that were teaching about grace into my life, and I began to listen to it.

Dr. James Stone, who was here from nineteen eighty-eight to nineteen ninety-one, was a great influence on me relative to the message of grace I learned from him. Malcolm Smith as well, who was on our radio station and spoke here down through the years, uh, taught me a lot about grace. But I didn't hear much about grace from the Pentecostal group. And I didn't see much grace from the Pentecostal group. But I couldn't tell people how I was struggling.

And finally I figured out that grace and faith Work together because out of Hebrews again, God not only taught me that I needed grace. But that faith was the agent by which grace would come. And he used a simple passage out of Hebrews chapter 6. It's through faith and patience. that you inherit the promise. So if I would believe God for what I was desiring for, his grace would work out my situation.

I didn't have to try to manipulate it. I didn't have to try to control it. In fact, if anything, I had to step back and take my hands off it. I was married in 1989. Those problems run from 89 to 91. And by 92, I am learning faith and grace. faith and grace. And by ninety-three, ninety-four, you're looking at a grace. God, I believed in grace. But the problem with grace, receiving God's empowerment, receiving God's goodness on a regular basis, I couldn't seem to keep it.

On a daily routine. I couldn't seem to Keep my faith where it needed to be the where grace would flow. That particular problem that I had was resolved as I began to believe God to resolve it, and I took my hands off it, and when I'm resting in what God's gonna do, I don't lose my cool. As often.

Come on, help me. Please understand this. The message of the cross doesn't guarantee your perfection. It guarantees that you enter into the perfecting process. Let me say that again. The message of the cross understood. Does not give you a pass on temptation or trial or even failure. It equips you to pass through the learning processes. Successfully. But it's not an instant perfection. Well, I know the message of the cross. Live it then. Live it then. I know the messenger. Live it then.

And so I had learned grace and faith. And I was a faith guy. I was a grace guy, but I didn't know how to make grace come consistent. It just didn't make sense to me. I didn't know, but I knew that was right. I didn't hear it preached, but I knew it was right. I would teach it in the prisons and in the college, and I would teach it, but I didn't hear too many people preaching on faith and grace, resting in Christ. I didn't hear that. I didn't see much of that.

And in nineteen ninety seven, sitting across from Brother Swaggard that morning, he said.

What he just said is that if I'll keep my faith in Christ and the cross, grace will always flow. And before I could even think out of my mouth came, can you give me scripture for that? Not because I'm so theologically smart, because I'm desperate. Not because I'm so advanced, but because I'm not advancing.

And out of my mouth. Do you have scripture for that? I'm desperate. And he looks down, you've heard him say it a thousand times. And the Holy Spirit gave it to him, the law of the spirit of life. In Christ Jesus. Hath made me free. Hath made me free from the law of sin and death. So what I saw was that now this long-term learning lesson of faith and grace. finally had an anchor that if I would anchor my faith

in Christ and what he did, then grace, not just for a need, but for everything in my life, could come. And it would be a non-stop

What you don't work for, what you don't earn, what you don't deserve. Just I might only get to one basic tonight. But a cross basic is this process is something that I've got to have. Because I'm desperate and I can't earn it and I can't make it happen. I've got to believe God will supply it and that He furnished it for me, whatever my need is, because of what Jesus did at Calvary.

I can't manipulate the situation. I can't take control of it. How many times have we stayed up all night long with our brains working overtime? And coming up with an answer and we're aggravated in our spirit and we're aggravated in our wait till I see them tomorrow. This is how I'm gonna take care of that. They're not gonna do this. Not in my house, they don't.

And we lose our peace and our joy because we are going to make it right. We're going to make it happen. We're going to fix the situation. And God says, what do you think I'm here for? Until we learn to release every need into his capable hands, we will pay the price for trying to carry and meet that need ourselves. Where sin abounded, no way out. You can't fix yourself.

Until the rapture. It's no excuse for remaining the same. It's no excuse for remaining in what I'm in. None. But I recognize that when he gets done with this item He's gonna go a little deeper and maybe not too deep at all. Maybe he's just going sideways and picking up the next one. Maybe he's got to go this way quite a while before he can go deeper. And once he goes deeper and he gets down there, then he's gonna have to keep going this way to get rid of the some of the other stuff.

It's called the clinging vines of the fall. Paul didn't say I'm a sinner He said, I'm carnal, sold under sin. I am a I am a member of a fallen race, and we don't know how far we have fallen. We don't know how evil we can be. We're seeing evil. out of control in our nation because they don't understand how to let grace take care of their

Sin and what's in their heart is being accentuated and drawn up by the enemy. And unless we let the grace of God, I'm talking to the church now, unless we let the grace of God begin to work in us by keeping our faith. and who Jesus is and what Jesus has done, we'll be doing some of the very same things we look at in our televisions today and wonder, how did I get here? Because evil is in man. And the only thing that can defeat evil.

The only thing that can defeat sin is the grace of God. And the only way to get the grace of God is to have your faith exclusively in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. And then grace can begin to flow, grace can begin to move, grace can free you up. Hallelujah. Not just one issue. No fair talking to my wife. I moved beyond that issue and she found a couple more. I mean Hannah and the Holy Ghost live together. I don't know what it is.

You're going to have to stop trying to fix yourself. You're going to have to become desperate enough that God can work because he'll not move in where he's not invited. And he won't flow in a way that is a result of your labor or your working or mine. I've said it a thousand times, but I have to keep relearning the lesson. Every time I face an obstacle in my life, I'm learning to st I'm learning, I'm learning to step back.

And sit down and turn that thing over to God until the peace of God enters my whole being. And I can't describe that. If you don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know how to teach you anything there. Because it's a supernatural peace. There's no changing of the issue. There's just a changing of who's going to resolve it. When I back up and I say it's gotta be God's grace.

And when I get to that place, I always find supernatural peace that passes all understanding. And I know I'm where I need to be. That's the clue. I've had days where I've had so many things coming against me and so strong that, you know, you just you just want to you want to cry, you want to quit, you want to stop.

And I've learned I I I go out in my neighborhood and I and I walk a certain route every morning. That's my discipline, that's what I do. But there's some mornings I've been so troubled. that I can't get off my front porch. I just sit on a rocker on the front porch and say, Lord, trying to learn how to turn that thing that I'm facing over to him. And I know I'm successful when the peace of God enters my soul. And I'm no longer fighting to make that thing happen.

I'm no longer fighting to try to create what I want or what I think is most important. I've really turned it over to my Father and faith has been exhibited in him and what he has made available to me and grace has brought me the peace to now get up and go through the day. Turning things over to God is not something that we do easily because we're so used to controlling everything ourselves.

What you talking? Preaching a meeting there, singers, musicians come. Preaching a message there. And had issues that would Destroy my family, destroy my ministry, facing them. I preached the Friday night message and man I Preach Jesus is with me. And I felt it. And the Holy Spirit was moving, people were shouting, and then I took my troubled heart and mind back to the motel room. And sat in the dark and stared out at the window. And that year in March.

There was a winter storm going on, and it was blowing and billowing and snow was flying all over, and on the inside of me I was just one great big turmoil, one great big turmoil. Turmoil, one big fight. If I do this, then I can do that. If I manipulate that, if it's I'll say this, I'll talk my way out of it. I'll do I can talk. I know how to talk.

I'll talk my I'll talk my way out. And I'll say this and I'll figure out exactly what to say so that when I see him, I know exactly what to say. I know you've never done that, but I'm I'm manipulating the situation in my mind. I know how to control this, I know how to take this. And I'm up thinking of all the th and then finally in desperation.

On the inside you could feel it. You could sense it. You knew that you knew that you knew that he was gonna do that. And I learned something. That's where I need to stay

Then God will start guiding you as to maybe how to pray, how to ask, how to believe. David Borg's been teaching for over a year. on the Lord's prayer. It won't work for someone whose heart hasn't been broken. Who isn't contrite, who just trusts in himself, but it'll work for that man, woman, boy, or girl. That begins to relinquish the reigns of what to pray about and how to pray to the moving and operation of the Spirit. Am I making any sense to you at all?

So the first basic go ahead, give the Lord praise.

Would you stand with me tonight, please? Brian, Jesus, oh Jesus.