Boasting Only in the Cross - Part 4

Therefore, you're not deserving of anything good from God. You have done nothing to enrich Him. Who has given a gift to God that He should be repaid? Who has been His counselor that He should counsel back? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever and ever. You are creatures and deserve nothing from your Creator. So that's the first sense in which you are not deserving. Which means if you get anything from Him, good, which you all do every day, it was bought by Jesus. Because you are secondly sinners as I am. Please now don't water this down. We've talked about sin this morning. But let me say one more thing that needs underlining. Sin has to do with God, not people. The world thinks of sin as killing somebody or stealing somebody or lying to somebody. And the Bible thinks you've offended God. You've dishonored God. You've not trusted God. You've belittled God. And therefore, if you get anything good from a holy God, it's because God Himself interposed with His blood His Son and bought for you everything you have. My son, my 17-year-old son, totaled our car about two months ago. We had a 91 Dodge Spirit. He just got his license about a month before. This has happened with every one of my sons. They get a license, they wreck the car. He's coming home on a snowy night, and I try to teach him when it's snowing, you don't have to go to the speed limit. You know, most young people think it's the speed minimum, not speed limit. And so they always push it up to the limit. And he lost control, skidded, hit the guardrail in the back and the front, spun around on the freeway off to the right side, and God spared him. He didn't have a scratch on him. The car was totaled as the cars whizzed by. Now, I'm a sinner, and Barnabas is a sinner. Where did that come from, that mercy? It came from the cross. So should I exult in the safety of my son? Yes, but only, only, there's the word from Galatians 6:14, only as a boasting in the cross. You see how thoroughly cross-centered and cross-saturated your life will become if you get a hold of this? Everything you will enjoy on Salve Farm, everything you enjoy, and all the bad that comes into your life that God turns for good, was bought by Jesus. And therefore, yes, exult in it. Yes, exult in food. Yes, exult in friendship. Yes, exult in sports. Yes, exult in mission. But remember, everything good that comes into your life and everything bad that comes into your life that God then turns for good was bought for you by the infinitely valuable blood of Jesus. Therefore, all of life, if it isn't exulting, all of life it is a boasting, is a boasting in the cross. Well, that's what I wanted to tell you today. I wanted you to hear that. I want to call you to that. You don't have to know a lot of things to make a difference in the world. But you do need to know that on the cross, Christ became your righteousness. On the cross, Christ took away your sins. On the cross, Christ bore your guilt and your condemnation. You need to know that and then be gripped by it and then let your life be saturated by it. You need to know that everything you experience, everything that's good, everything that's bad that's turned for good was bought by the cross so that you become only a cross boaster. I said I was 54 years old. When I get home after a leave that I'm on in June, they're going to have a 20-year celebration because I'm just finishing 20 years of ministry at my church. And it has caused me to think a lot about the next chapter. And then I thought about your chapter, which is the first ministry chapter perhaps. And I just want to say publicly that my coming here has been an occasion both in the preparation and the presence of rededication and reconsecration of my last chapter from 54 to whatever God gives me of life devoted to the supremacy of God and the cross. And I'm just inviting you to let that be what you dedicate yourself to in the first chapter and all the chapters that God gives you of your life. May it never be that we should boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. One last thought. Isn't it remarkable? Isn't it amazing, according to Galatians 6:14, that Christ...