Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

The Cross Pt.4

I've told that story. My Dad would be in the bar at the 726 Club right across the street from this old, black Pentecostal church. I could choose which style of music. I'd sit in the bar for a while and listen to the country music and then I'd go across the street and listen to the black gospel music. The power of music is phenomenal! I was listening to Phil Driscoll last night a little bit as he was on his program talking about the power of music. It moves us. The melody moves us, the beat moves us, the lyrics move us, and combined, they're a powerful force. I think we ought to enjoy it and use it, but let's not become dependent upon it in our worship. Can you praise God quietly with just your voice, just out of your heart? Can you make a melody in your heart? Can you make a joyful noise to the Lord? You might not be able to sing like Larry and Amy, but God wants to hear your voice. Amen? Just shout His praise and worship Him and sing songs of praise. Make melody in your hearts to the Lord, the Scripture tells us. I just want to encourage you and thank God for the ministry gifts and the Word that goes forth. Let everything that has breath just praise the Lord. Amen?

Let's turn to Philippians for just a second. We want to continue with our study on the cross. We were talking yesterday in men's breakfast that we don't want to have the wrong impression as we talk about the cross and the need to glory in it. Galatians 6:14 says, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." I boast in nothing but this cross. The old songwriter said, "The emblem of suffering and shame, how I love that old cross." That statement is a statement of faith and it can't be just an emotional statement. It can't be the delight just in the dying of Jesus, because the cross isn't limited to Jesus' unique death, but it's inclusive of each and every one of us if we're going to taste the life of God. If we're going to know the power of His resurrection, we're going to have to know the fellowship of His sufferings. The sufferings weren't just physical--as horrible as that was--the greatest suffering of all was, we know, the separation from the One that He loved the most. The greatest suffering for you is the separation from the one you love most: you. The death of the cross is a horrible experience that brings wonderful benefits. Everything about the cross is paradoxical--it is absolutely paradoxical--and so it can't be embraced by natural wisdom. It doesn't line up with anything that you learn in school or in natural relationships from the world's perspective. The cross is foolishness to those that perish. Oh, but for those of us that have tasted the life of God, it's our delight. It's what we glory or boast in, but don't think for a moment that this is going to be an easy journey. You and I are called to a lifetime of a horrible death: self-denial. Self will never bow its knee without resistance. There will never be a time where there is not a resistance to this death process that you're involved in. It's not easy, and it never stops.

When we're talking about identifying with Jesus on the cross, we need to count the cost. In context, if you'll read the context that mentions the cross following this statement of taking up our cross and following Him, He says, "Let a man take into great consideration, count the cost, before you begin this journey, this endeavor." In the very context of taking up your cross, dying daily, He said you'd better count the cost. We're taking time here in these services to say, "Let's look at what we're really making reference to here and ask ourselves: Are we really ready and willing to embark on this journey?" For some of you, I'm telling you right now, you'd be better off if you just got out now, save yourself the trouble. But don't enter this journey without consciously counting the cost.

I will glory, I will boast in nothing but the cross of Jesus Christ, the identification with His death, the expectation of the partaking of His power, the resurrected life, to whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world. When we talk about the world, all that's in the world is what? Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life. The world is not a political system. The world is not just made up of the masses that are eating and drinking and tomorrow they die. The world, as it's referred to in the Scriptures, the kingdom of darkness, though it includes all of the mass of humanity, the world always speaks of individuals who are lords to themselves. Every man doing what is right in his own eyes, the world. It is a community, but it's every individual being a specific individual, a purposeful rebel, dwelling among others but using them for their own gain. Dwelling among others but wanting to usurp, exalt, and dominate every person around them. Living among others and despising them, enduring them, demeaning them, and seeing themselves superior to all others. The world is an individual made up of innumerable individuals who are self-willed, independent, prideful, and truly, without question, gods in their own eyes. For the moment you eat of this fruit, your eyes shall be opened. You will be as gods. You will become independent, self-sufficient, all-knowing. That's a little glimpse of humanity. That's who you are.

When we talk about the cross, and being crucified to the world, we are not talking about amusements. We are not talking about political correctness. We're not talking about a national allegiance. When we talk about being crucified to the world, we're talking about being crucified to self-exaltation, the death of ego, the selfness, because that's all that's in the world: excess, lust, strong desire of the eye. What is it in man that has to possess and own everything that he sees? We've talked about your William Randolph Hursts. What is it in man that makes him want to go to the highest point? If you've ever been out to San Simeon, to Hurst Castle, and at the highest point there of those hills on the Pacific Coast, that castle is built there. The story just boggles your mind as you stand and you look, and as far as you can see in every direction, he owned it. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think it was somewhere around twenty miles of the Pacific coastline he owned into the inland. I can't remember how many thousands and thousands of acres. The Rockefellers--how much is enough? The first true billionaire, when a billion dollars was really some money. A billion dollars when there was no taxation. How much is enough? Just a little more. Just a little more. You mean, when you have more than everybody else, isn't that really the game, to just get more than everybody else, to be the winner? Even after you've won and you have more than everybody else, you need how much? Just a little more. Aren't you glad you're not like that--it's just guys like Rockefeller? "But godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Timothy 6:6). Just a little more.

Paul says in Philippians, Chapter 3, verse 7, "But what things were gain to me...." Now get the phrasing, so that it carries the message that the Holy Spirit intended it to. The most important thing that any of us can do here this morning is establish a new value system, because where a man's treasure is, that's where his [heart is]. What's your treasure this morning? If we were going to start to be honest with ourselves, some of us would say, "Well, my treasure is I'd like a little more of this. I'd like one of those. I'd like two of those. I'd like to live here. I'd like to wear this. I'd like to make this much money. I'd like this position, this title, this relationship..." Your treasure is selfishness, selfness. That's your real treasure--that other stuff is only to make self satisfied. The only problem is that in the flesh, "I can't get no [satisfaction]." Here we are and we're all in the same boat.

We were talking in men's breakfast that we're all the same, every one of us. It's not unique to you and, therefore, you don't have any right to remain bound in it if others can get out. Paul speaks here and gives us some lessons on how to get out of this bondage, this self-destruction, this bondage that holds us. I want to share something with you. Not a lot, but many of our young people here--we've done teachings on grace so we wouldn't become legalistic, we wouldn't become pharisaical, so that we wouldn't be people that were involving ourselves in forms of asceticism, so that we wouldn't be people that were works-oriented. We taught on grace and we took a long time to talk and teach about grace and about liberties, and about disputable matters, and so on. Tragically, in some of your lives, the flesh did what it always does. It took those liberties and you're now in bondage to your liberty.

I was sharing some of my testimony with the men yesterday. I just had my spiritual birthday, February 5, 1967. I was born again, and every February 5, I think back. I can still see myself kneeling at the altar in Northeast Assembly of God in Fresno, and old things passing away. As I've shared my testimony, the birds sang better, the grass was greener. Some people say, "Well, not every conversion is that way." Why? "Well, we're all different." I want to tell you something. If you're forgiven much, you love much. Your conversion should be radical. It should cause a new creation awareness in you, a rejoicing. "All I know is once I was blind and now I see, praise God." It creates a celebration, an awareness, a thanksgiving. Now, after all of those years, I was telling the men yesterday, I finally found out something. I'm too competitive. I shared with them some thought processes, and I won't go through the whole thing, but everything in my life, if you stop and think, I'm a competitive person. I like to win. "Yeah, me too. I won't settle for anything less, and if I can't win, I'm upset." As a young person I'd get in trouble. I was one of the guys that would throw the game board across the room and I'd get in trouble. I'm a great winner, I really am. When I beat you, I will not gloat. I won't vaunt myself and I won't get in your face. I just like to go away and feel so good about myself. I shared, and this is part of what I want to talk about as we're talking about loss here and some of these things. I want to give you some practical thoughts, but I want to set the environment, and I can use myself because I know myself best. Whatever it is, as I played ball and whatever it is, I was just driven and had to win. Why? We can psychoanalyze, "Well, it's an inferiority complex." That's true in all of our lives, and it's a works mentality. I grew up in a generation where my father never told me he loved me and he expected, he related to me based upon performance and my successes. The more I succeeded, the more attention I got, so those were things that motivated me. I had a dad like George Brett's dad. Brett was one of the great hitters of all time and could have been the first guy since Ted Williams to hit 400 in modern baseball. He missed it by one hit, and instead of his dad congratulating him for being the second best that ever lived, he said, "What, you couldn't get one more hit?" After all of these different things that took place, (my father) never told me he loved me, he never coddled me. Get over it! You hear people whining about that all the time! These people went to war as teenagers and saw their friends blown apart and went through all of the hells of World War II and Korea and everything that took place. They lived through the Depression, and you're worried about your hug?

Here we are having to face reality. This is where we are. This is who we are. This is where we live, so whatever it is that caused this motivation, competitiveness, is pride. That's what we are talking about. The power of pride, self-glory, wanting to be pre-eminent and dominate, to have the best, so you pay any price. Then it carries over into other areas. (Let me see what I can do; I don't want to bog down.) Here we are as believers now and the next thing you know, consciously you're not doing it, but it's who you are. There was no way that I was consciously saying, "I'm going to build the biggest youth group here in southern Cal so I can be champion," but it was part of it. The different things you experience and the amount of time spent in prayer, and the amount of time spent in study, and the amount of time serving, and it was just to be the best! "Well, the best for the Lord, isn't that great?" But it wasn't purely for the Lord, and I can tell you absolutely truthfully, it was not consciously about self. I can never think of a time when I consciously said, "I'm going to do this so I can be exalted," but it's who I was. No, let me say it more accurately: It's who I am.

Then you begin to move into different areas and you prepare and things begin to grow. I was telling some guys the other day, "I've consciously changed." Back in the day--and some of you were here--I was a good preacher. I stopped doing that because it's a form of competition, it's a form of how good of a preacher you can be, how good a message you can preach, and as I saw it in myself, I've put it in a phrase for our men. I told them, "Stop preaching messages. Stop preaching and teaching messages, and teach people." Make sure that when they leave, it's not how great of a message it was or how great of a service it was, but, "God spoke to me. God told me something. I saw something about myself today that I can change to bring more glory to God." As we began to build, and the ministry began to grow, we now have a chance to be the biggest thing on the block, to go nationwide, worldwide. We could have been famous, we could have been wealthy, and we chose not to. "What a great, admirable decision!" It was the grace of God; it was the mercy of God. It was admirable, it was the right thing to do. It was God, but I was still in it! I was in the choice to proudfully become humble, and I chose not to be competitive in ministry anymore, but I became competitive in showing cars and won everything that we went to. I put that aside, and then begin to buy a car and going to go to a couple of events to just exhibit to show this other car and get the ministry out, and it was about the ministry, and it was for the glory of God, but I was still there. That race car, then, that was going to be used four or five times a year in exhibition to hand out our tracts, we started racing and we got competitive, and I said, "Lord, is it ever going to end?" He said, "No! That's who you are, and you're a real mess!" Can we somehow take who you are and use you for the glory of God? Can you through all of this--and I don't want to leave the wrong impression, because I really do want to tell you how good I am--though all of this, I can say there is much less of self and more for the glory of God. It's getting better every day. I thank God for it and I give Him the glory.

The reason I think I can see more of myself is because I want to see more of myself. I want to be free, I really do want to give glory to God fully. Paul says the things that were gain... We all have different areas that appeal to us, but gain is selfishness. Gain is what causes me gratification, satisfaction, contentment, worth. Where is your treasure this morning? You've got to locate it, because you can't lose it until you find out what it is. Most of us won't put our finger on it because we know what it's going to cost, so we say it's something else. "What I really battle with is...," and that's not it. You know what it is. Are you ready to see it die? Are you ready to offer it up to God? We can put it off on natural traits, we can put it off on circumstances, we can put it off on social pressures, the vexation of the world's system, and all it is is self-will. You have to change your value system. Jesus has to become the pearl of great price and everything is going to have to be liquidated to obtain this life that we're talking about. Without that life there is no contentment, there is no satisfaction, and nothing in this world will satisfy you.

Paul speaks to us here and he says, "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss [now watch, don't lose this last phrase] for [what?] Christ." It's not enough just to count it loss, it has to be counted loss for (say it) Christ. I'm not only doing this for Jesus, I'm doing this to become like Jesus. I'm not giving this to Jesus. He doesn't need anything. You do. I count it loss for Christ that I might gain Christlikeness. Whenever you're going to abstain from anything, it can't be asceticism, it can't just be doing without. Whatever I'm doing without, it has to make me more like Jesus. Fasting isn't just doing without food, fasting is bringing about a discipline, a bringing under of the natural man, the self-will, the self-ease to bring about the discipline. I told you how we were going to be in Pomona this week. I was sharing in men's breakfast and I said, "Really, the reason I'm not in Pomona right now is primarily Richard's and Kimberly's fault. I could have gone to Pomona. It wouldn't have been sin. I was under no compulsion. It's something I'd like to do, I enjoy it, I have the wherewithal to do it, and I deserve it." Now, why didn't I go? Richard is over at the house and he was helping kill those bugs on my computer and just in a casual conversation he said, "Man, it just seemed like you were gone for such a long time this trip. We really missed you." Kimberly had made a similar statement and I thought, "Hmm, if two people really missed me, and if being there can provide some type of edification to them to bring about a comfort or just a presence, I don't need to go out there. If they felt that way, maybe a few other people feel that way. What's most important? That you get to do what you want to do?" You see, I don't have to do that. Everything is lawful, but it's not all expedient, it's not necessary. Is there something at this juncture that maybe I'm not aware of--you see, I'm not under bondage to this. I'm not abstaining from that because maybe if I take two more days off, I'm going to rebel and defect and be overcome by sin. That's not what it's all about. Don't wait for a crisis to practice self-denial. Make it an easy thing to do, make it a habit. Deny yourself over the small things to other people. "Well, yeah, I can deny myself if it's a matter of life or death, because me denying myself requires that you're on your death-bed. Did I hear you breathe? Are you still alive? I'm leaving. I've got something to do."

What value system do you put on your desires, your preferences, in comparison to others? "That's trivial. Grow up." Why don't we grow up into Jesus and learn that it's better to give than to receive, amen? It has to become a part of your life, and you think that when it becomes a crucial time, then you'll be able to do it. No, you won't. It has to become a life process. I've shared with you so many times in Janet's testimony, and I'm going to try to speak the words, if I can. In the thirty-five years that we lived together--I made the statement and I wasn't kidding--in thirty-five years, we never had conflict. I've said this and people would laugh, but it was the truth. The reason we never had any conflict was her fault. She wouldn't fight; she didn't have to have her way. I lived so humbled by her selflessness. Now she was human, she had her times that she dealt with the flesh just like you and I, and you have the wrong idea if you think, "Well, it was just easy for her." It wasn't, it was a life pattern. It was no easier for her to die to her pride and her self-will than for me or you, but I do believe it was generational. I do believe that as we raise up a godly seed, it should be easier for our kids, not more difficult. They should see it generation after generation and know that's how you live, you don't live for self. We grew up in two different households. She grew up in a household of servants, people desiring to honor God, and I grew up in a household of people wanting to vaunt it and lord it and be the best and the greatest. I was always humbled as I watched that, and I thought, "Lord, I wish I had that." It wasn't easy, but it was habitual. She knew nothing else. The choice was made to live that way, and as I watched this--and I've shared with you over the years--I watched her give of herself to everybody and her decisions were for the best of other people and not herself. In all of those years--this will help you understand some things in relationship with Father and with other people--in all of those years she never asked for one thing.

Well, one time I do remember, as we were putting the roof on the garage up there, I got a call on the cell phone. She was down in Tysons and she said, "I found some earrings that I just really love. Can I get them?" Of course, I said, "No, we're tight right now." When nobody expects a thing, when they never ask, when they never expect it, when they don't think they deserve it, anything that I had in my power, she got. As I've shared in the testimony--and I've shared it a couple of times and it's so fitting in this point of the teaching--as I shared with the men yesterday. As she lay there dying--the most natural thing, we're all going to die, the thing that we fear in the natural the most, the natural man fears the most, the spiritual man delights in--and don't mistake where she was in this, because I think I shared with you one time when she asked me, she said, "I'm going to die, aren't I?" I said, "Yeah, I really believe you are." This was weeks before the realization of it had set in. It was just in the spirit. We just knew. She said, "I'm going to die, aren't I?" I said, "Yeah." I like the way she's always so matter of fact. She said, "I thought so." So I said, "Just think about it. You're going to get to see the Lord, and you're going to get to see your Mom and Dad." She looked at me as she always did, so matter of fact, and said, "There's time enough for that." She didn't want to go. She wanted to be here with us. Yes, to be absent from the body is to be present in the Lord, but that's for.... She said, "That's for eternity. I want to spend a few more years now, here. I want to be here, I want to be here with you. I want to be here with the kids. I want to be here with the grandbabies. I want to stay here." "You get to see Jesus, you get to see...." "Yes, there's time for that. I want to stay here." In those last hours, I shared that statement with you when she made that comment, "I don't know how to die!" The nurse said, "Well, don't worry." She said, "I didn't say I'm not ready to die, I said I don't know how to die. I'm ready to die. When I die, I'm going to be with the Lord. What I mean is, how can I hurry up this process, because those that I want to stay and be with, with all of my heart, I need to hurry up and leave because I'm a weight to them? I'm drawing on their strength and their energy. They have to get on with their lives. They have to get on with the Kingdom of God. What can I do to go exactly the opposite direction of what I want, because that's what's best for them?" I thought, "How do you do that?" The majority of us sitting here in this room would say, "I can do it. When it really comes down to crunch time, I'm ready! I'm going to give it all up for the Lord." It's by a lifetime of doing it that it just becomes so natural. You can't make that stuff up! You don't just do it, you prepare yourself.

What are we doing to prepare ourselves for that? Keep your finger here in Philippians and turn back to John's gospel for just a moment. Chapter 4, verse 34, "Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, [say the last few words with me] and to finish his work." Is that your meat? Is that where you get your energy? Is that your life's source of strength, to do the work of He that sent you, to finish His work? Do we even know what His work is, or has our agenda, our plan, so dominated our thinking that we think that our will is God's will? To finish His work... How many of us, if we designed from our will, would leave heaven to come to earth, would leave lordship to wash the feet of those who will forsake you, to take into our undefiled, perfect, pure, sinless nature, the sin of all humanity that they might partake of my righteousness and my life? We call ourselves Christians, Christlike, to do the will of Him that sent us and to finish the work. "What work, Jesus?" The one that He finished, "It is finished," the cross. What's the cross to you today? "Well, my cross is school, Math, English." When I was in school it was all those. I went to school for lunch and recess. That's kind of childish, actually. When I went to college it was the Student Union and football. You know, you advance. What's your cross? Now, truthfully, most of you women would say your husbands. Most of the husbands don't have enough guts to say their wives. For the children, it's their parents. It's anybody who gets between me and my will--the cross, the trials. "I'm under such trials. There are so many trials, the pressure of the trials!" What are the trials? "Financial trials, trials at work." What you're basically saying is, it's the disease in your life. "I'm not comfortable, things aren't coming easily. I'm not getting my own way, that's my cross." That's not a cross, that's life. That's what every one of us is going through. The cross is purposeful destruction of ego, self. There is a cross and a throne in every one of our lives. Which one are you on?

"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things..." Which "all things"? Don't make a mistake here. He's not saying you have to count "everything" loss. I count all things that I used to call gain, loss. "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." We're talking about a new value system. What kind of a value did you put on knowing Jesus--not knowing about Him, but knowing Him, the fellowship of His sufferings? Do you want to get to know Jesus as badly as you want to get to know that personality, that person at work who is in a position, that special someone? Some of us are working very hard on our interpersonal relationships, even with our spouses, with our children. We want to get to know our children better. We want to have a good relationship, spouses, whatever. What about the knowledge of Christ? What value have you put upon that? "That I may know him," is what Paul says. Then he puts a qualification on this, and this is how you keep from going back, because some of us have offered this up but we took it back. Look what he says, "[I count it] loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: [so that I can gain that knowledge] for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." I want to come to the knowledge of Jesus, for whom I have suffered the loss. If, in the coming to know Him, we don't win Him, we don't become one with Him, we don't fully appreciate this, then we're going to defect. We're going to turn back and put ourselves back on the throne. We're going to sell Him out for momentary pleasures, successes.

The new value system. "Now watch," he says, "I count it loss," and that now becomes another word. He says it becomes dung, refuse, garbage. Oh, so now, we've not only placed the proper value on Jesus, we, through knowing Him, now are able to place the right value on the mundane, the temporal. The things that were precious to us are now (what?) refuse, dung! Do you see your previous treasures in that light, or are they still attractive to you? I don't want to get too crude, but if you can, for just a moment, visualize a big pile of dung. Most of us will try to glamorize it and make it cow dung. Make it your own doo-doo. [Looks up, as if toward the external.] "Man, that used to be... (Is it still what it was?) That used to be filet mignon!" Hmm, is that the same value? What has altered this process? It's not eternal. In the spiritual realm, what we look at now is the immutability of God, that that never changes. Life changes, these temporal things vanish, they become rusty. Thieves steal, there's a process, if it's in the natural, through the food, and we've assimilated everything that it was for. It's not about the flavor, it's about the nutrition, and then it's cast off. It had a purpose, and we make things that are temporal have more purpose than they really do. We try to make a lasting purpose. They are not. They have certain functions that are temporal, and then they're used up. There's no value in them any longer. We stop and we put an inordinate value or worth upon these things, and if they are natural, they will always become refuse. They will always become dung. They will always become waste, garbage, in light of God's glory, His immutable being.

Now what is this "winning Christ"? Verse 9, "And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness... And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness... And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness..." I get the proper understanding of my own worth, my own ability. I'm becoming aware of my depraved state, and the only righteousness I had was that that was by the law, by my performance. It was an ego righteousness. It was a works righteousness. Death to self requires an absolute dependence upon the finished work of Jesus. "That which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection..."

I made a comment to the men in the meeting yesterday that, if I stopped for the purpose of fulfilling law and from the ascetic aspect and the works aspect, if I stopped playing golf--and I talked about that. I stopped playing golf, but I started doing something else. I stopped playing golf because I was too competitive at it and it took up too much of my time, my thoughts, but then it just got transferred somewhere else. So, what if I just stopped doing everything? I know what would happen. I would become the most competitive person there is about being noncompetitive. I would drive everybody around me nuts and expect them to do the same thing, but there is a righteousness that is by faith, a righteousness that devalues self-effort, self-ability, that realizes that the work is finished. I am accepted in the beloved, I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. I am a son of God. I walk in the spirit; I do not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Sin no longer has dominion over me. The body of sin is destroyed that, henceforth, I no longer serve sin. I have liberty, but I'm not bound to my liberties. "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient...but I will not be brought under the power of any" (1 Corinthians 6:12). I'm clearly not under the power of liberty, because I must deny myself. I must discipline myself, I must not call gain what used to appeal to me, but only wining Christ, so "that I may [he goes on to say] apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." Do you have it? What does apprehend mean? Kevin could tell you. If you go apprehend somebody, you go bring them under control. Have you apprehended Christ? Do you know Him, have you won Him, have you apprehended Him? "I will not let thee go except thou bless me" (Genesis 32:26). Have you been in that wrestling match? Here we are. Paul is talking about that need, and he says in verse 13, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect [mature, complete], be thus minded."

Tonight, we want to talk about that aspect of denying self, disciplining self. I just want to encourage you right now. The little foxes, many of the things that are so easy to say yes to yourself about, why don't you say no? Why don't you just get used to saying no to self? You don't have to go to some great extreme. I'm talking about being conscious, being aware right now of all of the tendencies, whatever your treasures are, whatever is gain to you, whatever you boast in, whatever you delight in, whatever you're pursuing. Ask yourself what, and how much of your life does that dominate, and could you become more like Jesus through this apprehension, this pursuit, this pressing toward the mark by becoming more temperate in these areas? Temperate just means in control; it's not talking about abstinence. You don't have to stop. We'll talk about that a little bit tonight. If your eye offends you, if it's sin, then you're going to have to do something: you're going to have to pluck it out, but before you come to that place, why not just bring it under, why not begin to devalue it, why not begin to see it for what it is, something that might temporarily perform a purpose and then it becomes refuse. These are the eternal treasures, the new value system. We're going to talk about that a little more this evening.

Father, we thank You for the Word of God and for Your life in us. Father, we ask that You would help us to work out our own salvation. We're so ready to crucify everybody around us. We see all their faults, the things they need to change. Don't you worry about anybody else. None of this talk is about taking the cross and crucifying somebody else. This is all about you. "Boy, if they would do that, then I'd be able to really go to the cross and I'd really be..." There is not one person on this planet that can keep you from going to that cross. There is not one circumstance that can keep you from that cross. It's your choice to stay on the throne and leave Jesus on the cross. "I want ease, let Him suffer. I deserve gain, He deserves what He got." Two thieves with two different perspectives of Who that was hanging there with them. How do you see Jesus today and how do you see yourself? Good intentions? "Oh, I plan to. I'm doing a little bit better." Doing a little bit better "ain't getting it." You've got to die. It's not about self-effort, it's about self-awareness. It's about motive. The glory of God is the only acceptable motive. The method of God, the cross, is the only acceptable method. There's probably not a person in here that is not asking the question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Tragically, so many of us respond the same way the rich young ruler did. When we're told, we hang our head and we walk away. Jesus stands before you this morning and gives you these words: "Come, follow Me. The path is to Gethsemane and Golgotha, and the end is the throne of God, seated with Him in heavenly places." What's really important to you? Make it real, Father, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand before the Lord. As Gary plays for us, let's take a moment. Are you of the mindset: "When it gets tough, I'll do it. I'll be ready." You stop up there in Leesburg and your left arm is full of hoagies and subs from Quiznos and the right one full of a tub of Coldstone, and you say, "Man, when they need me to run that four-minute mile, I'm ready!" Where are you? What makes you think that? When was the last time you preferred somebody else purely, nothing in it for you? "The other day I preferred somebody, and afterwards I was just really happy to see this fruit in my life. I did such a good job. I was so proud of myself." Well, maybe the motive was not as pure as you thought, if that was your response, because we're just unprofitable servants. You didn't do anything. What did you do? "Oh, I denied myself." "Ooooh, you are so valuable to deny yourself. What a sacrifice! Heaven stood in awe, there were thirty minutes of silence!"

Let's sing it together and just worship Him. "Lord, You Are So Precious to Me." Hallelujah, hallelujah! I share a number of different times about Janet's life and, emotionally, it's not always the easiest thing for me or for the kids. They are so precious to me, my children, my grandbabies, the precious gift that the Lord has given me in Greer, but we were blessed to have a lady like that among us. I see her so sick at MIR (Maryland International Raceway), and Tony and Karen are there from Africa, and she's toting all these groceries down through the pits to come and wait on everybody. Pain beyond imagination, never one complaint. I never, in thirty-five years, heard, "Why me, why do I have to go through this?" Most of you didn't know Janet. She was strong-willed, strongly opinionated. You all only saw her for what she chose to be. I knew what she was. It's not hypocrisy. I'm talking about her natural tendencies that were very independent, self-sufficient, which made what was chosen more admirable. "I have set before you life and death...therefore choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19). Before you go, turn to somebody next to you and say, "I choose the cross." Amen. Go in peace. God's love go with you.

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