Complete in thee, no work of mine could take, dear Lord, the place
of thine. Thy blood hath pardon bought
for me, and I shall stand complete in thee. Yea, just if I O blessed
thought and sanctified salvation wrought, thy blood hath pardoned,
bought for me, and glorified my God shall be. Complete in
thee, no more shall sin be all I do and am within. Thy grace hath set this prisoner
free, and I shall stand Complete in Thee Yea, justified O blessed
thought And sanctified Salvation wrought Thy blood hath parted
Bought for me and glorified. My God shall be complete in thee,
each need supplied and no good thing to me denied. Since Thou my portion, Lord,
wilt be, I need none else complete in Thee. Yea, justified, O blessed thought,
And sanctified, salvation wrought, Thy blood hath pardoned, Bought
for me, and glorified. My God shall be Dear Savior when
Before thy bar All tribes and tongues Assembled are Among thy
chosen will I be At Thy right hand, complete in
Thee. Yea, justified, O blessed thought,
And sanctified, salvation wrought. Thy blood hath pardoned, bought
for me, And glorified I too shall be. My soul is full, truly blessed
to be here with you all again today. I thoroughly enjoyed last
night and was very blessed by meeting a lot of you. It's just,
my wife and I just bask in the love of Christ to meet His people
from all over. We come from very humble beginnings
where We were always taught there wasn't many of the Lord's people,
and to meet them, and to be among you. Brother Todd's message was
just a blessing to me this morning, and the music. I'm just humbled
to be here. If you will, take out your Bibles,
and let's turn to Galatians chapter 6. Our text today is Galatians 6,
14, where Paul said, 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 wonder this morning What thoughts
do you have about the cross? What is the meaning to you of
the cross? Paul began by saying, God forbid. I take that two ways, like he's
aghast to even think that there'd be anything else to glory in
but the cross. But then knowing myself, the
sinner that I am, Knowing Paul, the sinner he was, God, you must
forbid it. You must forbid me glorying in
other things. You must forbid me of glorying
in myself. You must forbid me of glorying
in this world. Forbid me, Lord, that I only
glory in you. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said a couple
of very strong statements. I want to look at them first.
The first one is in 1 Corinthians 1.18. He said, For the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. But unto
us, unto the children of God, unto the church that he has saved,
And to those who He has ransomed, which are saved, it is the power
of God. The cross is the power of God
to His people. We live because of the cross.
We trace everything to the cross. In 1 Corinthians 2.2, Paul said,
I determined not to know anything among you, His determination
in this life was to not know anything except Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. And I do believe of every minister
sent of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is His moniker, His banner. My desire is to preach Christ
crucified. My desire is for you to know
Christ crucified. My desire is And I hope it's
his desire this morning is to lead you to the cross and to
explain to you what that means. But Paul tells us in this text
today that he only gloried in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul was a great apostle.
So what did he not glory in? Turn with me first, our first
place we'll go is over to Philippians 3. In Philippians 3, we see some
things that Paul said he didn't glory in, beginning in verse
4. He said, though I might also
have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh he
have whereof might to trust in the flesh, I more. And then Paul
sets about about how how much glory there was in his nationality
and where he's from. He said, I was circumcised the
eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of the Hebrews. Paul had a lot of reason to glory
in those things, that he was a Jew, a national Jew, that he
was a Jew of Jews. And I have a lot of reasons today
to glory in the fact that I live in America. I want to tell you
how thankful I am to have the freedoms that I have because
I live in America. I would not desire to live anywhere
else, but I don't glory in it. Paul didn't glory in being a
Jew. He didn't glory in his nationality. And I believe that the Lord,
he enables, he empowers his people to love. It doesn't matter what
nation a man comes from. It doesn't matter the color of
his skin. As was preached today, we're all sinners. We're all
looked at the same way, and it's the same way we should look to
one another, with no hatred or no malice, but love in our hearts,
the love of Christ. Paul didn't glory in his nationality,
but Paul didn't glory either in his works If you turn with
me over to 2 Corinthians chapter 11 real quick. Paul says something in verse
23. He says, are they ministers of
Christ? I'm about to speak as a fool.
This is foolishness. What I'm about to say, Paul said,
he said, I am more of a minister of Christ than they are. I've
labored and I've been in more labors more abundant, in stripes
above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. He goes
on and on about all of the things about him being more of a minister
than anybody there. He had paid the price more. He
had preached more. He had been to more places. He
had suffered many more things. Did he glory in that? No. He didn't glory in that either.
He tells us that he only gloried in the cross of Christ. Paul wrote 14 books of the 27
in the New Testament. He was caught up in the third
heaven and saw things and heard things that he couldn't even
utter. He said, I thank God that I did
not baptize any of you. He took no glory in what He was
called to do. He took no glory in those things.
He took no glory in what... He gloried in the Lord. He gloried
in the Lord's work on the cross. He was sent to be the preacher
to the Gentiles. And under His ministry, many
were saved. But yet He tells us that He only
gloried in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what is it? What is the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ? Well, you know, this might be
a shock to you, but the cross has multiple meanings in the
scriptures. For instance, in Philippians 2.8, we read, and
being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That cross
mentioned there is a piece of wood. We don't glory in the piece
of wood. We don't wear crucifixes around
our neck. In fact, the people of God hate
the curse tree. It was used as an instrument
to put our Lord and Savior to death. The hymn writer would say that
he cherishes the old rugged cross. I don't. I don't cherish the
piece of wood. And the Lord has proved to me
why. Because it's not the piece of wood that Paul says he glories
only in. Then we move to Matthew 10, 38,
where it's written, and he that taketh not his cross and followeth
after me is not worthy of me. There it's used as sufferings
and trials and persecutions. That's not the cross Paul's talking
about either. He doesn't glory in his sufferings
or his trials or his persecutions, that's not it. That's not what
he means in our text. So what does he mean? As the
Lord proved it to you, I asked you at the beginning,
what thoughts do you have about the cross? Well, simply it means the whole
work of his redemption. The all-sufficient, substitutionary
work that Christ did for his church. The sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we glory in. And
when we read these pages of this Holy Word from Genesis to Revelation,
that's the story. The story and the account is
of what Christ did, what He is doing, and what He will do. That's what we glory in. We glory
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But where do we start? When we
preach Christ crucified, do we just contain ourselves to those
few hours? Is that where it all began? No,
as we've already heard today, he's the lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. That's what the book of Revelation
tells us. The cross is eternal. What the Lord Jesus Christ has
done is eternal. Turn with me over to Acts 4. Acts 4, we're going to begin
in verse 26. The kings of the earth stood
up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and
against His Christ. For of a truth against Thy holy
child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together. But then 28 tells it all. for
to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before
to be done." There were pawns in his plan of salvation for
his church. Determined long before what would
be done because truly he is the lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. The cross is from eternity to
eternity. That's one of the reasons that
The child of God glories in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not new. It's forever told. It's forever
been preached from the prophets of old to the preachers today,
the preachers all throughout time. But it began in eternity. And we don't even know what that
means. We have such a concept of time here. I don't know what
that means, eternity to eternity. But I know that the Lord's plan
was always to save a people in His Son. How can we speak about
anyone else? We owe everything to Him. So
as we preach the cross, and as we preach what He's done, we
don't confine it to that day. Because He is our eternal Lord.
In preaching of the cross, we preach the fall of man. because
he came to save sinners. The reason for the cross, the
need of the cross. Yes, he is a friend of sinners.
And I do echo those words. He has to show you, you're a
sinner. And he does, he's faithful to do that. Is that need there? I thank the Lord for that need.
We're such proud people. We get up every day and we go
about the things that are set before us and many times we don't
give any thought to what He's done, that He's the sustainer
of our life. And we owe it all to Him. But He'll reveal to us that need. He reveals to us the sinners
that we are. He reveals that we did die in
Adam and were restored in Christ. He does restore my soul. As we've already read, or in
Romans 5, 6, it says, For when we were yet without strength,
in due time Christ died for the ungodly. There's nothing that
commends us to the Lord. It's all by His grace. And it's
something we never tire of hearing. Because the Lord, we know that
we're sinners. We don't want to sin. You know,
I think that's the hard thing. He's the friend of sinners. And
the moniker of that word, what it means, a sinner, you don't
want to identify with it because you know it was your sin that
put him on the cross. But then he quickens to you and
he says, but I came to save sinners. I didn't come to call the righteous. How many times have we got that
backwards in our minds, in our hearts, and how we view others
and our brothers? Oh Lord, be my friend now. Take me away from self. Yes,
in preaching the cross, we preach the fall of man. He gave his
life as a ransom for many. He came to save sinners. But
in preaching the cross, we preach the Old Testament too. You know,
I've heard that term many times in my life. I'm a New Testament
Christian. I feel sorry for them. Because
Christ is all through this. Search the scriptures, they testify
of me. When Jesus said that, the only
scriptures were the Old Testament scriptures. When the Lord enables
us to see him in the wilderness as he's lifted up, as Moses lifted
up the brass serpent. And we're instructed to look
and live. We're bit by that serpent of sin every day. And the Lord
in his infinite long-suffering And His grace toward us causes
us to look up to Him. Look up to His finished work.
Look at Him dying in our place. It's overwhelming at times. We preach Him in the Old Testament
as in the Passover. We know that there's nowhere
to go but under His blood. And if we're not under his blood,
we must surely die. But as we are under his blood,
we shall surely live and live more abundantly. We see Christ in the smitten
rock. We see the living water that comes forth from that rock.
We see it by faith. I often like to sit and ponder
faith. I like to think and think of
the Old Testament prophets of preaching Christ and Christ had
not even come. But they saw it so beautifully.
They saw it so perfectly. And then here we are at this
day and age and that same faith looks back to the cross. And
we have to see and we're shown the same Christ on the cross
that they were shown looking forward to it. And yet, we still
gotta look further back, because He is the Lamb slain from eternity. In preaching of the cross, we
preach the love of God. In John 3, 16, He said, for God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, He gave
Him. He delivered Him up to die in
our place. Hallelujah, what a Savior. What
an unspeakable gift. I always thought that was strange,
an unspeakable gift. But when the Lord reveals Himself
to you, you understand what that means. You don't have the words
in your vocabulary. You don't have it in your mind
to even start to explain who Jesus Christ is to you, what
He's done, You might try, but you could exhaust and speak forever,
and yet there's still more to be said, because that's the bounty
that He sets at His table for us. His mercy endures forever,
and He constantly is revealing Himself to us. We're constantly
growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, the knowledge of
Him. And I feel like as much as I
know, which is to be so small, because as I hear more and as
the Lord opens my eyes more, when I hear the preached word,
I love to hear the preached word. I love to hear a minister of
the Lord. I love to see the humility of Christ in them. I love to
see the sinner that has been saved by grace. Because that's what I can identify
with. I hope you can. Yes, we preach the love of God
in sending His Son. We preach the love of God in
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life. That's preaching the cross, our
everlasting life in this eternal covenant, an everlasting covenant
It's written in Hebrews. That's what we have in him. When
we preach the cross, we preach the atonement. At one meant. We've been reconciled. God was
in Christ reconciling the world to himself. That's quite a statement. God was in Christ doing it. He
reconciled us, one who's ungodly, dead in his sins, at war with
the Lord. And he caused us to be at one
with God because of the one mediator between God and man, the man
Christ Jesus. Without him, we would still be
at war. But with him, we're at peace.
We're at peace with God and who he is. As he makes us to lie
down in those green pastures, The child of God, when he reads
and when he's preached to of who the Lord is, he just nods
his head. There's no disagreement because
there's one Lord, one faith, one spirit, one baptism. And
the Lord is faithful to himself. I'm thankful for that because
I'm a very unfaithful person. But he's the faithful one. When we preach the cross, we
preach the church too. In Acts 20, 28, it says, take
heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the
which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers to feed the church
of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. We preach
Christ crucified, we preach of who he died for. His elect lady,
His bride, that He does have a distinct people, a predestined
people, a people that He has given His life for. We preach, in preaching the cross,
we preach baptism. Because in Romans 6, 3, we hear,
no you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ
were baptized into his death. So we preach the ordinance the
Lord gave us as baptism to remember his death and his burial and
his resurrection. We see Christ there as he reveals
himself. We see the need and the child
of God desires to take part in baptism. To say, that is my witness,
that is my Lord who died for me, who rose again, who is sitting
on the right hand, intervening for me and interceding for me
in all things. Truly, he has done all things
well. We also preach, in preaching
the cross, we preach the Lord's table that he has set before
us to do in remembrance of him. The body and the blood. The people
of God, as we read these scriptures, we can't get away from the cross,
nor do we want to. That's the cross that Paul's
talking about. It's not our trials, and it certainly
is not a piece of wood. When we preach the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ, we preach His sanctification. In Hebrews
10.10, we read, By the witch will, We are sanctified through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. We are made
holy through the work of Christ, the body of Christ once and for
all. He suffered once for sin. When we preach the cross, we
preach his resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 5.15 he said,
and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose
again. That's the life we have. He rose
again. We preach the cross and we preach
that He came out of the grave, that He's alive and because He's
alive, we live. That's what I tried to convey
to you last night. We live by His life. We have
no lack in him. He is our shepherd who gives
us life. And that life that we live is
his life. I want to live more of that life.
That's where our triumph and our victory is. It's in our risen
Lord, our ascended Lord. And when we preach the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we, of course, preach his eternal
redemption from eternity to eternity justified our just and justifier
who pronounced us not guilty I could hear that over and over
again because there's always someone in my ear and there's
always someone in my mind telling me my guilt you know when the
Lord impressed that scripture agree with an adversary when
you're in the way There's peace in that. Let them make their
accusations. When the devil makes his accusations
to me and says, Sean, you're guilty of that, I say, yes, I
am. But I point to my Lord. My Lord who stood in my place.
My Lord who has hidden me in him. He's my substitution. He's my satisfaction. He's my
salvation. That's where we need, that's
the faith we need every day to live, because we will always
be accused, always. When we preach Christ crucified,
we glory in the person who suffered, his blood that was shed, the
work that he accomplished. I've been asked recently, What
doctrine it is that I preach? And I said, I preach the person
of Christ and Him crucified. And he said, no, no, no. What
doctrine do you preach? I said, you don't understand.
Everything flows from Christ crucified. Everything. You want to preach sanctification?
You can't preach it without Christ. You want to preach Justification,
it starts in Christ. I hope your life starts there.
I hope your days start there. I hope my days start there. Let
the others preach the law. Let them beat men over the head
with the law. Let them preach the power of
hell. Let them preach the terrors of hell to try to persuade men. Just give me the cross. Let Him preach the traditions
of men. Let Him preach the headlines to bring the masses in. Just give me the cross. Because of His redeeming work,
the rest of that verse in Galatians 6 by whom the world is crucified
unto me, and I unto the world, because
of glorying in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, because of
what he's done, the world is crucified unto me. It has no
hold on me. It has no claim to me. My Lord
has set me free. And if He sets you free, you
will be free indeed. To live is Christ and to die
is gain. Give me Christ or else I die.
I'd like to end this morning in Romans 8, if you will. I just
want to read a couple of verses in Romans 8. I actually shared with you this
last night, Romans 8, 32. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? We have all things in our faithful
shepherd because of what? The cross. because preaching
the cross and the life of Christ and what he's done. He that spared
not his own son, but sent him to die, he delivered him up for
us all. How shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? That's very comforting. That's
where our rest is. Everything, and that's what he
said, seek first my kingdom. You know who the king is in that
kingdom. Our reigning Lord, the King of kings and the Lord of
lords. Seek first my kingdom and all these other things shall
be added unto you. And when he reveals Christ to
us, when he reveals himself to us, everything else just pales
in comparison. The trial just doesn't seem big
anymore. The hardship, the physical ailment
doesn't seem that bad anymore. When he takes us to the cross
and he shows us what he suffered, our suffering doesn't, it just
seems to be like those sufferings just for light afflictions, just
for a moment. Have you experienced that? That's
glorying in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He that spared
not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall
he not with him also freely give us all things? Who then shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Point to him. As I said, as you're
accused, as every man, you point to Christ. You have a problem
with me, you take it up with him. He's done it all. He's paid my sin. He's paid the
price for my sin. He has set me free. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. And
we're justified in His Son. Who is He that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. Yea, rather, that is risen again. And always remember that, dear
ones. Yes, we glory in the cross of Christ. But He didn't stay
dead. He's alive. Because he's alive,
we're alive. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. There's my intercessor. There's
my mediator. There's my reconciler. To him
be all glory. Our text one more time. 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. May the Lord add His blessing
to His Word. Let's stand together, number
125 in your hardback teminal, 125. I hear the Savior say, thy strength
indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and
pray. Find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all, all to Him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as Lord, now indeed I find thy power
and thine alone can change the leper's spots and melt the heart
of stone. Jesus paid it all, all to him
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain,
he washed it white as snow. For nothing good have I, whereby
thy grace to claim. I'll wash my garments white in
the blood of Calvary's Lamb. Jesus paid it all, all to Him
I owe. ? Sin had left a crimson stain
? He washed it white as snow ? And when before the throne
? I stand in incomplete ? Jesus died my soul to save ? My lips
shall still repeat Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Please be seated.