The Cross Applied Honestly

1987

I had to share that because you’ve heard me say a lot in the last year and a half about, “What would you do if you were by yourself? Would you just blend back into the world?” I don’t think you need to be by yourself. I think it’ll come out right in the midst here. Because you’re going to be acting after your own mind and your intellect and you’ll see men after the flesh. You’re going to want to say, “Well hey, what makes us any better?” Which sounds good. On the outside that sounds good.

If you’ve been crucified with Christ, if you’ve faced the offense of the Cross, the stumbling stone, and come through that, you see that’s also what they need and you’re not going to try to protect them from that. You’re not going to try to guard them from the very thing that’s going to allow them to live. “Unless the seed falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” So we’re back to that subject again.

Surely you’ve got to see by now that this is not a system we’re talking about -- this way versus some other way, some theory, some philosophy of “how to have church” versus some other “way to have church.” That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the scandal of Jesus Christ applied, the Cross applied to men’s lives honestly, rather than dishonestly. It’s dishonest to give speeches at it and then have the Pied Piper try to get people to walk up the aisle. That’s dishonest.

It’s honest to look somebody in the eye and to talk to them about what’s going on. It’s hard because there’s a scandal involved. It’s a scandal. It’s an upfront stumbling stone to the person we’re talking to, and it’s an incredible scandal to us if we’re rejected. Then what do you do? Do you change your tune? Do you change the song because people don’t like this other song?

What you have to see so clearly is what we’re doing here is not a different way to do things. What it is, is the honesty of face to face, life to life, hand to hand, mouth to mouth, and eye to eye, transferring the Cross of Jesus Christ into one another’s lives and into everybody we meet. The product of that is what somebody might externally say, “Oh well, this is a little less formal than that. So what?” I agree, so what? We’re not talking about formality.

We’re talking about the honesty to go hand to hand, eye to eye, mouth to mouth, rather than just having a form of external things where everybody just gets out of it, whatever they choose to get out of it. That’s not the nature of Jesus is to let people just get out of it what they choose to get of it. It’s to go all the way into the depths of their being, dividing soul and spirit, bone and marrow. If we’re not dividing soul and spirit, bone and marrow, then it’s not a scandal. It’s the wrong stuff.

That’s why something else may be wrong in something else but in a different thing might be right. It’s not because of the external format or form or way things are done. But traditions of men nullify the living and active word of God. It can’t penetrate bone and marrow, soul and spirit. It can’t expose the motives of the heart if it has this bubble around it, where you can’t get through. What do you say? The guy’s up there giving a speech, who dares to interrupt? Ain’t no way! Somebody’s up there saying the closing prayer. Who dares to say, “Hey, I saw you last night down at the bar”? You can’t do that because of the suits and the ties and the ritual and the “order of worship” that was printed last week all says that we’ve all got to play this game. And who dares break the game?