All right, so let's get praying and we'll start. Lord, we thank you for this day. Thank you for this time. I pray you bless this lesson, Father. I pray that it would be helpful for us. In your son's name I pray, amen. So we are, this is like eighth grade. We are not finishing the book, but this is the last chapter we will do on the book. We have been through it from the beginning. Let me find the table of contents. We approached the cross, demonstrated how the cross is central in Christendom as far as our lives and what we believe. We talked about the heart of the cross as the next section, dealing with forgiveness, the whole idea of self-satisfaction, how we have to look to the Old Testament. to learn what the cross meant. And then we spent a lot of time talking about the achievement of the cross. What happened? Remember, we talked about those four things. Let's see if I can remember them without looking at my notes. We were propitiated. In other words, God's anger was propitiated by Christ. We were redeemed. We were bought at the cross. We were justified. We're no longer guilty. And not only that, we are reconciled to God as an adoption in the family. You should at least learn those four words for this lesson. And then, so we went through that, the conquest of evil, and then this last section that we're not going to complete is living under the cross. What does it mean to be a Christian now that the cross has... as we have put our faith in Christ and become believers. We talked about, two weeks ago, the community of celebration, talked about the church, and then I decided not to pick and choose, I just did the next one, and if you want to read the next two, the one I'm doing today is self-understanding. How do we look at ourselves as Christians, as people of the cross, The other chapter was loving our enemies, which is never any fun. And then suffering and glory, which is another one that's difficult. So I just decided to do the next one. And so today, the last chapter that we'll cover before my new study on the Holy Spirit is self-understanding and self-giving. So the cross revolutionizes our attitudes towards ourselves as well as towards God. The community of the cross is a community of self-understanding with an idea and a view of giving, self-giving to others. And we can only give what we have. We need to understand our identity. Who are we? So once you put your faith in Christ, you come to the cross, you realize that you're a sinner, you ask Him to forgive you, and you accept Christ as your Savior, how do you look at yourself now? What are we? What's going on? What is our attitude towards ourselves? He explains today that out of Christianity, there's a lot of two ways in our culture. And I would say one way is people have no self-worth, while the other was be yourself, express yourself, fulfill yourself. The power of positive thinking. I would say in our culture today, it's all about be true to yourself, right? Whatever that is. You can just do it, whatever norms are, whatever, you know, whatever sort of society, Constraints have put up, just completely ignore those. Just be who you need to be, whatever people convince you to be. I don't know if you're familiar with that Chesterton quote, where Chesterton says, if you see a fence, before you tear it down, you ought to figure out who put it there and why did they put it there. There's a reason. Well, we don't believe that anymore. We just knock down fences without even caring about all that, because we know better than anyone that lived before us. And that's the popular culture today. He talks about how this kind of psychology has become a religion in our modern day. All teach the intrinsic goodness of human nature and the consequence in need for self-regard, self-awareness, and self-actualization. Paul Viz, who wrote a book about the subject, quotes an advertisement in Psychology Today which said, I love me, I'm not conceited, I'm just a good friend to myself, and I like to do whatever makes me feel good. We talk about Narcissus, the myth of Narcissus where he just stared into the pool and he was so enraptured with his beauty that he couldn't do anything but just stare at himself. And he has a little poem about this. There once was a nymph called Narcissus, who thought himself very delicious. He started like a fool at his face in the pool, and his folly today is still with us." And small note that, that hopefully soon your narcissists will be blooming. I know mine are poking up already. You know, once they start coming up, give them a little fertilizer. I just like 10-10-10s. You know, they don't know the difference between 10-9-10 and 10-14 or whatever. Anyway. So many Christians, though, have been sucked into this. And the idea, and I've heard this before, that the idea of self-esteem is the greatest need today. Because Jesus said, you're to love your neighbor as yourself. And you say, well, if I'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself, I'm supposed to love me. And Stott says, Christ did not say there were three commandments, love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. He added yourself as a practical guide how to treat your neighbor. Because you don't need to be taught that. You're going to take care of yourself, generally speaking, unless you have a severe mental illness. Matthew 7, 12. So whatever you wish what others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law of the prophets. Most of us love ourselves, and we know how we would like to be treated, and this should help us treat others. But really, if you think about it, self-love is a fact to be recognized in a rule to be used, not a virtue commended. It's just who we are. And second, really, if you think about it, the word for love is self-sacrifice in service to others. So you can't be self-directed in that love, because you're not sacrificing, you're filling yourself up. And then third, self-love really is the biblical understanding of sin. One of the markers of the last days that will quote 2 Timothy 3, 1-5 says, people will be lovers of themselves. And not that, I think it's probably been a part of culture, it's kind of done this, and I think right now we're way up there, and we all love ourselves, and we're the ones that set the rules, we're the most important person, we are God in a lot of ways, and I say we, not Andre, but our culture. So as Christians, how are we to regard ourselves? How do we avoid a self-evaluation that's either too high of ourselves or too low? Romans 12.3 commends us to think of yourselves with sober judgment. So the cross of Christ supplies the answer. It calls for this idea of both self-denial and self-affirmation. First, we need to consider that we are a new people because we have died and risen with Christ. The death of Christ is representative as well as a substitute of us. And representative is one who works on the behalf of another. In other words, Christ worked on behalf of us. Jesus did for us what we couldn't do, and He did what we did. By being united to Him, we have also done what He did. We have died, and we have risen with Him. Paul explains this in Romans 6, where he combats the evil suggestion that we sin more, that grace may abound. "'May it never be,' he says. You know, can I just sin and sin and sin, since grace is a gift, and it covers my sins?' And Paul says, "'May it never be.'" Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into His death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we might walk in the newness of life." Our baptism visually demonstrates our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That's why it may be said that we have died to sin. Remember, we talked about this Westminster Catechism a long time ago, that we believe in free will, but we believe in free will within your nature. So before you became Christian, you could only have free will within the nature of a fallen, dead, depraved person. But now, as believers, we have a new nature. We have the ability not to sin. It doesn't mean we're never going to sin. It's just that we have the ability not to sin. And so the thing, and it's hard to understand for me, and I'm sure for you, but the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle is that Christ's death was a death to sin. Romans 6.10, 6.10, for the death he died, he died to sin once for all. For the life he lives, he lives to God. Only one sense it can be said that Jesus died to sin and that he bore the penalty. Jesus didn't, sin had no effect over him. Sin actually couldn't hold him in the grave because he never did it. That's why he was able to rise from the dead. When you and I die, we're D.E.D. dead. And we don't come back. I mean, I don't know how many times we shock you. Even if I shock you and bring you back, I had a patient years ago who was dying of pancreatic cancer. Poor guy. The family didn't understand and they wanted me to code him as he was dying because they wanted to just give him a chance. And I'm trying to explain, well you understand that if I bring him back, he's still got the cancer that's killing him. Do you understand that? And they looked at me, it was like a group of five or six people in the room, and they said, we just think we need to resuscitate him if he dies. And he was in the hospital, he was on a morphine drip, he was going down the tubes because of his illness. And I said, okay. So then they told me later that I was rounding. They came back and told me, we just want you to shock him one time. I'm like, are you mad at him? I mean, bye dad. Because, you know, no matter how many times I brought dad back, if we were able to, he was going to die. And that's how we are. Our sin is over us. But Christ didn't have that. So Christ, when he died, he rose from the dead because sin had no power over him. They finally agreed just to let Dad go. Only one sense which could be said that Jesus died to sin, and that He bore its penalty, since the wages of sin is death. That's how we know. That's our payment. Paying sin's wages by dying, though, He has now risen to a new life. He paid my wages, your wages, anyone who comes to Him, He paid their wages. And so being united to Christ, we share in the benefits of His death and resurrection. We are now free from the awful burden of guilt and condemnation. We're not condemned. Even though we sin, our sins have been separated from the East from the West. We're risen to a new life, and the sin question is behind us. And so now, how can we possibly go on living in sin, which we have died? It's not impossible, for we must take precaution against letting sin reign in us. And this is that tension that we have, this issue. We've got the old man, we're dragging him around. My old pastor, John Ropp, said he was chained to us. And wherever we went, we dragged this old man around, and he kept on wanting us to fall into sin. But with death and resurrection having cut us off from the old life, how can we ever think of returning to it? And that's why we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God and Jesus Christ. So I thought I would read this quote from William Tyndale that he had, just because I like talking like this, and I thought it was a very good quote, as we all struggle with this, trying to figure out what it means. Now, go to, reader, and according to Paul's writings, even so do thou. Remember that Christ made not this atonement, that thou shouldst anger God again, neither died he for thy sins, that thou shouldst live still in them, neither cleansed he thee, that thou shouldst return as a swine unto thine own puddle again, but that thou shouldst be a new creature, and a new life, after the will of God, and not of the flesh. Because of our new self, though redeemed, is still fallen, a double attitude is necessary. We need to have this idea of self-denial and self-affirmation. And that's this chapter. is about. You know, one thing with the news to me just being so discouraging about everything, one of the things I've thought is, you know what, not only are we new creatures, but this world is, and I know we say this world is not my home, we're just travelers. We're just going through this. We still get wrapped up in a, where is it, I don't know about you, I get patients who come to me and say, oh, just, I'm depressed because of the news. And it's just, you know, we need to have light feet on this world. This world is not our home. I mean, and we're just passing through. We really are. We're pilgrims on a journey. We're going over there, wherever it is. I think it's over there. We're headed that way. And so we're new creatures. We're living forever. And we're just here, and we're here to be ambassadors for Christ. And part of that whole idea is understanding who we are. And that's what this chapter is about. So the first aspect of our newness is this idea of self-denial. Mark 8, 34. And calling the crowd to Him and His disciples, He said to them, If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. And so I will be the first to say that when I read these things, it's kind of like, what does it mean to self-deny? I really don't want to deny myself. I'll be brutally honest with you, so we're going to kind of go through this. What does it mean to deny myself? We're going to do this daily. He again makes this wonderful sort of biblical theology point about this. We're both like Simon of Cyrene and Barabbas. In Simon Cyrene, we carry the cross of Christ. But in the sense of being Barabbas, Christ died in our place. And that's us. We have to carry this cross every day. And we talked about this in the beginning of the book. Romans made crucifixion a common sight in all their provinces. When they would take out a place, a bunch of rebels, there would be crosses all over the place. And so you would know what happened if you violated Roman law. And so the cross to those people back then meant a lot more than it does to us because we don't see that. It would be like if we had, I don't know, how do we kill people? Electric chairs? giving them a little potassium. We had tables all over, people laying all over with IVs in them. But these were crosses, so we know what the cross means. And they knew what the cross meant was a better way. Plutarch said this, every criminal condemned to death bears his cross on his back. John 19, 17. So they took Jesus and they went out bearing his own cross to the place called the Place of the Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. So to take up the cross and follow Jesus is to put oneself into a position of a condemned man on his way to execution. That's what Stott says. Stott says our cross is not an irritable husband or a cantankerous wife. Oh, she's my cross to bear. No, no, that's not the cross. That was your poor decision making. It is a symbol of death itself, the cross. To deny ourselves is not necessarily martyrdom, it's broader than that. We are to behave towards ourselves as Peter denied Jesus three times. Peter denied Jesus three times, that's how we deny ourselves, the same way Peter did. What did Peter do? He disowned him, he repudiated him, and he turned his back on him. And it's not denying ourselves of little luxuries, but renouncing our supposed right to go our own way. It's to turn away from our self-centeredness. Galatians 5.24, And those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. Paul writes in his letters three different deaths he talks about. And the resurrections are part of the Christian experience. So we have, Paul talks about three deaths and resurrections that are part of being a believer in Christ. The first one we've already talked about, of God being dead to sin. We're dead to sin and we've resurrected in Christ. It happens to all Christians by virtue of our union with Christ and his death and his resurrection. That's the first one, we are dead to sin. The second death is to self, taking up our cross and this idea of denying or mortifying ourselves. As a result, we live in fellowship with God. This is a death you and I must deliberately do. and is an essential aspect of our original and continual repentance. And then the third idea, which I thought was interesting, is the caring about our bodies, the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in them. 2 Corinthians 4, 9-10. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our bodies. It's our bodily infirmity, persecution, and mortality. So I'm going to sum this up. The first one is the legal thing. That is, death by union with Christ and His death, and the resultant resurrection with Him. That's the one we talked about. The second one, which I think is the more difficult one, in a way, is the moral one. And it's the death to the self as we put death to the old nature and its evil desires, and the resurrection that follows that leads to a new life and fellowship with God. So the idea, I think, You know, I think, well, I have to die to myself. That means I have to be a missionary to go someplace I don't want to go and do something I don't want to do. And that may be part of it. But I don't think people that do that don't want to do that. I think they want to do that. I mean, they're led to do that. That's why they do that. But it's the idea that We're going to try to put down those things in our life that we know are wrong, that we know we all have evil tendencies to do things. Yours is different than mine, and mine is different than yours. We have propensities to do things. And we have all these vice lists in the New Testament, things that we're supposed to get rid of, put off the old man, stop lying, stealing, cheating, sexual immorality, anger, strife, envy, all those, and put on the new, put on the fruits of the Spirit. And so denying ourselves is this daily battle where we do these, we try to make these moral decisions, not because we're earning favor with God, You can't be any better before Jesus now than you ever were, because your sins have been paid for past, present, and future. But this is an idea of who we are and how we're going to live. But the other part of that is that you make decisions daily in your life, I think, because you're a Christian, you don't do them. They could be perfectly acceptable. You know, part of, in a sense, dying to self is showing up here. Now, that's a small thing. But the way you order your life and the way we try to direct ourselves There may be things out there that are perfectly okay for us to do, but really it's not right for me to do because I thought about this to give analogies. I can't give analogies about myself because it would make me look like I'm doing all these great things that I'm not doing. But I'm sure all of us sequester desires that we have to do that are good, but we know that's just not for me to do because I need to be doing this. This is what the Lord wants me to do. And that's that denial, that self-denial that we do. And then the third one is physical. And that's death to safety. So that means we really shouldn't care about our own bodies. I don't mean in a reckless way, smoking and drinking and weighing 500 pounds anywhere we want. I don't mean that. Understanding that the life that Paul led through persecution, and Paul was always being physically in danger, because it wasn't about his physical body, because he was doing what he needed to do for Christ. And that may result in physical harm. And that's that third death, that idea that Paul was not going to let safety be his governing rule. And I think some of that could be, for us, be a little more daring in evangelism. or being daring in things, not jumping off cliffs, but stepping out and doing things that we're a little uncomfortable doing because it's not about me. Legal death was once, that's the first one, Christ on the cross. Moral and physical deaths are daily. Continuous experience is for the Christian disciple. Stott asks how we feel about hearing this. Stott says he hopes that we're more uncomfortable, especially in the instance of dying to self, crucifying, and mortifying sin. He expects and hopes we're uneasy with that whole idea. He thinks he has lined up various human thinkers. He says, now you may think I've lined up with various human thinkers by demeaning humans. We're now in a post-humanist age where you and I are basically the parasites of the planet. There's too many of us. We're the bad. The good thing is Gala and the beautiful oceans and seas and forests. And so, humanity now doesn't like humans. Well, you know, I was reading a read, or who was it, Reader Piva, where one of these people, you know, Klaus Schwab, I don't know, one of his acolytes, they have a goal of only being 500 million people on the planet. It's like, okay, why don't you start with yourself? You know? Check, you know? And that's how they feel about themselves in humanity. But Stott's not that way. He says, but you can sound like that's how you feel. But it's not untrue what we're talking about, what a bad shaper and how we have to deny ourself. It's just one side of the story. So the other side of the coin is self-affirmation. Alongside with Christ's self-denial is his implicit call for self-affirmation. And in reading the Gospel, you cannot come to the conclusion that Jesus had a negative view of people and humans. First, His teachings were all about people. He spoke of the value of humans in God's sight. They are much more valuable than birds or beasts. Mark 6.10. And where does this come from? The creation account, where Jesus took from the Old Testament that humans were the crown of God's creative activity. We are made in God's image. Second, there was Jesus' attitude towards people. He despised nobody and disowned nobody. He honored the ones the world dishonored, and he accepted those who the world rejected. He spoke courteously to women in public. You know, that wasn't a thing. Why are you talking to that Samaritan woman? What are you doing talking to her? She's not even a Jew. And two, she's a woman. He invited children to him. Children weren't well regarded, and he asked the children to be brought to him. He spoke hope to the Samaritans and the Gentiles, which the Jews didn't like. He accepted lepers. He went and spent time talking and dealing with prostitutes, the sinners. His compassionate ministry to human beings was center stage. He acknowledged their value. He loved them, increasing their value. So Jesus clearly demonstrated that we have value. Third, his whole point to come here was to die on the cross for us. He came to serve, not to be served, and he gave his life a ransom for many, it says. He demonstrated humanity's value by suffering and dying for them. That's how valuable we are, that the Son of God had to come down and die for us. So how do we solve this paradox, Stott says? We have to deny ourselves, because we're worthless, and we sin, and we get our cross, yet we're valuable enough for Christ to die for us. We've got this paradox. We are complex. We are part of the result of the creation. We're made in the image of God, but then we're also made partly by the fall, the creation defaced, marred. The self we are denied, Stott says, disown and crucify, is our fallen self. And we are to affirm our created self, everything that is acceptable and compatible with Jesus Christ. So this is the daily goal of us, as we deny what is fallen, and we affirm what is compatible with Christ. True self-denial, the denial of the false self, he calls it, the fallen self, is not the road to self-destruction, but the road to recovery. And I would think that as we go through this, the world, the ones that are lost, love to affirm the stuff that has been marred. They enjoy, they give value to the things that we are to deny. So what are we to affirm? We are to affirm our rationality. Being rational is not a matter of white privilege or power oppressive. It's how thinking and logic work. We are to affirm our sense of moral obligation, that inner thing in you that says you really should do X. You really should. We are to affirm our sexuality, male and female. We are to affirm our family life, make our family a very, very important, not worshiped, but yet also a centerpiece of our lives. We are to affirm our gifts of aesthetic appreciation and the creativity that God has given us. We are to affirm the stewardship of a fruitful earth. We are to affirm our hunger for love and community with others. That's the Trinity, right? The Trinity is community. One in love within themselves. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, loving one another, being part of a community. Jesus said, may they know that you are one of mine because of the way you love one another. Talking about people within the church. And we are to affirm our awareness of the transcendent majesty of God and this urge to worship Him. We all have, everybody has an urge to worship something. And we are to affirm that. Those are the things we are to affirm. What are we supposed to deny? Well, the flip side of that. We are to deny our irrationality. You know, we all do this, and I'm not throwing stones at everyone, but part of my weekly job is I have someone who found a bump on their skin, and by the time they come to see me, they've already got themselves dead and buried and trying to figure out who gets the money and who gets the house. It happens to me every day. And I say, oh, no, that's nothing. It'll be gone in a week. Oh, thank you. I mean, it's just because we're all irrational in that sense. We all do it. And I tell them, look, I'm with you. I mean, everybody does it. You hear some kind of, you know, somebody's late for coming home, oh, they're dead, they're buried, they're in a ditch somewhere, I know, you know. Did you hear a helicopter? Was that a siren? I mean, it's just, that's how we are. We are to deny our moral perversion. We are to deny our blurring of, he wrote this book how long ago? We are to deny our blurring of sexual distinctives and lack of sexual self-control. We're supposed to deny that. We are supposed to deny the selfishness that spoils family life. We are to deny the fascination with the ugly, the lazy refusal to accept God's gifts. We are to deny waste, polluting and spoiling of the environment. We are to deny our anti-social tendencies. We are to deny our proud autonomy. And then we are also to deny our refusal to worship God. He states that Christians should look at themselves as created, then fallen, then recreated and redeemed. We're new creatures. It gives us more to affirm and more to deny. First, to affirm, not only do we affirm that we're created in God's image, but we have to confirm that we're recreated, we're redeemed, we've been regenerated, we're bought. Everyone in Christ is a new creation. Our minds, our character, and our relationships are all being renewed. We are God's children. We talked about that in the idea of reconciliation. No, not everyone is God's children, only those that are in Christ. We belong to a new community, the universal church and the local church. And the Holy Spirit produces the fruits and the gifts in us, and God accepts us in Christ. But second, because of that, we have more to deny. Sometimes, and I just spoke about this, we have to deny things that, although nothing wrong in themselves, yet stand in the way of us doing God's will. You know, earlier in my life, I think I had a hard time understanding what that meant. As I go along, I know exactly what it means. There are some things that I like to do that I can't do. Not because they're wrong, it's just Lord wants me to do certain things, and those things would get in the way of being where I'm supposed to be doing what I'm supposed to be doing. That's the bottom line. And you know, I got some ideas about things, and I'm not saying, you're the same way, I'm not putting myself up, I'm just trying to give you an example. You may want to be able to, you know, do whatever it is. But you can't, because if you did, then you couldn't do what you need to do, right? I mean, once you commit yourself to certain relationships and certain things, godly things, you choose those things. Again, being here is a small form of that. You may wish to be laying in bed watching whatever or just goofing off, but you've decided, no, I need to be here, even though laying in bed would not be a sin in itself. just as Jesus Christ denied himself by coming to earth and going to the cross. That was the ultimate denial. He took upon himself the form of a servant and saw that being God was nothing to be grasped. He didn't want to hold on to that. He let go and came down and became a human and did what he needed to do. He denied himself. That's a picture of what we're to do. Paul denied himself marriage and financial support from others. He had every right to get paid to do what he did, but he didn't. He worked as a tent maker on the side, made his own money, because that's what he needed to do. Sometimes we need to renounce our rights and limit our Christian liberties not to cause an immature believer to fall. Those are tough things to know how to do that. Also, sometimes we have to make major life decisions because it interferes with something that God wants us to do. And I think, you know, I'm of the school that God's will for your life is whatever you want to do, as long as it's within the bounds of, you know, good and proper. Because the Lord's going to put it in your heart what you're to do. But you're going to have conflict sometime about that, because this is what I'm supposed to do, but I kind of want to do this. Well, I better just keep doing what I'm doing. And the cross teaches us this. God-given measure of the value of our true self, it was the cross, it was the cross, that was the cost that Christ paid to redeem us. That's how much you're worth, what took place on the cross. But it's also the God-given model for denial of our false self, since we're to nail it to the cross and put it to death. Before the cross, Stott says, we see our worth and our unworthiness. So this leaves the last section and I'll be done. And I had to compress this down because I knew I wasn't going to have enough time. It's like seven or ten pages, I don't know. So I'm just going to squeeze it together. Not because I didn't think it was important. I've got to go on to the next chapter. That's what Jerry said. I have to deny myself. That's what Jerry said. I'm happy with it. Self-sacrificial love. So neither this idea of self-denial or self-affirmation is a dead end to self-absorption. We're not Buddhists who sit around and try to work on ourselves. It's not what it's about. Those are means for us to do the next step, which is self-sacrificial love, means self-sacrifice, giving self to others. entails worshiping God and the serving of others. So then I'm gonna read a passage which he's gonna launch off of this. Mark 10, 35 to 45. So just as Jesus, this so often happens, it's crazy how often this happens, just when Jesus talks about, hey, you know what, guys, look, I gotta go and be killed on the cross, and then three days later I'm gonna rise from the dead. And they're like, what? I mean, but this is what happens a lot of the times after he says that, this is what happens. So he just talked about this in Mark 34, how he's got to die, and then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said, what do you want me to do for you? And they said, grant us to sit on one right hand, on one on your left, in your glory. Jesus said to them, Did you not know what you are asking? Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism which I am baptized? And they said, We are able. And Jesus said to them, The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand and my left hand is not mine to grant, but is for those whom it has been prepared. And where the ten heard it, they became indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them together and said, Listen, you know that those who are considered rules of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be among you. But whoever would be great among you must also be your servant. Whoever would be first among you must be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." Now it's interesting. You know, James is the first disciple murdered. He's killed early on in Acts. So, you know, Jesus talking about his death. James and John, brothers, okay, you know, I want to be on your right hand, and he can be on your left hand, and we're going to rule. That's what they said. So James and John come at this completely different from what Jesus And then Stott speaks about the contrast, and I'm just going to briefly go over this. First choice is between selfish ambition and sacrifice. They want selfish ambition, Christ is talking sacrifice. Second, they want power, Jesus is talking service. And the third, they want comfort, and Jesus is talking suffering. So this is the dividing line between the two and Jesus, between James and John and Jesus. James and John, self-ambition, power, and comfort. Jesus, sacrifice, serving, and suffering. Then Stott talks about these ideas of sacrifice, service, and suffering playing out in three different spheres of our lives. Spheres of service, he calls them. The first one is life in the Christian home. Our homes should be enriched with divine love between all relationships. Husband to wife, wife to husband, husband to children. It's all these different areas. It's characterized by submission to one to another. Husbands are to love the wife as Christ loved the church. What did Christ do for the church? He died for the church. Christian homes and marriages, Stott says, would be much more stable and satisfying if they were marked by the cross. If we had our relationships with the ones closest to us were marked by this idea of sacrifice, service, suffering, self-love, not self-love, loving them, self-sacrifice. That's the first one, the Christian home. The second one is the church. He speaks first of pastors who should be characterized by humility and service. You know, we don't have pastors like this, but I've been around pastors who lord it over, kind of like they're the king of their kingdom. That's really not how it is. Jesus certainly didn't work like that. Then there's the church community itself, the people of the church. We are to love one another. We are to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than ourselves. That's how, I read this morning in Colossians, I finished my year through the Bible, so I just picked a book, and I read Colossians, and in there it talked about how, you know, you've got to bear other ones. If someone sins against you, forgive them in your church. If someone's just the way, you know, you've got to just put up with me the way I am. That's just Andre. That's just the way he is, you know. God love him, I'm going to pray for him. And Lord, give me the grace to accept him and not want to beat him over the head with a coffee pot. And that's what we've got to do with one another. We have to look out for the interests of others, not just our own interests. We're supposed to take care of ourselves, but think about others too. We're supposed to have the attitude of Christ. And we have to always remember that our Christian church members are those who Christ died for. So that obnoxious Christian that drives you crazy, you say, you know what, Christ died for him. So that's the second one, the church. And then the third one is the world. He says, Stott says, the church tends to get wrapped up in its own affairs while the outside world is waiting. You know, I agree with this. I don't know if the world is waiting for us. I mean, they don't really want us. That doesn't mean we're supposed to stay. We're supposed to be sort of reaching out to them, trying to convert. Ultimately, that's what it's all about. It's about telling them about Jesus. so to realize who they are and where they need to go, just like someone did for us. He says, every mission is like the cross that is characterized by some form of suffering. And so when you engage in any kind of mission, it's going to involve some kind of suffering. Maybe not be whipped or beat or put in prison, but, you know, you're sticking yourself out there. He then spoke of the heresy of the prosperity gospel, which I don't think we have an issue with. and also some other issues. But he says really the Christian church involved in the world, we have this idea of service, where we serve them, and then we have evangelism. And then we all should seek for justice in the world. You know, it's gotten to the point where I hate the phrase, I'm gonna say this, don't throw anything at me, and the Lord forgive me, social justice, because social justice has just been perverted in such a way that it doesn't mean what it really means. It's like everything else, all a word game. But he does talk about social justice. And years ago, I had read a book, What If Jesus Had Never Been Born by Kennedy. I don't know if you've ever read it. And in there, Kennedy catalogs all of The institutions that are started by Christians – we swim in waters that we do not understand. If Christianity had not had the influence on Western civilization that it had, how terrible it would be. Because all these – from hospitals to adoption agencies to slavery to abortion to all these sort of crimes that we try to – most of these organizations were started by Christians because they're trying to live out their life. And I think each one of us, you know, we can't be everything. You know, you as an individual, you can't do everything. But we all have propensities. We all have things that are sort of in our wheelhouse. And that's what the Lord wants us to do. And that's how the Lord wants us to interact with the world. and to be self-sacrificial. But ultimately, though, it's about giving the gospel, I think. That has to be the centerpiece, because it doesn't do any good to give someone a cup of water if you don't do anything to tell them about Jesus, because you're just temporarily leaving their life on earth, which is, you know, this compared to eternity. Okay, so that's, that wraps up what we're gonna get through in the book from the cross. I thought that was a good chapter application. The other two chapters are good. If you have the book, I'd encourage you to finish reading them and study them. Although it won't be quite as illuminating as what I teach. That's my humility speaking. No, just kidding. Next, we're gonna start the Holy Spirit by Sinclair Ferguson next week. Lord willing, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. Thank you for our worship service. May we worship you in spirit and truth. In your name I pray.