With­out ques­tion, chap­ter 14 of Liv­ing the Cross Cen­tered Life begins with my all-time favorite line in Chris­t­ian literature:

“I was smok­ing pot the first time I heard the Gospel.”

God’s grace is amaz­ing.  And it’s not just amaz­ing for those of us who have pasts filled with sex­ual immoral­ity, steal­ing, or pot-smoking.  It’s amaz­ing for the man or woman who grew up in the church never break­ing a sin­gle one of God’s laws out­wardly, but break­ing all of them inside through lust­ful thoughts, anger, or self-righteousness.  God did not owe any one of us any­thing.  But — BUT! — in his infi­nite grace and mercy, he sent his Son to live the sin­less life that we could not and would not live, to die the death we should have died, and to rise again that we might be justified.

In the final chap­ter of Liv­ing the Cross Cen­tered Life, CJ Mahaney urges us to not move on from the mes­sage of this book, which is to live a cross-centered life.  Here are a few ques­tions to help you put this book, but not its mes­sage, on the shelf:

1. How would your Bible study change if you viewed all of Scrip­ture through the lens of tthe cross?

2. How would your life change if you viewed all your cir­cum­stances through the lens of the cross?  What will be most dif­fi­cult for you about that?

3. Con­cern­ing per­sonal holi­ness, CJ says, “Dri­ven by legal­is­tic fer­vor, you might appear to make progress, but it will be short-lived.  Only grace sus­tains last­ing change and sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion” (153).  When has your zeal for per­sonal holi­ness been moti­vated by “legal­is­tic fer­vor?”  What were the results of that fer­vor?  How have you grown and changed since then?

4. In your rela­tion­ship with oth­ers, do you tend to view your sin as most seri­ous befoer God  or oth­ers’ sins as most seri­ous before God?

5. By the grace of God, how will your life be dif­fer­ent as a result of read­ing this book?

I cer­tainly hope you have enjoyed read­ing through Liv­ing the Cross Cen­tered Life with us this spring.  I have been chal­lenged greatly and I pray that  you have as well.  Let us hold one another account­able to liv­ing the cross-centered life by the grace of God in the power of the Spirit.

That’s a great ques­tion.  Psalm 24 says that those who may ascend the hill of the Lord (come to God) must have clean hands; a pure heart; and not lift their souls up to idols.   But to whom do those descrip­tions apply? Cer­tainly not me!  So how can we approach God?

John Piper answers this ques­tion mas­ter­fully here.  This is a short excerpt from his response:

“So when Psalm 24:3–4 says, “Who will ascend the hill of the Lord? … He who has clean hands and a pure heart,” it doesn’t mean some­one who is sin­less. It means the man of Psalm 32 who, when he came to church, knew that he had spo­ken poorly to his wife that morn­ing, had slipped up and looked at a nasty pic­ture the night before, and had neglected his kids on Tues­day, but who is now bro­ken by it Sun­day morn­ing. And he has gone on his face, con­fessed his sins, and asked for a fresh appli­ca­tion of the gospel, a fresh appli­ca­tion of the blood of Jesus. And hav­ing got­ten off of his knees as a for­given sin­ner he walks into the church with clean hands and a pure heart, and he is received by the Lord.”

I encour­age you to read the whole post, then come before the throne of grace with con­fi­dence based on  the fin­ished work of Jesus.

This evening we will be con­sid­er­ing Psalm 24, which asks the ques­tion, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?”  The answer is the one who has clean hands, a pure heart, and does not lift up his soul to what is false.  None of us meets those require­ments, so we must seek God for grace.  We’ll talk more at 5 pm.  Hope to see you there!

In chap­ter twelve of Liv­ing the Cross Cen­tered Life, CJ Mahaney addresses the sub­ject of con­dem­na­tion and how the cross removes guilt and shame from our lives.  He notes that con­dem­na­tion is some­thing every believer deals with – not just new believ­ers or believ­ers who have com­mit­ted “major sins.”  CJ defines con­dem­na­tion as “a sus­tained sense of guilt or shame over sins for which you have repented to God and to any appro­pri­ate indi­vid­u­als” (125).  Mahaney then asks the fol­low­ing ques­tions, to which I will only add one at the end:

1. Do you relate to God as if you were on a kind of per­ma­nent pro­ba­tion, sus­pect­ing that at any moment He may haul you back into the jail cell of His disfavor?

2. When you come to wor­ship do you main­tain a “respect­ful dis­tance” from God, as if He were a fas­ci­nat­ing but ill-tempered celebrity known for lash­ing out at His fans?

3. When you read Scrip­ture, does it reveal the bound­less love of the Sav­ior or merely inten­sify your condemnation?

4. Are you more aware of your sin than you are of God’s grace, given to you through the cross?

Mahaney encour­ages us not to buy the lie that says wal­low­ing in guilt and shame some­how means we are closer to God, more pleas­ing to God, or fur­ther along the path to holi­ness.  He says, “It’s just the oppo­site!  God is glo­ri­fied when we believe with all our hearts that those who trust in Christ can never be con­demned” (126).  One final ques­tion:  What prac­ti­cal steps can you take to defeat con­dem­na­tion in your daily life?

In chap­ter thir­teen, Mahaney sur­veys the cross cen­tered day and pro­vides prac­ti­cal ways to focus daily on the cross.  After all, he notes, “A cross cen­tered life is made up of cross cen­tered days” (132).  Here are CJ’s five sim­ple ways to draw near to the cross each day, with an appli­ca­tion ques­tion from me:

1. Mem­o­rize the Gospel.  Can you present the Gospel in 60 sec­onds or less?  Ok, grab a friend and try.  If you couldn’t do it, or you did it but it took longer or didn’t come very nat­u­rally, it may be that you just aren’t very artic­u­late – and that’s ok.  But it also could be that you don’t really know the Gospel like you should.  Review the beau­ti­ful truths of the Good News until you could say it in your sleep.

2. Pray the Gospel.  I have lit­tle doubt that you do pray, but if you are like me your prayer time is prob­a­bly dom­i­nated by pray­ing for your­self and those for whom you have com­mit­ted to pray.  How would you go about pray­ing through the Gospel?  Why is it impor­tant to add this to your other prayers?

3. Sing the Gospel.  Music dom­i­nates our cul­ture.  Whether we are in the car, in our homes, in ele­va­tors, eat­ing out, or shop­ping, music is play­ing.  The ques­tion is this:  What kind of world­view is espoused by the music I am nor­mally lis­ten­ing to or am nor­mally exposed to?  How would your life be dif­fer­ent if you inten­tion­ally chose to lis­ten to music that exalted Jesus and his work on the cross?

4. Review how the Gospel has changed you.  Whether you were dra­mat­i­cally saved later in life or con­verted as a young child, God mirac­u­lously saved you from His wrath over the moun­tain of sins you had com­mit­ted.  Every con­ver­sion is a mir­a­cle.  How has God changed your life from the time you were lost to the time you were found in Him?  How has God con­tin­ued to change your life as a Chris­t­ian?  Where is God most obvi­ously at work in your life today?

5. Study the Gospel.  Rather than being con­tent with our cur­rent knowl­edge of Christ’s work and its impact on our lives, we must con­tinue to study the Gospel to grow in pas­sion and appre­ci­a­tion for what Jesus has done.  How do you con­tinue to study the Gospel?  What changes can you make to ensure study is an ongo­ing part of your life?

Next week we will con­clude our study of Liv­ing the Cross Cen­tered Life with chap­ter 14, “Never Move On.”

Tonight at 6:30 pm we will meet to observe the ordi­nances of bap­tism and the Lord’s Sup­per and to ordain our third elder, Rusty Bacak.  Rusty and Jenn have served New Life faith­fully since before the church began and have led Truth and Grace (our children’s min­istry) for over a year now.  Atten­dance is manda­tory for mem­bers and open to any vis­i­tors and friends of New Life.  We look for­ward to a spe­cial evening and hope you will be able to cel­e­brate with us!