Christian Counterfeits I, Cosmic Or Crucified

Turn in your Bibles now, if you would, please, to two locations, Galatians chapter 1 and Hebrews chapter 1 also. Galatians 1 and Hebrews 1. Right at this point in the first service, I was handed a note that told me that an infant boy had been brought to the service with acute asthma, and apparently, although I can't verify this, but apparently had been to see many physicians and had not been able to be restored from a very noticeable, agonizing breathing problem. And right in the middle of preparing for the message, we had an opportunity to pray for a sick infant of someone who doesn't even attend here at North Way on a regular basis. I want you to know, what I'm talking about today has a great relationship to that very kind of thing. Because I'm talking this morning about the reality of God in our midst, the fact that we serve a God who is alive today, a God who is communicating with his people. Well, let's read, first of all, a warning in the book of Galatians, in chapter 1, as Paul writes to the church in that region that he helped to establish. He says this in verse 6, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion, are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned. I'll turn over, please, to Hebrews chapter 1. And I'm going to read the same portion of scripture we read in our Wednesday night teaching in the book of Hebrews. In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful words. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. Just how real is your day-to-day experience of communicating with God? How real is it? Would you know if God stopped communicating with you today? Would there be any difference or would you just kind of go through the normal routine of life? And maybe sometime along the way, next week, realize that God was not communicating with you. A very well-known evangelical scholar, not a flighty man by any means, but a man who's written a number of books, including The Fight and The Cost of Commitment, a man by the name of John White, an evangelical scholar, wrote this in one of his books. See if you identify with a communicating God. He said, once I had a premonition that my wife and infant son would be killed in a flying accident. The premonition came with sickening certainty just before they departed on the night of a wild snowstorm. I felt I was a cowardly fool as I drove away, and I saw my wife silhouetted in the yellow light of the doorway surrounded by swirling snowflakes. Why didn't I go back and tell her I would cancel their flight? Why didn't I act on this foreboding? Yet I felt a fool. I didn't believe in premonitions. She'd probably laugh. And besides, I was late, and I had to get to the place where I was going to spend the night before my early morning flight. Fear, shame, guilt, nausea, all boiled inside of me during the miserable drive to my hotel. No conversation was possible with the man who was driving me. In bed I tossed in misery. Of course, I prayed. My mouth was dry. My limbs shook. God seemed a million miles away. The hours crawled by, each one a year of fear. Why didn't I get dressed? Why didn't I hire a car and go back and tell them? I didn't. Their plane crashed. Everyone on board was killed. But my wife had also had a premonition and cut their journey short, getting off the plane one stop before the tragedy. How about that? This is a man that's recognized as a conservative evangelical, a man who by his own confession doesn't believe in premonitions. You see, what you believe about a communicating God can literally mean the difference between life and death. What you believe will determine whether or not the supernatural is going to occur in your life. All around us in society today, people are looking for something more than just what they can manufacture in and of themselves. People want to get in touch with a reality that's bigger than someone is controlling in Washington or Wall Street. They want to know a God who is alive. Well, that's why so many people in the last 25 years have left. And I don't mean this disparagingly, but they left established, organized institutional churches because they were not hearing God speak there. And even though faithfulness tore them up and they had these tremendous feelings of being disloyal and all the rest, they had to go because they had to know God. You see, it's all around us. And in society, it takes many weird forms. Millions of people today are involved in an attempt, a search to hear God communicate. Even the First Lady of this nation has demonstrated that she wants to get in touch with a higher source. Amazing. Over the next weeks, next two Sundays, I'm going to be looking at some of those particular expressions that are gaining interest and support around this nation. The different cults that are out there, the ones that are becoming more and more popular, and most especially next week, I'm going to talk about the New Age movement and its influence, which is much more pervasive. Someone asked me yesterday, do you know any New Agers? I just want to submit to you that more than we know, places of power, places of influence, are becoming increasingly subjected to the philosophy that's behind the New Age movement. Here in Pittsburgh, it's not a big thing because we're Pittsburghers. You know, come on. We're just hard workers. We take things at face value. But all around the nation, this whole thing is popping up. We're going to look at it next week. But today, I want to talk for just a few minutes. And it will be short because we do want to share communion this morning. I want to talk to you about something of a tug that's within the camp of Christians concerning this matter of God speaking, this matter of supernatural life versus anti-supernatural life. And dear ones, more than you know, we are susceptible to falling prey to some of these tugs. Paul writes, as we already read in Galatians, and he says, what happened to you? You started in grace, and along the way, someone lured you astray. And then he writes even more forcibly in his letter to Timothy. Let me read this to you. You don't need to turn there. But 1 Timothy 4 and verse 1 says, Now the Spirit expressly says that in the last day some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. And I want you to know that there are increasing numbers of people that are being swayed by that. Now, next week, we're going to be talking about doctrines of demons. That's basically what it is. I'm not going to put that up in the sign up there. But I'm going to talk about that because I feel, dear ones, that there is such a pluralistic wave going through America that if we don't clearly identify what it is that we believe with conviction, we are likely to be blown off course. And listen, I don't even know, once you're blown off course just a little bit, if you're a sailor, the longer you go, the more off course you get. And we want to just zero down today and talk just for a few minutes about what is happening in the camp. What are the truths that are tending to polarize us? And this is what grieves me. I was with a meeting of pastors earlier in the week. I guess it was Tuesday. The purpose of the meeting was for charismatic and non-charismatic pastors to learn how to dialogue. That was the purpose of the meeting because it seemed like the walls were just as high as they ever have been. And I was glad for the meeting but saddened by some of the attitudes that I see that seem so prevailing. And listen, this is between Christians. Now, hear what I'm saying. You see, if the enemy can keep us from being directed against him by being directed at each other, how many of you know he's really won a major battle there? And unfortunately, that seems to be what's happening. Now, I'm going to talk specifically, so you don't think I'm talking about anybody out there. I'm talking about just what I see here in our church. I'm not an authority on what's out there in other churches, but I know what's happening here. You see, we are directed in what we believe by what we see of Jesus Christ. Let me say that again. Your life and what you believe and how strong you believe it is all dependent upon what your vision of Jesus is all about. As we study Hebrews on Wednesday night, that's the purpose is to give us a fresh vision of who Jesus is. I'm excited about that study. A fresh vision of him. You see, because once you begin to see someone a little differently, what you believe about them starts to change. How many of you were alive when Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of England? If you can confess that, go ahead. In the first service, I had people going, just, you know, putting it up there. It's all right. Some of you didn't put your hand up, but I know, so, I mean, it's okay. Would you attest to this? Winston Churchill was not re-elected as Prime Minister of England, even though history tells us he was one of the greatest leaders of all time. Did you know that? He was the one who rallied England in the face of imminent destruction, whose war cry became the rallying point of all the allied forces standing against Germany, and he was not even re-elected. Why was that? Because some began to present a different vision of him as being too radical, too far off. I want you to know, dear ones, it's not much different today. The Jesus that we purport to serve in the eyes of some is called too radical, and though I want him to redeem me from the onslaught of the enemy and the work of the devil, I'm not sure if I want him re-elected as the Lord of my life. And those are the kinds of things that we hear about more and more. And these two camps that I'm talking about, which are really visible and identifiable in the church today, are seen here in Hebrew as really, in two words that aren't there, but I think are adequate in describing them. If we look carefully, in those first few verses, we see, first of all, the cosmic Christ. He's the Christ who rules over all the universe. The Bible says there, did you read that with me, that he holds the whole universe together by the word of his power. You know, if God stopped speaking, we would just go poof. We'd just disappear. It'd be all over. We'd become a black hole or some other kind of astronomical phenomenon. He's the cosmic Christ who rules. And people who are loyal to the cosmic Jesus are ones who tend to use words that align with his creative power and his dominion and his rulership. There are people who will talk about, I'm more than a conqueror in Christ. There are people who will say, I'm destined to be a success. I'm born for prosperity. I'm to rule over circumstance and not be ruled by them. I'm to be the head and not the tail. You know, all those kinds of things. They'll write books about maximized potential. Be all that you can be, you know. Be healed, be delivered, set free, you know, tromp on demons, those kinds of things. The cosmic, are any of those things wrong? That's all in the word. It's all in God's word. It's all in there, isn't it? But you see, even though they talk about miracles, even though they talk about worship, I mean the cosmic Christ, worshiping God is, I mean, get a vision of God up on the throne and worshiping. They're the kinds of people that are ready in an instant, you know, to burst forth in praise and clap and all the rest. But what those who are in the cosmic camp tend to forget is that all of this glory costs them something. And they tend to eradicate from their vocabulary words like commitment and sacrifice and discipline and relationship. And it's not long before they'll get into it if they feel the Spirit's leading, but if He's not leading, they're not that interested. Dear ones, I want you to know there is an immaturity about that mentality. And the cosmic camp tends to look for the spectacular. And they'll run to this and they'll run to that. But when you ask them to be committed and fulfill a commitment, they won't be there. I find an interesting phenomenon in morning prayer over the weeks. Remember, we've all committed to one morning a month, one morning a month to be here. You pick a morning and come and pray. And I, for a number of weeks I watched this phenomenon. I would call for six different intercessory groups for a prolonged period of intercession. And I would say, now the ones who want revival, you'll gather in this corner of the auditorium. And the ones who want the ministries that you see all around these walls, these ministries to be mobilized and anointed, you meet over in this corner. And you know what I found over and over again? This group was real big. There was 10, 15, 18, 20 people in a couple circles here. And there was two or three or four over here. Let me ask you a question. How is the revival going to come? It's going to come because people are out there witnessing and sharing and ministering. You see, it comes with sacrifice. It comes with commitment. And that's what the Word is teaching us. Look with me. Follow the order. Look at it. It says that, verse 3, the sun is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining. There it is. See, it's all the cosmic language. But then it says this, after He had provided purification for sin. You see, right there, cleansing for sin, all the cosmicness of it comes down to Jesus died for your sins. He brought all that glory down to the cross and He subjected Himself, Philippians 2 says, to the shame, the discipline of the cross. And the cosmic Christ camp needs to get a hold of the fact that we have blown it by frittering off all this glory and not really directing it. It's as though, listen, it's as though we have entered into this giant, eternal, Christian fireworks campaign. And so what we're seeing are these big booms going off in the sky. Another praise festival. Another glory gathering. Another celebration. And all along, what God wants to do is to take all that power and to direct it right through a long cannon right at the stronghold of the devil. You see, what I see is God wants to take the power that's right. He wants to take the dominion that's right. The anointing and all the things that the cosmic, but He wants to channel it. I just see one of those, you know, those big cannons on a battleship with a long barrel. And He wants us to direct all that power right down the long barrel right into a stronghold and bring it to the ground. You want to know why abortion still stands in this country? Because we haven't taken the cannon and lowered it right after. We'd rather just go around and whatever. I mean, you name it. Just think of what the charismatic movement could have done if it would have been translated into a PowerPoint instead of a firecracker. But before we're too hard in the cosmic camp, let's think about the other camp for a moment. And I don't, I trust you understand these are just words I chose. But the other camp is the camp of the crucified. This is the camp that would rather look at the expression here that Christ died for their sins and leave it right there. I mean, their favorite three words in all the Bible is it is finished. That's it. It's over. What more could there be? That Christ died for me. I'm saved. I'm going to be with Him forever. What more do I need than that? And these anti-supernaturalists have a way of being skeptical about everything that's happening. Have you ever had someone do that? They've come in and shared, hey, I had a great answer to prayer. I mean, this was really fabulous. And you say, yeah, let's hear it. And they tell a story and you say, you know, hey, that's great. And you think to yourself, but just a coincidence. It could have happened to anybody. Maybe, I mean, maybe it was unusual, but it could have happened to anybody. And you see, the camp of the crucified focused simply on what Jesus did for sin, but do not see that He didn't stop there. All sorts of signs and miracles and all those things, they were valid back in the first century, but they're not happening now. They're not out there anymore. I mean, we have the Word now. We have the Bible and we don't need all these signs anymore because we have this. And dear ones, I want you to know there are people whose whole life is built around studying the Bible and not in any way, shape or form experiencing the reality that all the people of the Bible talk about. Now, it's not as though anyone I've described here today is thinking these thoughts, this black and white. What I'm talking about is the mentality that creeps in. It just comes in along the terms of lack of expectation. I want to ask you a question. When you get up and your spouse said, let's go to church today, did you think something really special can happen here today? I mean, imagine what might happen if God showed up in your life today. This may be a day of incredible importance in your life. But I want to, I'll submit to you, I wonder if many of us came today just thinking it's another day to go to church. I hope we're done by 12 because I've got a lot to do. And you see, the anti-supernaturalist doesn't look for God to intervene. He's not listening for the voice that might say there's going to be a disaster coming. Because he doesn't believe it. The anti-supernaturalist has closed down the possibility that a little baby with chronic asthma could be healed. And I want to know what I see happening in a person who doesn't believe that God is on this scene. It isn't long before their experience becomes kind of routine, predictable, and after that it becomes boring. And after that, listen, once it's boring, dear ones, it's not long before it's history. And they'll find something else because that same old hunger for reality starts crying out. Or worst of all, it glazes over their conviction, their conscience, and they think that everything's fine. And life goes on as if nothing really matters. You see, to have the throne without the cross brings immaturity. That's the supernatural. That brings immaturity. That brings a sense of lack of direction. But to have the cross without the throne brings a lack of power. It brings a heaviness. It brings a sense of judgmentalism. And I just want to submit to you in conclusion that what God wants to do in our church is to bring some from the camp of the cosmic Christ into balance a little bit to see that we approach the cosmic through the cross. We come to the throne through the cross. And those that are over here that aren't really expecting God to do a whole lot because it's already been said. Again, understand these are subtle attitudes. Maybe you've just been so busy you haven't even taken time to think about it. But you see, the attitude is, hey, it's okay. You need to come over here and see that it's not just Jesus died for you, but rather He's ascended to the throne of the right hand of the Father. And it's there that He wants to rule. I put it in a diagram like this. There's the continuum. The crucified need to come and so does the cosmic. And here's how the diagram would look if we get into balance and bring it where it needs to be. You see, we want to come where we come through the cross, through the discipline of coming under, was it Jesus who said, take up your cross daily? What does that mean? Well, that means that you come under an established discipline. That means that you're willing to say, Lord, every day of my life I submit it to you. I make commitments. Jesus didn't flit around. He was committed to those disciples. And He honored His relationships and blessed the people by being faithful to them. And what I believe God wants to do is to bring us into a balance. He wants to bring this church over these next couple of weeks into a balance so that we're not going to be blown up. See, a person that's living like that is not going to be tempted to kind of dabble in different kinds of religious things. A person like this isn't going to be afraid to speak a word when someone comes to you. You're saying, well, what difference can it really make if I'm in touch with God? Let me conclude with this story. On an ordinary night in the dormitory in a college in the central part of this country, a person from this congregation was studying. And had been in the Word and been with the Lord. And in the midst of that time, felt strongly prompted by God to call his sister who lived up in this part of the country. Didn't do that once in ten years before that. Not the kind of thing he normally does. He said, well, what's this all about? Couldn't push it out of his mind. He said, Lord, is that really You communicating? Is that really You? Tried a couple of times to find the number. Couldn't find it. Put it out of his mind. Dug around some more. Finally, found the number of the apartment where she was living. Called up and said, Sandy, it's not a real name, Sandy, I just thought I should call you. What's happening? Not knowing anything, they heard this long silence on the phone. Tears. You could hear the sobbing accompanying the tears that were falling down her face. She said, what's the matter? And she told him, right at that moment, she was in the process of taking her own life. And he called her just at that moment when she was about to ingest a major portion of a chemical that could have taken her life. He had never experienced that before. But you see, because he was willing to believe that God is speaking, because he was willing to have his life in order, that God, who rules over all things, could use him to save another life. Dear ones, I believe God wants us to be a mature church, grown up, looking for God to rule, but understanding that we come under the submission of the cross, living there daily, honoring Him, that we might be effective against the powers of darkness. Do you believe that? Amen. Let's pray.