The purpose of Jesus's death.

The purpose of Jesus's death.By Ernest O'Neill The purpose of Jesus's death is not that you can say, "Lord, will You forgive me for the anger that I burst out with last week? Will You forgive me Lord for the selfishness that I showed towards my roommate this past week?" It is not so that we'll ask Him to forgive us for those things. The truth is that Jesus was made those things for you. He was made those things for you.Now, I'd like you to look at that and then I'll try to explain it plainly. It's in Second Corinthians 5:21, "For our sake He, that is God, made Him Jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God." Now, you may say what on earth does that mean? God made Jesus to be sin.You have a personality that works in a certain way that you have been unable to control. It works like this, something begins to get out of control in your home or in the office, somebody does something that utterly irritates you and offends you and it begins to make things go the way you don't want them to go and you feel you have to stop that happening and immediately you feel that, there rises up in you an anger that burst out at them to stop them doing it so that things will come back into your control.God took that whole process that takes place in you and put it into Jesus and destroyed it in Him. That's what it means. God made Him to be sin who knew no sin because that whole reaction of yours is sin. It's you becoming God. It's you judging, "This ought not to be and I won't let it be", that is sin! It's you setting yourself up to control the things that happened to you in your life instead of letting God control them and the moment you do that sin and it's process works in your personality so that you can't stop the thing until it's completed. Until you've burst out in anger, you've lost your temper and the whole thing is a mess. That's sin.God made Jesus to be that so that He could destroy it in Him. If you say to me, "Do you mean then that there is no need for me to lose my temper but I can be free from this?" Yes, but not apart from what Jesus has done for you. Apart from what Jesus has done for you, you can't keep your temper. Now don't you see that the whole purpose of Jesus death is to destroy that whole process that is set on fire? Now, you determining, "I must control this situation". It's the same with lust and unclean thoughts. You know it yourself. You put one step on that slippery path, and before you know it you slide the whole way down. It's just like a chain reaction. It's the same with resentment. You just put one step on the slippery path, you just allow yourself to think for one moment, "Why didn't he do that or why did she do that to me", and before you know it, you're right down the slippery path and the resentment has begotten all kinds of attitudes into you, in you that you can't control.Now, God made Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin, He took that whole process in you, that whole chain reaction that operates in your personality and He put it into His son and destroyed it. If you say to me, "Do you mean I could live free from those things?" Yes, and if you say, "What have I to do to do that?" You've simply got to stop taking the first step and you've got to see that you are actually in Christ and Christ does not have any anger and He does not have any resentment and He does not have a sinful nature that prevents Him obeying God and you are in Him.You see you have a tendency to say, "If I only knew I was in Him, I would believe that if I only knew I was in Him but that's why I come on Sundays, I am trying to get into Him." But you are in Him this very minute. You don't have to get into Him. I'll show you that if you like to see it, it's in Second Corinthians 5:17."Therefore if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold the new has come." The whole thing has already happened but you say, "Yes", but it says, "If anyone is in Christ", 'if', "Now that's my problem, I am not sure if I am in him at this time. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I believe in coming to church. I believe in bible but I don't know what it means to be in Christ and it says if anyone is in Christ", and I feel from what you're saying that I have to do something to get into Christ.Now get ready for this, you do not have do anything to get in Christ!!!God Himself has put you in Christ. It is an established fact. Look at Second Corinthians 5:14, "For the love of Christ controls us because we are convinced that one has died for all therefore, all have died". Christ died for everyone in the world, therefore, all of us have already died. We are now dead!!! God has already put all of us into Jesus and destroyed us there. God has destroyed all our impatience and all our anger and all our lustful process of thought. God destroyed all sin in Jesus and there's no reason why any of us here can't live free from that.2 Peter 1:3 "According as His divine power God already HAS (past tense) given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that has (past tense) called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."Do you see it? You are dead NOW! You are in Christ NOW!, You are Holy NOW!!! God Himself has already done it for you. Now just take God at is word to experience the reality of what God has already accomplished for you.YOU ARE IN HIM NOW!!! YOU ARE HOLY NOW". Now just rest in Gods word!!!The only confidence you ever can have that you shall continue to obey must have its foundation based on the faithfulness and truth of God. You must know that all your life is in Christ and you never expect to have any life without Him. It is Christ's life inside of you that gives you everything you could possibly need to fulfil the law and live a holy life.You are not asked to have any faith in yourself or to place confidence in any of your own abilities to produce faith. You can not trust yourself in anything that comes from self effort or your own devices to bring Christ to you. When you see how selfish you are and how unselfish He really is your heart will melt. You can not be the originator of the "saving look." You must come to the place where you give up all self effort and place your self in the hands of a loving God to such a degree that you leave your eternal destiny entirely up to Him. You must stop making your own salvation your main focal point. You must get to the point that you trust God with your life so much that even if you go to hell that is okay. If you do not make this decision you will have a very difficult time in trusting in the promise of God to reveal Christ to you. Cast yourself completely on His will. God does not owe you salvation, you truly do not deserve it and all selfish efforts to obtain salvation will only make you worse. Faith can not be self-generated, it is an act in which you MUST cooperate with Him.It is just a simple recognition of God's faithfulness. So let us forget all about our faith, and think only of God's faithfulness to us through Christ Jesus.Let me give you one more example of rest. When the word and promise came to Mary that she would be the mother of God's Child, the Savior of the world, what could she really do to bring this word to pass? She could do nothing by her flesh, by her own efforts, or in her strength to bring this MIRACLE about. She was totally helpless!!!! All she could do is to take God at His word and rest in it. She said, "let it be done unto me according to your word." Now she had peace knowing that it would just be a matter of time before the child was born.Well, you also can do nothing by your flesh, your own efforts, or strength to ever please God or to have any victory over sin. You can produce no faith. You also need a MIRACLE just like she did. Are you NOW ready to give up all self-effort and take God at His word by resting in HIS WORD? God's word is a seed, once you put your trust in it, The Seed Giver makes you pregnant. At first you may have no evidence of His truth working in you but as you rest in Him you know that His word, His seed is at work in you NOW!! The real truth is, it is working right now!!YOU ARE IN HIM NOW!!! YOU ARE HOLY NOW". Now just rest in Gods word!!!

Repentance is saying to Jesus, "Lord Jesus, I realize that You have borne the sins in Your own body and I am not going to make You bear this one any longer. I am stopping this. I am laying my sword down today whatever the cost to me, it's nothing compared with the cost to You of not laying it down".

Yes we need a new birth. That's what God did in Jesus, He took your perverted reversed personality, and He took all that evil desire to make yourself God, and to have your own way, and to establish your own rights in the world at anybody else's expense. He put that into His Son, Jesus, and he destroyed it there. That's the part of the gospel that applies to the new birth. Now, loved ones, it might be good if you just look at it, it's second Corinthians and it's chapter five, and verse twenty-one, it's the piece that we read as the New Testament. Listen, "For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."God took the sin inside you, the independence of Him, the urge to be your own god, and He put it into Jesus and He destroyed it there. You see, in verse seventeen, that, that means it's possible to create you because He did the same with your perverse personality. "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Now, some people think that you can come without the old passing away, and so, there is a light teaching of the new birth today that is popular. It says, "Just believe, just believe the Lord. Believe the Lord." It's that kind of theory 'sit back and let it happen', and it just does not work loved ones, it does not work. Because, God knows that if the old creation is not destroyed, the new will be absolutely suffocated with him, and the problem is not Gods unwillingness to give us the Holy Spirit. We already have in some sense the remains of Gods influence of the Holy Spirit within us when we sensed in our conscience that we should do some things that are right. The problem is not on Gods part the problem is on ours. Unless we are willing for Him to destroy the old creation completely in His Son, He cannot do anything to recreate us, and to make us born again. So, it used to be in the old days, near liberal days when liberalism ruled the roost in theology, people said, "Imitate Jesus" it's impossible of course because the old self won't let you imitate Him. Now, there's a great deal of theorizing, 'Just receive Jesus' and that's all you need. No, you'll crucify the dear Savior again inside you if that's all you do, you'll crucify Him a fresh inside you. Unless, you are willing for this intern personality, for this deification of self to be destroyed in Him.Now, how do you do it? You can't do it, only the Holy Spirit can. Jesus said, "The Holy Spirit will take of the things of our mind, and he will share them with you" and the Greek word for share means He'll make them real to you; He'll make them real in your life. Only the Holy Spirit can actualize in you, the complete reversing of your personality that took place in Jesus Death, you can't do it at all. So, do you see, you're utterly at the mercy of the Holy Spirit. That's the one that we've to deal with, in order to be born of God, we've to deal with the Holy Spirit. Now, the Holy Spirit is already dealing with you, this morning and in past days, He has already pointed out some things wrong in your life. The Holy Spirit has put His finger on some attitudes in you, some critical attitudes, that are obviously treating everybody else as dominions, and you as the great god who judges them. The Holy Spirit has put His finger on some actions of yours that are dishonest, some stealing that you've done, some dishonest words that you used to other people can make them think better of you than they ought to think. The Holy Spirit has already put His finger on different things in your life, that, show you clearly, that you are not crucified with Christ, that you're not willing to stop soaking life in from other people. You're not willing to begin to live on God alone, the Holy Spirit has already pointed those things out to you, loved ones. The first step to coming to a new birth is agreeing with the Holy Spirit of God about those things. Stop pretending that they're just personality shortcomings. Stop pretending that they're something that you'll gradually grow out of, when the Holy Spirit points out sin in your life; agree with Him. That's what confess means, confess means: agree with God, and that's what God has said, "If you confess your sins, I am faithful just to forgive your sins".

The second step is, and listen to this: Stop sinning! Stop sinning!! That's what repentance is, Jesus said, "Except you repent, you will all likewise perish". You must repent. This does not mean to be sorry, and use up three boxes of Kleenex and say you'll try harder next time. No! That isn't repentance, that isn't repentance. You stop doing the thing, you stop sinning, you stop it. We're such weak-kneed little creators you know, we accept all the brain washing that anybody gives us. Now of course, we all cry out, "Oh I can't! I can't! I can't!" Yes you can. You can, you can, you can, and why? Because God has put you into Jesus, and destroyed all in you that wouldn't obey Him, and has recreated you anew; it's been done. The thing has been done, all you have to do, is act in light of the fact that you're a new creation, you just do it. Every time Satan says, "You failed a thousand times before, for years you've been doing this thing" yes, but I am a new creation. The old has passed away, and all things have become new, my old self; you are right about that Satan but that has been crucified with Christ. I am not operating on the basis of the miracle that God has wrought in Jesus, and you stop sinning.Loves ones, anybody here, who is still sinning wants to sin, that's right. Now, you can play the noble sinner stuff and I played it for years, "ah no, I really want to stop sinning". God has arranged the miracle in Jesus, He has destroyed all in you that used to sin. All you have to do is agree with that and stop sinning, and it's essential to do it. I don't know how all of you are behaving in marriages but, if any of you even dream of swearing at each other or touching each other physically in a way that would be hurtful or, in a way that would be unkind; you have no experience of the new birth. You are pretending, because one that is born of God's Spirit, is gentle as Jesus is, is kind as Jesus is, is pure as Jesus is. That's what the new birth really is. The new birth isn't the old struggle that Plato and Socrates had to endure.The new birth isn't the struggle that you, yourself had to endure, where you tried to beat down the evil in order to more or less sixty percent of the time do good. The new birth is a mighty change that God works in your heart through faith in Christ, whereby He plants in you, the desires of Jesus and the love of Jesus, and he does that if you're willing. Loved ones, that's it; the heart of the new birth is your willingness. The heart of the new birth is not even believing, it's not the believing, it's not even this, "Ah receive Jesus!" You do have to receive Jesus, but that's not the difficulty of the new birth. There's no problem in receiving Jesus, if you're willing to let Jesus be Lord of your life. If you're not willing for Him to be Lord of your life, what you receive is an evil spirit that imitates Jesus. That's why you have such an unsatisfactory Christian experience. When you're willing to repent; that is you stop doing the things you know are sin. If, you say to me, "What if I do it again tomorrow?" then you stop doing it again tomorrow, what if you do it again the next day? Then, you stop doing it the next day. I'm not talking about never sinning. I'm just saying, you set your mind ruthlessly and relentlessly against sin, you determine that you will fight sin in your life at every corner, you declare war unconditional war on sin in your life. You stop it every time you become aware of it, and you confess it to Jesus, and you move on in obedience. You keep doing that, until He brings you into a full understanding of what he has done for you on the cross. Now, loved ones, unless you do that you're playing with the thing.Confess! Repent! Consecrate! I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice unto God; which is your Spiritual, and reasonable service. You give yourself to God. You say, "Lord I'm willing to be the kind of child that Jesus was. I'm willing to live as He lived, for you alone. I give myself to you, I separate myself from all other lesser purposes that I had in mind about bank accounts, and homes and futures and successes, and I give myself to you. Do what you want with my life". Loved ones, if you honestly confess, and you honestly repent, and you honestly with all your heart consecrate; God gives the Holy Spirit of His Son to you. He sends the Spirit of His Son into your heart, and a beautiful new person is born inside, by miraculous, supernatural power, and you begin to find sweet water coming out from inside. You begin to find love rising instead of hate, and you begin to find a kindly spirit coming out from inside you. In the past you almost had to say, "There are two people inside me." When the Holy Spirit comes ti reside in you, you can say, "It must be Jesus inside me because I cannot account for these feelings any other way". Now, loved ones that's the new birth, and it is for you but only if you'll have done with sin. I'd be glad just to stand here hour after hour, and you could ask me, "Is this sin? Is that sin?" Oh do you see? Do you see that you cannot be born of God and shout at your wife. You cannot be born of God and steal pens from your employer. You cannot be born of God and deceive on the income tax returns. You cannot be born of God and have fights at home, domestic battles. You can't! You can't! Why? Because, Jesus never did those things, and He does not do those things now, and if He is in you He is not doing those. If you say to me, "Oh well, does that mean that I can never sin?" No but, every time you do sin you must realize it's an alien thing. So, at this moment as you sit there, your heart rises and you say, "Brother I at times fall but I know those are wrong, and I fighting them with all my being. I am determined by God's grace to live clear and clean of these things". Now, you're either doing that or you're sitting there and saying, "Ah well, I've to do my best and try to improve, and try to better than I am, but I don't see how. I don't see how I can avoid being selfish with my wife or being cruel to my children or being cynical about the people at school, I don't see it." You're right you see, it's your heart, it's the heart. It's not even the outside performance though surely, it will show on the outside performance, but it's the heart. Does your heart stand against sin at every turn in your life? Or, does it compromise with it? The new birth brings you into cleanness. I pray, you know that God bring you to it.Let us pray. Father, thank you that it's so clear, thank you that you talked about it as life and death, thank you that you talked about it as light and darkness, thank you that you talked about it as day and night, thank you Lord that you made it plain. That there is absolute contrast between those of us who are born of the flesh, and are still insisting on our own way, and wanting our own rights, and using other people to get the love and security that we need. There's a complete difference between that and your children who want only your way, and want only your rights upheld, and want only to do you will, and want only to share your love and your security with others, Lord thank you. Thank you, that there can be no mistaking what is a valid new birth and what is a counterfeit. No Lord, we want to come into the real ourselves. So Holy Spirit, will you show each one of us where we're disagreeing with you, where we're still pretending that we hate sin, where we're still calling something our infirmity are our weakness. When, it is really our down right sin. When, we're regarding something as justifiable because of the particular kinds of artistic or, scientific personalities that we have. Holy Spirit, show us where we're not calling sin; sin in our lives, and we see it, the first big step towards you, as to agree with you. Stop bickering, and stop questioning and rationalizing and agree with you. Agree with you against ourselves, and then Holy Spirit. We see that we have been put on the cross, that we are new people, and that there's no reason why we can't obey our God if we're willing to stay on that cross with Jesus. We can simply stop sinning; we commit ourselves to doing that, and then dear Father, Lord God who have put up so much, with so much from us. Lord, we do not any longer want to stab your Son to death in our lives. We want to give ourselves to you to be what you want us to be, and to live the kind of life that you want. So now, Lord God, will you feel free to pour your Spirit through us, and we let Him out every time He wants, for your glory. By the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and ever more. Amen