The Center of Everything

God is good. He is good when my circumstances are not and no one else is. This morning, in prayer over several folks, in my quiet, I remembered a memorial service I attended a few days ago, and both men preaching said this “She spent her life in pain, and when I asked how she got through it all, she said ‘I focused on Jesus suffering for me on that cross, and the empty tomb that followed when He rose from the dead.” It hit me like a ton of bricks this morning.

Why do congregations rise and fall? They focus on the music, the aesthetics, the personalities behind the pulpit, and all the wrong things, when only one thing is needed: we endure by focusing on Christ on the Cross, and the Empty Tomb that proves He lives. Why do ministers fall? They focus on their ministries, the attendance records, the book deals, and so much more. All that is needed is the Cross and the Empty Tomb. Why do fathers fail, and families fall apart within the body of Christ? The family becomes self-focused, and the focus is lost on the Cross and the Empty Tomb. Why is there bickering, back bighting, fighting, and people shopping for churches to “suit their needs?” Folks come to the congregation for the wrong reason: they lose sight of the Cross and the Empty Tomb.

Loved ones, that Cross and that Empty Tomb is the center of everything. It’s the central focus of Scripture, and it should be the central theme of our lives. Because the wages of sin is death, Jesus died on the Cross, bearing the wrath I deserved and reconciling me to the Father. He rose on the third day, leaving an Empty Tomb to remind me that I, too have died, to the Law, to my sin, and, indeed to Death. I have life because Jesus, the Holy Uncreated One, died and rose again. That is what my life, my family, my ministry and my focus needs to remain on. Christ and Him Crucified, and the promise of eternity kept because of that Empty Grave!

Galatians 2:15-3:14

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.