1 Does Life Make Sense? The Question the Cross Answers
Meaning
Pastor Randy opens by naming something every person has felt: those moments — triggered by events, or by simply having a rare space to think — when you ask, "Does any of this actually make sense?" We live less than 100 years. We sleep through about 33 of them. We work through another 33. In between, we struggle — relationally, mentally, emotionally. We fight feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. And we are capable of both extraordinary kindness and staggering cruelty in the same 24 hours.
And deep in every person there is a longing — for a life of everlasting kindness, love, warmth, acceptance, health, wholeness, and a good story with a good ending. Not just a decent ending. A good one. We cannot accept the grave as the final word.
Important Applications
- The desire for a perfect existence is not naive or childish — it is the deepest longing of every human heart, and it is evidence that we were made for something more.
- The cross is not just the answer to the guilt problem. It is the decoder of the entire human story — our origin, our problem, and our destiny.
- If we exclude the cross, we cannot really understand reality. With it, everything begins to make coherent sense.
2 Humanity's Unique Destiny: The Ruling Family of God
Meaning
Before getting to our problems, Pastor Randy goes to our origins. Revelation 13:8: the Lamb's death was planned "before the world was created." This means Jesus — the creator of all things — knew before creating Adam that he was creating his own crucifiers. He knew this species would betray him, reject him, and ultimately crucify him. And he considered it worthwhile.
Think about that: if an angel told you that you would have five children but one of them would murder you, would you still choose to have them? God chose us with that knowledge.
Hebrews 2:5–9 (drawn from Psalm 8) reveals the breathtaking status God gave humanity. "It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come." The eternal world — the new heaven and new earth — will be governed by human beings, not angels. Angels were given jurisdiction over this fallen world; many rebelled and failed. But the world to come is ours. Everything will be put under our feet.
And God made us "a little lower than the angels" only for now — crowning us with "glory and honor." We are made in his image: to experience life on the level God himself experiences it, to feel the way he feels, to love the way he loves. We are chosen to be his ruling family.
Important Applications
- You are the most unique species in the universe. There is nothing like you anywhere else. God chose humanity — not angels — to be his eternal ruling family.
- We didn't deserve it. We didn't ask for it. This was entirely God's choice, made in the full foreknowledge of everything we would do to him.
- Jesus endured what he endured because he considered it worthwhile. That is the kind of God he is.
3 The Cross Exposes Humanity's Tremendous Problems
Meaning
There would be no cross if there were no problems. The cross anticipated our failure. What are those problems? Romans 3:23 — "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We rush past that phrase "fall short of the glory of God," but stop there. We were meant to mirror and manifest the glory of God — his way of living, his way of loving, his total devotion of all power to the highest good of the universe, never doing anything selfish or wrong. That was the design. We have fallen short of it.
This is why unresolved guilt and shame are so tormenting. We can try psychiatry, psychology, medication. But unless we return to God, we can't eliminate the sting — because we are beings who were never meant to experience wrongdoing or wrong thinking in the first place.
Romans 3 continues: "There is no one righteous, not even one… their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness… their feet are swift to shed blood." Our mouths were meant for blessing and encouragement. Our hands were meant to help and build. Now, sometimes, they do the opposite.
Romans 1 explains the why behind the what: "they traded the truth about God for a lie… they worshiped and served things God created instead of the creator." Worship is the ordering factor of every human life. Whatever you consider most important — money, pleasure, status, relationships — you build your life around it. And whatever you worship, knowingly or unknowingly, you become like. We were meant to worship God because he is the only one truly worthy of supreme attention, supreme trust, and supreme devotion. When we replace him with something created, every problem in Romans 1:29 follows: "wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, gossip."
Important Applications
- Sin is not an arbitrary list of rules God invented. It is living contrary to the laws of our own being. When we break God's law, we don't break it — we get broken.
- If we could just eliminate hatred, greed, envy, and murder — there would be no need for armies, police, or locks on doors. We all know the world would be better. That's our conscience confirming the design.
- Guilt and shame that won't go away are not just psychological problems — they are the signal of a spiritual reality: we are beings who were never meant to live this way.
4 The Root Cause: Distrust → The Fear-of-Death Cycle
Meaning
The biggest problem in the universe is not economics or politics. It is distrust in God — and that distrust produces disobedience to his will. It started in Genesis 3: the serpent told Adam and Eve that God was lying, that he was trying to deprive them, trying to keep them limited. They broke trust. And that distrust has continued ever since.
Pastor Randy shares personally: before becoming a Christian at 23, he thought God would just restrict him, steal whatever small enjoyment he had in life. He had a core distrust of God, even while being completely ignorant of God. "When I knowingly or unknowingly live contrary to God's will, I don't break his law. I get broken. And generally speaking, I end up breaking somebody else too."
There is also a structural reason we go astray: the fear-of-death and desperation cycle. We are time-bound (we know there is a start and a stop) and sense-governed (if I can't see, taste, hear, smell, or touch it, I'm not sure it's real). And the fear of death — this awareness of our vulnerability — drives us into two desperate pursuits:
Self-preservation — staying alive as long as possible. Self-gratification — getting as much pleasure as possible and avoiding as much pain as possible.
These two drives produce reckless, self-destructive, and socially destructive living that God calls sin. Even the people living the most obviously self-destructive lives are, at their core, just trying to be as happy as they can. The motive is desperation. The damage along the way is enormous.
Important Applications
- The root of every human dysfunction is not bad behavior — it is broken trust with our creator. Address the root, and the symptoms can be healed.
- Time-bound and sense-governed living is not wrong in itself — it is just radically incomplete. God made us for more than what our five senses can access.
- We don't need to despise the people living the most destructive lives. We need to understand the desperation underneath — and point them to the only one who can truly satisfy it.
5 Jesus Speaks Into the Insanity: The Narrow Way
Meaning
Into all this chaos and longing, Jesus speaks. Matthew 7: "Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." You cannot follow the crowd. The crowd is headed the wrong way.
In John 8, Jesus says "I am the way." The narrow way that leads to life is living the way Jesus lived and loving the way Jesus loved — which is exactly how God made us. We were made in his image, meant to manifest his glory. Jesus is simultaneously the answer to "What is God like?" and "What was I supposed to look like?" — fully God, fully human, fully alive. Colossians 2:9: all the fullness of God in human form.
But here Pastor Randy challenges "formula churches" — those that teach that repeating a prayer formula enrolls your name in the book of life and everything takes care of itself. That is not what Scripture teaches. Authentic trust in Christ always, always demonstrates itself in following him. "I don't care what someone believes. I want to see who they are following."
John 8:31–32: "If you continue to obey my teaching, you are truly my followers. Then you will know the truth — and the truth will make you free." The Greek word for "know" is ginosco — knowing by experience. Free to become who we were always meant to be: a godlike creature unique in the plans and purposes of God.
Even Pastor Randy admits it plainly: up to age 23, he wanted God out of his life entirely. Practically speaking, he was in the "crucify him" category. Yet even followers still struggle — in the same 24 hours, capable of something beautiful and something terrible. We must stay vigilant. But we are not prisoners of temptation.
Important Applications
- You only find what you are looking for. If you are not looking for life on a higher level, you will not find it.
- A genuine decision to follow Christ is not a formula — it is the greatest decision a human being can make. It is the re-entry point into God's eternal plan for your life.
- To know Jesus's teaching, you must study his word. Obedience to teaching you have never read is impossible. Becoming a student of the Bible is not optional for a follower.
6 The Cross Proclaims Humanity's Breathtaking Potentiality
Meaning
The second half of the cross's message about humanity is not our problem — it is our potential. "It's just too stinking good to be true. Or at least it feels that way."
Consider the baby illustration. If someone looked at a newborn and said "You are so inadequate — you can't feed yourself, clothe yourself, read, write, or earn a living" — they would technically be correct. But we would all know they are missing the point entirely. The baby has potential. The right response to a baby is not what they can't do now; it is what they will become. And the same is true for us as followers of Christ.
To all the ways we feel inadequate, the right answer is: "Not yet. But wait till you see me when I'm all grown up. I'm waiting on a growth spurt." When Christ returns and the trumpet sounds, there will be a transformation so dramatic it will be like a baby's understanding compared to a full adult. We will receive immortal bodies. We will be extraordinarily beautiful, intelligent, capable beings — far beyond the best and brightest alive today.
1 John 3:2: "We shall be like him." The Mount of Transfiguration shows a glimpse: Moses (dead 1,400 years) and Elijah (taken to heaven 900 years earlier) appearing in "glorious splendor" — a radiant energy field. Romans 8 says God chose those who trust him and "made them to be like his Son." Romans 8:18: "The present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."
Ephesians says God has "raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms." And Revelation 22:5 says we will reign — forever and ever. Over what? Two trillion galaxies. 200 sextillion stars. 2 to 400 sextillion planets. Only 117 billion people have ever lived, and few have followed the narrow way. God may give a small team like FCF their own planet. "I'm not exaggerating."
But here is the key: the hardships that make us ask "does any of this make sense?" — those are the very things that are forming us. Training us to use power with humility, gentleness, generosity, and compassion — because we've been through it. We know what it feels like to be rejected, betrayed, sick, weak, falsely accused.
Important Applications
- Stop judging yourself by what you cannot do yet. You are in the early stages of an eternal transformation. The right word is "not yet."
- You will feel loved all the time, in a way you have never felt before. You will feel nothing but love for everyone around you. That is your destiny. It ends extraordinarily well.
- The things you currently dislike most about your life — the suffering, the confusion, the weakness — are the very things God is using to form you into a tenderhearted, compassionate servant-leader fit for eternity.
- The tapestry looks like chaos from the back. God is weaving something beautiful. Trust the Weaver.