MESSAGES

                                FROM THE

                                                                     WORD

                                  THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CROSS

                                                           Philippians 2:5-11

SERIES:  The Cross                                                                                              Message # 2

            Controversy is not anything new in the work of God.  From the beginning, God has been involved in controversial activities.  Because of this, the church should never shy away from controversial issues.  Whether it was confronting the Roman Empire with the claims of Christ, being willing to be burned at the stake in the Middle Ages, opposing slavery, or standing for the life of the fetus, controversial issues have always been a part of God’s work. 

            In three weeks, one of the most controversial films of our time will be released.  Entitled, The Passion of the Christ, this movie will focus in an honoring way on the last twelve hours in the life of Jesus Christ.  The movie produced and directed by Mel Gibson, will be very graphic in its presentation.  It also promises to be very accurate in its depiction.  Much of the controversy over the film deals with the role played in the story by Jews who opposed Jesus.  At various times throughout history, Jews have been slandered and even killed for being “Christ-killers”.

      Several hundred years ago, God spared the city of Oberammagau, Austria from a plague that ravaged the area.  In gratitude, the people pledged to produce a passion play every decade because of God’s mercy.  Even to this day, people travel from around the world to partake in this massive production, which is presented every ten years.  During the 1930’s, Hitler pointed to this play as one of the reasons Jews should be exterminated.  Hitler tried to convince Germany that the Jews were evil because they were the ones who killed the Lord.  It didn’t seem to cause notice that at this same time, Hitler was making peace with Italy even though Rome was just as responsible for the death of Christ.  Why let facts get in the way of your hatred?

In preparation for the wide publicity of this film, I want to take a look at the heart of this story, which is the cross.  What is it about this event that causes so much controversy in our world?  Why does the ACLU spend so much time seeking to remove crosses from around our nation, while at the same time such items as Native American religious symbols are never opposed? 

Several years ago, a young person came to our services dressed in what was known at that time as “grunge attire”.  The young lady wore a long, black trench coat, dark make-up under her eyes, and big crosses on her ears.  Because the service had not yet begun, I sat down with the girl and introduced myself.  I then commented on her earrings and asked what they represented.  She replied, “I don’t have any idea, I just thought they were pretty.” 

Many believers wear crosses as pieces of jewelry.  They might be earrings, necklaces, or in some cases a tattoo.  They are usually crafted out of pure gold or silver and have a very smooth and beautiful appearance.  C.S. Lewis pointed out that the cross was never used as a symbol of the Church until there were no believers alive who had witnessed a crucifixion.  The Roman historian Cicero stated, “the cross is the most cruel and disgusting action.  There are no fitting words to describe that terrible act”.  You can just imagine the reaction if I were to walk into a church filled mostly with African-Americans and pulled out a rope which had a noose at the end and announce that I wanted to speak on race relations.  Because many of those in attendance had ancestors who had been lynched, they might find my actions to be very insensitive.  If I attended a class at the University of Judaism and wore a T-shirt that announced, “my parents went to Auschwitz and all I got was this crummy T-shirt”, I might just get a very hostile reaction.  Why?  It is because that shirt would remind them of a terrible event which took place in their lives and in the lives of their ancestors.

The reason we wear crosses as pieces of jewelry today and are not repulsed by them is because time and theology have healed the wounds.  I want to remind us why the cross is so critical in the church today.

FIRST, WE SEE THE PHYSICAL REALITY OF THE CROSS.  When we talk about the cross, it is difficult for us to have anything other than a sanitized version.  The only crosses we ever see are silver, gold, or sanded and painted wood.  They are beautiful to look at and lovely to own.  That was not the case in the first century.  The cross was an instrument of torture and execution.  It was not sanded and varnished.  It was rough and rugged.  The nails used in those executions would have resembled railroad spikes.  Roman soldiers had no qualms about making people suffer and there were no organizations set up to protect the rights of the individual. 

Crucifixion was a cruel means of death and it was used by the Romans to intimidate the population.  If a small uprising took place, the Romans would come in and crucify a number of people with the threat of more if the uprising continued.  It would be not unlike what took place in Iraq.  Hussein would arrest people or send in his troops to executed people just to keep people in line. 

The means of execution was a brutal event.  People would often be whipped and flogged before the event.  The Romans would take a leather strap and intertwine sharp objects into the end of the strap.  They would then whip the individual and drag the end of the strap across the back of the one being whipped.  This would rip open the flesh and expose it to more damage.  We read,        MATTHEW 27:27-31               If you were to put the gospels in chronological order you would discover that Jesus was actually beaten on three different occasions.  When He finally began His walk to Calvary, He would have become a bloody mess. 

When the victim was brought to the site of the crucifixion, they would be stripped as an act of humiliation, and then nailed to the cross.  The nails would have been driven into the wrists and just behind the ankle.  The weight of the body would have forced the body to sag.  However, this would have made it difficult to breathe.  The individual would have forced their body up and try to stand erect, but this would have required them too forcibly rub their exposed back against the rugged timber of the cross.  This would have caused splinters to enter the exposed back, creating a very painful situation.  When the pain became too great, the individual would sag again, which would cause a lack of oxygen.  Eventually, the individual would become too weak to stand up and they would suffocate.  In many situations, their death would take many days.

When the early church talked about the cross, this is what they discussed.  It was not a golden piece of jewelry or a sanded piece of beautiful oak.  It was rough timber that was specifically designed to bring as much pain and agony as possible.  The very thought of the cross would have brought revulsion to the average person living in the Roman Empire.  The thought that a group would have chosen the cross as a symbol of their religion would have been as bizarre as a black church in the south using a hangman’s noose to represent their church, or a synagogue choosing the swastika as the logo for the congregation.  It would have been seen as a repulsive selection.

SECOND, WE SEE THE SPIRITUAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CROSS.  Were I to choose, this one point could be a semester long course on what is called in theology, “Soteriology”.  That is a big word that simply means the study of salvation.  In our allotted time, let me just briefly whet your appetite and allow the Holy Spirit to build in you a desire to know more.  Let me bring out five specific consequences of Jesus’ dying on the cross.

First, the cross satisfied the wrath of God.  When we hear about the wrath of God, it makes it sound as if God is really angry and looking for someone on whom He can vent.  That is not what the wrath of God describes.  The wrath of God is a protection of and a response to God’s holiness.  God is holy.  That is more than just being perfect; it means He is incapable of being in sin’s presence.  When Lucifer rebelled, God’s wrath had to respond and remove Him from God’s presence.  When Adam and Eve sinned, they had to be removed from the Garden of Eden.  It wasn’t an act of hatred; it was simply a matter of the wrath of God being released against sin. 

Because sin created a debt, payment had to be made to satisfy God’s holiness.  We read,                        JOHN 19:30           That phrase, “IT IS FINISHED”, is one word in the Greek.  It was used in no other document in the ancient world, so scholars were not totally convinced of its meaning.  Recently, some excavations in the Middle East unearthed hundreds of financial documents which had this phrase written over it.  It was the phrase used when the final payment had been made on an item.  It is as if Jesus was saying, “the debt owed to the holiness of God has been paid in full”.  When Christ died on the cross, the penalty of sin was paid in full and God’s wrath was dealt with.

Second, the cross brought about forgiveness.  This obviously is an extension of our previous point.  Because God’s wrath has been appeased, forgiveness can now be offered to those who meet the qualifications.  In his epistle John wrote,                    1 JOHN 1:7b                 “THE BLOOD OF JESUS…” brings about forgiveness.  There is in English a figure of speech called a metonymy.  This is a devise which allows for one picture to represent the whole of what is being discussed.  An example of this can be seen in the political arena.  A politician may accuse the president of some blunder and the next day the media will report, “the White House responded by stating…”  No one believes that the White House itself actually talks.  It is a figure of speech which represents all that the president stands for.  When we discuss the blood of Christ, it is a metonymy for the sacrifice and the death of Christ in which His blood was symbolically taken and used to wash away the consequences of our sin.  We are told,                  ISAIAH 1:18                       God takes the sin of humanity, covers them in the blood of Christ, and turns them white as snow.

Third, the cross demonstrated the love of God.  How do you show someone how much you love them?  One way to show your love is to be willing to suffer for the other person.  When you sacrifice your desires for the benefit of another, you manifest love to them.  To the degree that you are willing to sacrifice is the degree of your love.  There is no greater symbol of love than the cross.  We read,                  I JOHN 3:16                     Jesus demonstrated His love for those who hated Him by going to the cross and shedding His blood for their sakes. 

This is why Jesus could tell His disciples to “LOVE YOUR ENEMIES…”  Jesus wasn’t fishing for things to add on to a short sermon.  He called His disciples to love their enemies because that is what He was going to do Himself.  Jesus never asked His followers to do anything that He did not first do Himself.  If you want to know how much God loves you, simply look at the cross. 

Fourth, the cross broke the power of Satan.  You will remember that Satan took Jesus up to a high pinnacle, showed Him all of the kingdoms of the world, and offered to give them to Jesus if He would bow and worship Satan.  Jesus did not dispute the claims Satan made, that he had control of the kingdoms of the world.  In fact, Paul seems to agree.  We read,        II CORINTHIANS 4:3-5                        Paul calls Satan the god of this world.  However, the cross broke that power.  It was to the Hebrew believers that God wrote,      HEBREWS 2:14, 15                            It was through His death that Christ broke the stranglehold Satan had over the world.  Obviously, “HIS DEATH” is referring to the cross.  Paul put it this way,   COLOSSIANS 2:13-15                   Satan thought that the nails held in that Roman soldier’s hand was nailing the Son of God to the cross.  In reality, those huge nails were used to nail all of the accusations against the people of God made by the evil one over the centuries. 

Fifth, the cross is what brought exaltation to Jesus.  This is one of the strangest concepts in all of scripture.  The world looks at the cross and sees the humiliation of the Savior.  God looks on it as the greatest example of exaltation in the universe.  Paul put it this way,                PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11           I do not know what this name that is above every name is.  However, I know that it was only through the cross that Jesus could be given that name.  John saw the same reality.  He wrote,                REVELATION 5:1-14              The scroll John saw was the title deed to the Earth.  As he looks for this quest to find the one who might win back the Earth for God, he began to weep because he concluded that there was no one who was up to the task.  Twice these angels sing a new song to the one who was slain and who shed His blood.  That obviously is a reference to the cross.

I will now tell you more than I know, because this idea baffles me.  When we get to Heaven and stand in the presence of the Godhead, the marks of the cross will be clear and present.  All of us enjoy television programs and movies which use the talents of gifted make-up artists.  In some cases, the make-up artists transform the actor into looking like someone totally different.  However, much of what is done by the make-up people is simply to cover up the blemishes and imperfections of the star.  This is why they look so much better on screen than in person.  You would think that when Jesus entered back into the Heavenly Kingdom that the “make-up department” would have gone into high gear to cover up all of the scars given to Him by His scourging and His crucifixion.  That was not done.  Rather than seek to cover up those marks, God gives them center stage.  Why?  We are not told, but let me give you an intelligent guess.  I believe that God manifests the marks of the cross into His eternal Kingdom so that all those who spend eternity in His presence will be reminded of how great His love for His creation is.  Throughout eternity, we will sing that new song, “WORTHY IS THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN…”

            Sixth, the cross separates true believers from false.  This will sound a little arrogant, but that is only because it is God who makes this claim.  One of the major distinctions between the true believer and the false is their relationship with the cross.  The false believer is very interested in religious activities.  The true believer is consumed with the cross.  This is not because we are fanatics, but because Jesus, Himself, was consumed with the cross.

As Jesus came to the end of His ministry, He had one primary focus and that was to die on the cross.  We read,    MATTHEW 16:21                 When He finally made His entrance into Jerusalem, you will remember that the crowds welcomed Him and wanted to crown Him king.  However, theirs was a kingship without the cross.  As He went from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, He continually antagonized the religious leaders and forced their hand into bringing about the crucifixion.  The people were forced to choose between the Temple and the cross.  Tragically, the majority chose the Temple. 

As the church began to form, conflicts began to irrupt over the nature of the message.  How should the church deal with the person of Christ?  We read,         1 CORINTHIANS 1:17-23                     Paul set out the agenda very clearly.  The church that wanted to be in on the blessings of God must have at the forefront, the proclamation of the cross.  It is Jesus crucified and resurrected that was the heart of the Apostolic message. 

People moving into a new community often ask what kind of church they should look for.  Many look for a church that has a great music ministry.  Others look for a good Sunday School, youth program, children’s ministry, or friendly people.  However, the heart of the message you need to look for is their attitude about the cross.  Does the church make the cross the focal point of their ministry, or do they seek to down play it and replace the cross with slick promotions, ad campaigns, and fancy facilities.  There is nothing wrong with promotions and nice facilities, but the message God wants promoted is the cross of Christ.

As a young boy, my favorite historical event was the Alamo.  It has a central place in the formation of our nation, especially in our nation’s Southwest.  186 men took thirteen days to defend a small mission against an army of about 5000.  As the final day approached, the reinforcements hoped for did not come.  Lt. Travis, head of the Texas forces gathered the men together and explained the consequences of the next battle and then drew a line in the dirt.  All those who wanted to stay and defend the mission were asked to step over the line, the rest were free to leave.  All 186 men stepped over the line and into the history books.  God has drawn a line in the sand.  All those who wish to be pleasing in His eyes will have the cross as the central focus of their lives and of their ministry. 

The individual who wants to be religious and “spiritual” may want to discuss different theories and mystical issues.  However, they will find in the cross an offense and a rejection of God’s plan.  They will seek to change the subject and look for alternatives.  They will see Jesus as a moral leader, great teacher and good guy.  They will not see a Jesus who died on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity.  The true believer will step over that line and say, “I WILL CHERISH THE OLD RUGGED CROSS, TIL MY TROPHIES AT LAST I LAY DOWN.  I WILL CLING TO THE OLD RUGGED CROSS, AND EXCHANGE IT SOME DAY FOR A CROWN”.  This was the attitude held by the early church.  The cross was not something shied away from, but something that was preached from the rooftops

            Seventh, the cross brings true reconciliation to the world.  Through the ages, humanity has allowed religion to be used as a divisive vehicle to keep people and cultures apart.  When God called Abraham to follow Him, God’s desire was that all of the descendants of Abraham would reach out to the world and bring others into the fold.  Rather than do that, the children of Abraham chose to exclude those outside of the faith.  One of the amazing realities of the early church was their desire to reach out over religious, economic, cultural, sexual, and political divisions and simply tell others about the cross.  People flooded into the church.  Here was finally a place where people could join without worrying about their pedigree.  Paul was a key to this new venture.  We read,             EPHESIANS 2:11-16                  That which brought everything together was the reality that everyone was equal at the foot of the cross.  God was no respecter of people. 

How broken the heart of God must have been as the church involved itself in racist policies and caste systems around the world.  This sin barred people from coming to Christ because their pedigree was not of the right order.  It is the church that has the power to break down these walls.  It is the cross that gives us the power to do so.

THIRD, WE SEE THE PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE CROSS.  The cross is an historical fact.  There is enough historical evidence to believe that there was a Jewish teacher by the name of Jesus who was crucified.  The issue is not just that Jesus died on a cross.  The issue is what we will do with the fact that Jesus did die on the cross.  Thousands of Jews died on the cross during that period of time.  The event that makes the crucifixion of Jesus different is His resurrection several days later.  The cross apart from the empty tomb is simply a tragic event.  However, because the tomb is empty, Jesus is who He claimed to be, the Son of God.  That gives relevance to the cross.  Because Jesus is God in the flesh, He was a perfect sacrifice and all those issues we saw in our second point are true.  With that in mind, how do we apply the reality of the cross to our daily lives today?

First, we need to believe in the cross.  Paul wrote, 1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-5             Did you notice that Paul appealed to the scriptures on two occasions?  The cross was not a tragic event, but the fulfillment of God’s promise as found in the scriptures.  When we align with the cross, we line up with the promises of God uttered over the centuries.  This puts us in good company.  We read,                LUKE 24:17-27; 44-46      We mentioned previously that a metonymy was a picture of a part that stood for the whole.  When Jesus said that the Messiah would “SUFFER”, that is representing His trial, beating, and crucifixion.  If we believe the scriptures, we must believe that the Messiah would suffer for the sins of all humanity.

Second, we need to defend the cross.  The Apostle Paul stated,             GALATIANS 6:12-14        There are many issues facing the church over which we need to defend.  There are family issues, cultural issues, and church issues.  There is nothing that is more critical for the church to defend than the role of the cross in bringing us into a right relationship with God.  The culture in which we live is very interested in being spiritual.  New Age religion, mysticism, reincarnation, crystals, Feng Shui, self help gurus and dozens of other spiritual alternatives are available.  The human race is not lacking in coming up with new means of seeking to be right with God. It has much that it feels is clever and smart.  Paul stated,             PHILIPPIANS 3:4-6              Paul felt that he was pretty hot stuff.  That is until he met Christ.  It was at this point that his message changed.  He went from “look at me” to “look at the cross”.  His claim to fame switched from his pedigree and his diploma, to his devotion to the cross.  He finally realized that the cross was the dividing line.

No longer did he seek to defend his own credibility.  He now saw his purpose as defending the cross.  Peter was no different.  Peter was a witness to the terrible torture Jesus endured.  Yet within a very short period of time, he was proclaiming the cross from the rooftops.  We read,     ACTS 3:13-15; 4:8-10; 5:29-32; 10:38-40                 Did you notice the role of the cross in his preaching.  He did not shy away from it; rather he embraced its message.  Even if the culture finds the cross too much to handle, it must be the point at which the people of God stand.  Without the cross, there is no Christianity.

Third, we must preach the cross.  It is not enough to just believe the cross is our message, we must proclaim it.  Paul wrote,                   II TIMOTHY 4:1-5                    Even a culture that wants to have its ears tickled, needs to have itself confronted with the gospel.  You will remember that Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 15 that the gospel included the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.  We live in a society that wants to have its ears tickled.  This past week an American Airlines pilot got into big trouble when he announced over the loudspeaker that he was very excited about having just returned from a mission project.  He asked all of the Christians on the plane to raise their hands and asked the passengers not to waste time watching a movie or reading an unimportant magazine, but rather to take time and talk about Jesus Christ.   The response was pretty immediate and expected.  The passengers thought they had been hijacked by some religious kook and feared for their lives.  Such is the world in which we live.  Just to mention the name of Jesus is to bring terror into the hearts of people.  It was inappropriate for the pilot to confront his passengers in the way he did.  It was also ridiculous how the passengers and the airline responded. 

This is the world in which God has called us to preach the gospel.  That task requires we use wisdom and discretion.  We do need to be sensitive to our audience.  We also need to be bold in our presentation.  It is not enough just to be nice.  It is not enough for them just to think they are good.  They need to come face to face with the cross. 

Fourth, we need to take on the cross.  One of the most misunderstood concepts in all of the New Testament is this idea.  We read,           MATTHEW 16:24-26                   What did Jesus mean when He told His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him?  You have probably talked to people who said something like, “my mother-in-law is my cross to bear”.  “Having my illness is my cross to bear”.    “Working for such and such company is my cross to bear”.  Such comments trivialize the cross.  Remember, the cross was an instrument of death.  It was a repulsive instrument.  To “carry your cross” was to die.  Jesus carried His cross so that when He finally made it to Golgotha, they could place His body on it, nail those spikes into His body and kill Him.  When He asked His disciples to “TAKE UP HIS CROSS…”, He was asking them to walk to their death.  The cross was not an instrument of inconvenience.  It was not an instrument of unpopularity.  It was an instrument of death.  When Jesus calls us to take up our cross, He is calling us to die.  We may not physically die, but we are to give up our life for the cause of Christ. 

Fifth, we are to identify with the cross.  You may wonder how one identifies with the cross.  Do we wear a gold cross around our neck?  Do we write with a cross pen?  Do we carve a big wooden cross out of wood and carry it around the city?  None of those are what Christ calls us to do.  We read,   ROMANS 6:1-5                   We identify with the cross when we follow Christ in believers baptism.  We look at this as a pretty simple act.  It was not so in the first century.  For those who had grown up in Judaism, baptism was not only the initial rite into Christianity, but the exit out of a belief that salvation was through the Temple.  For those who came out of paganism, baptism was the initiation into an illegal religion.  Those who came to Christ entered a world in which they could lose their life, family, job, and security.  What they found was a savior who understood their pain. 

This is why we baptize only those who have confessed Christ as their Lord and why we baptize by immersion.  The only baptism in the New Testament was total immersion.  Paul identified baptism as a death, burial, and resurrection.  When you go to a funeral, the body is buried totally under ground.  You don’t lay the body on the ground and sprinkle dirt over the body.  Baptism is a picture of our dying to our own self and raising to walk in a life that is totally committed to Him. 

There are many responses people have.  Some say, “my church does it this way”.  Others say, “I think my way is best”.  Here is the problem with those responses.  The issue is not what my church believes or what I think.  The issue is what God has said.  God said that we were to identify in His death.  The only mode of baptism that identifies with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ is immersion.  The only baptism taught in the New Testament is immersion.  The only baptism practiced in the New Testament was immersion.  Should I be baptized?  Only if you want to follow in the path Christ has called you to follow.

Sixth, we are to acknowledge the cost of the cross.  I don’t mean the dollars and cents, but the emotional cost.  To set the stage for this point, let me just remind you of a reality of God.  The Trinity has always existed and has always shared intimate fellowship with itself.  It was not necessary for God to create man to have someone to talk to.  God was not lonely.  He was not bored.  He was perfectly at peace with Himself and the rest of the Godhead.  When Jesus died on the cross, something happened that had never happened before.  Forever is a long time, and forever the Godhead shared fellowship.  At the cross something happened.  We read,  MATTHEW 27:46         After eternity together, for a split moment the Father and the Son broke fellowship.  I do not pretend to understand this, but it happened.  We read,          HEBREWS 12:2                             For me and for you Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame.  Why would He do that?  Why would He allow sinful men to spit on Him?  Why would He allow those soldiers to strip Him naked?  Why would He allow Himself to be beaten, scourged, and speared?  The writer simply states, “FOR THE JOY SET BEFORE HIM…”  What joy is that?  The only joy I can think of is the millions of people who followed in His footsteps and took up His cross and followed Him all the way into eternity.

This message is from the ministry of Pastor Glen Jackson.  All rights are reserved.