MESSAGES

                                FROM THE

                                                                     WORD

                  WHAT SHOULD WE KNOW ABOUT THE CROSS

                                                           Matthew 16:21-23   

SERIES:  The Cross                                                                                              Message # 1

More than a century ago, a large cross was raised over a hill overlooking our city.  While not as tall as the statute of Christ which over looks the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, it has that same appearance.  Several decades ago, the owner of the land on which the cross rests, donated the land to the city as a historical memorial.  This past month, a single individual has threatened to sue the city unless the city tears down the cross.  The city has chosen to stand firm on this issue.

What is it about the cross that causes so much hostility?  During the first century, Christians were branded as an illegal religion because they refused to acknowledge the deity of the Caesar.  Each year citizens of Rome were required to come before the Roman seat, burn incense, and say “Caesar is Lord”.  Because Christians believed that only Jesus is Lord, they refused to utter those words and were branded as political prisoners.  They didn’t have to believe those words, simply utter them.  However, they could not do even that. Our nation does not require people to swear allegiance to Jesus Christ.  We don’t require people to bow at the cross.  We don’t mandate that people attend a certain church.  We give people freedom to worship as they please, or not to worship at all.  However, our nation was founded by people who did acknowledge God and almost exclusively the God of the Old and New Testaments.  In other words, our nation was founded by those who believed in the God of the Bible.  Not all of the early pioneers were Christians, but even those who were not saw the Bible as the basis of the society and its laws.

That has changed and it is anyone’s guess as to how this is going to play out in our nation.  Our nation’s Supreme Court will decide this year whether “under God” can remain in the Pledge of Allegiance.  That decision will go a long way to deciding what will take place in the rest of our nation as to what to do with public religious symbols and monuments.

Why is the cross such a hot bed of animosity?  I believe that the cross is a reminder to our society that God judges sin.  Christianity teaches that God mandated Jesus die on the cross so that sins could be forgiven.  The rejection of the cross is nothing more than our culture saying that it rejects God’s view on sin.  The cross is a symbol, but symbols are important in reminding ourselves what we believe and what we don’t believe.  When we talk about the cross, what do we want to remember?

FIRST, THE CROSS WAS PURSUED BY JESUS.  Psychologists tell us that the number one drive in the human heart is to survive.  That was not so in the life of Jesus.  He did not come to Earth to live, but to die.  As you examine the ministry of Jesus, everything was geared towards the cross.  We read,               JOHN 3:14, 15                   From the beginning of His ministry Jesus began to head towards Jerusalem so that He could die on the cross.  Ten times in the gospel of Luke we read the phrase, “IT IS NECESSARY…”  Jesus understood the necessity of the cross, even if the disciples could not.  We read,            MATTHEW 16:21-23          The disciples had a view of a Messiah who would come in on a white horse and deliver the nation of Israel from their oppressors.  That day is coming, but first Jesus had to fulfill the prophesies of Isaiah 53 and become the suffering servant who was offered up for the sins of the world.  We read,                    JOHN 10:17,18            The death of Christ was not something that just happened.  It was an event that Jesus sought.

Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus pursued the cross.  While He asked to be relieved from its reality, He yielded to the will of the Father and accepted its inevitability.  As you read through the last week in the life of Christ, it is an amazing event.  Jesus constantly reminded His disciples that He had to die in Jerusalem and it had to be on the Passover.  When an event occurred which seemed to distract from that which Jesus was focused on, He always brought it back to “I must die in Jerusalem on the Passover”.  He never wavered from that reality.  The plan of God was for Jesus to die on the Passover.  However, the religious leaders of the time had a very different idea.  We read,                         MATTHEW 26:1-4           The Jewish leaders were doing all they could to make sure that they had no situations over the festival.  But Jesus had to put His nose where it wasn’t wanted and spoiled everything.  The result was Good Friday, just as Jesus had planned.

SECOND, THE CROSS WAS PERFOMED BY MEN.  There is much controversy over who is actually responsible for the physical death of Jesus Christ.  Some blame the Jews who kept insisting that Jesus be executed.  We read,          ACTS 3:13-15          In this passage, Peter even goes so far as to blame the Jews as the ones who actually crucified Jesus.  However, the Romans were just as responsible for the death of Christ as were the Jews. 

While the religious leaders sought Christ’s death, the Romans could have stopped it at any time and ultimately were the ones who nailed the spikes into the body of our Lord.  As you read through the four Gospels, Pilate seems to desire to release Jesus.  On several occasions Pilate tried to release Jesus, only to be attacked by the Jewish leaders.  It is at this point that we need to go into a little bit of background.  One of the problems Jews have with the Passion story is that they receive all the blame and Pilate seems to come across as Mr. Nice Guy.  It is important to keep in mind that Pilate was not a nice individual.  He would have slit the throat of his wife if that had been helpful to his career. 

Pilate hated Jerusalem.  He ruled from the Mediterranean coast and only came to Jerusalem for the festivals.  On many occasions, the Jews had made it difficult for Pilate, causing Rome to send a message of “control the Jews or be replaced”.  Pilate could not afford another riot.  He knew that Jesus was popular with the people, so he figured that releasing Jesus would bring him favor with the people.  I believe he also saw this as an opportunity to stick it to the religious leaders.  He was being nice to Jesus, not because he was a nice person, but because it was a chance to antagonize the Jewish leaders who were his enemy.

We must also remember that Jesus allowed Himself to go to the cross because of the sins of every human who would ever live.  Therefore, the ones responsible for the cross are all those who have ever lived.  That included you and me.  No single individual and no single ethnic group can claim responsibility, not accept the blame for the crucifixion.  It was the entire human race which accomplished the feat.  The famous Dutch painter, Rembrandt understood this when he painted “The Raising of the Christ”.  It is a portrait of the crucifixion, featuring Roman soldiers lifting up the cross on which Jesus is hanging.  When Rembrandt came to paint the soldier who was pulling on the rope lifting the cross into place, he painted in his own face.  He understood that it was he who really crucified Jesus Christ.

THIRD, THE CROSS WAS PROCLAIMED BY THE APOSTLES.  The cross was not something shied away from by the early church.  It was the heart and soul of their sermons.  We read,         ACTS 3:13-15; 4:8-10; 5:29-32; 10:38-40            It was the reality of the cross that caused people to realize their sinfulness.  We try to think of ourselves as “not that bad”, but when we come to grips with the reality that our sin nailed Jesus to the cross, all pride is removed. 

Some of you may have attended churches where creeds were repeated.  One of the most famous is simply called “The Apostles’ Creed”.  It states, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth; And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; and was descended into Hades.  The third day He rose again from the dead.  He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  Whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Spirit; in the holy catholic church; the communion of the saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.  Amen”.  From the earliest point of the beginning of the church, the cross, or as the creed refers to it as, “was crucified, dead and buried…”  It is also interesting that the creed states that when Jesus died, he suffered at the hands of “Pontius Pilate” and not at the hands of the Jews. 

The cross is what separates Christianity from every other religion.  Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, or New Age religions do not have an empty tomb or a plan of atonement.  This is why it is so tragic what is taking place in the church with the attempt to downplay the cross and become like every other religion.  It is the cross and the empty tomb that is our uniqueness. 

FOURTH, THE CROSS WAS PREDETIRMINED BY GOD.  There are many mysteries in the Bible.  A mystery is a truth that is hidden until God chooses to unveil it.  The cross is one of the mysteries that I will never understand.  Peter did not explain this fact, He jus preached it.  We read,                    ACTS 2:22-24                   He simply stated that this event was predetermined and accomplished with the foreknowledge of God.  When did this plan go into effect?  We read                 1 PETER 1:17-21                   When did God plan out His plan of salvation?  It was before the world was created.  If you are thinking, this presents you with a tough question.  If the cross was planned before the creation of the world, then God planned out the crucifixion of Christ before sin entered the world.  Why then would He do that?  The answer is very easy?  No one knows.  That is why it is a mystery.

This is why no ethnic group can be held responsible for the crucifixion.  Each of those who participated in the arrest, trial, beating, crucifixion and death of Christ are responsible for their own actions, but their sin is not transferable to anyone else.  It is God Himself who put this plan into action.

FIFTH, THE CROSS IS THE POWER IN THE CHURCH.  When you go in to purchase an automobile there are several questions you want to ask.  You want to know how safe the car is in a crash, what mileage it gets, how comfortable the seats are, the service policy and how it looks.  There is one other question that usually guys ask and that is, “what does it have under the hood”?  In other words, how powerful is the engine?  There is nothing worse than having a new car and have it sputter up the hill.  You want a car that has some power to it. 

There are many reasons World War II was won by the allies.  Certainly a theological reason was that Hitler declared war on the Jews and God’s promise to Abraham to curse those who cursed his descendants went into operation.  There are also military reasons why Hitler lost.  One of those reasons was his decision to invade Russia.  This caused the German army to have to fight on two different fronts.  During the terrible winter, the vaunted German tank force came to a halt because the supply trains were immobile and the Panzer divisions ran out of gas.  When your power source dies, you don’t move.

There are many ways in which a religious operation can move forward.  Islam has grown primarily on its convert or die philosophy.  Many of the cults have grown on its theological belief that the only way to get to Heaven is to work hard and make new recruits.  The other way to go about it is simply to be in obedience to God and allow Him to energize His work.  You will remember that the church was born on the Day of Pentecost.  Peter preached his sermon, the people were convicted and 3000 new converts were won to Christ.  There was nothing Peter did to bring in that crowd; it was a sovereign act of God.  This is why prayer is so powerful in the life of the church.  When we work like crazy and something good happens, we tend to take credit for the success.  However, when we pray and God does a powerful work, we know that nothing we did could have caused the success.  It was only God who could have moved.

The power in the church is not ad campaigns, fancy sermons, nice facilities, or famous celebrities.  Paul wrote,              ROMANS 1:16, 17    What is the gospel?  It is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and that is the power of God.  Paul did not stop in Romans.  We read,                    1 CORINTHIANS 1:17, 18            The proclamation of the cross is the power of God.  Let’s look at how this works.  We read,                    ACTS 6:7; 8:35-39; 16:14, 15, 25-33; 17:10-12;                   There were no fancy plans, simply the desire to proclaim the gospel and watch the Holy Spirit do His work.  In some situations, one person came to Christ.  On another occasion 3000 were converted.  The result is not ours.  We are simply to spread the seed and allow God to do His work.

Let me add another aspect of this truth.  The preaching of the word of God and the preaching of the gospel are synonymous terms.  When you want someone to come to Christ, you need to open the word and share that with them.  There is another aspect of this and that is the power of the word in the life of the believer.  The word brings people to Christ, but it also brings growth to those who have already come into the family of God.  We are told,               1 THESSALONIANS 2:7-13; 1 TIMOTHY 4:11-16; II TIMOTHY 2:15; 3:16, 17; TITUS             2:11-15                            It is the word of God that does its work in the life of the believer.

As we have watched the war in Iraq and its aftermath, there is a question that seems to constantly come up.  It is, “where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction”.  The answer to that question has not yet been answered.  However, there is a question to which we do have the answer.  The church is constantly facing spiritual forces and needs to fight the good fight.  In our battle against evil, where are our weapons of Mass Destruction?  The answer is very simple,      II CORINTHIANS 10:3-5  The weapons at our disposal are powerful and all originate at one place, the cross.

This message is from the teaching ministry of Glen Jackson, pastor of Faith Christian Church.