Easter Sunday - The Promise Of The Cross Series

It’s Easter Sunday again.

This morning we celebrate that Jesus is Alive.

We celebrate because of His death on the Cross that means our sins can be forgiven.

We celebrate because He rose from the grave and defeated death so that we might live.

This month we are considering together the Supernatural Stream of God’s Promise and my title for this mornings sermon is:

The Promise of The Cross

Christianity is a supernatural faith, but it has its basis firmly rooted in historical facts.

Our faith depends on us believing the true historic facts that Jesus was crucified and that He rose from the grave.

Either Jesus Christ rose from the dead or He did not.

The Bible says He rose, the history of Christianity proves He arose.

The personal experience of every born-again believer agrees with the biblical record.

Jesus Christ is alive today.

For us to fully grasp the Events of that first Easter Sunday, we need to take a moment to consider the Event that took place on the first Good Friday - the crucifixion of Jesus.

The Crucifixion of Jesus is at the centre of the Message of the Gospel.

The prophecies and predictions recorded in the Old Testament were fulfilled when Jesus hung on the cross.

The events leading up to Christ’s death are filled with emotion, but it is when Jesus,

the Spotless Lamb of God, becomes our substitute,

when He takes the punishment for Sin that we deserve, when He bears the full penalty of our Sin, that is when we really marvel at the amazing infinite grace and love of God.

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You know the events that led to the Cross,

Jesus had eaten the Passover supper with his disciples on Thursday evening.

Then He and His disciples went to the garden in Gethsemane to pray.

It was there in the Garden that Jesus was arrested, and before 9:00 a.m. on Friday morning, he had been tried six times—three times before a Jewish group and three times before a Roman court.

Jesus refused to speak in his defence - He knew what had to happen.

False witnesses spoke against Him, and He was treated shamefully.

Then a crown of thorns was pushed into place on His head and people spat on Him.

At His crucifixion, the soldiers divided up his clothes and gambled with dice to win them.

Jesus was put on a cross and crucified between two thieves.

All the mockery, all the ridicule, the suffering and the pain of crucifixion. Yet God was at work!

God was providing our way back to Him because of what Jesus endured on the Cross.

God’s plan of redemption was in progress to save sinners like me and you.

None of us will ever completely understand what Christ accomplished on the cross.

It is beyond our human comprehension,

but we can thank God this morning that the promise of redemption for all who trust in Jesus as Lord and Saviour was made reality at the cross.

We look to the Cross in faith and say “I am a sinner, and the mercy of God is revealed to me in the death of Jesus,” then a miracle occurs in our lives.

The Apostle Paul called it being “saved,” Jesus spoke of it as being “born again.”

We are transformed when we know we are accepted by God, when we know we have been forgiven because of the saving work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

5 things for us to consider in relation to the cross.

I. The Man of the cross.

II. The Maker of the cross.

III. The mercy of the cross.

IV. The message of the cross.

V. The miracle after the cross.

I. The Man of the cross.

Jesus was more than just a good man - He was the Son of God.

He was the one who fulfilled the promise given long before His birth that a virgin would become pregnant.

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin.

Those who knew him testified concerning his true nature. Simon Peter called Him “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16).

John the Baptist testified, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

After the resurrection, Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

History is filled with the testimony of people who, though they lived after Him, have joined those who knew him in the flesh in proclaiming Jesus greatness, deity and equality with God the Father.

II. The Maker of the cross.

Who was responsible for Jesus’ death?

If we look at it only from our human perspective, some people would say it was the Roman soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross.

But the soldiers were only doing a job they had done many times before.