God’s Heart On Display Series

Introduction – The Answer to Every Question

Stand at the foot of the cross and look up.

A rough wooden beam against a dark sky, a dying man between heaven and earth.

It may seem like defeat, but here—right here—is the pivot of all history and the answer to the deepest questions every heart asks.

Why is there evil if God is good?

Does my life matter?

Can the guilt I carry ever be lifted?

At Calvary God speaks His clearest yes.

As Paul wrote:

> “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6)

That is not poetry; it is reality.

Something happened on that hill that secured your place in heaven’s life and verdict.

Hundreds who saw the risen Christ were still alive in Paul’s day (1 Corinthians 15:6).

No empire could silence their testimony.

No persecution could quench the news.

The cross and resurrection explain why.

When the early church proclaimed that the One whom men crucified now reigns and intercedes, they weren’t selling a metaphor.

They were announcing a fact that overturns despair.

If Christ is alive and interceding, then the gospel is true, sins are forgiven—past, present, and future—and believers are already counted as seated with Him.

That is where this message begins: Calvary is God’s heart on display, the glorious answer to every question.

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1 – Answer to Our Questions

Why has this story endured when empires collapsed?

Why did a handful of fishermen overthrow centuries of idol worship?

Because the cross is more than a tragedy; it is a triumph of love and justice.

If Christ is alive and interceding for us in the heavens above, then His gospel is true. All believers have had their sins forgiven… and are joyful possessors now of eternal life and the verdict of the Last Judgment.

Here is the good news:

You do not wait until the end of time to know God’s verdict.

At Calvary and the empty tomb that verdict was rendered.

Eternal life is not merely promised; it is present.

The believer already lives in the reality of heaven’s acceptance.

This is why Paul exults,

> “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

Calvary is not an isolated event.

It is the axis on which the universe turns.

It is the place where history’s riddles—evil, suffering, guilt, death—are gathered into Christ and answered with blood-sealed mercy and unstoppable resurrection.

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2 – Old Testament Heroes Pointed to the Cross

Centuries before Good Friday, God was already sketching the cross in the stories of His people.

Isaac on Mount Moriah

Isaac, the child of promise, walked for three days under a death sentence, carrying the wood on which he was to die.

In the end God provided a substitute.

Now Christ, the true Isaac, has come, and to show that, He is offered at the same site, the hill of Moriah.

Noah and the Ark

Long before Isaac, Noah stepped from the storm of judgment and offered a sacrifice beside the saving wood of the ark.

That sacrifice symbolized a new covenant with a new world.

So at Calvary the fierce storm of divine wrath fell on the One fastened to the tree so it would never fall on us.

These stories are not coincidences.

They are God’s previews, declaring that salvation would come through a representative who bears the penalty of sin and turns judgment into refuge.

Every altar, every Passover lamb, every scapegoat and serpent lifted on a pole whispered of a greater sacrifice.

And notice the difference between human wrath and God’s wrath.

God’s wrath is holy and healing, “the inevitable reaction of holiness against evil,” never selfish or ungovernable.

The cross shows wrath and love perfectly joined: God against sin, God for sinners.

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3 – The Cross: More Than Forgiveness

Forgiveness is central, but Calvary is deeper still.

> “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement… to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:24, 26)

If we want to understand the Cross, we need to understand that it is not just about forgiveness. It is also about the holiness of God… God Himself could not forgive sin until its penalty was paid.

All our sins, he said, “are but a grain of sand compared to the mountain of His forgiveness,” a single dewdrop lost in the ocean of His mercy.

Yet God’s holiness required that sin’s penalty be borne.

The cross satisfied that justice so mercy could flow freely.

The cross is a microcosm of the universe:

It reveals God’s heart—against sin but for sinners.

It reveals humanity’s heart—so twisted it would destroy its own Creator.