The Power Of The Cross Series

I think there's something inside of all of our hearts that loves superheroes. I think that as I was growing up, I really liked the Old Testament Bible stories of Samson, David, Moses, and Joshua. Those are great stories. I can imagine the Jewish young men growing up, the disciples themselves growing up, hearing those stories about Joshua knocking down the walls of Jericho and David killing Goliath, Gideon taking 300 men and conquering this huge battle. Just all of these superheroes in the Bible are attractive to us.

Maybe that's one of the reasons that the disciples were so attracted to Jesus because He was the ultimate superhero. He can feed all these people with just a little bit. He's the one who can heal people. What an amazing person. So they're all in. They want to serve Christ with all of their hearts. I think that's why it's so difficult for them to grasp this idea that Jesus is going to die. I mean, He's only thirty-two years old. That's pretty young. They're imagining He has this reign that He's going to set up. A reign of righteousness, His kingdom that He talked about. Now He's going to die? It was hard for them to grasp this and understand how could a superhero die.

But Jesus knew that the death on the cross that He would experience was really the purpose that He came. It would really be the important part of His mission here. That's what He was doing. He came to die. The disciples didn't understand that until later. John now is writing about that in John 12 and He's helping us realize that Jesus came to die.

So we're going to open our Bibles. First, I want to take you to a passage that I think is an application of John 12. It just helps us get a feel for why the cross of Christ is so important on a practical level. Today, tomorrow, why is the cross of Christ so important?

Would you stand with me? I want you to listen as I read this passage of scripture. We stand in honor of God's word because of its awesome respect that we have for it.

2 Corinthians 4:7-11 reads this way: But we have this treasure in jars of clay. In other words, we have God inside of us. We have the Holy Spirit inside of us. We’re just jars of clay. We’re nothing. But that’s where our power comes from. To show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Here’s where the hope comes.

The hope comes from this power that God provides. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Today as we come before the Lord, we recognize our weakness, our frailty, the pain that we're experiencing. We're so grateful for the death of Jesus Christ because that's what provides the life that we can enjoy in the midst of our pain and suffering and so on.

So as the scene unfolds in our story in John 12:27 and the curtain comes up, we see Jesus talking to the Father. Notice the conversation as Jesus is talking to the Father because He's experiencing in His own heart some anguish. He says these words: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?

Jesus was fully human and fully God. Here we see His humaneness wrestling with the pain that He's about to experience. The cross experience, I just can't even imagine the pain that would be associated with that. As Jesus looks toward that, it's just very painful to think about. It creates this anguish in His soul.

Now the word soul is the word psuche where we get our word ‘psychology’ from. If you go to a psychologist or you go to a counselor, it's usually because your soul is troubled. This idea of troubled is it's anguished, it's upset. You want some resolution in the midst of that. Jesus describing here that His soul is upset.

I’m so grateful that we have Jesus who can identify with our challenges. We don't come to God only when everything's nice and tidy. We come to the Lord when our soul is upset. We come before Him. Jesus is modeling that for us. He says – “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? From the pain of the cross?”