Boast In The Cross

BOAST IN THE CROSS

Gal. 6:14

Dorn Ridge May 4, 2008

Notes revised for Sermon Central May 23, 2013

INTRODUCTION:

1.) What are you most proud of? Is it your children, your sports ability, your mind?

2.) Paul turns our attention to what we should glory in above all else,

The Cross of Jesus Christ.

3.) If we were to define Christianity by a symbol we would have to choose the Cross of Christ.

I. AN HISTORICAL FACT IS ANNOUNCED: THE CROSS OF CHRIST.

1.) The truth is that God so loved the world that He gave his One and only Son to die for our sins.

A.) The very basis of Christianity and of the hope we have is that Jesus went to the cross and that he died for you and me.

B.) This is the message of the ages, and the answer to the questions of life.

2.) The reality and acceptance of the cross of Christ is the central truth upon which God has provided salvation through Christ.

A.) From the very beginning many have had trouble accepting the cross.

B.) I Cor. 1:18,23-25

C.) Realizing the importance of the cross, the Apostle Paul said: "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

ca.) To the Jews it was "a stumbling block". It was a symbol of weakness, humiliation and defeat.

caa.) The Jews could not accept a Christ who would suffer and die on a cross.

cab.) The other side of the picture of the Christ was very acceptable. The view that the Messiah or Christ could be a king was desirable.

cac.) But for Jesus as the Christ to suffer and die on a cross, was something the Jewish people could not accept.

cad.) Jesus did not fit the image they had of the Messiah. So instead of their Messiah, He became a stumbling stone, and a rock of offence to the Jews.

cb.) The Greeks also had a problem with the Cross. It offended their sense of reason.

cba.) In their minds no sane person would believe that kind of a tale.

cbb.)The Greeks were the Philosophers, and the minds that were considered the intellectually brilliant.

cbc.) Yet these the intellectual, wise minds of the day rejected God’s Messiah.

cbc-1.) They considered it foolishness that a man could die, and be raised to life again.

cbc-2.)Because of this frame of mind, the Greeks like the Jews for the most part rejected Jesus as the Christ.

D.) Yet the apostle Paul affirmed that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man.

da.) Though Jesus was (and still is) rejected by the majority, to those who accepted his message and believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.

db.) There is no greater source of pride we can have than in the Cross, and more than the cross, in the Christ who died on that cross.

3.) The death of Jesus upon the Cross was not an accident.

A.) It wasn’t the greatest tragedy of all time, nor was it something to be imitated. It is the means of our salvation.

B.) It’s the only way by which you and I can be saved from God’s righteous judgement.

ba.) The cross was in the mind and plan of God before the foundation of the world or man was even in place.

bb.) Before sin had ever entered into this world, God had already determined he would himself pay the penalty of our sin through the blood of His son, Jesus Christ.

bc.) Long before the Garden of Eden, and the sin that occurred there, God had determined he would pay the price of our sins, so that we could have eternal fellowship with Him.

4.) Paul made the Cross and what Christ did on that cross both the focus and power of his preaching.

A.) I Cor. 2:1-5

II. A SPRITUAL EXPERIENCE IS AFFIRMED: THE WORLD HAS BEEN CRUCIFIED TO US, AND WE TO THE WORLD.

-- Gal. 2:20

1.) What really counts and matters in this world and in the world to come is the new life we have through the Grace of God.

A.) The new life we have in Jesus Christ we did not receive through our works, or goodness, but through the grace of God so generously given to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

2.) The cross may look like defeat, but it is victory!

A.) Victory over sin, victory over the law, victory over the grave.

III. A PERSONAL ATTITUDE IS ASSUMED: GOD FORBID THAT WE SHOULD BOAST IN ANYTHING BUT THE CROSS OF CHRIST.

1.) Boasting in anything or anyone else leads us into error.

A.) Before coming to Christ, Paul had been full of himself.