His Passion For The Cross Series

His Passion For The Cross

The Passion Of The Christ – pt 3

It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last. Luke 23

YOU KNOW – most of the times both victory & defeat are easy to recognize… Last Monday night in San Antonio – it was easy to recognize that it was Uconn that got the win and GT was the one who was defeated. Back in February in Houston, when the lights were flashing, confetti falling, when the hats and t-shirts were being put on it was easy to tell that The New England Patriots won Super Bowl 38 and that the Carolina Panthers were defeated.

YES – in sports, in business, in war, in political elections, in life – most of the time victory and defeat are easy to recognize… BUT – not always… FOR YOU SEE – sometimes (not often, but sometimes) in life what looks like a sure defeat turns out to be a great victory…

In 1948 Harry S Truman ran for re-lection as the 33rd President of the United States. It actually was Truman’s first time to run for president. YOU SEE – he became president when FDR died 83 days into his 4th term as president. Truman was running against Thomas Dewey and every public opinion poll predicated that Dewey would win by a landslide.

Newsweek Magazine polled 50 top political experts throughout the country and they gave Dewey 366 electoral votes, 100 more then he needed to win. The Ft. Lauderdale Daily News predicted that Dewey would get at least 62% of the vote. Life Magazine featured a full page picture of Dewey with the caption, “The New President travels by ferryboat across the broad waters of San Francisco Bay.”

The Kiplinger Letter already on the desks of the leading business men of the day, described the economic policies of the new Dewey administration. The Manchester Guardian’s final election report was called – ‘Harry S Truman, Study of a Failure. AND – the Chicago Tribune had already published as their headline story, Dewey Defeats Truman.”

On election night while Dewey was in new York working out the final bugs of his acceptance speech, Harry Truman was in Excelsior Springs Mo, taking a Turkish bath, eating a ham sandwich and drinking a glass of milk listening to the election returns. He said, “At 6 O’clock I was defeated I was defeated at 10 O’clock, At midnight I heard the report that I was 1,200,000 votes ahead but was still undoubtedly beaten.”

Truman went to bed and was awakened at 4 am by a secret service man who told him that eh 2,000,000 votes, but the commentators continued to say he couldn’t see how Truman could be elected. HOWEVER – despite all the commentators, newspapers and all the polls that said he was defeated, that said he didn’t even have a chance of winning, Harry S Truman was still the elected choice of the people as their President. WHAT – looked like a defeat tuned out to be a great victory…

TODAY – is week 3… In our message series, ‘The Passion Of Christ..’ FRIENDS – Jesus Christ was the most passionate man who ever walked the face of this earth. In week one we talked about Christ’s passion for you… How everything that he did, everything that he endured was because he loved you.. and because he wanted to be with you…

LAST WEEK – we talked about Christ passion for the hurting… We said that His passion for the hurting was natural, needed & near…

It was natural because of who he was and because of why he came… UNDERSTAND – Christ was God in the flesh and God has ALWAYS heard the cries, seen the hurt and been concerned about the pain of his people… “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Ps 56:8

Christ passion for the hurting is needed because the world is full of hurting people… and because hurting people are not always treated so good by the world…

AND FINALLY – we saw that Christ’s passion for the hurting was near… UNDERSTAND – the Christ got close to hurting people, close even to touch them… “The LORD is closed to the brokenhearted; He rescues those who are crushed in spirit…” Ps 34:18 (NLT) The Passion Of The Christ – is amazing! AND – this morning we get to talk about the highpoint, the pinnacle of the passion of the Christ… His Passion For The Cross…