How Do You View The Cross?

How do you view the Cross?

It is the grandest single chapter in the entire Bible.

And at the center of the Christian faith stands the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We sometimes think that Easter should be celebrated only once a year.

But actually every Sunday—the first day of each week—celebrates the empty tomb, and apart from Christ risen from the dead there can be no Christian faith.

Paul knew that and in his great chapter on the resurrection of the dead, which is now preserved for us in 1 Corinthians 15,

Paul makes this statement: "If Christ has not been raised your faith is futile and you are still in your sins."

If God has not raised his Son, as the New Testament tells us he has, then there is no basis for our Christian faith.

And we might as well just give up all of our Christian activity and proclamation and go do something else.

The Christian faith stands or falls on the resurrection of its Lord.

Jesus Christ risen from the dead is the central tenet of our belief.

The one most exhilarating thing in the whole range of human experience is the thought that we are immortal, that we cannot die, that whatever may happen to the body, we ourselves shall live on and on and on and on.

And we have this feeling made sure in our hearts because Jesus rose from the dead.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4

1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

The first thing that we need to understand is that if there had been no resurrection:

Death would have won, and the life of Christ would have been exterminated.

And if the resurrection didn’t really happen, then everything He said about these things was a bunch of what Colonel Potter on M*A*S*H would call, “Horse hockey.”

If Christ had not been raised he would have no power over death. We would have no hope of life beyond the grave.

We would not be able to say with Job, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth,and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:25-26).

We need to understand that without the resurrection:

Evil would have won and the sacrifice of Christ would have been worthless.

Jesus died for the sins of the world.

But if sin killed him, and he was not able to rise from the dead, sin would have won.

Evil would have conquered good and killed God. The Bible says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

If death had conquered Jesus Christ it would mean he could not conquer death for us. Everything rests on this, for the Bible says, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

This is the underpinning of the Christian faith. Without the resurrection Jesus Christ is just another dead religious teacher.

But because of the resurrection, he is Lord of all. He has conquered death, sin and hell. He has said, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19).

Christ died for our sins.

He died for our failures. Our impurities. Our sinful life.

Our failures are not Fatal because of the cross.

Jesus took the blame for our failures.

Jesus lived a perfect life, so that his life would be accredited to your account.

And all of your sins and all my sins and all the sins of everyone that ever lived or will ever live was imputed or charged against Jesus’ account.

The great thing is Jesus was not forced on the cross.

Let us see how to pick up the cross on that 650 yard walk to Golgotha.

There are three ways we can view the cross as Christians today.

Some Christians today are forced to the cross.

People like Simon of Cyrene. Simon was forced to carry Jesus’ cross

I always said that even the few times I went to church I became a drug addict. Because joy always drugged me all the way there.

Some of you are in that picture. The husband who comes out of obligation for his wife.

A mother that comes for her children. Others who come out of tradition.