Sermon on the Cross
HoHum: In the years of Communist domination of East Germany there was a symbol that brought hope and comfort to believers in Jesus. A huge TV tower had been erected to broadcast atheistic propaganda. Near the top of the building was a globe-shaped structure housing a restaurant. The remarkable thing was that the sunlight always reflected off the globe in the shape of a cross. The authorities were embarrassed and tried everything they could think of to prevent this optical phenomenon, even covering the dome with paint. But nothing worked. A preacher commented, "No matter how hard they try, they can’t get rid of the Cross!"
WBTU:
The cross is what brings us together. The death of Jesus Christ for our sins is the very heart of the gospel. However, what the Christian church considers to be good news is considered by the rest of the culture to be bad news.
According to the Bible, Jesus dies so that God can forgive sins. For many that seems ludicrous. “Why would Jesus have to die?” “Why couldn’t God just forgive us?” It all seems like Divine child abuse.
Thesis: Why the Cross? Many reasons but from Timothy Keller in The Reason for God we will explore two today.
For instances:
I. Real forgiveness involves costly suffering.
A. Economic example. Someone borrows your car, backs out of your driveway and runs over a gate, knocking it down along with part of a wall. Your property insurance doesn’t cover the gate or the wall. What can we do? 3 options:
1. Demand that the one who borrowed your car pay for all damages.
2. Refuse to let the one who borrowed the car pay for anything.
3. Both of you share the payment for the damages. You pay half, he pays half.
Notice that every option the cost of the damage must be borne by someone. Forgiveness means bearing the cost for his misdeed.
B. Most of the wrongs done to us cannot be assessed in purely economic terms. Robed of happiness, reputation, opportunity, and certain freedoms. Once we have been wronged and we realize there is a debt that can’t simply be dismissed- only two things to do.
1. Make the perpetrators suffer for what they have done. In my dreams, Halloween is getting close. If they suffer, we begin to feel a certain satisfaction. Several problems here- become colder, more self absorbed, become prejudiced, cycles of retaliation start, the evil spreads especially into our characters.
2. We can forgive. Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone when we want to do so with all our beings is agony. It is a form of suffering. We not only suffer the loss of happiness, reputation, and opportunity, but now we forgo the consolation of inflicting the same on them. We absorb the debt, taking the cost of it completely instead of taking it out on the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death.
C. It is a death of sorts but it leads to resurrection instead of the life long living death of bitterness and cynicism. As a preacher I have counseled many people about forgiveness, and I have found that if they forgive- refuse to take vengeance on the wrongdoer in action and even in their thoughts- the anger slowly begins to go away. Not giving any fuel to this and so the resentment burns lower and lower.
E. Forgiveness must be granted before it can be felt, but it does come eventually. It leads to new peace, a resurrection.
F. Forgive and forget. God can do that but we cannot. Not saying we shouldn’t try. However, when we see that person we only see a few times a year, I go through the holidays too, we have that anger and resentment resurface, we have to make that decision to forgive again. Matthew 18:21-22 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times (or 70 X 7)”
G. “Shouldn’t they be held accountable?” Yes, but only if you forgive them. Now if we are talking about breaking man’s law, criminal charges, then tell the authorities, the government, and let them deal with it. However, for other things, we need to make sure that we have forgiven them before we confront them. If not, we will go in a spirit of anger and resentment rather than in a spirit of love. Some people I still have not confronted because I would do it in a wrong spirit. Want to see them hurt, in the end hurt worse than I have. Romans 12:21 NIV • Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
H. Remember that forgiveness means bearing the cost instead of making the wrongdoer bear it. Forgiveness means absorbing the debt of sin ourselves. Keller- “Everyone who forgives great evil goes through a death into resurrection, and experiences nails, blood, sweat, and tears.” That sounds familiar doesn’t it?
I. Should it surprise us that when God determined to forgive us rather than punish us for all the ways we have wronged him and one another, that he went to the Cross in the person of Jesus Christ and died there? On the Cross-we see God doing what every human being must do to forgive someone, though on a much greater scale. 1 Peter 2:24 NIV • He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
J. Colossians 3:13 NIV • Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
K. Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
L. C.S. Lewis wrote in one of his Letters to Malcolm that “last week, while at prayer, I suddenly discovered- or felt as if I did- that I had really forgiven someone I had been trying to forgive for over 30 years. Trying, and praying that I might.”
Transition: I know that God wants me to forgive because it is good for me and good for society. However, God doesn’t understand the hurt and anger and disappointment that I feel. He doesn’t understand me!
II. Real Love is a Personal Exchange
A. In the mid- 90’s, a certain denomination held a conference in which one speaker said, “I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all; I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff.” He’s thinking of Halloween! But why can’t we just concentrate on teaching about how God is a God of love? The answer is that if we take away the Cross-we don’t have a God of love.
B. In the real world of relationships it is impossible to love people with a problem or a need without in some sense sharing or “walking in their shoes.” In my ministries, after dealing with people in difficult circumstances, I would have to come home and unwind. Why? Because I was trying to sympathize with them, I was emotionally drained. To bring them up emotionally we must be willing to be drained emotionally.
D. All life changing love toward people with serious needs is a substitutional sacrifice. If we become personally involved with them, their weakness flows toward us and our strengths flow toward them.
E. If this is true, how can God be a God of love if he does not become personally involved in suffering the same violence, oppression, grief, weakness, and pain we experience? Ah, but he has through the person of Jesus Christ. John Stott wrote, “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?”
F. The Great Reversal. God, in the place of ultimate power, reverses places with the poor and the oppressed. God himself came down from His throne and suffered with the oppressed so that we might be lifted up. One man said this Great Reversal is like us becoming a slug, God becoming a man.
G. Hebrews 2:11- Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.
H. Jesus Christ is our older brother. I know something about being an older brother.
I. My friends Jesus Christ, our elder brother, has blazed a trail for us. He knows all about our struggles and our trials. Hebrews 2:14- Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity. He shares in our humanity.
J. I have been reading the book of Job. Misery loves company. Listen to what Job says about God in Job 9:33-35: If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot. Job is basically saying that I wish that God understood my situation. Through Jesus Christ, His Son, He does.
K. Look at Hebrews 2:17- For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
L. By virtue of Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and ascension he now is in heaven and is interceding for us. Listen to what Job says through the Holy Spirit before Jesus Christ ever came on the scene in Job 16:19-21: Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend.
Conclusion and invitation:
Sing, You’re my friend and you are my brother, even though you are a King, I love you-
Let’s finish Hebrews 2:14-15 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
