The Comfortable Cross
1 Corinthians 1:18-27, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
CHCC: April 29, 2012
INTRODUCTION: (sit in chair acting like you're asleep – then “wake” up)
I guess I got too comfortable! Today we’re talking about The Comfortable Cross. (Show the cross shaped pillow and explain who made it.)
1. The Comfortable Cross
In Luke 9:23, Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
That statement is pretty hard to take for a comfort-loving Christian. I mean, what can you do with a phrase like, “take up your cross”? You can bet that any “fan” of Jesus will find a way to make a “comfy” cross. We take a phrase like “We all have our crosses to bear,” and throw it around --- We pretend we’re “bearing our cross” when we have to drive in traffic --- or when we have to watch low-def TV because the high def channel quit working.
We don’t talk about the cross much at church … and if we’re inviting someone to church we don’t mention it at all. We talk about the great music … the amazing preacher … the comfortable chairs … the fact that we get to lunch way before the Baptists. Anything that will attract people.
The cross is a tough sell. It’s bad enough that Jesus had to suffer and die on a cross, but then he warned that his followers would have to take up their own crosses every day! That’s a public relations nightmare for Christianity! How did Jesus expect to get ANY followers with that kind of advertising?
So we try to soften the cross up a bit. We want more people to come to Jesus, right? So we try to make Christianity sound as effortless and cushy as we possibly can.
That makes me think back to when our two daughters were growing up. I was always glad to tell anyone all about how wonderful my daughters were! But when it came to someone that would want to marry one of them … step one is that he had better fully appreciate the treasure they were getting … and he’d better be ready and willing to make any sacrifice for her! That’s the kind of commitment it would take!
Sometimes we are so eager to get people to consider Jesus Christ that we give a false impression. We offer them a pillow-cross and act like the Christian life is a nice long nap in a lazy-boy recliner. We give the impression that God would be lucky to get them … when it’s completely the other way around.
That’s not the approach Jesus had. Jesus wasn’t interested in attracting a bunch of comfort-loving “fans.” When Jesus invited people to follow him, he pointed to an instrument of torture and execution. We have to wonder: Why the Cross?
2. Why the Cross?
In First Corinthians Paul talks about how the world sees the cross – in chapter 1,verse 18 he writes, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.” People back then wondered, “why the cross?” and people today wonder the same thing.
For those living in the first century the cross was the ultimate symbol of defeat. It sounded ridiculous to imagine that God would come to earth in the form of man --- and then end up dying on a cross. This made it look like God was the looser rather than the winner. It made it look like God was weak instead of strong.
And I think that is God’s point. God snatched victory OUT of defeat. He turned one of the ugliest symbols of death into the most beautiful symbol of life. God takes what the world says is foolish, demeaning, and shameful, and says “Watch this” and turns it into the power of salvation.
Look at I Corinthians 1:22”
Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles…For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.
• In the cross, God took the symbol of defeat
– and turned it into a declaration of victory.
• He took punishment for guilt
– and turned it into a provision for grace.
• He took the consequence of condemnation
– and turned it into the flag of freedom.
• He took the instrument of pain and suffering
– and turned it into the means of healing and hope.
• He took the emblem of mortal death
– and turned it into the image of everlasting life.
Why the cross? Because the cross shows us God’s plan of salvation. What seems like the ultimate moment of God’s weakness is … in reality … the ultimate moment of God’s strength. And this is the whole point: What God did for the Cross is the same thing God can do for you!
3. The Cross and You
The way that God transformed the cross is the same way God wants to transform YOU. The upside-down truth of the cross is that when you are weak --- that’s when you are strong!
Look at 1 Corinthians 1:2. God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
This wasn’t some new idea for God. God specializes in choosing the weak over the strong.
You see this all through the Bible. Look at this list of Bible heroes.
• Abraham was old,
• Jacob was insecure,
• Leah was unattractive,
• Joseph was a prisoner,
• Moses stuttered,
• Gideon was poor,
• Samson was proud,
• Rahab was immoral,
• David had an affair,
• Elijah was suicidal,
• Jeremiah was depressed,
• Jonah was disobedient,
• Naomi was a widow,
• John the Baptist was eccentric to say the least,
• Peter was impulsive & hot-tempered,
• Martha was a worry-wart,
• the Samaritan woman had a string of failed marriages,
• Zacchaeus was greedy,
• Thomas had doubts,
• Paul had health problems,
• and Timothy was timid.
The Bible is one long list of imperfect misfits who discovered that God brings strength out of weakness. Do you fit in that list? I know I do!
It seems backward to us, but when we think we’re strong … we’re really weak. On the other hand, when we admit our weakness we are able to receive His strength.
All this talk about weakness and strength might cause some of us to get the wrong ideas about Paul’s teaching in First Corinthians. Paul was no slouch when it came to brains and the ability to teach and preach effectively. The problem was that when he operated out of his strengths, he was also operating out of “self” instead of dependence on Christ.
When he was reduced to only having the strength of Christ to count on, he finally realized that Christ within him was better than him alone. He learned that coming to the end of himself was actually an advantage, for then he could rest on the capability of Christ to do what he could not accomplish on his own. Coming to the end of himself was the only way to begin to experience the sufficiency of Christ for all things.
The same thing is true for us as well. We may have talents, abilities, skills, and expertise, but these things, as good as they seem to be, are no substitute for the indwelling presence and activity of Christ flowing from within us. The sooner we end our self led efforts, (by dying daily on the cross), the sooner we experience the surpassing excellence of Christ’s work within us. When we die; his resurrection power comes alive within us, and becomes the inner spring for ministry and life in our lives.
Paul talks more about this truth in II Corinthians 12:9-10. “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. … For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
CONCLUSION:
Follow up comments for Testimony, and call to commitment.
