Several years ago, I was driving through downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was a 4 lane, one way street that I had traveled several times before. I was going the speed limit (maybe a little faster) when I saw the light up ahead turn yellow. I thought to myself, "I can make that light if I just speed up a little…" and I proceeded to up my speed - just a tad.
Then I saw THEM. Stopped on either side of the lane I intended to "shoot through" were two police cars. Immediately, I put on the brakes and literally slid to a stop between them. Turning slowly to look at the police car on my right, I grinned sheepishly. He smiled back and then made the universal baseball sign of waving one hand over another: "Safe."
APPLICATION: There was something about those police cars that spoke to me of the improperness of my going thru the intersection, and of the questionableness of my stop. If it hadn’t been for those policemen I would cruised on through the light on the tail end of yellow warning signal. But these police cars... they declared something to me.
The cross of Jesus Christ declares certain things as well… and it isn’t always what we want to hear.
The cross of Christ confronts us with certain truths that we may find difficult to face. In I Cor. 1:22-24 we’re told:
"Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
Why does the world find the cross to be a stumbling block or dismiss it as foolishness? Because it declares things that the world doesn’t want to hear or accept.
I. The Cross declares that we are sinners (Colossians 2:21-22)
Romans tells us: "ALL HAVE SINNED..."
I don’t like to hear that I’m a sinner. I like to think of myself as a "nice person." If it weren’t for the cross I might be able to blithely convince myself I’m not such a bad person after all.
BUT, if I’m unwilling to face the cross and it’s message, I have to do something with the guilt that it exposes me to. I need to justify myself or I need to cover the sin.
ILLUS: An Indianapolis patrolman ran into trouble while investigating a routine traffic mishap. His problem began after he had interviewed witnesses, arrested one of the drivers, and written up the accident report. He suddenly noticed that the offending motorist was chewing on something that wasn’t gum. He was eating the report! The officer reached for the disappearing paper, only to get his hand caught in a bite that lasted about 2 minutes. Despite his efforts to retrieve the report, it was destroyed. But the delay was only temporary. The patrolman tracked down the witnesses again and recompiled the damaging evidence.
We may not be so brazen as the guilty motorist in covering our sins, but we all do it, just the same:
1. We make excuses for ourselves ("that’s just the way I am")
2. We point at other and cry that they were guilty too... (like the child who cries: "but he hit me first")
3. Or we compare ourselves with someone else: "I’m just as good as..." (Paul wrote that when compare ourselves with others, we prove that we are not wise)
BUT the #1 way in which we may try to deal with our guilt is to outweigh it with good deeds and actions.
ILLUS: (Take out a scales the type with two trays hung from a bar which is balanced on a fulcrum and say): "Most people visualize their lives like this scale. They know they do things of which they are ashamed (put a weight on one of the trays) and it makes them feel out of balance. So they attempt to compensate by doing good things (put a weight on the other tray so that the scales tips the other way). This goes back and forth, more weight being placed on each side - but none being removed. The weight and the guilt of bad deeds remains and periodically resurfaces to remind us that we are unworthy of God’s love for us.
II. Why do we feel driven to this "balancing of sin with good deeds?"
The Cross declares that there is a price to be paid for sin - there’s a cost. And that cost must receive restitution!
Romans 6:23 tells us "the wages of sin is death..." there is a price that must be paid.
God drove that into the minds of His people in the Old Testament with His strict requirement for animal sacrifices.
ILLUS: I once heard another preacher ask his audience to visualize a man taking a sheep to the temple to sacrifice for his sin. As the priest cut the animal open, however, he found that the sheep had a diseased liver. Such a sacrifice was unacceptable, so the farmer returns home to find another sheep. When that one is offered, it’s liver is also diseased. sacrificial sheep with diseased liver. Still another sheep was brought with the same results. The man realizes that these sheep must have all eaten something that has damaged the liver and that he needs to find a sacrifice that hasn’t shared in their pasture. He only has one animal that hasn’t eaten in the pasture: his son’s lamb. A lamb that has eaten from their table since its birth and has been his child’s pet. But it is the only sacrifice that will now be acceptable.
God’s message (in the cross) is that there was a price that had to be paid. A terrible price.
III. But the message of the cross is also hope.
The cross also declares to us that God loves us.
John 3:16 tells us "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son…"
That’s why John the Baptist declared: "Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world"
ILLUS: A poet once observed:
"He paid a debt He did not owe;
I owed a debt I could not pay.
I needed someone to wash my sins away.
And now I sing a brand new song; Amazing Grace!’
Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay."
ILLUS: An American business man enjoyed the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau, the production emulated by the great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
After the play, the man went backstage to meet the actor who portrayed Jesus. As they talked, the man saw the cross that the actor carried in the play. Before the actor had a chance to stop him, the business man handed over his camera and said, "Hey, take a picture of me carrying the cross." He bent over and tried in vain to lift the huge cross to his shoulders.
With sweat rolling down his face, he turned in frustration to the actor and said, "I thought it would be hollow; why is it so heavy?" With a smile of compassion the actor answered, "If I could not feel the weight of it, it would be impossible to play the part."
When Jesus went to Calvary, He carried our sins with Him. Perhaps this reality alone caused the cross to weigh so heavy upon the strong shoulders of the carpenter from Nazareth. Unless we feel this weight He bore, we will never fully understand the meaning of being in debt to Jesus.
IV. There is one more thing that the cross declares - it’s by Christ’s death we are freed from sin.
Romans 6:1-6 tells us:
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin"
The cross justifies us. Justify: It means to become JUST AS IF I HAD NEVER SINNED.
CLOSE: She was crazy. Everyone knew it because she had the habit of talking to herself in public and it was known that she believed she even talked to Jesus - and was spoken back to. A new preacher came to town and, hearing of the crazy woman, thought that he might be able to make her face reality.
One day, as he saw her walking down the street he spoke to her and eventually got around to asking, "I hear you talk to Jesus."
"Yes," she replied. "Jesus and I talk for just hours and hours."
"Would you do me a favor?" the minister began. "Could you ask Him something for me?"
"Why of course," the old woman responded.
"Would you ask Jesus what the last sin was that I confessed to Him?"
"Certainly," she replied.
The next day, the preacher saw the crazy woman just down the street and so he approached her asked, "Well, did you talk to Jesus last night?"
"Why, I surely did," she squealed.
"What did He say was the last sin was that I confessed to Him?" the preacher coyly asked.
"Why, He said He didn’t remember."
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
The Cross & Forgiveness - Colossians 1:19-1:23
The Cross & Fruitfulness - John 12:23-12:24
The Cross & Our Flesh - Galatians 2:20-2:20
The Cross & Friendship - John 15:9-15:17
