The Cross in Our Daily Life
1. Attention
I went to bed close to midnight last night and got up at 4:30. So if I nod off during my sermon some one punch me.
ILL>>>> A pastor and young boy in a church that loved good fellowship, always served coffee after the sermon. One Sunday the pastor asks a little boy if he knew why they served the coffee. "I think," said the boy, "it’s to get the people awake before they drive home."
If you have to fall asleep this morning try not to snore.
ILL>>> Typical of last minute Christmas shoppers, a mother was running furiously from store to store. Suddenly she became aware that the pudgy little hand of her three year old son was no longer clutched in hers. In a panic she retraced her steps and found him standing with his little nose pressed flatly against a frosty window. He was gazing at a manger scene. Hearing his mother’s near hysterical call, he turned and shouted with innocent glee: "look mommy! it’s Jesus - baby Jesus in the hay". With obvious indifference to his joy and wonder, she impatiently jerked him away saying, "we don’t have time for that!"
2. Need - Do you have Time for Jesus?
America is a mission field for Hindus, Moslems, Buddhist, and a multitude of world religions.
Recently I saw an advertisement for a car named karma and another model named_____?
Are you relying on karma or good works to get you to a heaven your not even sure is there?
ILL>>> Christmas shopping, though fun, can be difficult. Did you hear about the guy that
bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas? A friend of his said, "I
thought she wanted one of those sporty 4-Wheel drive vehicles." "She did," he
replied. "But where am I gonna find a fake Jeep?"...
There are a lot of fake substitutes for the real thing.
ILL>>> In a recent issue of Forbes magazine, secular thinker Peggy Noonan, one of the brightest journalistic minds around. She says this in an article entitled "You’d Cry Too If It Happened To You." In Forbes magazine, September 14, 1992, in which 11 men and women were asked to answer the question "Why are we so unhappy?" They all agreed we were unhappy because we had lost our moral and spiritual center. Listen to what Peggy Noonan says:
"[Poet W. H.] Auden called his era ’the age of anxiety.’ I think what was at the heart of the dread in those days [just a few years into modern times] was that we could tell we were beginning to lose God--banishing him from the scene and from our own consciousness, losing the assumption that he was part of the daily drama or its maker.
It is a terrible thing when people lose God. Life is difficult, and people are afraid, and to be without God is to lose man’s greatest source of consolation and coherence ..."
Have you allowed yourself to be trapped by the world and the way of the world today?
Have you taken time for Jesus in your life?
We may choose ...Greed over God? Time for yourself and money over God and your family?
If you are to busy to worship God, your putting your money and yourself over God.
If you refuse to give God your time and money then who are you worshiping?
So what does it take to put Christ back in Christmas and Jesus back in our lives and homes?
3. Satisfaction Turn to ----- 1 Cor 1:18
ILL>>>>Every state in the U.S.A. has a state flower and a state tree as symbols. Some also have a state fish, a state stone, even a state insect. Massachusetts has nineteen such symbols. Christianity has only one, the cross.
I. Center on the Cross v10-17
Paul saw their divisions & contentions.
A. Center your church on the Cross v10
1. speak the same thing = same purpose= no divisions
ILL>>>>Unity
Illustration: There can be union without unity: tie two cats together by their tails and throw them over a clothesline. There you will have union, but certainly not unity!
ILL>>>-- Oswald Chambers
The highest Christian love is not devotion to a work or to a cause, but to Jesus Christ.
2. perfectly joined together - by God - God’s priorities = the cross
Jesus told us how he sees disunity in Matt 5:...21“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ 22“But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. ... But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. 23“Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24“leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
***** ILL>>>>> People and relationships with others are more valuable and important than material things. When a child breaks something here at the church - if we offend that child or adult, we are saying; “you are not as valuable as the cost to repair what you broke“. Our money our time our care - it only has value in as much as it is spent on loving, reaching others for the sake of the cross!
how?
B. Center yourself on the cross
1. I am of = I follow this man, teaching, doctrine ...
2. Who was crucified for you? = Christ not man!
Paul said he had one focus - to preach the gospel of the cross! (Gal 6:14 KJV) But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
We have this same commission ... (Mark 16:15 KJV) And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Where there is division there is no evangelism. Where there is strife there are no salvations!
(Gal 6:1 KJV) Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
ILL>> Someone once said ... The American Indians called corn maize, which means "our life." It was a staple of their diet, and life depended on it. In the spiritual sense, We can find that life in the cross!
We cannot live without it.
Let us be
I. Centered on the Cross
II. Communicate the Cross v17-23
ILL>>>The Russian Orthodox Church will not allow statues but holy pictures are prominent. The most famous icon is the Virgin of Vladimir. Both Ivan the Terrible and Nicholas II carried it into battle. They believed they could not be defeated if the picture were taken to the battlefield. It is something quite different that we have in mind when we sing:
Onward, Christian soldiers, Marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus
Going on before!
A. Communicate the Cross with simplicity v17-18
1. The success of the gospel lies in the plain language of a crucified Lord. v17
Paul had been bred up himself in Jewish learning at the feet of Gamaliel, but in preaching the cross of Christ he laid his learning aside.
I Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation
ILL>>>-- God proved his love on the cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died it was God saying to the world-I love you.
Billy Graham (1918- ) >>>>>>>>>>>> This is our simple message >>>>>
God sat in silence while the sins of the world were placed upon his Son. Was it right? No. Was it fair? No. Was it love? Yes. In a world of injustice, God once and for all tipped the scales in the favor of hope.
Max L. Lucado
why 3 different words fo rpreach or preaching? --- a broad understanding of how we preach - we all can!
1. v17euangelizo --“to bring, or declare, good, or glad, tidings”
Luke 1:19 The angel answered, “I am Gabriel, God’s servant, and I was sent to tell you this good news
2. v18 logos- word - “of the gospel”- giving a simple word of testimony
3. v21-23 2. kerusso --(a) “to be a herald,” or, in general, “to proclaim,” “call out” trad. preaching
You can give your testimony and share the cross anywhere anytime (good news, words, calling out)
2. Foolishness to the perishing contrast here
1. between words of the cross v 18 & wisdom of words v17
2. between those perishing & those being saved - we and saved - continuous sanctification
-------------- we all must fall into one or the other
ILL>>>>>>> Quite unlike Adolph Hitler or the Rolling Stones or Hugh Hefner--who also changed the world, simply by seeing which way the parade was heading and getting in front of it, Jesus did not give us a message we wanted to hear. He came to turn the parade in precisely the opposite direction; he spoke words hard for our hearts even to hear, much less obey.
The word of the Cross was met with scorn and contempt. As those who cried out on Golgotha’s hill, “He saved others, himself he cannot save.”
ILL >> We must “Rescue the Perishing, care for the dying”! The cross of Christ is foolishness to them on the outside but deep inside the lost are afraid of the Truth of the cross.
B. Communicate the Cross with power 1:18 & 21 // 2:4-5
the word of the cross is POWER - not about power
how? -- see v19 Power because -- awesome responsibility, & ablilty
1. God will destroy & make foolish the world’s wisdom we don’t have to! v19-20
ILL>> There is a huge bridge being built over the water way between Brunswick GA. and St. Simons Island. It is a beautiful thing and I love to see it. Some people a deathly afraid of bridges. ...
The world’s most important bridge was built in A..D. 30 at Golgotha where Jesus on his cross bridged the gulf between sinful man and sinless God.
2. God uses man to deliver the word. (foolishness of preaching ... not foolish preaching)
a. Jews (man) wants a sign (entertainment)
contrast here v21
3. God uses a simple message (foolishness in natural understanding) not human wisdom
a. new age spirituality
b. evolution, worshiping man as a future god
c. cults and other world religions
ILL>>>> Two little children were visiting in the country. Their grandmother took them for a walk. As they approached the top of a hill, the steeple of a country church came into view. On the steeple was a large wooden cross. "Look," cried the little girl, "it’s pointing straight to Heaven." "Yes," replied her brother, "it’s pointing all the way from here to there."
Let us be
I. Centered on the Cross
II. Communicate the Cross v17-23
III. Called by the Cross v24 The cross calls out to us!
A. Only the called (called out ones, church) grasp the power of the cross
ILL>>>>>> -- William H. Willimon,
If we or the world could be saved through human kindness or clear thinking, Jesus either would have formed a sensitivity group and urged us to share our feelings or would have founded a school and asked us to have discussions. But knowing the ways of God, the way of the world, and the persistence of human sin, he took up the cross, called disciples, gathered the church, and bade us follow him down a different path of freedom.
1. Gentiles seek super natural wisdom v 23 & 24
a. We are special - we have more knowledge & wisdom
2. Jews seek supernatural sign - to prove He is messiah v 23 & 24
a. The cross is a stumbling block Gal 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
b. Jews need a reigning physical messiah that takes no faith
c. contrast here v25 -
foolishness of God -vs- wisdom of man
weakness of God -vs- strength of man
B. Only the humble are called v26-29
1. Because God has chosen v27
2. So no one should glory v29
a. He is our wisdom v30-31
b. He is our righteous, sanctification, redemption
ILL>>>Alexander the Great built the world’s first lighthouse. It was on the island of Pharos, at the entrance to the harbor of the city that bore Alexander’s name, Alexandria, Egypt. Built in 280 B.C., it stood six hundred feet high. We consider the world’s greatest spiritual lighthouse to be the cross, towering above our sin and weakness.
The cross is calling you !
4. Visualization
What will it take in your life to Center your life on the cross?
1 will affect our living - a real change - intentional, drastic Are we controlled by the cross or do we control the cross and keep our spirituality within acceptable norms?
1. Make notes 2. tell others 3. make changes. 4, be accountable 5. be discipled, ie learn, change, grow
2 will affect our giving - sacrificial giving - prioritize finances, obedient, worshipful
3 will affect our serving - hear the call, make a difference. love
4 will affect our dying - blessed event, joy -
Separate Christmas Day from the Cross, and Christmas is dead --a selfish "eat-drink-and-be-merry" party in December. Bethlehem and Golgotha, the Manger and the Cross, the birth and the death, must always be seen together, if the real Christmas is to survive with all its profound inspirations; for "the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and to give His life a ransom for many."
How do you respond to the cross?
5. Action
Will you ?
I. Centered on the Cross
II. Communicate the Cross v17-23
III. Called by the Cross v24
I will make a change today - raise hands ---- hands down
Pray the sinners prayer.
1. Hear the call of God to make the first step to accept Him as Lord ?
2. Hear the call of God to make the second step to be baptized ?
3. Hear the call of God to make the third step to get up and go again?
