24 Oct 1993: The Cross
Rom 3:9b-26
I
feel I stand on holy ground tonight, For we come
to think of that which stands at the heart of our faith
that without which there would be nothing. And it is incumbent
upon me to lead your thoughts. So before I proceed
any further I would pause, and ask the Holy Spirit to
anoint my words and to anoint our hearts our minds and our wills.
..
The Apostle
Paul, writing to the Corinthians said. that when he came
among them first of all' with the gospel he had resolved to know nothing....except Jesus Christ, annd him crucified
(1 Cor 2;2) He had came with the message of the cross
(which) was foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who
are being saved, it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18).
To the Galatians he wrote May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (6: 14)
The Cross
is the power of Gad- and I would suggest that
if it is not the felt-power in our lives we
have some bard thinking, searching and questioning to
do.
I
want tonight to see why the cross is so central,
important and powerful. And that we cannot divorce
from the
Cross the precious blood. of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Cross
is God's response to man's sin, to man's
rebellion, to the crafty schemes of Satan. We thought two
weeks ago of how that sltua.tion of sin and human
guilt and helplessness meant that it was necessary
that One came who was both God and man- and such is our Lord
Jesus Christ, He is (Isa 7:4) Immanuel; 'God with
us', Yet, the coming of God in human form
would not, of itself have done anything for the
human situation, The Lord Jesus spoke not just to his
hearers, but of himself when he said
Unless a grain of wheat falls to the g:round and dies, it remains only a single seed (John 12:24)
He knew his Father could save him from what was tn come upon him, but 'No' , he said It was for this very reason that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name (John 12:27-28)
There are many
words used to try and describe and explain what happened.
at the Cross and it would be foolish
to try and look at them all in 20 minutes of
one evening!.
Nothing , either, can
fu1ly describe what happened in those few hours. One
of the must commonly used, and on which I wish
especially to focus this evening is
REDEMPTION.
Paul, there is Romans 3 has it. In verse 24 (I'll begin in verse 23)
All
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and
are justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that came by Jesus Christ
I feel we
need to go one step further back and remind ourselves of the
extent and nature of the problem, One of the greatest of
preachers of this century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said this
"In the same
way look at the cross on Calvary's hill, What
is it? What does it mean? What is it telling
us? What is happening there? I say...you cannot
possibly understand the death of our Lord and what he did there
on that cross unless you are very clear about this doctrine
of sin, ..(Many people) have never understood the problem."
Sin is the
problem. All have sinned. Tho first sin and its
consequences we thought of some weeks ago when
looking at Genesis. We saw then that sin has three
consequences
1. Guilt.
We know at root that are are responsible to God. We
may try to evade the issue. He may try and hide away our
feelings of guilt and shame; they make us mighty
uncomfortable. If, as we ought we pray for God to act
in sovereign revival Holy Spirit power' let us
know that if he answers we shall see sin as we've never
seen it
before and will cry out to God for mercy.
(Adam
and Eve) realised that they were naked, so they sewed fig
leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the.man and his wife heard the sound of
the Lord...and they hid themselves from the Lord God (Gen 3:7-8)
Guilt, share and fear go together and we're all surely familiar with this truth,
2' Alienation. The Lord God called to the man, Where are you?
(Gen 3:9), His union with God; his knowledge of God were
lost. So, there's a barrier between us and God in his
holiness. And , again there are barriers between
individuals, Again I would call upon our experi.ences. Haw
a thoughtless word can produce ran atmosphere you could cut with
a knife
3. Curse.
God is holy; God must act against sin.
If sin left no curse, would we ever bother? If
everything in the garden was 1ove1y- what a fascinating
expression! But everything in the garden is not
lovely. It grows weeds. And the greatest curse
is death
For dust you are, and to dust you shall return (Gen 3:19)
And in the
face of all this, we know that we are helpless; that
we can't do anything about it. we nay think so; we may
try to. But out personal history and human history
proves the impossibility: mankind is not evolving and
getting better, Is not the human situation getting
worse? Jesus said
I te1l you the truth (which neant he was saying a truth of great importance)- Everyone who sins is a slave of sin
(John 8:34) How do we realise what slavery really
involves? The slave as Jesus spoke of slavery and as the New
Testanent writers spoke meant total servitude. The slave was at
his master's beck-and-call 24 hours,a day, 7 days a weeh,
He owned nothing. The only way
to freedom
was to buy lt, Since he had no possessions and since he had
no free time to earn any noney his position hopeless,
Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. The only way
a slave could be freed was lf someone bought his freedon by paying his master the
price he demanded he was 'redeemed' .
Ronans 3:24: The redemption that came through Jesus Chrlst.
And the glorious truth of the Christian Gospel
is that our freedom-price was paid. at the Cross by the blood
of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, It may offend our prlde and
sense of religious duty, It uay offend our logic.
Christ crucified (is) a stumbling block to the Jews and. foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, . . Christ (is) tbe power of God and the wisdon of God (1 Cor 1:23-24)
It is because of (God) tbat you are in Christ Jesue, who has become for us
wisdom from God- that is our rlghteousness, hollines and redemption (v30)
The Scriptures are fu1l of it-
O Israel put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord ls unfailing love and with him is full redemption (Psa 130:7)
God sent his own Son, born of a woman born, under the law, to redeem those under the law (Gal 4:7)
In him we have redemption, through his bJood,..the forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7) (Christ) entered the Most Holy place once for all by his own blood. having obtaiued eternal, redemption (Heb 9:12)
Hallelujah!
Let's just look at those consequneces of sin and see how redemption works;
GUILT. We are
gu1Ity; we feel shame; we hide away from God; we fear him! Our God is a
consuming fire. And full of sin, we know that
that fire must consume us. We fear God's wrath. The wrath of God is being revealed from heavan against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who supress the truth by their wickedness (Ro:m 1:18).
We can
never fu1ly aporeciate the cross without an awareness and a
knowledge of the wrath of God; his holy wrath agalnst
sin. Thase who would stop speaking of the wrath
of God and say
it is a primitive idea that we outgrew when Christ carne and
revealed the love of God, and say that God's wrath stands
in contradiction of his love, serve only
thereby to rob the cross of its glory and diminish the gospel.
To reject Cbrist
is to be subject to God's wrath; not an anger as men think
of or how anger, but that which was shown ln the Cleansing
of the Temple. Listen to words
from John's gospel
Whoever rejeets tbe Son will not see life, for God.'s wrath remains on him (3:36)
If you do not believe I am who I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins
(8:24)
Sin is
something terrible, Guilt is irnplaccable.
Unless! God requires and has provided a way out: the sheddlng of
blood by a sacrtfice as atonernent. Yom Ktippur the
'Day of Atonement' devolved round three sacriftces, They're
there in Levitlcus 16,
Basically, once a year tbe High Priest went into the Holy of Holies
1. He sacrificed a bull to atone for his cwn sins
2, He sacrlficed a goat to atone for the sins of the people
3, He took
another goat, laid his hand on it, to identlfy
it with the sins of the people, and drove
it off into the wilderness never to return,
Hebrews
deals ful1y wlth how the OId Testarnent sacrifices were but
temporary things which did of thenselves no more than
provide ceremonial clean-ness, but which also pointed
to the coming af Chrlst, who would be the atonernent sacrlfice.
10:10-11 says
day by day every priest...offers the same sacrifice, which can never take away sins. But when this priest (Christ) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, The blood of Jesus shed at Calvary covers every sin and cleanses frorn every sin,
Whatever troubles our conscience is dealt with at the cross and by the blned of Jesus Christ; without the shedding of blood tbere is no forgiveness (9:22)
Read tbe early preaching' In Acts and again and again it is, that which in the first
place. Jesus told his disciples (Luke 24:47) Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be
preached in my name.
I have laboured this paint of gullt for it is ,at the heart of
the gospel. Until and unless the blood of Jesus is applied to the repentant slnner he
remains in his sin and in its slavery! But if the blood is applied and forgiveness is
appropriated and sin turned fron there is knowledge that there is cleansing, there is
forgiveness, there is freedon. If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed,
(John 8:36), But not only are gui1t and share gone.
2. So too is ALLIENATION
At tbe outset I quoted Gal 4:5
God sent his Son. , to redeem those under the law
.To conclude the scripture: that we might receive fuIl rights as sons
Because of the Cross we can be restored to God; we can be his sons
Because of our sin, God could not look on us. Hab 1: 13
reminds us (God's) eyes are too pure to look on evil But as Jesus hung on the cross there was darkness and he cried out (Matt 27:46) My God, My God, why have you farsaken me?, Christ, in Paul's profound words was made sin for us
(2 Cor 5:21) He bore our sin, and, like the Levltical
scapegoat, he was driven away; away from his Father. He bare our
sin, and hie Father disowned him!
I'll say
no more. The words are too full gf God,s glory. And because
cf all this we may become God's sons, Cherished,
Objects of his delight and 1ove. For through him we have access
to the Father by one Spirit (Eph 1:8), We may
revel and delight. his banner over us is love (Song of
Songs 2:4), And all because Jesus died on the Cross
Lastly, and brief ly, the CURSE of sin is reversed, Galatians 3: 13 says
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (the law being given because of sin)
by becoming a curse for us, for it is written 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree
The curse was
pronounced in the Garden of Eden, 1 believe the curse
of sin began to fall on the Lord Jesus Christ in
another garden- Gethsernanerwhere he prayed that the
cup might be taken from hin, but he submitted to his
Father's wlll, Luke tells us of time of agonising:
his sweat was like drops of blood falling
to the ground (22:44) , In Eden, and I sense a
significance here God, in pronouncing the curse onAdan said
By the sweat, of your brow you will eat your food until
you return to the ground (Gen 3:19). Now tbe blood of
Jesus fe1l as sweat frorn his brow as the curse
fell on
him- and rnedical science knnws of the possibillty in
extreme stress of literally sweating blood.
I've said
so much and left so rnuch unsaid. Tbe Cross- the centre of
our faith, is not somethlng fanciful or inaginary or
elusive, It's an historical and objective fact.
That's one, and
an irnportant side af the coln, The other is to be sure
that the fact of tbe cross; the truth of the cross,
the blood of the cross; the Saviour who died on the cross are
personally ours; not just in a once-far-all repentance.
That is essential. Repentance and forgiveness of sins;
redemption. That is where we begin asChristians
And repentance is a key word. For in the
cross we have red.emption, we have freedom. The cross must be
that which goes on changing us. Paul said of that Cross God forbid that I should boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Gal 6:14)- yes- and By which I am crucifted to the world and the world to me.
How much are we separeted. fron the world and it's
sin and its outright opposition to God, this world
which (1 John 5:18) lies ln the power of the
evil one. Oh ny freindsl We need constantly to come
to the Cross to be cleansed and set free and changed.