The Road to the Cross
The Road to the Cross
Mar 14, 2010
Matt 16:24-25; Story of woman with alabaster jar (Matt 26:1-16)
We are beginning our journey towards Easter this week. Easter is the day we celebrate the new life that Jesus brings through His resurrection, but as Jesus looks towards His resurrection, He sees a cross. A cross that stands between life in this world, and living in the power of a resurrected life. There is no resurrection without death, and for Jesus it comes by way of the cross.
The road of the cross is a road of sacrifice & surrender
Heb 12:2
Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Jesus knew that the cross was only a doorway into the throne room of God.
Sacrifice – giving up something I consider valuable and sacred for a greater purpose
Athletes make great sacrifices as they train. During the Olympics & now Para-Olympics we hear stories of people making great sacrifices for their sport. They get up earlier than everyone else, they buy equipment, pay for space to train, families make sacrifices as their children move away at young ages to work with a specific coach or be on a particular team
Why do athletes make these sacrifices?
So one day they stand on a podium, receive a medal and hear their national anthem played for their accomplishments.
Watch Dragons Den, you will hear the story of some person who has sacrificed tens & hundreds of thousands of dollars into an idea that perhaps will be in their minds worth much more one day. And they will hit it rich.
Parents sacrifice for their children, people sacrifice to gain an education, people make sacrifices for their marriages, their health, all kinds of things we make sacrifices for. Why? Because we perceive the thing we are sacrificing – as valuable as they are – are not as valuable as whatever lies ahead that is more valuable for us.
Jesus was willing to sacrifice himself for the greater purpose – RESTORING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD = the salvation of our souls
John 17:3-4
3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4
Jesus knew what it was to be in the presence of God; where His holiness is paramount and revealed for all creation to experience
"Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty,
who was, and is, and is to come."
Where as Paul said...
1 Cor 13:12 we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
Jesus knows what it is to have God’s holiness expose us for who and what we are in God’s presence. He knows what it is to drink from the river of life, to hear the praises of all creation, to see the heavenly hosts fall on their faces before God. Jesus knew what ti is to live in the truest and complete sense of God’s eternal love.
Jesus also knows that we could not be in God’s holy presence and survive on our own merit. Jesus knows that all sin is completely burned away and consumed by the holiness of God and that on our own we are dead in our own sin and so he came with a purpose.
Jesus was clear on His greater purpose and while he was on the road to the cross
he came to Jericho and there was a scheming and conniving businessman was intrigued by Jesus and thought he would find a creative way to hide on the fringe and watch Jesus pass by. But Zaccheaus could not hide from Jesus and he ended up serving him lunch and giving him his life and half his fortune = and...
Luke 19:9-10
9 Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."
Or when Jesus had told his disciples again that he was on his way to Jerusalem where he would be betrayed, condemned to death, handed over to the Romans who would mock him, spit on him, flog him and kill him and that three days later He would raise again,
But two of the disciples, James & John were more interested in who was going to have the prestigious positions of leadership and Jesus remained clear about his purpose to bring James, John and many others into the presence of God and he says...
Mark 10:45
45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Or even when Peter thought he knew better what Jesus should and shouldn’t be doing because Jesus had just told them again...
Matt 16:21-27
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
Jesus was not about living his life, using his time, strength, possessions... for his own comfort and purposes = He came to sacrifice it all for us, and Jesus casts that same calling to his disciples:
Jesus invites us to live sacrificially
Matt 16:24-27
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his lifeh will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 2
When we consider Jesus going to sacrifice himself for us that we may have life and live in God’s presence it leads to several possible responses , three of which are found in another story of Jesus on the road to the cross...
What are we willing to sacrifice – for what greater purpose?
A noble, spiritual, picture for sure, but what does that mean for us and how do we live like this?
There are Three Responses to Jesus’ sacrifice
26 When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, 2 "As you know, the Passover is two days away — and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified."
The disciples have heard this before, and quiet honestly they have struggled with it, perhaps they don’t really understand what he is saying. Maybe they don’t like it or believe it but the scriptures say...
6 While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, 7 a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.
When we realize who Jesus is and what he has done for us it can truly be quite overwhelming. Everything else takes a notch down in the hues of color. Here a woman was obviously moved by the presence and relationship she had with Jesus, anoints him with an extremely valuable oil. Some commentators say it was worth a years wages. Think about your wages – Gross – not Net – turn that into an object, a car, boat, what single thing could you buy with your annual wage, now consider being moved by emotion, challenged by devotion, and you give it completely to Jesus.
The woman gave her best. She gave her all, her best because Jesus had impacted her life. She had let him ‘in’, to have influence in how she lived and she held nothing from him.
Some will give themselves, their all, their best in response to Jesus sacrifice for them.
8 When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. 9 "This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor."
Their concern was resource management – they wanted God to be efficient with these resources.
They placing social justice at a higher priority than the sacrifice for spiritual life. They missed the expression of worship of God.
The poor stand before God as well as the rich
They were putting material destitution ahead of spiritual destitution. Jesus knew there was something of greater value than money. This is why he said to the disciples after challenging a rich young man
Matt 19:23
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Disciples were blind to the purpose of the sacrifice – Jesus was clear on it. When we loose sight of a sacrifice we stop sacrificing – the disciples became indignant..
We so easily loose sight of who God is, what His nature is, what he is doing for us and what he wants to do in the lives of others...
10 Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 11 The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. 12 When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. 13 I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."
We want to make God look like us, we think Jesus is just like me – and he is not.
Jesus is restoring me into a relationship with God. I can not do that – I would not know how to do that, but Jesus does. When we make Jesus like us we think he thinks and acts like we do, that he values the same things I value and we are messed up in our thinking then.
what the disciples saw as a waste Jesus saw as a beautiful thing.
Look at her sacrifice – let it lead you to sacrifice as well
Our sacrifices should lead to Jesus = point to the purpose of his sacrifice – His death, His burial, His life – so we might life. What she did demonstrated the gospel
Judas rejected it all together
Others will reject his sacrifice and it leads to betrayal
14 Then one of the Twelve — the one called Judas Iscariot — went to the chief priests 15 and asked, "What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?"
Judas was not willing to accept who Jesus was and what he was doing for him and others. He was caught up in his own understanding of what the purpose was = not Jesus purposes –
Jesus wants us to respond to the sacrifice he makes for us.
How will you respond? Turn your back like Judas?
make him fit your responsible paradigm?
Sacrifice (what) generously?
Give yourself to him = worship him...
Give your time to him, your resources to making him known,
Jesus invites us to pick up our cross and lead others too him...
What would be too great a sacrifice?
Talking to my friend about Jesus...
Beginning to tithe...
Meeting the need of someone by...
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER:
It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.”
Phil 3:7-11
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.