The Work of the Cross
The Work (Message) of the Cross
Palm Sunday -
Matt 21:7-9
7 They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
"Hosanna to the Son of David!"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
"Hosanna in the highest!"
Jesus comes to Jerusalem for the last time to die and provide the way of salvation for humanity..
What does Jesus save us from? Jesus came to save us from our sin
The consequences of our own choices.
The choices that have lead us into direct opposition to God and are even worked against us. We know we have made some bad choices in our lives, and we carry the consequences of those choices.
When we make choices – wilful, deliberate choices that put us in conflict with God then we have caused and experience sin.
What is SIN?
The very word 'sin' has in recent years dropped from most people's vocabulary. It belongs to traditional religious language which, at least in the increasingly secularized West, is now declared by many to be meaningless. Moreover, if and when 'sin' is mentioned, it is most likely to be misrepresented and misunderstood. What is it, then?
The New Testament uses five main Greek words for sin, which together portray its various aspects.
- The commonest is hamartia, which depicts sin as a missing of the target, the failure to attain a goal, our inability to live a holy, pure, morally right, good at all times and in all ways kind of life.
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
- Adikia is 'unrighteousness' or 'iniquity', - when we have acted unjust to someone, we have not done the good and right thing towards another person.
1 Peter 3:18
18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
- pon¢ria is evil of a vicious or degenerate kind. When we have desired evil on someone, desired to trap or trick them. When we want to do something ‘wrong’ because we can and think it will be fun or make us feel good.
Matt 5:22
22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brotherb will be subject to judgment.
Matt 22:18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?
Both these terms seem to speak of an inward corruption or perversion of character.
- The more active words are parabasis a 'trespass' or 'transgression', the stepping over a known boundary, it is when we brag about breaking God’s law
Rom 2:23 You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 2
- anomia, 'lawlessness', the disregard or violating God’s ways. In each case an objective criterion is implied, either a standard we fail to reach or a line we deliberately cross.
Matt 23:28
28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
We have all sinned, though we are hesitant to admit it.
We have endeavoured to set ourselves up as God, to call the shots like we were God.
We have lied, - not told the truth, we have hurt others and protected ourselves by twisting words.
We have stolen, - cheated on expenses, taken something that doesn’t belong to us.
We have cheated, committed adultery, dishonored our parents, been involved in immorality,
Sin is the celebration of our own autonomy and self-centeredness...
We are not made to be autonomous Only God is Autonomous = able to exist and determine his own existence on his own.
But we want to be the determiners of our lives and in that state we will die.
The emphasis of Scripture, however, is on the godless self-centredness of sin. Every sin is a breach of what Jesus called 'the first and great commandment', not just by failing to love God with all our being, but by actively refusing to acknowledge and obey him as our Creator and Lord. We have rejected the position of dependence which our createdness inevitably involves, and made a bid for independence.
Worse still, we have dared to proclaim our self-dependence, our autonomy, which is to claim the position occupied by God alone.
Sin is not a regrettable lapse from conventional standards; its essence is hostility to God (Rom 8:7), issuing in active rebellion against him. It has been described in terms of 'getting rid of the Lord God' in order to put ourselves in his place in a haughty spirit of 'God-almightiness'.
Emil Brunner sums it up well: 'Sin is defiance, arrogance, the desire to be equal with God, . . . quotation is taken Man In Revolt (p. 129).
Once we have seen that every sin we commit is an expression of this spirit of revolt against God, we shall be able to accept David's confession: 'Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight' (Ps 51:4). This is when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, and arranged to have her husband Uriah killed in battle, David had committed extremely serious offences against them and against the nation. Yet it was God's laws which he had broken and thereby ultimately against God that he had chiefly offended.
Where has sin gone today?
Coming face to face with the reality of our sin is very uncomfortable and no great surprise we not only shy away from it but actively seek to remove it from our vocabulary and find other ways to disguise it. It is not ‘cool’ to talk about sin today.
An acute observer of this situation and one, who has noticed the disappearance of the word, is the American psychiatrist Karl Menninger. He has written about it in his book, Whatever Became of Sin?
Describing the malaise of western society, its general mood of scepticism, criticism and gloom and doom, he adds that 'one misses any mention of "sin"'.
'It was a word once in everyone's mind, but is now rarely if ever heard. Does that mean', he asks, 'that no sin is involved in all our troubles . . .? Has no-one committed any sins? Where, indeed, did sin go? What became of it?' (p. 13).
Enquiring into the causes of sin's disappearance, Dr Menninger notes
first that 'many former sins have become crimes', so that responsibility for dealing with them has passed from church to state, from priest to policeman (p. 50),
while others have dissipated into sicknesses, or at least into symptoms of sickness, so that in their case punishment has been replaced by treatment (pp. 74ff.).
A third convenient device called 'collective irresponsibility' has enabled us to transfer the blame for some of our deviant behaviour from ourselves as individuals to society as a whole or to one of its many groupings (pp. 94ff.).
The fact that we have redefined and re-labeled our sin does not make it go away. Nor does it remove our accountability and consequences before God. It is only when we honestly face it, expose it, take responsibility for it, confess it can we then find Salvation from it. It is only then that we can find life and hope that Christ came to provide us.
God’s response to Our Sin – JESUS ON THE CROSS
Out of His great love for us, He gave His son to die for our sin. We set ourselves up to rebel against God and do things as we please and God provides our salvation so that we have to choose Him over ourselves. That is why there is only one way and Jesus is that way.
Acts 4:
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Col 1:19-20
19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. = salvation
The cross is GOOD NEWS to us
He was destined to save us from the beginning. The Angels proclaimed at His birth
Luke 2:10-12
"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christa the Lord. 1
Jesus himself knew He was the good news
Mark 1:14-15
Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"
Not everyone wants this news...
1 Cor 1:18
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Foolishness to those who are perishing -
Many have and still today mock Jesus and what he has done for us
Matt 27:41-44
41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" 4
...BUT to us believe and are being saved... The Opportunity to REALLY LIVE FREE from the CONSEQUENCES OF OUR SIN.
- We are living differently – ‘do overs’ – the opportunity to live new
- We look, act, ‘smell’ differently
- duck
2 Cor 2:14-16
14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. 15 For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.
Because of the salvation that Jesus works for us on the cross God is able to reveal his good work in our lives. That is God’s power at work in us
Phil 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
The cross... is the power of God that is at work in our lives.
Jesus himself provides us peace between us and God by dying on the cross. Where we were excluded from a relationship with God, we had no hope, we lived without God, Jesus now brings us to God because His blood was shed on a cross. That is our salvation. (Eph 2:12-18)
3 TRUTHS ABOUT US & WHAT JESUS DID FOR US
Truth 1: We SIN - You do try to oppose God’s will and ways in your natural state and you will die separated from God unless you receive his salvation
Truth 2: OUR SIN SEPARATES US FROM GOD - you do not have access to God (spiritually, physically, emotionally, relationally) in your natural born state.
Truth 3: JESUS DEATH SAVES US FROM OUR SIN - Salvation is found in no one but Jesus and those who experience it. Realize the power of God in their lives.
Acts 4:
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."