Randall Caselman
Bella Vista Church of Christ
April 7, 2002 A.M.
Our Glory In The Cross
Reading - Galatians 3.26-27 & 6.14
Off the coast of Southern China, on a high hill overlooking the harbor, is a huge wall. This wall is the only thing that remains from a massive cathedral build by settlers from Portugal hundreds of years ago. A typhoon hit the cathedral, literally reducing it to ruins. Everything except this front wall was leveled. High atop that wall stood a huge bronze cross.
In 1825 Sir John Bowring was sailing off this same coast when a terrible storm hit, breaking his ship apart and throwing him and his crew into the sea. Most of them drowned. Suddenly, through the storm, he caught sight of this bronze cross atop the wall. Bowring asked God to save him... And sure enough he was rescued. He was so moved by how God had spared his life that he wrote a poem that years later was put to music, and for over a hundred and fifty years God's people have sung this song... It's page 520 in our book...
In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering over the wrecks of time...
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.
When the sun of bliss is beaming...
Light and love upon my way,
From the cross the radiance streaming
Adds more luster to the day.
That song could have been Paul's theme song. Paul had much that he could have boasted about. In his day he was the church's....
- Greatest preacher...
- Greatest missionary...
- Greatest apologist...
- Greatest theologian...
Almost one-half of the New Testament was written by him.
Furthermore... He was a religious thoroughbred... A full-blooded circumcised Jew.
- From the Tribe of Benjamin.
- A Pharisee.
- Educated at the feet of Gamaleil
Yet we hear Paul say... I glory... I boast... I brag about only one thing... The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ."
You see church...
- Paul's pride was limited to the cross of Christ.
- Paul's preaching was limited to the cross of Christ... He said... We preach Christ crucified.
- Paul's praise was limited to the cross of Christ... For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Of course it was not the cross itself that Paul was so enamored with. It was not those blood-soaked beams of wood which once stood on a hill called Calvary that had so gripped the heart of Paul. It was the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, the cross was nothing to glory about 2,000 years ago. Today we have turned the cross into a kindlier... gentler symbol: A piece of gold jewelry that we wear to enhance our looks. A monument to decorate our church buildings and communion ware. Something stamped on our Bibles or hung on our church classroom walls.
But the cross of Paul's day made one think of criminal activity... a jailer ... and a judge. The cross was an instrument of death. Crucifixion was the cruelest form of execution in the Roman world of the first century.
Church... Is it possible today that we suffer under the curse of crossless Christianity? In our pulpits, we talk about things like...
- Self esteem...
- Believing in ourselves...
- Positive thinking...
- Good health ...
- And how to succeed in this world.
We say man's problem is ignorance, and what he needs is education. Some say that man's problem is poverty, and what he needs is money. Others say man's problem is environment, and what he needs is equal opportunity. But... my good people... The Bible says OUR problem is sin... And what we need is JESUS AND HIM CRUCIFIED... RIGHT?
Listen to this statement and see if you agree with me... We will never influence a Lost... Humanistic... Secular... Apathetic... Uncaring... Cruel world... until we get back to glorying in the cross of Jesus Christ.
Now... For the lesson this morning... I want to share with you how we can glory in the cross. First... We Are To Glory In The Person Of The Cross. Church... The only thing that makes the cross special is the Christ who died there.
Several years ago Harry Reimer was lecturing in a college one day and he allowed the class to ask questions. A young Jew said, "What did Jesus Christ do that no one else ever did?" Dr. Reimer replied, "Son, I understand that you are a Jew. I take it that you know the early history of your people... And you know that Titus... Pilate and the Roman emperors crucified over 30,000 young Jews." The Jewish student said, "yes sir, that is correct. Dr. Reimer said, "Well, I'm going to name one of those Jews and you name another. I name Jesus Christ. Now... You name one of the 30,000 others who were crucified."... "Well, I don't know the name of another one."
Listen to me church... Do you know why he couldn't call the name of one out of 30,000? Why do we remember one name when we can't remember the other 29,999?... Simple!!
- Because He was the Son of God...
- He was God-in-the-flesh.
- Because Jesus is the only one who died for our sins...
- He is the only one who was raised from the dead three days later.
You see... Jesus turned the cross from a symbol of guilt into a symbol of glory... From a beam of execution into a balm of forgiveness and salvation. It is not the cross that is so wonderful... It is THE CHRIST WHO DIED THERE... AMEN?
I want you to notice that Paul emphasizes this fact with three words when he said it was the cross of the (WHAT?)... Lord... Jesus... Christ.
First... It is the cross of the Lord. That tells us He is our Master. The word Lord in the New Testament means God. This refers to His sovereign authority. Church... Are we willing to allow... to let Jesus be the sovereign LORD of our lives? Are we willing to live daily in submission to His will. We cannot say we glory in the cross unless we are willing to make Him our LORD.
It is also the cross of the Jesus. The New Testament name Jesus is the equivalent of the Old Testament name Joshua which literally means Jehovah is our Salvation. Church... May we never come to the cross... See the cross... Think of the cross... Take these emblems without thinking of Jesus and the salvation He has made possible for us.
It is also the cross of Christ. This refers to his Messiahship... It means He is the ANOINTED ONE!! Only three people were anointed in the Old Testament.. Prophets... Priests... and Kings.
As our prophet... Jesus is the Word of God... In the beginning was the word.
As our priest... Jesus finished the work of God... And is now our mediator.
As our King... He is our final authority.
Church... Do we understand that all of the...
- Faith...
- Tears...
- Remorse...
- Repentance...
- Confession...
- Acts of Baptism...
- All the holy living...that we can muster, would be absolutely useless without the Christ of the cross?
Secondly... We Are To Glory In The Purpose of The Cross. You see... God had some specific purposes in mind when Jesus died there.
Through The Cross... God's love Is Expressed.
When people read the newspaper... Listen to television... and they see earthquakes... Murders... Bombings... Terrorism... they ask... Where is the love of God in this? If God is a God of love... Why does He allow all of these terrible things to happen? Do you know why they can't find the love of God? Because they are looking in the wrong place.
We are never told that we would find the love of God...
- In the newspaper...
- On television...
- In the Wall Street Journal...
- Or on "60 Minutes."
Folk... If we want to see the love of God... Look at the cross!!... God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life... In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins... But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
A little girl was looking at the communion table and noticed the cross carved there.... And asked... Mother, what's that "plus sign" mean?... Well, she got it right... Didn't she? The cross is God's plus sign telling us that God loves us... That He loves us so much He sent his Son to forgive and save us.
Another Purpose Of The Cross Is To Purchase Our Pardon
Ezekiel wrote this truth hundreds of years ago... The soul who sins shall die. Paul maintained that... The wages of sin is death. Romans 3.23 says... All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.... There is none righteous... No not one. Now, if the soul that sins has to die... and if every soul has sinned... That means every soul must die.
In other words... There are only two options... Either all have to die for their own sins... Or someone has to die for the sins of us all. That's where Christ and the cross comes in. When Jesus Christ died on that cross... He died to pay for our sins.
I owed a debt I could not pay.... He paid a debt He did not owe.
What a bargain... This salvation of ours...
- Because of his death... We have life.
- Because He took our sin... We can take his righteousness.
- Because He died for my sin I can now die to my sin and live with Him forever.
Through The Cross We Can Live Eternally
It is through His physical death... That we can receive His eternal life... Listen to these scriptures... In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him... And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.... He who died for us, did so that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
May God help us to understand... That at the cross, His love purchased our pardon so that He could live in us here... And we could live with Him in eternity.
We Are To Glory In The Power Demonstrated By The Cross
Ever since Jesus died on that cross... And rose victoriously from the dead... The cross has been a symbol of glory... power... and victory. We talked last Sunday evening about the fact that every Christian has three enemies... Remember what they were?...
- First... There is the internal foe... the flesh... this earthly body which affords us with all kinds of lust... rvil desires.
- We have an external foe called the world.
- And then there is Satan.
But through the cross of Christ we have victory over all three. For instance...
Through the cross we have victory over the flesh.
Those who are in Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. This verse tells us we can overcome our flesh nature... We can control our evil desires. We can nail the lust of the flesh to the cross of Christ every day. We can live in victory because of the cross. That's why Paul wrote... Walk in the Spirit... and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Secondly... Because of the cross... We have victory over the world.
Listen to Paul as he speaks for each of us... God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Church... Not only do we have salvation through the cross, we also have daily sanctification through the cross. Jesus not only died that we might live eternally in heaven. He died that we might live holy on earth. Do you know what allows us to be victorious in our daily living? John tells us... This is the victory that overcomes the world... Even (WHAT?)... Our faith!!
When Paul and John wrote about...
- Being crucified to the world...
- Living above the world...
- And loving not the world ...
He didn't mean the physical world... The earth we live on... He was referring to the...
- Social world...
- The intellectual world...
- The philosophical...
- The mortal world...
- The immoral... sinful world. Paul was referring to this world's way of thinking... reasoning... living. You see... It was this world... That placed Jesus on the cross. Church... This world has nothing to offer us as Children of God. That's why we are commanded to crucify the world to ourselves. You see... Jesus died to deliver us from worldly Christianity. I don't even like that term... It really is a contradiction. Billy Sunday once said... You might as well talk about a heavenly devil as to talk about a worldly Christian. The bottom line is this... Somehow... We must learn to live above the world and its sinful pleasures... AMEN???... AMEN!!
Then... Through the cross we also have victory over Satan.
After His crucifixion... Jesus said...
- Now is the judgment of this world...
- Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
You see, ever since Calvary Satan has been a defeated foe... He sails a sinking ship.
Remember what Paul said... I have been crucified to the world. Now church, crucifixion is something we cannot do for ourselves... I mean you can...
- Shoot yourself...
- Drown yourself...
- Hang yourself...
- Poison yourself... But you cannot crucify yourself. Crucifixion is something we must surrender to. Here it is folk: If we will surrender to the cross of Jesus… If we will die to self... We can find victory in any situation.
We have seen this morning that... The only hope for a...
- Hurting...
- Sinful...
- Lost...
- And dying world, is the cross of Jesus Christ. We need to anchor the church... This church... To that old rugged cross and say with Paul... God forbid that I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ... AMEN???... AMEN!!
Let's each of us take time right now to remember the cross of Christ... And what it means to us as we commune with God and with one another in the Lord's Supper.
