Easter 101: The Cross Made Simple

Saturday, March 26, 2005
Resurrection Sunday
Sermon: Easter 101: The Cross Made Simple

The cross of Jesus demonstrates several “snapshots” or windows into this mysterious place.


• The cross is really about the life, death, resurrection & ascension of Jesus Christ
o The cross is about looking back & looking forward
o It is mysterious and wondrous!


Life: God is incarnate. God comes down to our level because we could never accept a God Who we don’t understand. This is proof of Jesus’ love for humanity.

Jeremiah 2:20 (NLT)
Long ago I broke your yoke and tore away the chains of your slavery, but still you would not obey me. On every hill and under every green tree, you have prostituted yourselves by bowing down to idols.

John 3:16 (KJV)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Romans 5:8 (The Message) 8But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

Interpretation:

• God is love!
• God created us for fellowship.
• We are loveable!
• God first loved us
• God enjoys our company.
• We are His children.


Implications:

• Satan is lying when he says that God hates us!
• God’s love trumps anyone else’s hatred or dislike of us!
• God cannot and will not forget you!


Death: Jesus’ work on the cross was a masterpiece of love. It was sacrificial & substitutionary.

• Jesus became our Passover lamb & our scapegoat. (today is a social/emotional dysfunction)

Interpretation:
• Someone was guilty
• Someone was angry
• Someone was doomed
• Some innocent person took the blame for some guilty person and headed to death row.
• That someone was the Creator of the Universe
Hebrews 2:9 (The Message) 9What we do see is Jesus, made "not quite as high as angels," and then, through the experience of death, crowned so much higher than any angel, with a glory "bright with Eden's dawn light." In that death, by God's grace, he fully experienced death in every person's place.

Implications:

• He is our scapegoat. This lamb carries sin out of the camp!

Leviticus 8:14 (NLT) Then Moses brought in the bull for the sin offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head.

John 1:29 (NLT) The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look! There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Mark 10:45 (NLT)
For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many."

• This sacrifice was costly…
o It demanded that Jesus would bare our sins
o Hence a separation from God resulted.

• He is our Passover lamb or Sin Offering. This innocent & perfect lamb dies while the guilty go free!

Leviticus 17:11 (NLT)
for the life of any creature is in its blood. I have given you the blood so you can make atonement for your sins. It is the blood, representing life, that brings you atonement.

Rom 3: 25-26 (Message)
25God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public--to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. 26This is not only clear, but it's now--this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.

Jesus gave us: redemption/reconciliation/justification/adoption & atonement
3. Resurrection: The victory over the enemy is granted to us.

Romans 1:4 (NLT)
And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:11 (NLT)
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as he raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you.

Ephes. 4:8 (NLT)
That is why the Scriptures say, "When he ascended to the heights, he led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to his people."

• The resurrection of Jesus is the great pillar of the Xian faith
• No other religion has this story line… God/human/die/raised to life/rule forever!


 Why is the resurrection so important?

1. God has accepted Jesus’ sacrifice for us & is please with it!!! (Priest with bells on)

2. It means that death no longer has any sting or victory! We cannot be separated from God by death.
a. Jesus took the stinger out of the devil by taking the sting.

3. It means that Jesus is the new Adam who leads into righteousness

4. Because Christ was raised from the dead, we know that the kingdom of heaven has broken into earth’s history in a profound manner!

5. The resurrection assures us that Christ is alive and ruling his kingdom. He is not legend; he is alive and real.

6. God’s power that brought Jesus back from the dead is available to us so that we can live for him in an evil world…


Ascension:

Romans 8:34 (NLT) Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us.

Hebrews 7:25 (NLT)
Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save everyone who comes to God through him. He lives forever to plead with God on their behalf.

Jesus is exalted & overseeing the church. He is in charge, not the enemy!

Up Close & Personal Part I

Saturday, March 05, 2005
Up Close & Personal Part I


Isaiah 6:1-3

6:1 The year that King Uzziah died was approximately 740 B.C..

o 6:1ff Isaiah was given a difficult mission. He had to tell people who believed they were blessed by God that instead God was going to destroy them because of their disobedience.

o 6:1ff Isaiah’s lofty view of God in Isaiah 6:1-4 gives us a sense of God’s greatness, mystery, and power. Isaiah’s example of recognizing his sinfulness before God encourages us to confess our sin.

o His picture of forgiveness reminds us that we, too, are forgiven. When we recognize how great our God is, how sinful we are, and the extent of God’s forgiveness, we receive power to do his work.

o How does your concept of the greatness of God measure up to Isaiah’s?

o When we read Is 6 we are assured of 3 things:
§ God is holy.
§ We are not.
§ The part of us that is not like God, will surface when we are around God.


6:1-3 the throne, the attending seraphs or angels, and the threefold holy all stressed God’s holiness. Seraphs were a type of angel whose name is derived from the word for “burn,” perhaps indicating their purity as God’s ministers. In a time when moral and spiritual decay had peaked, it was important for Isaiah to see God in his holiness


Malachi 3:3 (NLT)
He will sit and judge like a refiner of silver, watching closely as the dross is burned away. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold or silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord.

Malachi 2:17-3:6

2:17-3:6 God was tired of the way the people had cynically twisted his truths. He would punish those who insisted that because God was silent, he approved of their actions or at least would never punish them. God would also punish those who professed a counterfeit faith while acting sinfully (see Malachi 3:5).

3:2-3 In the process of refining metals, the raw metal is heated with fire until it melts.
o The impurities separate from it and rise to the surface.
o They are skimmed off, leaving the pure metal.
o Without this heating and melting, there could be no purifying.
o As the impurities are skimmed, the reflection of the worker appears in the smooth, pure surface.
o As we are purified by God, his reflection in our lives will become more clear to those around us.
o God says that leaders (here the Levites) should be especially open to his purification process in their lives.



1 : to free (as metal, sugar, or oil) from impurities or unwanted material3 : to improve or perfect by pruning or polishing 5 : to free from what is coarse, vulgar, or uncouth1 : to become pure or perfected2 : to make improvement by introducing subtleties or distinctions

Refining is freeing gold/silver from impurities.

We have an opportunity to be skimmed:

o Adam ran and hid and wasn’t “freed”. Sin makes you run and hide from God…even when you think you’re not.
o Others who ran to Jesus were freed i.e. the demoniac of Gedara

*Sin not only caused us to not be like God…we began to create after our own broken image.

3When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son who was just like him, his very spirit and image, and named him Seth. (Gen 5.3)


48The First Man was made out of earth, and people since then are earthy; the Second Man was made out of heaven, and people now can be heavenly. . (1 Cor 15.48

tselem, tseh'-lem; from an unused root meaning to shade; a phantom, i.e. (figurtive) illusion, resemblance; hence a representative figure, especially an idol :- image, vain shew.

maskiyth, mas-keeth'; from the same as Hebrew 7906 (Sekuw); a figure (carved on stone, the wall, or any object); figurative imagination :- conceit, image (-ry), picture, × wish.

pecel, peh'-sel; from Hebrew 6458 (pacal); an idol :- carved (graven) image.

Romans 8:29 (The Message)
29God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.

In conclusion:
o We had God’s image…He gifted this to us
o We lost God’s image…we cannot have it both ways
o God sent His Son to remind us of what the image was like
o God sent His Spirit to empower us to regain that image.
o The great refiner wants to watch over us until He sees Him image in us!!!
o Then, we will see Him again!!