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This is a (slightly edited) transcript of a sermon delivered at Lighthouse Foursquare Church on December 28th of 2003 - feel free to offer any

  comments, rebuttal or discussiont

“Take Up Your Cross”
by Kyle Knapp

When I Survey The Wondrous Cross

For the past few weeks we’ve talked about the Savior in the manger.  This week I want to take a look at the other end of the Gospel story.  I want to take you from the manger to the Cross.

You might think this would be a subject better saved for a time closer to Easter – I would agree, except that for the last several days as I’ve been preparing for this morning’s message, I can’t seem to get the message of the cross out of my head.  I prayed  “Lord, why don’t I preach something more ‘seasonally appropriate’?  How about if I preach on a topic I’ve used before, one I already have notes for?  Couldn’t You at least let me talk about something I understand?!”

I confess, this is a topic I DON’T understand very well, and the more I study it, the more confused I get.  Nothing so offends our pride and desire for worldly success, nothing has caused such division in the world, nothing so challenges our sense of order and reason as the message of the cross.  Yet nothing is more central to our Christian faith than the doctrine of the cross, and nothing more vital to our spiritual life than embracing its truth.

The word “cross” “crucify” or “crucified” appears in the New Testament 79 times.  Paul often seems obsessed with the subject.  The Gospels focus so much on the “passion” story, as opposed to the rest of Jesus’ life and ministry, that some commentators have referred to the Gospels as “Passion stories with extended introductions”.  Early church writers went on and on discussing what Jesus meant by “take up your cross and follow me” – to the point that it became a fad during the time of the Roman persecution for believers to martyr themselves, to purposely offend the Roman authorities in hopes of being fed to the lions, so they could “follow Christ” in death.

The greek word “stavros” – translated “cross” in the New Testament was well understood by the people of Jesus’ time as an implement of death.  It was not a religious symbol, any more than a guillotine or gas chamber would be.

Surely God doesn’t want us to go out and try to get ourselves killed in His name, does He?  On the other hand, the cross must be more than an ornament we wear, more than a symbol of our religion.

 

New Years Resolutions

 “For I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” (1Co.2:2)

Most of the things we call “New Years Resolutions” are attempts to improve ourselves by our own efforts. Sounds like a good thing to do from a practical standpoint, but if we are believers, isn’t everything we need in Him (not in us)?

C.S.Lewis writes, ‘If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prizes which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?’

So what does it mean to be “united to God”?

Rom 6:5-11 "For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.  Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus."

Those of you who’ve heard me preach a lot have heard me talk about how many of the Bible’s deepest truths are expressed as paradoxes – mysteries that seem self-contradictory.  And here’s the biggest: to live, we must die.  This is the message of the cross – it’s one that challenged me early in my Christian life, and I felt compelled to embrace it, even though I didn’t fully understand it.

The essence of the Christian life is:

Rom 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

The cross means death
The cross means life
God calls us to abundant life – but to really live it we must embrace death.

 

The Scandal of the Cross

Confused?

We don’t talk a lot about dying to self, about embracing the sufferings of Christ.  Such things make us uncomfortable, they don’t make sense in modern experience, we don’t understand them.

Oswald Chambers said, “All heaven is interested in the cross of Christ, all hell is terribly afraid of it, while men are the only beings who more or less ignore its meaning”
 

1 Cor 1:18-25 "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside."  Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.  For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

1 Cor 1:26-31 "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; …
[Paul is not being demeaning here, even though he himself would be counted among those considered wise.  The early church was not a movement of prominent, successful, and gifted people – it was a movement of very ordinary people]
…but God has chosen the foolish [gr “moros”] things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.  But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, 'Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.'"

1 Cor 2:1-5 "And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.  For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.  I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,  and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God."

The word “gospel” means “good news”, but where’s the good news in the cross?  We won’t go into the gory details today (thought perhaps someday we should).  Suffice it to say death by crucifixion is probably the most gruesome horror anyone could imagine.  And what do we call the day Christ was crucified?  Good Friday.  Good Friday!?  What could possibly be good about it?

Most of us understand that the “good news” of the cross is that, through Christ’s atoning sacrifice our sins are forgiven, and we are restored to fellowship with God, but we forget that we are also called to identify with His sufferings.

(from Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, by Joel Green & Mark Baker):
In a world where we tend to see personal suffering or social tragedy as a discredit to our faith, many of us have found the suffering of Christ an embarrassment, with the result that his death is rarely mentioned.

There’s a passage in Phil.3 that we like to quote, Paul’s longing declaration “that I may know Him, and power of His resurrection”  Why is it that we so often avoid quoting the rest of the verse?

Phil 3:10-11 "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Apparently, if we want to have His “resurrection power”, we also have to identify with His suffering.  But somehow we’re uncomfortable with that idea.

There’s a story in Luke’s gospel, which takes place shortly after Jesus’ death.  Two men are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and on the way they meet up with the resurrected Jesus, who is traveling incognito.  Not recognizing him, they tell him the story of Jesus’ ministry and subsequent death.  You can hear the embarrassment in his words (Lk.24:21) “we had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel…”  guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

Jesus’ response: (Lk.24:25-26) "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!  Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?"

They missed it because they expected a King, not someone born in a stable, who spent most of his life in working-class poverty, and who died humiliated as a criminal.

What!? How dare you suggest that this could be God’s Messiah!  The very idea is scandalous! 

(“stumbling block” = gr. Skandalon [where we get our word scandal])
Paul says “we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” 1 Cor 1:23

But here’s Paul bragging about it! 

Gal 6:14 God forbid that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

 The cross tells us that God doesn’t place the same value on things that we do – that worldly success does not define us in His eyes.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who did die for his faith, at the hand of the Nazis in World War II) said this:
 “The figure of the Crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard”

  

“Take up your Cross, and follow me”

Matt 16:24 ¶ Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

 When Jesus mentioned “the cross”, no one misunderstood him to be referring to a gold ornament you wear around your neck.  No hint of religious symbolism would have entered the minds of the disciples.  They knew that “the cross” was an instrument of execution, death, a harsh death reserved for the worst of criminals.  Roman executioners would typically force prisoners to carry their own cross to the place of execution.  It would be as if Jesus had said “you must carry your electric chair or guillotine to the place where they will kill you in it.”  Several of His disciples, by the way, literally died by crucifixion.

 Most of us are not likely to suffer martyrdom for our faith.  So what does this mean for us?

I’ve thrown out at you a lot of observations on a subject the significance of which, as I confessed at the beginning, I am only beginning to grasp.  And what are you supposed to do with it?  I’d suggest that we all meditate on the message of the cross.  Maybe between now and Easter, as we pray and read our Bibles, we could pray Paul’s prayer “that I might know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings”, and see what the Lord shows us.  And I invite you to share with me, and with each other, whatever insight you may receive.

 

Take up Your Cross
words & music by Tyler Smith

There's a storm on the horizon, there's trouble in the land

The bitter winds are blowin' across the desert sand

And the cries of the lonely are silenced by their pain

The tears of homeless children are hidden in the rain

I can hear my Savior's voice, still calling me

The One whose healing touch can make this blind man see

Thru the silent starlight I can hear His plea:

"Take up your cross, and follow me"

 

I'm often filled with fear when I see the darkened skies

I often turn my head and try to close my eyes

Then I see those troubled souls, but just don't take the time

And I close my heart so I won't hear them cry

I can hear my Savior's voice, still calling me

The One whose healing touch can make this blind man see

Thru the silent starlight I can hear His plea:

"Take up your cross, and follow me...

Follow me"

 

Soon the time will come when I'll be going home

But before I leave I want you all to know

That when the lights go out and all the songs are through

The cross that Jesus carried, you must carry too

I can hear my Savior's voice, still calling me

The One whose healing touch can make this blind man see

Thru the silent starlight I can hear His plea:

"Take up your cross, and follow me

Follow me..."

 

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