Sermon Notes 5-12-2013

Not a fan!

Sermon four: The Comfortable Cross, or is it???

So I am hoping you’re off the fence, I Hope you have chosen to Follow Jesus. Because today is all about the cost of the cross, and what it means to take it up and follow.

Has the Cross become comfortable, has what it represents become watered down? Do we avoid it because we are worried about numbers, or offending some one?

The Church:

·         We hide it

·         We only bring it out on Easter

·         We tone it down, we soften it, Jesus didn’t

·         We worry about bills and overhead and less about creating followers

·         I’ve been told my description of it is too graphic

·         Luke 9:23 is the most widely misused verse

Believers:

·         We hang them in our Home

·         We wear them like a symbol of courage, when it was a symbol of torture

·         Most don’t understand the cost and the price that was paid on the cross or what take it up means

·         We have become comfortable almost numb to its true meaning

Every year we show the Passion of the Christ, and every year I hear the same thing to graphic, to gross, I can’t watch it again! But in Luke 9:23 Jesus Says “Take up your cross daily and follow me”.

So will we take up our cross, die to self and follow Jesus daily? The cross is not comfortable; the cross is the only way to salvation and finding the true power of God, through Jesus! The cross represents 3 things, Humility, Suffering and Death and in order to follow Jesus you must take up YOUR cross and follow Him!

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The Cross was a symbol of humiliation and Submission

Humiliation

Acts 8:32–33 (NLT)

32 The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter. And as a lamb is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 33 He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.”

·         The Romans used the cross as a way to publicly humiliate the person

·         The Romans tried to silence Jesus’s ministry by humiliating Him on the Cross

·         The bible says “he was crucified naked

·         Read Philippians 2: 5-8

o   Jesus made Himself humble

o   Jesus was humiliated, He was spit on, His mocked to set the example for you and me to follow

o   When Jesus says take up your Cross, its first means to humble your self as a Bond Servant to Him

Submission

The words Jesus uses in Luke 9 would have been offensive and repulsive

·         The cross was used to bring a people in to submission

·         The cross was the most expensive means for execution

·         The Cross was a symbol to the Jews people that they were submitted to the Romans

·         The cross was not cool, it was not fashionable

·         The cross represented a very ugly nasty painful death

Jesus took up his cross so you would know what true humility looked like; Jesus took up his cross so you could see what humbly serving others looked like. Jesus took up his cross to save the world and Jesus calls you to take up your cross and follow in His example and humbly serve others and proclaim the gospel through your actions! By humbling ourselves we will be exalted, we will be lifted up! I want to hear Good and Faithful Servant”

The Cross Is a Symbol of Suffering

The story of True Fans!

Mark 10:38–40 (NLT)

38 But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?”

39 “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!”

Then Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup and be baptized with my baptism of suffering.

·         They were being True Fans this Day

·         Only worried about their status

·         Like all of us they are having a fan day, and Jesus reminds them they will suffer

The Cross was all about suffering

·         Before you were crucified you were scourged

·         Beaten close to death

·         Then you were burden to carry the Patibulum

o   Your body exposed from the beating

Taking up your cross and following Jesus can and will bring Pain and suffering

If you’re not suffering you’re not following

The “Joel Olstien” theology is that if your suffering, not getting blessed you’re not Following Jesus, That’s Crap! Some days when you follow the closest your suffer the most

The bible dispels this Myth

Luke 6:22 (NLT) What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man.

2 Timothy 3:12 (NLT) Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

Philippians 1:29 (NLT) For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him.

Am I really carrying a Cross if there is no suffering? When is the last time carrying the cross cost you anything? When is the last time following Jesus cost you a relationship, a promotion, a Vacation? When was the last time you were mocked for your faith? Have you ever stood up for your faith?

Ultimately the cross was a symbol of DEATH

When Jesus finally arrived at Golgotha (the place of the skull) the soliders nailed Jesus to the cross and hung him up and after a few hours stuck a spear in His side to finish it.  Jesus paid the ultimate price for you and for me and in Luke 9:23 he ask us to do the same and take up our cross and follow him even in Death.

Jesus took the ugliest most rejected thing and uses it for Gods Glory

·         It’s like the electric chair of its day

·         Jesus took the weakest, and made it strong by conquering the cross

·         It unfortunate that most church feel the cross is to uncomfortable preach, that the messages is to offensive

The cross gets covered up. The sermons are often about salvation, but never about surrender. Often about forgiveness, but never about repentance. Often about living, but never about dying. A decision to follow Jesus is a decision to die to yourself!

Jesus doesn’t force you to die, death is a choice!

Luke 9:23 (NLT) Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.

·         This is a voluntary choice

·         You can die today, or die later and travel south it’s up to you

For a follower of Christ a cross is not forced upon us, it is taken up. Jesus sets this example. In John 10:18 Jesus says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”

Dying means, Dying Daily

Luke 9:23 (NLT) Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.

Jesus invites you to “take up your cross “ That is often where we leave his invitation. But the next word that makes all the difference. The word is “daily.” “ … take up your cross daily …” Every day we make a decision that we will die to ourselves and live for Christ. 

·         Think of salvation as a 100 bill

·         Only when we die daily that we are able to follow Jesus

·         Only by dying to ourselves are we able to truly find life

It has to be daily, it’s not a onetime thing and then we put it back on the shelf, we have to dye daily. Every morning I have to get on my knees and ask God to help me dye again today!

For fans this doesn’t make sense!

1 Corinthians 1:18 (NLT) The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.

For those living in the first century the cross was the ultimate symbol of weakness. For many, then and now, the message of the Gospel – that God came to earth in the form of man and was crucified – is complete foolishness. Dying to yourself doesn’t make sense for the fan, but the follower understands that dying is the secret of really living.

·         Who else but God could take a cross that represented defeat – and turn it into a symbol of victory?

·         Who else but God could take a cross that represented guilt – and turn it into the symbol for grace?

·         Who else but God could take a cross that represented condemnation – and turn it into a symbol of freedom?

·         Who else but God could take a cross that represented pain and suffering – and turn it into symbol of healing and hope?

·         Who else but God could take a cross that represented death –

·         and turn it into a symbol of life?

No one else could, but he can. What seems like the ultimate moment of God’s weakness was in reality the ultimate moment of God’s strength. Here’s why that matters. Here’s what I don’t want you to miss. This is our one point for this lesson, and it’s so important, it’s the only thing you need to get from this morning:

What God Did For the Cross, He Can Do for You.