The Transformative Power of the Cross
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Now when we go through the Gospels, what characterized the last month of the Lord Jesus's life was a deliberate attempt to teach His disciples about His death. And when you read the Gospels, it becomes perfectly clear that the death of Christ, the Cross of Christ, and its significance is given a disproportionate amount of time in each of these gospel records. [00:01:01]
The apostles hit the streets, and what are they talking about? You crucified this Jesus, and God has raised Him from the dead. And as you go through the Acts of the Apostles, there are some 14 occasions that I managed to count where the cross is directly and expressly preached. Indeed, it is impossible to understand the unfolding and developing theology and expressions of it by these men on the streets of the developing world except for their emphasis on the centrality of the cross. [00:02:46]
When you come to the Epistles, the cross is central. First Peter, he mentions it all the time. When you get to the book of Hebrews, what is it about? You can't understand Hebrews apart from the central place of the cross. The most Old Testament of the New Testament books, Hebrews 9, I think it is 26, without turning it up, but now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself. [00:04:42]
Everywhere in the New Testament, the cross is at the heart of Christian faith. And indeed, beyond that, when you think in terms of the cross, it speaks to the unity of the totality of the Bible itself. In some ways, you can think of your Bible as a book with the answers at the back. Every so often, you get a book, and you say, well, what does that mean? [00:06:22]
We lose our way around our Bibles when we take our eyes off Christ, and we lose our way around the Bible when we take our eyes off the cross. Did you ever, were you ever taught this by your Sunday school teacher? If not, you can write it down now. It's very helpful. In the Old Testament, Christ is predicted. In the Gospels, Christ is revealed. In the Acts, Christ is preached. In the Epistles, Christ is explained. [00:08:54]
If then we do need to argue for the central place of the cross in light of what is going on around us and within us, and if the emphasis of the Bible is clearly to establish its centrality, how then should we live in light of the centrality of the cross? Or if you like, so what? Because some of you are probably saying that, so what? In fact, I hope you are, because that is the very important thing that we must always do on the basis of a doctrine delineated. [00:09:46]
I beseech you, brethren, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. What is God's mercy? What is the apex of the mercy of God? Where is God's mercy been manifested to us? At Calvary. [00:11:02]
When the cross, when the wonder of the cross of Jesus Christ grips a life, it rules out all my snobbery. There is nothing as horrible as a Christian snob, and there is a lot of snobbery in evangelicalism, and of that, we need to repent. And they're going to unpack it all. Why don't you just hang your hat on the one that most hurts, intellectual snobbery? [00:13:26]
When the cross of Christ grips a life and stirs a heart, the only thing we can do is give ourselves away. CT Studd played cricket for England. His father was a very wealthy man. He had all the benefits of an Oxbridge education. He had the world at his feet, and he heard someone preaching on the cross, and he went home and he wrote in his journal, if Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice that I could ever make for Him could ever be too great. [00:15:59]
When the cross of Jesus Christ gets hold of my life, it unties my tongue. It unties my tongue. Again, start. Nothing seals the lips and ties the tongue like the poverty of my own spiritual experience. Ultimately, I say nothing because I have nothing to say. But when the Cross of Christ grips our life, as it gripped the life of Peter and John, they'll take the hiding, they'll take the imprisonment, they'll take the talk, they'll listen to the lecture, and they'll walk right back out the door, and they will declare Jesus Christ and Him crucified. [00:16:37]
When I bow before the wonder of the Cross of Christ, when in a moment, and it often happens to me in worship, in the singing of a hymn, sometimes in the greeting of a friend, sometimes in seeing someone reach out to someone, I don't know what, it happens in the strangest ways, but every so often, the shadow of the Cross casts itself across my path, and I find myself with Peter in the boat, flat down upon my face, saying, depart from me because I'm a sinful man, oh Lord. [00:18:39]
Newton wrote like this, describing his own pilgrimage: In evil long I took delight, unawed by shame or fear, till a new object struck my sight and stopped my wild career. I saw one hanging on a tree in agonizing blood, who fixed his languid eyes on me as near his cross I stood, and never to my latest breath can I forget that look. It seemed to charge me with his death, though not a word he spoke. [00:19:56]
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