Sermons
Lessons On The Road To The Cross
Series: Reflections On The CrossLESSONS ON THE ROAD TO THE CROSS
Sermon Outline By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / October 09, 2016
The cross of Christ is the centerpiece and fulcrum of our faith.
It represents the highest and deepest expression of love that mankind has ever known.
God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
The cross of Christ is the focus of our faith and the aim of our discipleship.
As disciples of Jesus, the cross is not only the highpoint of history, it is the compass for our earthly journey.
Whenever we feel the need to get an accurate assessment of how we are doing in our faith walk,
we might turn to our friends and family and ask them how they think we doing in the exercising of our faith.
Such an endeavor, which is a good thing to do, may or may not provide us with an objective analysis.
Family members and friends don’t always speak frankly, for fear of hurting our feelings.
On the other hand, The Word Of God is steady and sure and offers a candid critique of our commitment to Christ.
The only “problem” is that we have to read God’s Word in order to fairly ascertain if we are indeed doers of the word.
As the apostle James notes that some have a tendency to delude themselves (Js.1:22).
It is not enough to hear the Word, we must heed (obey) the Word of God.
The word of God is living and active. Shaper than any double-edged sword (scalpel). It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. / Heb.4:12
The cross of Christ is not just the cross of Christ.
Yes, there is a strong and Biblical argument to be made that the death of Jesus was once for all (Heb.9:12).
Through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
What Jesus did, He did FOR US. This is what is referred to as vicarious atonement.
(God) loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins / 1Jn.4:16
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf / 2Cor.5:21
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us / Rom.5:8
He gave Himself for our sins / Gal.1:4
He bore our sins in His body on the tree / 1Pet.2:24
As the good shepherd, He laid down His life for the sheep / Jn.10:11
Yet we must not dismiss these other words spoken by Jesus in Lk.9:23 - -
If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
To fail to recognize that we, too, must bear His cross is to discount and deny the explicit call of Jesus.
This is where the rub comes.
It is one thing to sing praises of gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the gift of His Son. That is the easy part.
But it is quite another thing to walk in the steps of Jesus and personally bear the cross of Christ. This is the hard part.
There is a multitude of ways that we can bear the cross of Jesus. Today I want to call our attention to two specific ways.
Both of these are compass points given to us by Jesus Himself, as He journeyed toward the cross.
Mark 10:32-45
Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem - - on the way to Calvary, to die on the cross.
The disciples have witnessed Jesus over a span of three years.
Vs.32 states they were both “amazed” and “fearful”.
Jesus divulges to them precisely what will soon take place.
Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes;
And they will condemn Him to death, and they will deliver Him to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him
and spit upon Him, and scourge Him, and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again. / vss.33-34
This heart-breaking declaration is followed by words and actions that appear also inexplicable.
These words reveal how clueless the Lord’s followers were as the ramifications of the cross. We are quite like them.
Listen to the request of James and John, two of the Lord’s closest apostles.
Vs.35 / Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.
Vs.37 / Grant that we may sit in Your glory, one of Your right, and one of Your left.
Patiently and gently Jesus rebukes them.
Vs.41 notes that the other ten apostles felt the prick of this reprimand.
The ten began to feel indignant with James and John.
In vss.42f Jesus spells out what true discipleship requires - - THIS IS AT THE HEART OF BEARING HIS CROSS.
You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men
exercise authority over them. BUT IS IS NOT (TO BE) SO AMONG YOU, but whoever wishes to be great
among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.
Here in a nutshell is part of what it means for us to bear the cross of Christ.
Here, on the road to the cross, Jesus tells His disciples what awaits them in terms of their discipleship.
So how humble are you? How servant-minded are you? How selfless are you?
There is no room for big-headedness and arrogance in the kingdom of Christ.
The way up is down. Cross-bearing is not about the achievement of personal accolades - - - it is about self-denial.
If we are engaged in reading the word of God on a regular basis we will surely get this message.
And on this all-important subject we are even likely to get this memo from our fellow Christians.
Years ago Jeannie and I had a “pretty big” argument. I don’t remember what it was about (she probably does).
She wrote me a Heb.4:12 kind of letter - - it was piercing and penetrating - - it was written with a scalpel.
In retrospect, I am quite certain that I was well deserving of her loving and somewhat gentle wake-up call.
All I recall about the note is that it began this way (these words were seared into my heart):
“Dear Terry, I am writing this note because I write better than I speak, and because you read better than you listen.”
One of the hardest things about bearing the cross of Christ is maintaining a constant sense of humility.
In Phlip.2:5f, Paul writes, Have this attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus…He emptied Himself.
By the way, in case you like me are sometimes a slow learner, being a good listener is the heartbeat of humility.
Matthew 18:21-35
Luke’s gospel (Lk.17:4 & 11) notes that this teaching was also delivered on the way to Jerusalem.
Peter approaches Jesus to ask Him, “how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?”
Peter, being the good Jew that he was, generously followed up his question by adding, “Up to seven times.”
Jesus dumbfounded Peter by telling him, “Up to seventy times seven”. You’ll miss the point if you focus on the math.
7 X 70 = 490, but Jesus wasn’t speaking literally - - this was the equivalent of saying, “as often as he needs forgiven.”
Paul notes in 1Cor.13:5 that “love keeps no record of wrongs”.
Jesus uses Peter’s question to deliver one of His most penetrating parables.
Parables, although they were vivid illustrations, were not always easily grasped. They often required much pondering.
Read the parable found in vss.23-35.
When it came time for the King to settle his accounts, he forgave one who owed Him an astronomical amount.
(10,000 talents = 10M sliver) … yet vs.27 states, the lord of that slave felt compassion& released him & forgave his debt.
After being forgiven, this forgiven one proceeded to hunt down a fellow servant who owed him.
His debt was miniscule in comparison (100 denarii = one day’s wages), but this fellow servant was brutally unforgiving.
Vs.28 / he seized him and began to choke him, saying, ‘pay back what you owe.’
Even though his fellow servant pleaded with him to be patience & I will repay, he was unwilling & threw him into prison.
When word got back to the King about this sad turn of events he was furious.
Vs.33 / Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you?
The story ends abruptly in vs.35 with a bold-faced exclamation point:
So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.
This story echoes words spoken by Jesus found in the opening section of the sermon on the mount (Mt.5:14-15) - -
If you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
BUT if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
Just as displaying constant humility is a chief hallmark of bearing the cross of Christ
so, too, is exercising a willingness to forgive others.
Some of us have been hurt badly. Some of us can never grasp the heartache you have suffered.
As a result of a deep hurt, some of us have even uttered those dreadful words, “I will never forgive.”
Our great hurt notwithstanding, how ironic it is that one who becomes a disciple by virtue of the marvelous grace
and mercy of God, would refuse similar grace and mercy to a fellow sojourner and be unwilling to forgive.
If we are honest, each one of us could say with Paul that we are a “chief sinner”, and utterly unworthy of God’s grace.
The essence of the cross of Christ is unmerited forgiveness.
Jesus went to the cross to die for our sins. Dare we deny mercy and grace to our fellow sinners?
No preacher who speaks the truth ought ever tell you that following in the steps of Jesus will be easy.
The way of the cross is costly and very demanding. It is an upward call that requires great sacrifice and determination.
The way of the cross necessitates that we deny self daily and follow Him and this includes humility and a forgiving spirit.
