Sermons
What Lies Beneath
WHAT LIES BENEATH
Sermon By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / July 21, 2019
Our annual Songs Of Light will be this evening at 6:30, with Rod Sheldon leading our singing.
Please encourage others to join us. Our members are asked to bring cookies (pizza will be supplied).
We are in the midst of a new series titled, The Way Of Salvation.
Our next point of emphasis will be on the concept of repentance. We will tackle this topic next Sunday.
I am interrupting our current series to provide us with a biospy/autopsy of the cross of Christ.
I am doing this for two reasons:
First, I think we need to anchor this series in the message of the cross. i.e., it is the work OF CHRIST which saves us.
Eph.2:8-9 / for by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God; not as a result of (our own) works, that no one should boast.
I can't think of a better way to do this that to mentally and emotionally peer beneath the cross.
Leon Morris in his book, The Atonement, writes: “Any really serious attempt to understand the Christian way
must begin with the cross. Unless we come to see what the cross means we do not understand...real Christianity.”
My sermon title this morning, What Lies Beneath, sounds like a movie title about a dreadful sea monster.
To peer beneath the surface of the cross is to catch a glimpse of the glory of God.
To do so is to be granted a mysterium tremendum (Latin meaning tremendous mystery or terrible mystery.
Something that is tremendous typically causes us to be terrified and tremble.
Heb.10:32 / It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
I am borrowing notes from a sermon I delivered to you about 15 years ago.
I feel confident that you won't remember it. However, if you do remember it, it will be because
it was well worth remembering, and I will therefore be quite justified in sharing it with you once again.
Among many other things, the New Testament establishes two things about the cross of Christ.
Its centrality in terms of its importance to Christ, His apostles and all disciples and
its intentionality (i.e., it was a deliberate action - - the result of man's wickedness, but, even more so,
“due to the set purpose of God, voluntarily accepted by Christ who gave Himself up to death”.
Regarding its centrality:
1Cor.1:18/the word of the cross … 1Cor.1:23/we preach Christ crucified …
1Cor.2:2/I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified ...
Gal.6:14/may it be that I should never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ
through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
As to its intentionality, that's what the rest of this sermon is all about.
What was there about the crucifixion of Christ, which, in spite of its horror, shame and
pain, makes it so important that God planned it in advance and Christ came to endure it?
The answer to this question will require us to ponder deeply, to contemplate seriously and to examine thoughtfully.
CHRIST CAME
CHRIST DIED
CHRIST DIED FOR US
CHRIST DIED FOR US THAT HE MIGHT BRING US TO GOD
CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS
CHRIST DIED OUR DEATH
I am deeply indebted to John R. W. Stott (The Cross Of Christ) for most of above.
