On Friday, I got the finish off our virtual youth term by trying to tie a few ideas from the cross together. I was trying to look at the main reason or goal as to why Jesus came.
Below is the clip and the notes I used.
We have reached the end of this crazy term. We started meeting in person and then went into lockdown. A lot can happen in 10 weeks. Because a lot can happen in 10 weeks, tonight I thought we could look back on the term and try and piece all of these ideas on the cross together and to ask why this is such a big deal. Why do we harp on about Jesus on the Cross so much? I think it comes down to two simple reasons. 1) It's true and 2) it's good news.
It True
We live in the real world where Jesus died on the cross. This was not made up, this is a simple historical reality. No historian doubts that Jesus existed and that Jesus died on the cross. Not only do we have the gospels written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the letters of Paul and James and Peter and whoever wrote Hebrews[1], which is pretty much more evidence than any Caesar of the time. We also have references to Jesus dying on the cross in other historical sources.I’m going to pronounce these guys names wrong, but are just four more historical sources about Jesus dying on the cross[2].
- Thallus (50-70 AD) said when Jesus died the sky went dark, he said it must have been a solar eclipse. I’m told this explanation doesn’t work due to it being the Passover and being a full moon, but still, his account matches what we already know.
- Tacitus (56-117 AD) said Christus died under extreme punishment under Pontius Pilate
- Josephus (37-100 AD) mentions Jesus twice in his works. The first reference has perhaps been tampered with by a later scribe, but without the tampering, he still says Pilate condemned Jesus who was also known as Christ, to death on a cross.
- In the second century, Lucian of Samosata (125-180 AD) wrote a play called The Passing of Peregrinus (165 AD) which mocks the Christians who worships a guy who was crucified in Palestine. But this time the idea that Jesus died on a cross was so much common knowledge it made it into their pop culture.
And this is what we have been looking at this term. We have been listening to people who knew Jesus, who heard His teaching and explanation of His own death. From these teachings, we can see that Jesus’ death is not only true, but also it is Good News.
It's Good News
As we have seen this term there are many ways to talk about what happened on the cross, generally, it is framed around a problem we face, and solution Jesus does for us, this term we looked at howGod is angry with our sin, but Jesus takes God’s wrath for us
We are enslaved and in debt by sin, but Jesus paid our ransom and frees us from this slavery.
We are unclean from sin, but Jesus cleans us from that stain.
God is perfect and can not be around sinful people, but Jesus makes us right by taking on our sins for us.
We were in rebellion against God and hostile to Him, but Jesus brings peace between us and God.
Now all of these concepts kinda explain one image or mechanics of the Cross. It should be clear that we are the passive recipient of what Jesus does for us. We do not contribute, Jesus does it all for us. Buy why? For what goal does Jesus do all these things?
God planned all of this, for His Son to willingly die for you so that you can be with God. The end goal of Jesus dying on the cross is that we get to be with God.
The bad thing about is that sin separates us from God, it makes us unclean in his presence, we are enslaved to it and God is angry with us.
But Jesus comes and takes our place. He brings us to God, he cleans us from sin, he paid our debt and frees us. We get his perfection in God’s eyes, so God is no longer angry with us and we are seen as clean and right before Him. All this so that we can be with God.
The ultimate Good News isn’t that you are saved and get to go to heaven, or that your sins are forgiven. Those are just by-products of the fact that you get to be with God. God is the Gospel[3].
Peter says:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. (1 Peter 3:16)You see that? The reason why Christ suffered for sin is so that we can be with God. As we saw last week[4] Paul said:
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Eph 2:13)Because of what Jesus did for us, we are now brought near to God. And how confident is the Christian that they will not stray far from God, well check out our last Sunday passage[5] from Romans 8:38-39:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, nothing can separate us from God anymore. Nothing in the past, nothing in the future, no government, not even demons or death will separate us from God.
God the creator of the universe, loves you so much that He wants you to know and be with Him. Without God intervening and making a way for you to come to him, we all would have been lost and without God.
So if you are not a Christian you might be thinking, so what, why is God so great to have?
First of all, it’s true. God is real and He created everything. He is like the master programmer; the architect of this universe and He knows best. He knows how this world works; He knows what is best for people. And the experience of your Christian friends and leaders can affirm that living for God is worth it. We can tell that God knows best for us, by seeing how much he has done for us, to help us. He sacrificed Himself so that we can come back to Him.
You might think your life is fine without God. You may feel this sometimes, but that is not how it really is. The truth is you are in sin, and this is enslaving, this is destructive and ultimately leads to death. The Bible says we all know this and try and suppress this truth deep down inside (Rom 1:18).
So second of all, as why it is good to have God, because it is good news. God wants you to be free - from sin and death, so much so that He came down and died for you. So that you can live free. Free from enslavement, free from guilt, free from the fear of what happens after death. Again, talk to your Christian friends and leaders about how freeing it is to live for God, knowing that He will not leave us, that He is in control of all things, that He has saved them from death.
So, as we end this term, please consider where you are at with God. Trust in Jesus, that He has done everything for you on the Cross so that you can come back to God. Know and believe that God is good and see what He has done for you and obey His instructions for they are best.
If you’re not ready to come to God now, trusting that He is able to save yet, then please while lockdown 2.0 is still going on in the holidays, look into this. I would love to do some regular zoom meets with you over this break to chat more about all of this. Let me know if you’re up for this. Please don’t just make this virtual thing another event and switch off. Engage, and ask questions, we would love to hear from you. And we are going to do that now in our discussion groups.
[1] I forgot Jude
[2] I re-used material from my blog, when I was going through a non-Biblical-historical-sources-of-Jesus phase in 2009, A list of Jesus references outside the NT
[3] John Piper had a book by this title, I haven’t read it, but it is free here: God is the Gospel
[4] Last weeks talk: On the Cross we have Peace with God
[5] St Matthew's Wanniassa Sunday 12th September 9:30AM
0 comments:
Post a Comment