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When Jesus died in A.D. 33, a horrible death on a Roman cross, as a criminal,

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no one could believe what was going to happen next.

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No one could have believed that a kingdom of God revolution had begun

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on that small hill in that insignificant side of Jerusalem where he was crucified.

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N.T. Wright, one of the great biblical scholars, has said,

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"...as the disciples of Jesus looked back on the day Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross,

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as they looked back at what happened afterwards, they came up with the shocking,

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scandalous, nonsensical claim that his death had launched a revolution.

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That something happened that afternoon had changed the world."

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The shocking news is that's exactly what had happened.

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But even as his disciples ran for their lives, fearful of what would happen next,

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three days later, Jesus, the one who claimed to be the Christ, the Messiah, rose from the grave.

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And today, more than 2 billion people around the world give ascension to

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and belief in that Jesus was the Christ and that he conquered death, he conquered Satan,

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he conquered the demonic world by rising on the third day.

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The Scriptures, the Bible, gives us evidence of this.

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Cryptic passages all through the New Testament.

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Passages like this, "...he loved me and he gave himself up for me."

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Quote, "...the Messiah died for our sins according to the Bible or according to the Scriptures."

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Quote, "...God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son

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that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life."

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In other words, the kingdom of God had come to the earth through a man named Jesus

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who had gone to this crucifixion site, this criminal place called the cross and given up his life for us.

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The cross is today the universal symbol of something good.

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You can't get away from it wherever you go.

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Rock stars, films, paintings, movies all depict the cross.

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The cross around someone's neck like I'm wearing a cross right now.

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I was in Jerusalem a few years ago and I picked up this cross.

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I think it's a Byzantine cross and this cross represented everything heinous,

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everything horrible about life.

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The Romans were the ones who created the cross for criminals.

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What a switch! Can you imagine?

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Since the time of Christ, the cross has changed from being the most heinous torture symbol

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to one of life and forgiveness and hope.

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So what happened with the cross?

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Why is the cross the revolutionary symbol of all of Christianity around the world?

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Whether one is Roman Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, whatever your background,

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whether you come out of an Orthodox church in Egypt or a Pentecostal church in America

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or a Roman Catholic church in Italy, the cross is a symbol of everything that's good,

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everything that's right.

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Why is that?

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Let's say first that the cross is about love.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

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So the cross represents the love of God.

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It's a symbol of and it's the experience of God's love toward humankind

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that his son, Jesus Christ, would die on a cross for us is because of love.

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Secondly, the cross is because of sin.

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So we could talk ad nauseum about sin, but sin basically is coming from a Greek word

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which is the idea of missing the mark, missing the target.

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It was a word used.

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It would be like sin one, sin two, sin three in big archery contests.

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So if you can imagine if you're one who is calculating who's the closest to a bullseye

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in an archery contest, you're not going to stand right next to the target

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or you might find yourself as a fatality.

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But they had terms that they would shout out that were easy to understand.

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They weren't using the word sin, but the word that was used at that time

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was like sin one, sin two, sin three.

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which represented distance from the bullseye.

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So it's the idea of missing the mark.

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So all of us are sinners.

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The Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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The glory of God being the goal of our lives of perfection.

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We've all fallen short of that perfection and so we're sinners.

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And so in ancient times, especially at the time of Abram

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and then on to Abraham and throughout the Old Testament,

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there became a religious part of the symbols of the Israeli nation

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of a perfect lamb, a lamb being taken that was perfect in the sense of

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it had no defects within it, being killed, the blood running forth

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and given up to God as a forgiveness of sins for the nation.

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And what was a national forgiveness of sins through Christ

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became an individual forgiveness of sins through Christ coming and dying for us.

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So from Adam and Eve, with sin and rebellion in our lives, all of us are selfish,

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all of us, and I guess if you're perfect, then you're not a sinner.

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So you might look in the mirror and say, am I perfect?

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If you can't say yes to that, then yes, you're a sinner and you need a savior.

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So the cross is Christ dying for us, his blood covering our sins

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if we put our faith in him.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son

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that whoever believes in him should not perish.

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So it's not just the act of what Christ did at the cross,

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it's our putting our faith in him, our trust in him through what he did at the cross.

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So first it's love, second it's sin, and then I think the cross thirdly

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is about you and I being chosen.

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You're chosen as a son and a daughter of God.

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Jesus came and he chose you because he loves you,

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because he knows you're a sinner and he came to set you free.

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So the cross is about love.

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The cross is about sin.

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But then the cross is really about being chosen.

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So in John 11, John 11, 25, let me read this.

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Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.

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He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live.

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And whoever dies and believes in me shall never die.

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Do you believe this?

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So at Calvary, at the cross, Jesus died,

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but on the third day he rose again from the dead.

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What's exciting about the words of Christ is he's prophesying into the future

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what he was going to do.

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He was going to rise again.

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And men and women, when you come to Christ, when you give your life to Christ,

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when you accept the work, the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross,

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there's also this aspect of the resurrection,

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because many leaders have claimed to be God throughout history.

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Many leaders have been even willing to die for their followers.

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But no faith in the world, except Christianity,

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has a savior that literally rose again on the third day.

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And over 500 people, the scriptures say, saw him alive.

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With appearance after appearance, Jesus conquered death,

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he conquered sin, and he set us free.

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That's why Paul writes,

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For by grace you've been saved through faith,

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not of yourself, but as a gift of God,

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not as a result of your works that any man may boast.

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So Christ came, he died a sinner's death to take our place

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so that we would not have to die a sinner's death

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By putting our trust in what he did for us through his resurrection life,

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he comes into our life and he begins to set us free

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and bring a resurrection within us.

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That's all by grace.

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And the grace of God is the unmerited favor of God.

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You can't earn it, you can't follow the law good enough,

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you can't find yourself at any point more perfect than you already aren't.

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But rather, it's for by grace you've been saved through faith.

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It's your trust in that.

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In other words, you can't live the Christian life,

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but Christ can live the Christian life in you.

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So it's you giving up the throne,

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giving up control of your whole life to him.

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Discipleship actually is the giving up of those things as you grow in him.

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giving up your self-identified salvation and realizing that you have to have a God-identified

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salvation through Christ, then he comes in, he begins to transform us.

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We call that being born again.

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He gives us a new heart, he gives us a new mind, he gives us new strength, he gives us

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new power, and you have a new friend.

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You start to have an intimacy with the God of the universe.

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Can you imagine that?

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So when I was 18 years old, University of Georgia, as an athlete, I got injured, and

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I was at a time of kind of soul-searching, when a person shared with me what I just shared

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with you, and I gave my heart, I gave my life to Christ.

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And I didn't understand everything, I didn't understand everything about the cross, I didn't

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understand everything about the resurrection, but here's what I did get, I got this right.

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And this was from John 10, 10.

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And in John 10, 10, Jesus says, the thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but

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I came that you might have life, and might have it abundantly.

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And man, oh man, even though I'd grown up in a religious home, in a churchy home, in

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a very, my dad was a pastor, I had never discovered abundant life, and man, I wanted that.

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And so I gave my heart to Christ, I gave everything I knew to him, I gave my dating

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life to him, I gave my money to him, I gave my athletic career to him, and I said, Lord,

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do what you want with me, transform me, I can't, I can't make it without you.

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And I didn't suddenly sprout angel wings, or Charlton Heston didn't come looking, you

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know, walking into the room looking like Moses, but I began to see his transformation from

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the inside out, that's what the cross is.

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You guys, the cross is the life, death, and resurrection Christ living in you.

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So it's a surrendered life, it's a life of, you know, the scriptures say, take up your

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cross and follow me, so it's taking up the cross and following him.

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So I want to challenge you, take up your cross, follow him, if you've never truly surrendered

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to Christ.

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Christ didn't come to start a religion, he came to start a revolution, and that revolution

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is in your heart.

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Will you give yourself to him, will you give yourself to Christ, and let the cross, let

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the cross crucify you.

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The scriptures say, I've been crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who live, but Christ

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who lives in me.

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And the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith, in the son of man who delivered

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himself up for me.

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So it's being crucified to Christ, giving our life to him, letting him live his life

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in us, transform us from the inside out, and that's the power.

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That's the power of the resurrection in the believer.

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That's the power of the resurrection that can be within you.