When Jesus died in A.D. 33, a horrible death on a Roman cross, as a criminal,
no one could believe what was going to happen next.
No one could have believed that a kingdom of God revolution had begun
on that small hill in that insignificant side of Jerusalem where he was crucified.
N.T. Wright, one of the great biblical scholars, has said,
"...as the disciples of Jesus looked back on the day Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross,
as they looked back at what happened afterwards, they came up with the shocking,
scandalous, nonsensical claim that his death had launched a revolution.
That something happened that afternoon had changed the world."
The shocking news is that's exactly what had happened.
But even as his disciples ran for their lives, fearful of what would happen next,
three days later, Jesus, the one who claimed to be the Christ, the Messiah, rose from the grave.
And today, more than 2 billion people around the world give ascension to
and belief in that Jesus was the Christ and that he conquered death, he conquered Satan,
he conquered the demonic world by rising on the third day.
The Scriptures, the Bible, gives us evidence of this.
Cryptic passages all through the New Testament.
Passages like this, "...he loved me and he gave himself up for me."
Quote, "...the Messiah died for our sins according to the Bible or according to the Scriptures."
Quote, "...God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life."
In other words, the kingdom of God had come to the earth through a man named Jesus
who had gone to this crucifixion site, this criminal place called the cross and given up his life for us.
The cross is today the universal symbol of something good.
You can't get away from it wherever you go.
Rock stars, films, paintings, movies all depict the cross.
The cross around someone's neck like I'm wearing a cross right now.
I was in Jerusalem a few years ago and I picked up this cross.
I think it's a Byzantine cross and this cross represented everything heinous,
everything horrible about life.
The Romans were the ones who created the cross for criminals.
What a switch! Can you imagine?
Since the time of Christ, the cross has changed from being the most heinous torture symbol
to one of life and forgiveness and hope.
So what happened with the cross?
Why is the cross the revolutionary symbol of all of Christianity around the world?
Whether one is Roman Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, whatever your background,
whether you come out of an Orthodox church in Egypt or a Pentecostal church in America
or a Roman Catholic church in Italy, the cross is a symbol of everything that's good,
everything that's right.
Why is that?
Let's say first that the cross is about love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
So the cross represents the love of God.
It's a symbol of and it's the experience of God's love toward humankind
that his son, Jesus Christ, would die on a cross for us is because of love.
Secondly, the cross is because of sin.
So we could talk ad nauseum about sin, but sin basically is coming from a Greek word
which is the idea of missing the mark, missing the target.
It was a word used.
It would be like sin one, sin two, sin three in big archery contests.
So if you can imagine if you're one who is calculating who's the closest to a bullseye
in an archery contest, you're not going to stand right next to the target
or you might find yourself as a fatality.
But they had terms that they would shout out that were easy to understand.
They weren't using the word sin, but the word that was used at that time
was like sin one, sin two, sin three.
which represented distance from the bullseye.
So it's the idea of missing the mark.
So all of us are sinners.
The Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
The glory of God being the goal of our lives of perfection.
We've all fallen short of that perfection and so we're sinners.
And so in ancient times, especially at the time of Abram
and then on to Abraham and throughout the Old Testament,
there became a religious part of the symbols of the Israeli nation
of a perfect lamb, a lamb being taken that was perfect in the sense of
it had no defects within it, being killed, the blood running forth
and given up to God as a forgiveness of sins for the nation.
And what was a national forgiveness of sins through Christ
became an individual forgiveness of sins through Christ coming and dying for us.
So from Adam and Eve, with sin and rebellion in our lives, all of us are selfish,
all of us, and I guess if you're perfect, then you're not a sinner.
So you might look in the mirror and say, am I perfect?
If you can't say yes to that, then yes, you're a sinner and you need a savior.
So the cross is Christ dying for us, his blood covering our sins
if we put our faith in him.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son
that whoever believes in him should not perish.
So it's not just the act of what Christ did at the cross,
it's our putting our faith in him, our trust in him through what he did at the cross.
So first it's love, second it's sin, and then I think the cross thirdly
is about you and I being chosen.
You're chosen as a son and a daughter of God.
Jesus came and he chose you because he loves you,
because he knows you're a sinner and he came to set you free.
So the cross is about love.
The cross is about sin.
But then the cross is really about being chosen.
So in John 11, John 11, 25, let me read this.
Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live.
And whoever dies and believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this?
So at Calvary, at the cross, Jesus died,
but on the third day he rose again from the dead.
What's exciting about the words of Christ is he's prophesying into the future
what he was going to do.
He was going to rise again.
And men and women, when you come to Christ, when you give your life to Christ,
when you accept the work, the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross,
there's also this aspect of the resurrection,
because many leaders have claimed to be God throughout history.
Many leaders have been even willing to die for their followers.
But no faith in the world, except Christianity,
has a savior that literally rose again on the third day.
And over 500 people, the scriptures say, saw him alive.
With appearance after appearance, Jesus conquered death,
he conquered sin, and he set us free.
That's why Paul writes,
For by grace you've been saved through faith,
not of yourself, but as a gift of God,
not as a result of your works that any man may boast.
So Christ came, he died a sinner's death to take our place
so that we would not have to die a sinner's death
By putting our trust in what he did for us through his resurrection life,
he comes into our life and he begins to set us free
and bring a resurrection within us.
That's all by grace.
And the grace of God is the unmerited favor of God.
You can't earn it, you can't follow the law good enough,
you can't find yourself at any point more perfect than you already aren't.
But rather, it's for by grace you've been saved through faith.
It's your trust in that.
In other words, you can't live the Christian life,
but Christ can live the Christian life in you.
So it's you giving up the throne,
giving up control of your whole life to him.
Discipleship actually is the giving up of those things as you grow in him.
giving up your self-identified salvation and realizing that you have to have a God-identified
salvation through Christ, then he comes in, he begins to transform us.
We call that being born again.
He gives us a new heart, he gives us a new mind, he gives us new strength, he gives us
new power, and you have a new friend.
You start to have an intimacy with the God of the universe.
Can you imagine that?
So when I was 18 years old, University of Georgia, as an athlete, I got injured, and
I was at a time of kind of soul-searching, when a person shared with me what I just shared
with you, and I gave my heart, I gave my life to Christ.
And I didn't understand everything, I didn't understand everything about the cross, I didn't
understand everything about the resurrection, but here's what I did get, I got this right.
And this was from John 10, 10.
And in John 10, 10, Jesus says, the thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but
I came that you might have life, and might have it abundantly.
And man, oh man, even though I'd grown up in a religious home, in a churchy home, in
a very, my dad was a pastor, I had never discovered abundant life, and man, I wanted that.
And so I gave my heart to Christ, I gave everything I knew to him, I gave my dating
life to him, I gave my money to him, I gave my athletic career to him, and I said, Lord,
do what you want with me, transform me, I can't, I can't make it without you.
And I didn't suddenly sprout angel wings, or Charlton Heston didn't come looking, you
know, walking into the room looking like Moses, but I began to see his transformation from
the inside out, that's what the cross is.
You guys, the cross is the life, death, and resurrection Christ living in you.
So it's a surrendered life, it's a life of, you know, the scriptures say, take up your
cross and follow me, so it's taking up the cross and following him.
So I want to challenge you, take up your cross, follow him, if you've never truly surrendered
to Christ.
Christ didn't come to start a religion, he came to start a revolution, and that revolution
is in your heart.
Will you give yourself to him, will you give yourself to Christ, and let the cross, let
the cross crucify you.
The scriptures say, I've been crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who live, but Christ
who lives in me.
And the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith, in the son of man who delivered
himself up for me.
So it's being crucified to Christ, giving our life to him, letting him live his life
in us, transform us from the inside out, and that's the power.
That's the power of the resurrection in the believer.
That's the power of the resurrection that can be within you.