Message: Why The Cross?
Speaker: Tim Bounds
"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;" Philippians 2:5-6
We start this conversation with the premise that Jesus is God. Somehow, all of God, in his infinite power, and authority, squeezed into human form, and walked on this earth as a man of flesh and blood.
(If this is difficult for you, please go back and watch the 2 previous sermons in this series)
"in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" Colossians 2:9
This is the mystery of the incarnation. Jesus was a human man who existed in history, and yet somehow in a way that is beyond human understanding he was and is also God.
Paul takes it a step further and says that even though he was God, he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. He is making the point that, even though power normally corrupts, Jesus did not use his power to his own advantage or his own gain.
"rather, he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. " Philippians 2:7
DISCUSSION:
Discuss the importance of Jesus being fully God, but fully man. Is this a hard concept for you to grasp?
"And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:8
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.." 1 Corinthians 1:18
NT Wright says: "The death of Jesus of Nazareth as the king of the Jews...is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns. Christianity is based on the belief that it was and is the latter."
DISSCUSS THIS QUOTE
"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21
If Jesus really did come to die on the cross in order to defeat the power of sin in the world once and for all, then that means MY sin too, that means YOUR sin too.
DISCUSSION:
What does that mean for you? Is that an easy, difficult, or maybe painful concept for you to grasp? What Jesus did on the cross for you was complete.
"All the people answered, 'His blood is on us and our children!" Matthew 27:25
"This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Matthew 26:28
DISCUSSION:
Discuss that irony and truth of what Matthew is saying here. The people proclaim that the blood of Jesus would be on them and their children. They did not realize that his blood would actually save them and cleanse them from their sin and make them right before God.
How do you need to respond to this message of the cross?
What questions do you still have?
What next step towards Jesus do you need to take?
But this is the way of Christ; it is the way of the cross.
Martin Luther King, Jr
Read
Chapters 2 and 3 of Philippians