Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: Sorry to interrupt you, Kelly. I'm so excited to have children back in church, aren't you?
Brian: Yes.
Jacque: Yes. It's going to be great.
Brian: I want you to get your mindset changed just a tad bit today. Don't think of today as a picnic, but think of it as tailgating. We tailgate in January in Minnesota. We are going to go out and we are going to tailgate today from 12:30 to 3:30 over at the Hanover Park. If you have enough gumption, bring your cell phone and you can watch the Vikings game over there, but I'm not sure you really want to do that and ruin the day. We'll have a good time together. Wear your parkers and your mukluks and your long underwear and all the other stuff that goes along with tailgating and we'll have a great time. And then I want to just reiterate how important next Sunday is going to be with our prayer, our day of prayer. We really are at a very important time in our nation and in the world.
The good news for us today is that it's not the majority that actually is going to determine the outcome of what is happening in the world today, but it's his people. The scripture says, “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and seek my face and pray and turn from their wicked ways…”, then our God says, “I will hear them from heaven and I will answer their prayers and I will heal their land.” So the good news for you and I today is that we actually, I believe controlled the destiny of America. We control the destiny of what happens in the world today. So we encourage you to participate with that. There are ways you can go to our website and Kelly or Jacque or Rachel can help how to navigate towards signing up and being a part of that.
You can come in for 15 minutes and leave and come back two hours later with another prayer leader and be a part of that. Our youth group is going to be taking an hour of time in prayer. I'm just really excited about this day, next Sunday from eight in the morning until eight at night. We are just going to, I believe, make a difference in our nation, our community and in the world. So will you join me? Especially, all of you are watching by live stream, Norbert and Leslie, over in Hungary, you can join us. You can join us. Of course, our friends from all over the country can join us as well.
I would like to talk a little bit about the way out of darkness. Last week, we had communion and it was great to have communion together. As I was focusing, again, that message last week on the cross, God just dropped some other things into my heart that we didn't have time to share last week, but I want to share some of them this week. Sometimes it's easy to forget about the central reasons we can have freedom, and that is the cross of Jesus Christ. I want to read… This was taken from a website from, not a really large group of Christians in England, in the United Kingdom. This was on their website. I just thought it was very captivating and I wanted to read it to you today. It says this; you can't get away from it. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. What's everywhere? The cross. The cross is everywhere. It's in homes. It's in films. It's in paintings. It's in pop videos. It's worn as an earring or a necklace. I bet if I had you raise your hands today, half of you here would be having a cross on you someplace today.
It's stitched or studded into leather or denim. It's tattooed onto skin. It's everywhere. It really is everywhere. What would Coca-Cola or McDonald's give to own a symbol that millions of people wore around their necks every day? What would they give for something like that? The cross is the universal Christian symbol, and it's acknowledged by millions upon millions of people everywhere as the single visual sign of their faith, which is kind of weird, isn't it? It's a little weird, because the cross was originally a symbol of suffering and defeat. That's what the cross really was originally.
The Roman Empire killed thousands of their enemies by nailing them to wooden crosses. It's kind of like wearing a gallows around your neck, a gibbet or maybe a syringe with a lethal injection. If you were to wear something like that, or a hangman's noose around your neck, you would be thought of as actually pretty weird today, wouldn't you? We have forgotten the significance and the impact of what a cross really meant in the Roman culture. Jesus Christ was executed 2000 years ago by the Romans, but Christians believe that Jesus didn't stay dead and that Jesus beat death and rose again, beyond death's reach. That makes the cross actually not a sign of death, but a sign of the end of death. That's what the cross really signifies, the end of death. That's why Christians and even non-Christians at times wear crosses. They are designed to stand out. The cross of Jesus means that we can be forgiven and we can have a new start, and even death has been clobbered. And you know what? It's worth shouting about. It's worth shouting about.
The crucifixion of Jesus, it's a plain stark fact. It's etched into the real space and time. When I use the word edge instead of drawn, etched, if you etched something in you can't erase it. You can't erase it. It's etched into our space and time continuum that our whole calendar oftentimes is connected to obviously the birth of Christ and the life of Christ. You can't think of the birth of Christ without thinking of the death of Christ. People intuitively know that the cross has a powerful and profound meaning for them. People who aren't even followers of Jesus know that the cross has a powerful meaning and profound meaning for them.
I asked myself this question, why does the cross of Jesus have such an impact on so many people around the world today? Why does it have such an impact? I believe it's because the cross carries a power that goes beyond theory. It carries a power that goes beyond speculation. It carries a power that at times goes beyond our ability to even understand it. It carries a power like that. I remember a few years ago, I was talking to a very elderly gentleman who had really nothing to do with church since the time he was a young boy. He got turned off to church and he didn't have anything to do with church for probably 80 years of his life.
Yet, he went one day to a museum in Paris, and he told me this story. He was looking at a series of paintings that had to do with the crucifixion and the sufferings of Christ, and then a picture of the open sepulcher with Jesus coming out of this tomb. He said to me, "When I looked at those paintings, I said to myself, I could serve a God like that. I could serve a God like that." He simply reflected upon this historic event of the cross and it touched his heart so much that intuitively he said to himself, "I could actually serve a God like that." One of the greatest composers, especially of a Baroque music, and I don't mean broke music, Baroque music, was Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote a piece of music with chorus. Later on, it was adapted by a dance company and performed at the proms. It’s St Matthew's Passion.
Bach saw the story of Jesus's crucifixion as the story in which all human beings are confronted with the full darkness of their souls, we are confronted with the full darkness of our souls, but it didn't end there. His music and his St Matthew's Passion don’t end there either. But he went on to say, yet with the possibility of finding a way out of that dark place into a place of peace and an absence of shame, an absence of shame. Boy, isn't that what our world needs today, an absence of shame?
There was a great book written a hundred years before our declaration of independence as a nation. That shows you how old the book was. It was actually written in 1678. It's Bunyan's Pilgrim's progress. Have any of you ever read it, The Pilgrim's Progress? A few of you. It used to be required reading years ago. It's not required reading anymore. I would like to read you just a segment of that book. I'm going to have it up on the screen, because this is written in the old English language. It's hard to kind of understand when you are listening to it. So if we can read it and visually see it and hear it at the same time, it will help. If we can put that up... Here is what Bunyan said. Let me set the stage here.
Pilgrim's progress is this story about a person whose name is Christian, and he is on this journey to ultimately his destiny, which is to be in the presence of God. On the way, he encounters all sorts of difficulties, as well as he is carrying burdens on his back. He comes to this place. The book says this, "There stood a cross and a little below in the bottom, a sepulcher was there. So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came upon the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders and fell from off his back." Here is the picture. Here is this main character, Christian, who is carrying this burden and he comes upon this picture of a cross and the sepulcher. All of a sudden, the burdens that he is carrying on his back fall off his back. What a wonderful picture. Let's go on. The birds began to tumble and so continued to do so tell it came to the very mouth of the sepulcher. Look at the symbolism here. What does the sepulcher represent? Obviously, the resurrection of Jesus and the defeat of all of that sin and darkness and death. It came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. What a great picture, huh? Where it fell in and I saw it no more...
Jacque: It disappeared.
Brian: It disappeared. And then it goes on to say, then was Christian glad and lightsome. We don't use the word light some anymore, but lighthearted, carefree. There was Christian lightsome. And he said with this merry heart, he hath given me rest by his sorrow and life by his death. He has given me joy. He hath given me rest by his sorrows, the sufferings of Jesus. He has given me rest from my burdens by his sufferings and he has given me life by his death. And then he finishes by saying this. Then he stood still a while to look and wonder, for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden.
What sense does it make to think that the death of one man on the cross nearly 2000 years ago could have that kind of power? Even Christian was surprised by it. He was surprised that the sight of the cross could actually ease him of his burden. The good news for us is that we don't need to know the answer to that question. That question is, what sense does it make? Actually, it doesn't have to make any sense to us to get the benefit of it. We just have to believe it. We have to receive it. I said this last week; you don't have to be a chef to be able to enjoy eating food. You don't have to understand music theory in order to enjoy music. I don't actually know much about electricity, but I certainly enjoy it when I'm home at night and I need to have lights on.
It's like the beauty of a sunset or maybe a harvest moon. Have you ever been captivated by that? We come out in late fall and the moon is low on the horizon and it's just this massive, huge ball of orange. At least I think it's orange. I'm not sure. I might be colorblind, but it's even pretty to me, and I don't see colors as well as the rest of you. It's like falling in love. When you fall in love, do you try to define what's going on or do you just enjoy the ride, enjoy the experience? God doesn't really want us to analyze all this stuff about the cross. I'm not saying that he is opposed to us having theological discussion about the significance of everything Jesus did, but that is really secondary. What Jesus wants from us in the world is to enter into the benefits of the cross. Trying to analyze it or explain why it's so important, I think seems beside the point, doesn't it? Wouldn't you agree at least? I think we would all agree with this. I'm not trying to get you to agree with me, but I really do think you would agree with this, that the story of the cross grips us. When did it first grip you?
Jacque: I have to just think about that for a minute. You know, I remember hearing about the cross all the time when I was a child and I loved Jesus, but it just becomes like words that you always heard. I lost my awe about it, but I remember when I was probably like around, in my late twenties, I just asked God to really show me, show me. So it was probably like around then that I just really saw personally, because there is a verse that talks about the foolishness of the cross.
Brian: Yes. We'll talk about that in a moment.
Jacque: Yes. And I would think… I wouldn't know how to explain it to people. So I was trying to be in my head about the cross I had to get into my heart about the cross.
Brian: Yeah, a little more intellectual.
Jacque: I had to get into my heart about the cross.
Brian: The cross grips us and depictions of the crucifixion are extremely compelling at times. I think you can look upon them for hours. We don't have in our stream. For most of my Christian life, the denominations and the affiliations we've been a part of have not gone into a lot of stained glass windows and things like that, but I love going into cathedrals and I love going into houses of worship that have these beautiful stained glass windows. I can just look at them for hours and reflect upon what those artists were depicting. The cross carries a power through which the forces of evil can be defeated. Let me say that again. The cross carries a power through which the forces of evil can be defeated. And you know what? It's not just believers that know this.
How many of you remember the old black and white Dracula movies with Bela Lugosi, remember? What would they do? They would hold up what? Across and what would Bela do? He would get his cloak and cover his eye. That's where this came from. That's where that came from. The world, Hollywood, intuitively in writing those movies intuitively knew, and people from the 19th century and 18th century and stories that were told back a thousand years understood the symbol that the cross represented had a power over evil. I feel like sometimes today we are walking away from that a little bit. We are losing sight of that very central essential aspect of our belief and our foundation. The reading of the story of the death of Jesus, not only consoles us and we've been consoled by it, haven't we, many times, but it compels us to awe.
Jacque: I wanted to connect that word to the cross, absolutely.
Brian: That's one reason why I wanted to sing the song we sang today, I stand in awe of you, because as we reflect upon the cross, it should create an awe in us on so many different levels. Not just the level of why would he suffer like that for me, which is certainly a good question for all of us to ask ourselves, and it demonstrates how much he cares for you and I, but the awe factor in that moment in history, that's etched in history is what defeats the powers of Satan and the demonic forces. It is. So we can look at the cross, we can look at depictions of the crucifixion and the cross, and it compels us to awe. It also compels us to love God and have gratitude for him. I remember as a child, seeing early reflections upon the crucifixion and the resurrection and the empty tomb, and it touched my heart as a child, because this is the mystery of this whole thing that God does. He doesn't actually need somebody to actually speak. His spirit speaks to us, even as children in these things.
I want to look at what the apostle Paul has to say about the cross. We see this in 1Corinthians chapter one verses 22 to 31. We'll just separate this; break it up a little bit.
Jacque: From the Message Bible.
Brian: The Message Bible.
Jacque: While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the crucified.
Brian: So here we go; the Jews were clamoring for miracles, show us another miracle. I think that's one reason why Jesus did a lot of miracles. He was hoping to get their attention, but the Greeks, which are very much like us in the west; the west was basically built on Greek philosophy. The Greeks, they went in for wisdom, philosophical wisdom. The fact of the matter is that the crucifixion made no sense to the Greeks, nor did the crucifixion make any sense to the Jews. I mean, what kind of Messiah is actually killed in a manner that's reserved for slaves and rebels? That's how the Jews thought. What kind of king or leader would you follow if you were a Greek that would be crucified? It makes no sense. But Paul says, we still go right on what, proclaiming. Read it.
Jacque: Christ, the crucified.
Brian: Christ, the crucified.
Jacque: Jews treat this like an anti-miracle. Does that mean like not a miracle?
Brian: Yeah, not a miracle.
Jacque: Both Jews and the Greeks pass it off as absurd.
Brian: Yeah. It's nonsense. The Greek said this is crazy [sound]. Have you ever seen someone do that? [Sound] What are they saying? You are nuts. You are crazy. That's what the Greeks were saying. [Sound] That's absurd.
Jacque: But to us who are personally called by God himself, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tiny, so impotent next to this seeming absurdity of God.
Brian: So here is a comparison. Our human wisdom at its zenith, is tiny and impotent compared to the things of God that are absurd. Never mind the things of God that makes sense. It's like the gap between the earth and the heavens. It's just huge.
Jacque: Human strength can't begin to compete with God's weakness.
Brian: Yeah. The greatest strength that we can muster as human beings can't compete with the very weaknesses of God. I'm not sure that God has any weaknesses, but that's the comparison they are trying to draw. So let's go on to verse 26 now.
Jacque: Take a good look, friends at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of the brightest and best among you. Not many influential, not many from high society families.
Brian: So here, he is saying all you people who have been called… and let's look around our church. I don't see anybody here with extreme political influence. We can't make a phone call and $50 billion be released someplace around the world, but we don't need to rely on that kind of power. What Paul is saying here is when we were called into this life God didn't call like the superstars of this world or the brightest and the best. I'm not saying that we are a bunch of dummies. Don't get me wrong here. At least I don't think you are dumb.
Jacque: We are not.
Brian: I don't think I'm dumb, but someone might call me arrogant for saying that. I don't know. But you know what, we are really not influential. We are not from high society families, but he goes on to say this.
Jacque: Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these nobodies to expose the hollow pretentions of the somebodies. That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God.
Brian: That's a good... That's kind of a little pivot that Paul makes here, doesn't he? In writing to the church of Corinth, he said, even though we are not this, this is why we don't blow our own horns, because if we are going to blow horn, who do we blow it for it?
Jacque: Everything that we have, right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have this saying, if you are going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.
Brian: Yes. Blow a trumpet for God. Wow, isn't that great? So if you are going to blow horn, blow it for Jesus. Make all the noise you want for Jesus. Don't draw attention to yourself in all of this.
Jacque: In him, we live and move and have our very being.
Brian: I need to hurry because we are getting out of time here. Here is the question. How in the world did something so obviously crazy as a crucifixion or scandalous or even foolish becomes so central so quickly in the early church? Because the very mention of crucifixion was taboo in polite Roman circles because it was the lowest form of capital punishment. It was reserved for rebels and it was reserved for slaves. As for Jews, the very idea of a crucified Messiah, it was scandalous, which we don't really relate to that word today because nothing is a scandal anymore in our culture, but in that culture it was scandalous. Of course, if the Messiah's crucifixion was scandalous to Jews, it was complete utter madness to the Greeks, complete utter madness to the Greeks. The early despisers of Christianity had no trouble mocking the very idea of worshiping a crucified Christ. The early despisers of Christianity, they ran full bore into mocking that as an idea and dismissing it as anything of relevance.
I think it could have been really easy if we would have been living in the first century church receiving all this ridicule of what we were saying about the crucifixion of our Messiah and all of that. I think it would have been really easy for us to tone down the fact of the cross. I think it would have been really easy to highlight something else, like the resurrection, which they certainly highlighted it, but they gave the crucifixion equal time in the story. Now, this is what happened in the Gnostic gospels, the gospel of Thomas and some of these other Gnostic gospels. It is good reading, but it played into the scheme of trying to lessen the value of the cross, but in contrast, the New Testament is not embarrassed by the cross, any place. Aren't you thankful for that? It's not embarrassed by it, but it refers to it as actually the key to the very meaning of life or the key to knowing and understanding God, because the crucifixion in some respects reflects more the nature and character of God than the resurrection does.
I'm thankful for the resurrection. Don't get me wrong, but the resurrection reflects more of the omnipotence of God and the power of God, whereas the crucifixion refers to and relates much more easily to the very nature of God's character and how he thinks and feels about you and I. So the cross is the key to the meaning of God. It's the meaning of the world. It's the key to the meaning of human destiny. Even Justin Martyr, who was the second century, theologian said this, "If you want to sail a ship, the mass must be in the shape of a cross." Every place in theology, back in the early first century, third century, fourth century, all the writers were referring to the cross.
The point of understanding the cross better is so that God's power and his wisdom may work in us, through us and out of us into the world. Yes, into that same very world who still scoffs and mocks at a Messiah that would be crucified. Simply put, Jesus died so that we could become part of God's plan to put his whole world, but there is one challenge. We are coming down the home stretch with this. Here is our challenge. The love of God is so counter-intuitive to how we naturally think. The love of God is so counter-intuitive to how you and I naturally think on a regular basis, to how we think that we often scale the love of God back. We often scale the true definition of how God really is back and we scale it down in our own minds. We develop ways and patterns of thinking that make ourselves actually immune to the life-changing power of the cross, because we have put so much stuff into our minds that God doesn't do this. He could never do that. I just don't believe he would be like this. We scale the nature and love of God back so much that the life-changing power of the cross now has no effect in people's lives.
We in essence, lie to ourselves about how God is, and we believe the lies that we've told ourselves about who God is. Oftentimes, we distort the love of God and we also twist it until we find ourselves saying the very opposite things that God says about himself. We begin to say things and believe things that are the very opposite of what God says how he feels about you and I. We create a theology and doctrines that put people in boxes and isolate them and give them nothing, but despair for their lives. But I believe the cross is a recalibration point for all of us. The cross is a way to recalibrate how we think. For a while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I want to finish this message by reading 11 short verses in Romans chapter 5. Romans 5 verses 1 through 11, really talks about this heart that God has for you and I, and if we could just embrace this and begin to believe it and begin to share this message with the world, I believe we could bind evil and destroy the powers of darkness in our midst. Read it, Jacque.
Jacque: By entering through faith, into what God has always wanted to do for us, set us right with him, make us fit for him. We have it all together with God because of our master Jesus. And that's not all. We throw open our doors to God and discover at that same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us.
Brian: Just get that for a second. We think that we are opening ourselves up to God, and when we open up our hearts to God, what do we find? We find the door to him has already been opened. It was an open door waiting for us. We didn't open the door, and then God says, okay, I'll open my door. We opened the doors of our heart... Please listen to this. We opened the doors of our heart and we find that his door has already been open to us before we ever opened up our doors. We throw open our doors to God and discover at that moment that he has already thrown open his door to us.
Jacque: He is waiting.
Brian: He is waiting patiently in line, like the old song by the guy that wrote Monster Mash.
Jacque: Oh yeah. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped. We might stand out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory standing tall and shouting our prayers.
Brian: We find ourselves standing where we always wanted to actually be, in a place of acceptance by God, not a place of cowering in fear, but a place of acceptance in God, standing tall and being able to shout actually praises to him because this was all about what he did. It wasn't about what we did. We are a Christian and Pilgrim's progress. We come upon the cross and all of a sudden, these burdens of life, cares of this world and the losses that we incur in life... And by the way, the longer you live, the more losses you will encounter, but those losses sometimes pile up on us and they become burdens and they become weights and they become sorrows. Christian came upon the cross and all of a sudden this knapsack of burdens fell off of him and rolled right into the mouth of that sepulcher and disappeared. This is what Paul is talking about here in Romans chapter 5, but he says beginning in verse 3, there is more to come.
Jacque: There is more to come. We continue to shout our praise, even when we are hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us and how that patience can turn forges, the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancies such as this, we are never left feeling short changed, quite the contrary. We can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit.
Brian: I know that this may not be a real good picture for you, but just think of an old house with a roof that's very leaking, but don't think of the leaking in the house as something negative. Think of it as something positive. What would you think of that what was leaking through the roof was molten gold? What would you be doing? You would be finding every pot you could find to catch it, wouldn't you? You would be getting every bucket out there that you could find it. Where is another spot? That's what this is talking about. We can't round up enough containers to hold everything that God generously wants to pour into our lives. This is his heart for us. This is his heart for our world.
God doesn't want to judge the world. He wants to bring his mercy and grace and his beauty and his compassion and his salvation to the world. Jesus said it to Nicodemus, “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him could be saved." God's heart is to not condemn. His heart is to pour the gold out from heaven. I don't mean that in a monetary way, but just the blessings of heaven on us. Verse six
Jacque: Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't and doesn't wait for us to get ready.
Brian: He doesn't wait for us to get ready. He was ready. He said, okay, this is a done deal. This is a done deal.
Jacque: I like this. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.
Brian: Some people were rebellious. Some people were just too weak. They had been just crushed so much under the weight to this world. They were too weak. Other people were really rebellious, but you know what God did? He included them all together, the rebellious and the weak. He included them all together. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak or rebellious to do anything to get ourselves.
Jacque: And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice, but God put his love on the line for us by offering his son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
Brian: While we were of no use to him. That's Eugene Peterson's way of saying, while we were yet sinner. God didn't do this because of the great use we were going to be to him. He did it because we are made in his image, we were his children. He says “You are mine. You are the apple of my eye. I actually have you searched in the palm of my hand. It's not because of your goodness that I did this. It's not because of how well you prepared yourself to receive me that I did this. When you weren't even in a place to be able to prepare yourself, I did this.”
And then verse 9 says that now that we are set right with God, by the means of his sacrificial death, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. You may feel you fail. And you know what? The fact of the matter is we all do. We all do. We all have regrets. I can look back on last week and have some regrets, but those regrets and those failures do not put me at odds with God. They may put you at odds with other people who don't love you unconditionally, but with God, they do not put you at odds with him. Read the rest of that. If when we were at our worst...
Jacque: If when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his son.
Brian: So again, get this picture; when we were at our worst, God put us how? When we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God. That's how God viewed us because of the cross. That's why the cross has so much power to defeat the demonic forces and change our hearts, because when we were at our very worst... and I bet you, if a history of our life was shown up on this screen of all of our lives, we would all have great moments of embarrassment, wouldn't we? When we were at our very worst, we were put on friendly terms with God because of his sacrificial death of his son. Go on.
Jacque: And now that we are at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life, abundance.
Brian: I don't think any of us today are at our worst. God has made a difference in us, hasn't he? He has changed us. So we are not at our worst anymore. So thank the Lord for that. What does Paul then say? He said, "So now that we are on our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepened by means of his resurrection life. How much more fulfilling life can be for us.”
Jacque: Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose.
Brian: I like that. Now that we have actually received this incredible friendship with God, I am a friend of God. Wow, what a great line.
Jacque: We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus the Messiah.
Brian: Yes. So we are no longer going to just plod along. GK used to be able to really imitate that good, right Stan? GK was just plodding along. We are no longer going to just plod along and sing some morbid song. We are going to sing and shout our praises to God through the Messiah. That is the gift that we have to us today. And it all goes back to the cross. The cross is this mystery. We can't get our minds wrapped around it completely. We can understand it to some degree, but there is so much more to the mystery of the cross. But I can say today, just because there are aspects of the cross that we don't understand, let's not be quiet about it. It is the power of God for salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross that this incredible God that has the power much greater than the nuclear weapons that we can put on each other. We've all seen the pictures of what a nuclear bomb can do. God who created those atoms, the atoms are not more powerful than the creator. God is more powerful than all of the nuclear bombs put together on this on this earth. He is saying to you and I today that he loves us so much. He loves us so much that he was willing to die for you and me. Reviewing that image in our minds or in a painting sculpture, it creates something in here that can't be ignored.
Jacque: It makes me want to live for him. When I think of his death for me, I want to live my best for him.
Brian: Today, I encourage you to let's go back and recalibrate at the cross. Let's go back and revisit at the cross. Let's bring the cross to all the evil, in a sense that comes against us. Let's bring the cross to those who are in need of healing. Let's bring the cross to those who are in need of deliverance. Let's bring the cross to those who need peace and comfort, because it is where the power of God's grace and mercy and love are demonstrated. It is the reminder to all of us. It is the reminder to all of us, the depths of how much God loves us. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you for your grace and mercy. I thank you for the cross. It's everywhere, Lord. It's everywhere. It's around our necks on necklaces. It is in films. It's on our walls in our homes. It's in tattoos. It's everywhere. It is a mystery that an instrument of death would be so powerful in bringing life. But that is how you work, Lord. That's the mystery of our God. There are some things about you, Lord, that are beyond our earthly ability to find out, but that's okay because we believe in you in spite of our lack of understanding at times. Today, we declare that the cross is not a sign of death, but it's a sign of the end of death. The cross means that we can be forgiven and we can have a new start, and that death has been clobbered and it is worth shouting about. It is worth shouting about. This, we pray, in your name, Lord and for your sake.
Let's raise our hands together, shall we? Now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace. May the Lord smile upon you today. May you declare with your mouth and with your life, the power of the cross, because it's the one thing that demonstrates the love of God more than anything else. This, we pray, in the name of the father, son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. It's great to see you today. Go put your parkers on and we'll meet you over at the park. God bless you.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 10-18-20. If you would like to watch the full service, click one of the links below.