The Cross of Christ
Adapted by Pastor Tony Cirigliano from a sermon by Mark Finley
Preached at Morganton, NC on Sabbath, July 25, 1994
Preached at Columbia, NC on Sabbath, September 5, 1998
Preached at Banner Elk SDA Church, February 15, 2003
I have always read to my son Paul Bible stories, and Christian stories.
I can remember when I read to him the story of Jesus dying on the cross.
It is so hard to explain or to put into words why Jesus died on that cross.
He died for you and me, I told him. "But why Daddy?" he said.
"Because we did bad things," I said.
And then I told him the story of Big Jim.
Once there was an old boy's school with some very bad boys im it.
In that school house they could never keep a teacher because the children were so bad.
Now in those days the teachers were allowed to. and they often used a stick called a "switch" to give spankings with.
One day a new teacher came to the school.
He told the class. "I am going to do something new here. I am going to let you make the rules we will follow in this school."
So the children thought and then they began to put their hands up.
One boy said, "I make a rule that any one who is late for school should have to get 2 lashes with the switch."
Another boy said, "How about if any one messes with my stuff, he gets 5 lashes with the switch!" And all the boys laughed.
And one boy after another raised their hand to make a rule. Finally, Big Jim, the toughest boy in the school raised his hand.
"If anyone steals my lunch, " He said, "They should get ten lashes with the switch."
The teacher wrote down each rule on the board until he had ten of them.
The teacher then said, "Okay, these are the rules you said you want to keep. We will follow them exactly as you said."
Everything went fine until one day when Big Jim was hopping mad.
"Someone took my lunch" he screamed. "I want it back now!"
The teacher then closed the door and said that he would search each students desk until he found Big Jim's lunch. And the student who had it would get 10 lashes with the switch.
One by one the teacher searched the desks.
He came to the desk of the smallest, weakest boy in the class - little Timmy.
And to his amazement he saw in his desk Big Jim's lunch!
"I can't believe that you would take Big Jim's lunch Timmy! Why did you do it?"
Little Timmy, shaking and crying could hardly speak.
The teacher asked him again. "Why Timmy?"
Timmy in a whisper said that his family was very poor and that he hadn't eaten in days and was hungry.
But the teacher did not want to show favoritism in the class and he was not one who did not treat all students the same.
So he told Timmy to go into the office and take his shirt off.
Big Jim's anger had quieted and he didn't even seem glad to get his lunch back.
Timmy went into the office as the teacher said and took his shirt off.
The teacher went to the closet and took out the switch.
He looked at Timmy and saw the bones protruding out of the little boy's back.
Determined to be as mercifully as possible and yet still be fair, the teacher raised his hand to give the first blow to Timmy's back, when the door burst open.
There standing with his shirt in his hand was Big Jim.
He said, "I will take the punishment for Timmy. Give me the lashes instead. Let Timmy go back to his desk."
And I said to Paul, "That is what Jesus did for us. Like Big Jim, He came and took the spanking for us. Because He loves us!"
"We did bad things, but Jesus said, "I will take the spanking for you!"
This is just a story. But what means the cross of Christ? Is it just a story?
The cross is not just something we preach about and
talk about.
It must be the great catalyst for change, and a gateway to true conversion and sanctification.
Has the cross reached down into your life and profoundly changed you?
Now there are some that are great debators on theology.
They debate the nature of Christ. They debate justification, and sanctification, and what the gospel is.
In the book Steps to Christ, on page 111, Ellen White wrote: "Instead of questioning and caviling concerning that which you do not understand, give heed to the light that already shines on you, and you will receive greater light. By the grace of Christ, perform every duty that has been made plain to your understanding, and you will be enabled to understand and perform those of which you are now in doubt. "
Anyone who has gone to college for the ministry knows that there are a lot of things that a theologian can debate.
But some of the people we deal with in the ministry have been drug addicts, drunkards, criminals, and abused in many ways.
The people in the real world hurt because of divorce, sickness, and the worst disease of all sin!
There are so many people who live lives of quiet desperation with broken, bruised and shattered lives!
They are disappointed and discouraged often.
They don't understand the theological debates that church members can have using sanctified language.
They need to know what THE CROSS MEANS IN THE DAILY LIFE.
They need to know what the cross means on main street in Banner Elk
On main street in Boone, in Valle Crucis, in Atlanta, and New York City!
Does the cross make a difference in the way you deal with your wife and with your children?
Does the cross make a difference in your business dealings?
Does the cross make a difference in the way we relate to people around us every day?
Does the cross make a difference when you are filled with despair, when your hopes and dreams have danced away from you like a shadow?
What does the cross say to men and women living in 2003?
I'm not so interested in fine spun theology. I will leave that to the theologians.
But I am interested in the difference the cross will make in your life and mine today!
I am interested in the difference the cross is going to make tomorrow morning when you wake up.
And Monday when you go to work.
The cross must make a profound difference in the life if you and I are to be ready for Jesus to come.
And He is coming soon! I truly believe that! Prophecies are being fulfilled all around us!
The cross of Christ properly understood will have an impact in your life, on your thoughts, in your home, at your job, and from moment to moment!
The cross makes a difference first because the cross reveals the magnitude of God's forgiveness.
Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 5.
The cross reveals that God is not the enemy of His enemies!
When we were unacceptable, the cross reveals that He accepted us before we became acceptable!
The cross reveals that Christ loves us before we become lovable.
Romans 5, verses 8,9 & 10:
“But God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
We slapped Him in the face, we turned our backs on Him.
We were born as children of wrath, with natures bent toward evil and sin.
We knew better, yet we walked away from Him!
While we walked away from Him, He tapped us on the shoulder.
The cross of Christ reveals God's love for us that are sinners!
Look at verse 9 of Romans 5.
"Much more than, now being justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies...
We were His enemies. He is our Friend!
We deserve death, He gives us life.
We deserve to be nailed to the cross; He offers us a throne!
We deserve the crown of thorns. He offers us a crown of glory!
We deserve eternal loss, but He offers us eternal life!
“If when we were enemies, we were reconciled by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
The cross reveals the magnitude of God's forgiveness.
And if He has forgiven me, when I have sinned so greatly against Him, if He has forgiven me in my imperfection....How can I not forgive others, or how can I not glory in the cross?
How can we not be thankful for a Savior who accepts us before we are acceptable?
A Savior who loves me before I am lovable!
A Savior that extends me mercy when I don't deserve it.
And if Jesus forgives me when I don't deserve it, I can forgive my wife when she does something that disturbs me, and she can forgive me when I do likewise.
If indeed the Savior forgives me, when I have sinned so badly against Him, then I can forgive you if you don't smile at me when I come to church on Sabbath morning.
What difference does the cross make?
When the blood drops fall on your eyes, and on your hands, and when you're covered with that blood....
And forgiven by Christ, He places within your heart forgiveness for others.
And because we are forgiven, we can be forgiving!
And because we are loved by God, we can be lovable to others!
And because God accepts us when we don't deserve it,
we can accept other people when they don't deserve it!
There can be no bitterness in my heart against you because at the cross Christ has forgiven me for things that I have done against Him that are greater than what you have done against me.
Coming to the cross I am forgiven so can become forgiving to others!
At the cross we not only drink in God's forgiveness, but we learn to become forgiving.
Open your Bibles to Ephesians 4, verses 31 & 32.
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be ye kind to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.”
Whatever any one has done to us, we have done worse to God!
If God for Christ's sake forgives us, then we can forgive others!
Have your parents done something against you?
At times do you look back over your past and become bitter because of the childhood you had?
Some have fathers that have run off as alcoholics.
Some look back and remember the way they have been treated in business matters, and become bitter.
Perhaps some Christian, even some Adventist perhaps has cheated you out of some money.
Maybe you have been bitter about it.
Some are angry with their children because they brought them up kindly, yet they seem ungrateful.
They are miles away perhaps, and you don't even get a card or call on your birthday.
Bitterness can well up in the heart so easily.
But love can penetrate a bitter heart!
One summer I worked as a youth pastor in Riverhead, New York.
It was a predominantly black Adventist Church in a Polish Catholic neighborhood.
One day I decided to take the young people to the brother of a church member's house to do some work for him.
He was old and selling his house, and his yard was filled with junk and all kinds of odds and ends, old washing machines, etc.
I took about eight young boys with me.
When the man saw us, he said that he didn't want any black kids on his property.
He was filled with prejudice and bitterness because of something that had happened years ago.
Finally, I convinced him to let us help him after all his sister had hired the truck we were going to fill with all his junk.
It was a hot summer day, similar to the ones I used to experience in Columbia, South Carolina.
The man brought out no water for us. He wquldn't even let the kids use his bathroom.
Several times the young people with me got upset and
said, "Why should we do anything for this man. He hates us!"
I told them, "We came to do a job and we will do it. The Lord will bless us for it regardless how this man feels."
We finished the job and the yard was spotless. The truck was loaded.
We were soak and wet with sweat, thirsty and bone tired.
Before we left I decided to call the man outside and show him that we were finished and have prayer with him if he would let us.
The man came outside. He was visibly shaken when he saw the job the young people had done.
I asked him if he would join us in prayer before we left.
He nodded and I began to pray.
Suddenly I heard sobbing while I prayed. It was the man.
He apologized for the way he had acted. The love Christ showed to him through those young people had cut through the scar tissue of bitterness and touched this old man's heart.
I believe that day was a turning point in that man's life!
Brothers and sisters, when I come to the cross, when I really see Jesus, with the nails in His hands....
With the crown of thorns on His royal head, I sense that not only the Roman soldiers, but I nailed Him there!
I sense that I was in the crowd that night, when they stripped Him to the waist, and tied His hands above His head to scourge Him.
In a very real sense, the Roman scourge was in my hand and yours.
In my mind's eye I watch as metal and bone inbedded in leather sink into His flesh as the Roman centurion pulls it back ripping flesh out of Jesus' back.
And I sense that He died, not merely at the hands of Roman soldiers, but that it was my anger, my bitterness, my dishonesty, my lying, my lust, my lack of attention to divine things, my love for materialism that put Him there.
Yet all that being true, I can still sense His warm arms of love around me.
I listen to His words of mercy and tender love.
And I sense that on the cross He forgave me.
If we think about it, no one can do anything against us that would be as bad as we did against the Savior!
The cross of Christ also reveals to us the terrible enormity of sin contrasted with the immenseness of God's love!
And as we behold God's immense love for us, it breaks through our hard hearts and cuts through the bitterness and the scars to touch the soft spot buried in the inner man!
God's love is steadfast, we cannot do anything to stop God from loving us!
When Peter cursed and swore that he did not know Jesus, Jesus didn't stop loving Peter!
When Judas was selling Him for a few pieces of silver, Jesus did not stop loving him!
Nothing you can do can stop God from loving you!
Once when I was a small boy, I found a puppy on the road.
I petted him and played with him and thought it was neat that this puppy followed me around.
But at the end of the day, I didn't want this puppy to follow me home.
So I chased him away. I threw rocks at him to make him go.
But that puppy just kept coming. A few rocks hit him, but he still kept coming until at last I had to pick him up and take him home.
The Lord has reverently been called, by one famous poet, "The Hound of Heaven".
He is on your trail wanting you to turn around and let Him into your heart!
You can't lose Him! He's on your trail!
Only those who keep throwing rocks and keeping Him at a distance will be lost!
At the cross, we see God's love revealed. Even those soldiers could not make Jesus stop loving them and praying for their forgiveness!
How bad was the sin and how serious was it that drove Jesus to the cross?
At the cross not only do I learn the magnitude of God's forgiveness, I learn about the enormity of sin.
We learn something about the deadening nature of sin at the cross.
God gave His best, and the cross reveals the worst that man can do.
What do we see really when we look at the cross?
Do we see merely nails driven through His hands? Do we see merely a crown of thorns upon His head? Do we see merely the physical suffering?
Haven't there been martyrs who have suffered terribly painful deaths?
Haven't there been people who have gone through terrible tortures?
How could Jesus' physical suffering be worse than those who have been kept and tortured for years and years as was the case with some martyrs?
Jesus' suffering wasn't just physical. If all you see is blood at the cross....
If all you see are nails, and a spear wound and a crown of thorns, you have missed the main meaning of the cross!
But if we look at the deeper nature of the cross, we see the nature of sin and the magnitude of love.
Because however bad sin is, love is greater.
Open your Bibles to 2 Corinthian 5:21.
It states this: “For He (God) hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
Did Jesus ever sin? No!
But did Jesus "become sin?"
The Scripture says "He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin."
So Jesus never sinned, but He became sin.
Now what does it mean that Jesus became sin?
It means that Jesus took upon Himself the corporate guilt of every sinner that has ever lived.
When Christ hung on the cross, the death that He died was more than physical.
What actually happened on the cross?
Why does the cross have such power to break hard hearts?
Does the cross have such power to break the grip of materialism in our lives?
Why does the cross have the power to cause us to forsake all things and to follow Him?
Because it is at the cross that we see how bad sin is and how good God is!
Galatians chapter 3, verse 13 states: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."
Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Now what is the curse of the law?
The Bible says that the wages of sin is death.
What death is the wages of sin, the first death or the second death?
If we say the wages of sin is only the first death, than there is no salvation from the second death.
But when Jesus died on the cross, He died not only the first death, but the second death as well.
The Bible says that the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything.
So Jesus had to feel the second death before he died the first death, because if the dead know not anything, than Jesus could not have experienced the second death after He had died the first death?
Jesus had to die the second death to pay the wages of sin for us!
What is the second death? How do you define the second death?
It is the agony in pain that one suffers when they are wrenchingly torn apart from their Creator.
The Bible talks about weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And the fires of hell do not burn for millions and trillions of years
But the agony of the Lake of Fire is to exist in the flames in the midst of a physical pain that will destroy forever, but it is the mental anguish, the mental agony that one will never exist again....
That one is separated from God forever.
It is that inner agony of torment.
So when Christ hung on the cross, and He said, "My God, My God, why has t Thou forsaken Me?"
When He hung there from 12 p.m. till three p.m, He experienced the death that every person saved would have experienced if they would have been lost.
A hundred times, a thousand times, yea, a million times He went through that wrenching agony that He was being separated from His Father.
And He made the conscious decision that He was willing to go into the tomb and never, ever come out if it would save us!
But you say, "Wait a minute." Didn't Jesus say "destroy this body and I will raise it up in three days?"
Yes. He did. But when He was enshrouded with the guilt of sin, He experienced what no other human being had ever experienced.
But sin was so great, it clouded the Savior's vision of the Father.
And He could not see beyond that darkness.
The Lord's messenger wrote that then He could not see beyond the portals of the tomb.
Yet He made the conscious decision that He was willing to go into the grave so you and I could one day walk the streets of gold!
Praise God! He was willing to die so that one day we could live forever!
When I go on a trip for a few days, I miss little Paul and Mary Ann terribly.
It is so great to come home and see them. Paul comes running as fast as he can yelling, "Daddy's home! Daddy's home!"
If I ever had to think that I would be separated from my children and family forever, it would tear out this father's heart.
But when Jesus hung on that cross, the Son of God who had a more intimate relationship with His father than I could ever imagine....
Jesus who existed with His Father, not for just a few years, but from all eternity.....
He who was worshipped by the angels.....
Who is this who hangs there with nails through His hands?
It is Jesus, the One whom at the very mention of His name angels sing holy, holy, holy!
It is the One who spoke and created the worlds!
This same Jesus was willing to lose everything for all eternity in order to save you and I!
That, brothers and sisters is love!
Therein lies the power of the cross to save to the uttermost!
The cross also reveals that sin destroys, commandment breaking destroys!
The cross teaches us that if we start playing around with sin, start watching sin, start being entertained by sin,
If we start breaking the Sabbath consciously, then we will, unless our drifting is stayed, will learn that if sin destroyed the best the world had to offer, it will also destroy you!
Sin is fatal and it is deadly!
The cross shows me that sin destroys the best!
And sin will destroy the best in you if you cling to it and practice it!
No matter how spiritual you are today, if you start compromising, if you start diddling with sin.....
It will destroy that God given personality you have.
Sin can make an irritable, angry person out of the best of person.
The cross reveals to Me God's love.
And if He loves me that much, I can't turn my back on Him.
If He loves me that much, there could be nothing worse for me than to be separated from Him who my soul loves!
Because I have never been in the presence of One who knows me so well, yet loves me so much as Jesus!
And He loves you that way too!
If I am so important to Jesus that He was willing to be lost forever to save me, that breaks my hard heart and leads me to kneel at the foot of the cross.
Has His love lead you there? Is He leading you right now?
The cross becomes intensely personal because it is there at that cross that you and I can understand who we are!
It's there at that cross that I understand my true worth.
It is there that I learn what self-worth is all about!
In Galatians 2:20, Paul wrote:
“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, and the life which f now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
He loves me! He would have done it for you too!
Some say how could God love each of the billions of people that much. I don't mean much to God.
The cross tells us differently!
How many here have four children or more?
Imagine it is Thanksgiving time. You are celebrating the holiday together as a family.
The Thanksgiving dinner is made, the family is all set to have worship and prayer before the dinner is eaten, but he said he did not want anything to do with this family.
All you know is that he is living in some back alley somewhere in New York City.
This is the first Thanksgiving he has missed since being a little boy.
Imagine mom and dad, you sitting there in your living room and everything is ready for the feast, but you have a lump in your throat.
You have no appetite!
Because your son's place is set, but he is not there!
You excuse yourself from the living, and go into the bedroom and cry.
Nobody can take the place of any of your children, regardless how many you have, none can be replaced!
And as that mother or father sits there eating the dinner with the other children, all they can think about is the child who is not there.
Who was it that put in a mother's heart the desire and love for each child, whether there be 6, or 8 or 20?
It was the loving heart of God!
And the same God who enables you to love your five children can love the five billion He has!
There is a place in His heart for you.
One day there will be a long table at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
A great thanksgiving celebration, and the fruit from the
Because when He hung on the cross, with the crown c thorns on His head, He was thinking about you!
Friends, there's room at the table for you!
Today, why not give Him all of you?