(I gave this message at Pines Baptist Church in Pembroke Pines Florida on Sunday August 22, 2021. You may view the PowerPoint Slides of this message on Microsoft One Drive Here.)
The cross is probably the most prominent symbol of Christianity and for good reason. You find it on church buildings, signs, literature, jewelry, clothes and so forth. A survey by the Pew Research Center taken in 2020 found that 65% of adults in the United States identified themselves a Christian. The sad thing is that much of what the cross represents in Scripture is absent in the experience of many professing Christians.
Many years ago, a pastor of mine told us that one of his former students, now serving as an associate pastor in a church of another denomination, called him to lament that after a service the Senior Pastor told him that the Scripture, he had read at the beginning of the service that spoke of the blood of Christ, was inappropriate because it might offend some of the people who were visiting. You see even some Christian leaders don’t grasp the centrality of the cross to the Christian message.
The reality is that if there is no cross there is no salvation. If there is no cross, there is no Christianity. The cross is both central to the Gospel message and our response to the Gospel message as we shall see. Theologically, or doctrinally, the cross lies at the core of the Gospel message, the message of Good News and salvation. We are justified, that is declared righteous in God’s sight, only through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross where He shed His blood and paid the penalty for our sin so that we could be forgiven and given the gift of eternal life.
But the cross is also used as a metaphor or a word picture, figure of speech, to describe a person’s response to Jesus Christ and the Gospel. The cross is used as a word picture to describe both our experience in coming to Christ and then following Christ.
I want to notice first of all something that is so very important and fundamental to our understanding of what the cross means to us as we live in the power of the cross. This should be so self-evident that I risk insulting you by stating what is perhaps already obvious to you. But if we miss this point, we will miss all that follows.
We need to understand that the cross is first and foremost an instrument of death. The Romans, or whoever else invented the cross, had no other purpose in mind. The cross was designed as an instrument of execution or death. It was designed to kill the person who was nailed to it. In this regard there was no compromise. No one ever climbed down from a cross. For anyone who was hung on a cross life came to an agonizing end. It was a ruthless instrument of death. No one ever won an argument with a cross. It was totally effective as an instrument of death. Death on a cross was irrevocable. Remember this as we continue.
In God’s plan to save sinners He had to punish sin with the death of the sinner or a substitute. Jesus became our substitute by dying on the cross. God judged our sin in Jesus’ death on the cross. You’re familiar with Romans 3:23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (NIV) and verse 25, “God presented him”, that is Jesus Christ, “as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood…”. A sacrifice of atonement can also be translated “propitiation”. So, the Apostle Paul writes, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:15 NIV) And continuing in chapter five verse one,
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, God had to punish sin with death, and in His great love for each of us He punished our sin when His Son Jesus Christ voluntarily and obediently died on the cross for the sins of the world.
That is at the center of Biblical Christianity. Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penalty for our sin, and God accepted His substitutionary death on the cross when He raised Him from the dead. And by faith in Jesus’ death on our behalf we receive forgiveness of sin, deliverance from the penalty and power of sin and the gift of eternal life.
But the truth of the cross as an instrument of death is also essential in our response to the Good News God offers us. In other words, the cross as an instrument of death is descriptive throughout the New Testament of how we are to respond to the Gospel. It is used a metaphor a word picture, that describes how we respond to the Good News that Jesus offers us.
Notice secondly that the cross is an instrument of surrender. The cross, as an instrument of death, pictures the capitulation, the surrender of our will and heart to God. Jesus used the cross as a metaphor or figure of speech in this sense. Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV),
“…’If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’”
This is what I call one of Jesus’ “iron clad metaphors”. He leaves no wiggle room. It’s an “all or nothing” proposition. You have all probably seen a person shackled after being arrested or after being convicted in a court of law. Their hands are rendered useless by handcuffs. Sometimes the handcuffs are attached to a chain around the waist so that they cannot even scratch their nose. And their feet are put in ankle cuffs or shackles so that they can barely walk no less run or attempt to escape.
That is what some of Jesus’ words are like. Matthew 16:24 is an example. To follow me, Jesus says you must, figuratively speaking die to yourself. That is how he defines “taking up your cross”. It means to deny yourself. In other words, you give up once and for all your right to rule your own life. It’s a radical commitment. Jesus is ruthless in His demand, isn’t He? As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
Jesus goes on in verse 25 to explain further what He means by “taking up your cross”. He speaks about giving up your life, “whoever loses his life for me”. There it is the significance of the cross in the life of the believer. To follow Christ, we give up our right to our own life. To follow Christ, we give up our right to live for ourselves! Do you see why I began by making sure we understand the nature of the cross? This is the surrender Jesus is talking about. When you choose to follow Jesus, you can only come on His terms and His terms are defined by death on a cross or losing your life.
Let us not be confused here. We are not saying that someone coming to Christ must become something before God will save him. Christ is not asking you to “clean yourself up” before He will save you. We are not talking about salvation by works here. Rather Jesus is saying, “You come as you are, acknowledge your sin and bondage, and I will clean you up. I’ll give you a new life.” But you must surrender your life to Me before I can do that. There must be a capitulation, a yielding to me, that is as drastic and complete as pictured by death on a cross. There must be an end to what you were before I can make you what I want you to be. You don’t save any part of your life for yourself, verse 25. You lose it all giving it to me.
A.W. Tozer, writes in Root of Righteous,
“We must do something about the cross, and one of two things only we can do – flee it or die upon it. And if we should be so foolhardy as to flee we shall by that act put away the faith of our fathers and make Christianity something other than what it is. Then we shall have left only the empty language of salvation; the power will depart with our departure from the true cross.” (page 63)
This is the danger of the Church in any age. Making the cost of following Christ too cheap. Downplaying the cost of following Christ. Making a profession of faith while holding on to your own life. Ignoring Jesus’ words “he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”. This can prevent one’s heart from being regenerated by a work of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps a person being more religiously informed but living no different than a non-believer.
There is another metaphor used by Jesus that speaks of surrender and the benefits of surrender. Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV),
“Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
The image of two oxen yoked together were very familiar to those in Jesus day. Two oxen were used to pull a plough or a heavy load. Using this metaphor Jesus is giving us further insights into the believer’s relationship to Him. You will notice it begins with an invitation, “Come to me”. We have a choice to make. The invitation to be “yoked” to Jesus requires a voluntary response on our part. We choose to be yoked. We are not forced or coerced into being yoked with Him. It is a voluntary response on our part to His invitation.
But this voluntary yoking is a surrender on our part to Jesus Christ. That is implicit in the metaphor of a yoke which was a wooden cross piece that was fastened around the necks of the two animals holding them together as they pulled the load. To be “yoked” implies a surrender in this case to the Son of God, to the One who created us, to the One who loved us and died to save us from our sin. In other words someone far greater than us. The metaphor also implies an intimate relationship with Christ. We are being “yoked” to Him, connected to Jesus. We are surrendering to God receiving all the benefits that come with that decision.
Then you will note we are yoked to Jesus who is characterized as being “gentle and humble in heart.” Is there anyone who would not like to be in a relationship with someone described by those words?
Then notice the benefits of being “yoked” to Jesus, “and you will find rest for your souls.” Someone has written, “To be yoked to Christ is the turning of our heart towards His heart. It is aligning our mind with the mind of Christ. He does not call us to bear the problems of life, carry the weight of the day, and take on the distresses of the heart or the trials we face – alone. He comes alongside to help and heal, to encourage and provide the sufficient grace we need for all life and godliness. Let us harness our heart
to our loving Saviour, take up our cross, die to self and live for Him.” (“What Does Matthew 11:30 Mean? dailyverse.kowing-jesus.com)
The blessings that are ours in Christ come by way of surrender, “take up you cross and follow me”, - “take my yoke upon you and learn from me”.
Thirdly, the cross is an instrument of transformation. Galatians 2:20. (NIV). Paul’s personal testimony,
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Paul said something similar in writing the Romans, (6:3-4) “Or don’t’ you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (NIV)
Death is an instrument of transformation. “I have been crucified with Christ – Christ lives in me”. We were “baptized into his death…in order that… we too may live a new life”. These both speak of transformation. When we come to Christ in repentant faith and are born again, we die with Him. And our old life comes to an end. Just as death on a cross brings life to an abrupt end as we have noted, death is pictured in our spiritual experience at conversion. The old life we lived for ourselves comes to a decisive end. That is why when we baptize someone we ask, “Is it your earnest desire to follow Christ in death to self and to walk with Him in newness of life?”
Paul goes on to describe the results of that death with Christ, Romans 6:5-7,
“If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” (NIV)
He writes, “our old self was crucified with him”. This phrase describes something that “happened to us” (John Stott). We did not crucify the old self. It is not something we have done. Rather our old self “was crucified with him”. The word translated “old self” is literally the “old man”. The term refers to the unregenerate man, who we were in Adam. New English Bible ,“man as we once were”. Who we were before we were saved. The “old self” was crucified with Christ, was put to death on the cross, says Paul resulting in a spiritual transformation. A. B. Simpson writes,
“When He was offered up on Calvary, it was not only for our sins, but for out sinfulness. In Him we were recognized by God as hanging on that cross with Him and dying when He died, so that His death represents our death, and when we recognize it, appropriate it and identify ourselves with it, it becomes the same as if we had been crucified, and our old life had gone out with His.”
Dr. A. W. Tozer,
“So the cross not only brings Christ’s life to an end, it ends also the first life, the old life, of every one of His true followers. It destroys the old pattern, the Adam pattern, in the believers life, and it brings it to an end. Then the God who raised Christ from the dead raises the believer and a new life begins.” (A.W. Tozer, The Root of Righteousness, page 62)
The cross is an instrument of transformation. You see, our sanctification is rooted in this metaphor of the cross. My guess is that most, if not all of us who are born again Christians, have areas of our lives where we struggle. Maybe even some of us struggle with a besetting sin. Our victory not only lies in the work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, but in our willingness to take our weakness and sin to the cross. By that I mean deal with it as the cross deals with any of its victims, PUT IT TO DEATH!
That involves a conscious, deliberate, decisive decision to turn it over to God; to break with it; to kill it figuratively speaking. When we act in such a way by faith, all the power available through the death and resurrection of Jesus that Paul declared in Romans 6 transforms us. I like the New Living Translation of Romans 6:5-7,
“Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin.”
Friends that is a bold and unambiguous description of transformation. And it comes by way of the cross. In light of this truth, Paul could give these instructions to the Colossian believers, Colossians 3:5-6, “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature [or sinful nature] sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.” (NIV) And to the Galatians, he wrote of God’s provision through the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer giving us victory over the sins of our sinful nature. Galatians 5:16, 22-24 (NIV),
“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
Do you see why Paul could write, Gal. 6:14 (NIV) “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”?
A.W.Tozer, who died nearly 60 years ago wrote,
“In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne til he puts himself on the cross; if he refused the cross he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today.” (The Root of Righteousness, pg. 66)
Perhaps you are here today and have never made a decisive, deliberate, conscious decision to follow Jesus Christ or at least not in the way you understand it today in light of God’s Word. Think back with me to Jesus’ words in Matthew 11. His invitation to come to Him and be yoked to Him. He is asking for you to give Him control of your life, nothing less. If you are yoked to Him, He rules your life. You are giving Him that right.
If you respond to his invitation, I want you to notice His promises. There are two of them. First, He said that yoked to Him, “you will find rest for your souls.” Literally it reads, “I will rest you.” Jesus is our “rest”. That implies an intimacy with Jesus Christ that nothing else can rival.
It reminds me of His words, John 10:10. Speaking of the devil he said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…”. Friend that describes the only thing the devil and the world ultimately have to offer us. In contrast, Jesus continued, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” or “have it more abundantly”. (NIV) The New Living Translation reads, “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” There could not be two alternatives more opposite than those two choices. Accepting Jesus Christ’s offer comes at a cost…death to self comes first, then the gift of eternal life He alone offers.
Secondly, He will treat you gently. His motive is love and compassion. You will never regret your decision to follow Him on His terms. That is why He can say to each of us, “…my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The New Living Translation, “…my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
If you are a believer today, is there any area where you are in a struggle with sin? Paul provided the early church with quite a comprehensive list of sins to get rid of in Galatians 5, Ephesians 4 & 5 and Colossians 3. If you are in a battle remember that the death and resurrection of Jesus not only paid the penalty for our sin but delivered us from the power of sin in our lives. Whatever the area of need you or I are facing the solution comes by way of the cross. If we will bring the conflict with sin to the feet of Jesus and surrender, give up and let go, Jesus will meet us at the point of our need. As we have seen He has made every provision for victory over sin that any believer faces if we die to self and yield ourselves to God.
Watchman Nee tells of a man who came down with a leg cramp while swimming in the river at a resort. The expert swimmer called to intervene remained calm, collected and unwilling to rescue the struggling swimmer until he was sinking in the water. Later someone said to the rescuer, “I have never seen any Christian who loved his life quite as much as you do.” The man who came to the rescue of the drowning man replied, “If I had gone earlier, the drowning man would have clutched me so tightly that both of us would have gone under. A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and no longer makes the slightest effort to save himself.”
“When we give up the case, then God will take it up. God is waiting until we are at the end of our resources and can do nothing more. If we try to do anything in the flesh we are virtually repudiating the Cross of Christ. God has declared us to be fit only for death When we truly believe that, then we give up our fleshly efforts to please Him.” (Normal Christian Life)
You see Jesus Christ wants to live His life through us, but He can’t until we’re dead. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Jesus has come to rescue us. The cross has provided us with every resource necessary to know Him and walk with Him in obedience. Rescue comes through surrender.
Never forget the imagery of the father of the prodigal son, day after day waiting for the return of his wayward son. Longing to wrap His arms around the son he loved and restore him to fellowship and provide for his every need. But of course, the son had to return in order to feel the warm embrace and the forgiveness of his father.
It’s our move this morning. He is waiting with open and compassionate arms whether it be for salvation or victory over the struggle with sin in our lives. Why prolong the struggle? Come to the cross this morning.
© James P McGarvey All Rights Reserved
