The Wondrous Cross
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
I’m sure most of you have gotten someones else’s mail. It seems to happen a decent amount to us.
What are you supposed to do when you get someone else mail? Don’t read it!!
Whenever we read a NT letter, we are in a sense reading someones else’s mail.
But the great thing is that the Holy Spirit invites us to read it!
No one thing I appreciate about the Apostle John is that he is a straight shooter—he tells us exactly what the mail is about.
—He does this in the Gospel of John
but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Same with 1 John
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
—So we see there is a key difference:
John’s Gospel is so that you will believe (evangelistic)
—1 John is written to believers (edification)
“that you may know you have eternal life”=assurance.
**In other words, we can boil this letter down to assurance.
There are various ways to test assurance (obedience, truth, love)—but the foundation of all Christian assurance is the cross.
Q: How would you counsel and new believer, or a believer struggling with assurance?
I would make sure they really understand the meaning of the cross—thy they really grasp the doctrine in their heart
I would pray for my friend to be able to say Gal 6:14
“I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”
This message—only 2 verses, is to to help us meditate on the glorious cross, which fortifies our assurance.
I agree with Pastor Mark Dever
“If we have any assurance of salvation, it’s because of Christ’s atonement; if any joy, it flows from Christ’s work on the cross.
Apart from Christ’s work on the cross, we would be forever guilty, ashamed, and condemned before God.”
May God use the work of the cross to work on us today.
The people of the cross
The people of the cross
Believers are called affectionally “little-children” (v1)
It’s shows us the deep affection and close relationship John with this group.
But it also helps remind us that the People of the Cross are always “little children”
It’s the same word used in Jn 1:12—believers in Christ become “children of God”
According to a study done by the USDA, a child born in 2015 will cost a total of $233,610 to rear and raise children—a wave of despair just hit some younger parents.
“Based on the most recent data from the Consumer Expenditures Survey, in 2015, a family will spend approximately $12,980 annually per child in a middle-income ($59,200-$107,400), two-child, married-couple family. Middle-income, married-couple parents of a child born in 2015 may expect to spend $233,610 for food, shelter, and other necessities to raise a child through age 17.”
Obviously that depends on lifestyle, how frugal or free parents are....but the point: children are expensive!
Children are utterly dependent creatures.
American born child does not have 233K in their bank account upon arrival into this world.
Children depend on responsible, hard working parents-
Apply: So we when talk about being people of the cross, the first place we begin is knowing spiritually we are “little children” —utterly depending on the grace and favor of another.
The purpose of the cross
The purpose of the cross
The purpose of the cross is packed into vs 1
I am writing to you so that you may not sin.
The first thing we see the work of Jesus cross does is breaks the power of sin.
When we think of the cross, Quite often our minds go first forgiveness, and we can overlook and even ignore this precious aspect of Christ’s work.
It wasn’t until about 10 years of me being a believer that it hit me one day: I don’t have to sin.
It’s the basic truth found
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
This is the power of the gospel at work really.
I don;’t have to sin, because I’be been given a new nature
I’m not sure if i share already what happened on the day I was baptized back in 1997. I was baptized on the same day as mom and dad.
After the service I had a hockey game that afternoon,.
Hockey is a physical sport, so a fight breaks out on occasion. That happened this game—a bench clearing brawl.
But for the first time something changed in my heart. Even thought the adrenaline and emotions were high, I knew I did not have to fight.
The purpose of the cross: power of sin is broken.
The second aspect of the cross his advocacy.
Even on some of our best days we yield to temptation.
Or as Matthew Henry puts it:
Even those “advanced to a happy gospel-state, have yet their sins”
Even gospel-happy people sin; and the ground of assurance is not their gospel-happiness, but their Advocate.
**Yet the advocacy of Christ only comes because of the cross.
I’ve recommended Dane Ortland’s book Gentle and Lowly as the best book I read in 2020.
It unpacks the heart of Christ in a powerful way.
He has a chapter on Christ the Advocate
“An advocate doesn’t simply stand between two parties, but steps over and joins one party as he approaches the other.”
You can picture how this works out. You have two family members in an intense conflict they can’t work out. You identify with both and want them reconciled.
So you set up a meeting and say to the offender…I’ll personally go with you to help work this out.
An advocate’s work is effective because their presence is with you.
Orland goes on:
“We not not only Christ as King, but Christ as friend. Not only over us, but next to us…Your salvation is not merely a matter of a saving formula, but of a saving person.”
(An Advocate, Gentle and Lowly)
Apply: Those who cling to the cross don’t see Jesus as judge, but as Advocate—Savior
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
The provision of the cross
The provision of the cross
Not only does is Jesus a friend, advocate—he also becomes the sacrifice.
We catch this from Jesus’s own lips in
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
This is what makes the cross so wondrous—our friend becomes our sacrifice.
But what kind of sacrifice? what does all that mean?
There is one particular word we should dwell on: propitiation (also 4:10)
*Propitiation refers to a sacrifice that removes God’s wrath and restores his favor.
Some have struggled with the concept, since is communicates to us that God’s anger.
Some have even label the idea as “cosmic child abuse”
Yet the truth is propitiation does accurately describe what the cross is all about.....and what make is truly wondrous.
It also helps us to see what Jesus went through on the cross.
The church I attended when I was a new believer once brought in some medical expert who gave a presentation on the physical torment of the cross. Went into great detail describing the pain when nails would have been driven through Jesus’ wrists—and
Yet the Gospels don’t give us that much detail.
The New Testament less concerned with what Jesus endured physically as much as what happened theologically.
God’s wrath was satisfied at the cross.
Now I do want to give clarity about “not only for ours, but the sins of the world”
Some wonder what a Reformed person does with this.
Actually I think what Reformed people do with this drives a greater application, and a greater mission.
--It helps to know how John uses the world.
—He uses it a lot in this letter (23x)
World:
Now if we take world to mean every person who exists, we run into a problem. It would imply they all have Jesus’s cross-work somehow applied.
John often uses the world as a way to describe humanity in it’s rebellious, sinful condition.
But world is also used in a “missional way” to describe all peoples…every nation, language, tribe, and tongue.
—In other words, world refers to “every tribe, tongue, nation, and people” (Rev 5:)
So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.
In other words, I think John is saying—the cross work is for all peoples....every tribe, tongue, nation.
And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
Apply: It stresses the universal mission we have—to tell others about the cross.
—There are still unreached people who need to hear about the cross
—Churches need planted that proclaim the glories of the cross
—Our neighbors, friends at school, co-workers, also need us to tell them about the wondrous cross.
Sum: Friends, the provision of the cross fortifies our assurance.
Our eternal assurance stands on one thing: “In my place, condemned his stood”
Gospel: The provision of the cross speaks of one final thing—rescue.
There may be some here today, you only see the cross as a piece of Jewelry.
You need the cross.
Look to the cross today.
You can Find God’s grace in the cross;
You can have Jesus as you advocate in the cross
You can have his friendship through the cross.
You can have eternal life.....
But you must come to the cross.
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You can Find God’s grace in the cross;
You can have Jesus as you advocate in the cross
You can have his friendship through the cross.
You can have eternal life.....
But you must come to the cross.