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Our man who simp is studying the scriptures to find out if this is true, if that’s true, he can miss the whole point.
When a man is studying the word of god and being sustained by as a disciple, he moves to a point of obedience.
A true disciple is searching the word of god for the principles of god to make application in his life that he might become more like god.
End time.
The teaching ministry of Doctor Charles Stanley, reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Next on in touch, your convictions about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The time of this message is the convictions we have about the crucifixion.
Now more than likely you have lots of convictions about a lot of things, But let me just say this to you.
If you don’t get this right, you would not have any eternal life.
What do we mean by your convictions about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?
So I want you to turn, if you will, to 1st Corinthians, chapter 2.
The apostle Paul had been beaten and jailed in Philip High and he’d been run out of thessalonica and Daria and some other places.
And current was probably the most corrupt city of that day.
And so when he went to current, uh, he made it very clear that he was not gonna get in any discussions about their philosophies, and they believed a little bit of everything.
And he wanted to make it very clear that he was gonna talk about one thing.
So if you will look at this, uh, second chapter beginning in verse 1, he says.
And when I came to you brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of god, but I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
I was with you in weakness in fear and much trembling.
And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and of power so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of almighty god.
When we think about the crucifixion, we probably all have different ideas about what god had had in mind but my purpose is to help you understand exactly what happened.
It was more than just a man hanging them across. What really transpired? What took place?
And besides that, how does it affect you?
And I want us to to look at this first chapter corinthians for a moment and the couple of verses here in verse 23 to give you an idea of how awesome the crucifixion of Jesus was to the apostle Paul.
He said in verse 23, but we preach Christ crucified.
The Jews are stumbling block, and the gentiles foolishness But to those who are the called both Jews and the Greeks, Christ, the power of god, and the wisdom of god because the foolishness of god is wiser than men.
Usually, when people think about the cross, they’ve got them hanging around the neck, Oh, they got on a bracelet.
Oh, it’s on the wall somewhere. And so they think in terms of that being a symbol of Christianity.
I want you to understand what that really is. What is it really about?
And Paul said as far as he was concerned, it was the subject And he was walking into a group of philosophers who wanted to engage in all kinds of ideas.
He said I’m coming with one thing in mind.
I want you to understand what happened when Jesus Christ was crucified.
And if someone should ask you, you’d probably give them a very uh, simple answer to that.
But when we talk about a conviction, and I want you to jot it down because it’s a conviction about anything, having a conviction is being so thoroughly convinced that something is absolutely true that you’ll take a stand for it regardless of the consequences.
So when people talk about the cross, would you take a stand for the cross? Would you say yes?
I do I do believe in the cross.
Well, I want us to consider some very vital points about the cross.
Maybe some that you’ve not thought about.
You believe in the cross, and you know that Jesus Christ died on the cross, but what was all that about?
What was Christ death on the car?
He could have died some other way, but very crystal clear the Bible talks about his death on the cross.
So I want you to look at a couple of verses if you will.
Look if you will in first Peter, uh, chapter 1, 1st Peter chapter 1 and look in, uh, if you will, in verse 20, and I’m gonna give you a number versus I hope you will be wise enough to write them down Listen to what Peter says in this 20th verse.
We can start with verse 19, but with the precious blood as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless the blood of Christ speaking of the cross.
For he was watch this.
For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in god who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and your hope are in god.
Now I want you to turn Becca, if you will, to ephesians chapter 1.
We’re talking about the cross. We’re talking about, uh, how it all happened.
Beginning in verse 4, and notice what he says.
Just as he, god, chose us in him. That is in Jesus.
Watch this before the foundation of the world that we, you and I, would be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us to adoption.
As sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will. Here’s what he’s saying.
Before you and I ever came on the scene, god had already planned the death of his son to atone for the sin of all mankind.
God knew we were gonna sin before he created us.
And what I want you to notice he says there, he says, before the foundation of the world, god knew who was gonna be saved.
God knew that you would be saved. God knew who would not be saved.
God laid out an awesome plan of redemption for all mankind, so it wasn’t god reacting to anything.
And if you’ll notice uh how he said it and I I I love this passage, how he said it in divisions, he says, look, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will.
That’s a choice he made. God chose to save us through his son.
And so when he says he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, The cross is all about how god fulfilled his predestined plan to save you to save me and to save every person who’ll ever be saved.
That’s what the cross is about.
It’s about god who planned the salvation of mankind, and he didn’t plan it in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned before the foundation of the world he planted.
It was motivated by 3 things.
That is god why did god choose salvation for mankind knowing he was going to fall?
Well, his first motive was our sinfulness.
The Bible says for all of us, have sinned and come short of the glory of god that if we we missed it, all of us have sinned.
And I’m amazed at some people I’m eating. I love to meet people.
That I that I think are not Christians because I find out what they believe and if I bring up sin, the conversation gets close to being over.
As long as we’re talking about something else, we’ll find them. Glad to see you the pastor. Mhmm.
But then when you start talking about sin, But listen, it’s god who said, for all have sinned.
That is we have violated the law of god, broken the law of god.
All of us have sinned and come short of what god intended for us.
And so one of his purposes, one of his goals is forgiveness.
We’ve all sinned against him. We we something we have to deal with sin in some fashion.
We can ignore it and pay the price or we can be forgiven.
3 motives, the gentleness of mankind, and secondly, the love of god.
And I want you to turn to uh, of our seal, especially in enrollments chapter 5.
God had in mind our sinfulness, but he also had in mind his awesome love for us.
And then this 5th chapter of Romans and there are lots of wonderful verses here, but if you’ll turn, if you will, to, um, verse 8, When Paul says it and says it so beautifully, listen.
But god demonstrated his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
And so what motivated him What what motivated him is his love for us?
His love brought about our salvation. 3 motives.
First of all, our centralness, we were lost. Secondly, his love motivated him to do something.
And the third thing that motivated him was his justice.
Now watch this carefully because he is the heart of the gospel.
God said the soul that synitude shall die Every person who sins against god is liable to the judgment will stand before the judgment.
So how does the loving god save a sinful world and still be just.
That’s a 3 motives, a sinfulness, his love for us, and his justice, which I want to explain now.
So what about his death?
His death wasn’t just this Hebrew dying on a cross because he’s been falsely accused.
We’ve already seen that before the foundation of the world, god planned the whole thing.
And so in the process of it, god is dealing with the issue of his justice.
So Jesus was not just a normal death.
It was an atoning debt, which mean it was it was a payment.
And so when we think about an atoning death, I want us to look at something here, but for the simple reason, for example, let’s just look at John 316 for a moment.
The Bible says, for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed in him would not perish but have eternal life.
But wait a minute. God is a just god.
He’s a righteous god, and he said the soul of the Senate shall die.
So how do we So god couldn’t say, okay, we’re gonna forget that. No.
He’s a just god. So in order to remain just and in order to remain true to what he promised.
And to his foreordained plan before the foundation, Laurel, how did god justify his saving you and me.
Well, do you recall, for example, back in the old testament There was a shedding of blood of bulls and goats and lambs and sheep and doves and all the rest.
And, uh, all of that was a symbol of something.
It was it was it was telling a story.
It was telling a truth that these are symbolical of what will ultimately happen one time once and for all.
And that is the death of his son. But of course, they didn’t understand all that at the time.
And so what was happening was that god was being true to himself.
He was preparing to pay for your sin and my sin so that his death was an atoning death.
Jesus, who was god in the flesh, atoned for our sin, paid our sin debt in full in with his life.
No one else could do it because all the rest of us have sinned against him.
The only person who’s ever lived was sinless was Jesus. Because he was god in the flesh.
He came for the primary purpose of dying and atoning death.
Not just the death but an atoning death, a death that was payment.
Jesus came as god’s payment for your sin in mind.
And he died to fulfill all those pictures, bull sheep, goats, lambs, all of those things were just the foresight of what was going to happen.
So when Jesus went to the cross, He died on the cross as payment for your sin in mind.
So when we talk about the cross, we’re talking about a transaction took place.
Our heavenly father sent his son.
Not just to live those 33 years, but for the primary purpose of dying, he had to be deity, he had to be the son of god, He had to be a person of eternity, but no one else could die for our sins because everybody else is sinned against him.
So the cross is the epitome the heart, the core of the Christian life.
It isn’t just something that we sing about and we read about, and we think we’ll, uh, love these words about the cross.
No. The cross is the heart of the Christian life.
You would not be saved apart from the cross. What can wash away our sins?
Nothing but what? The blood of Jesus And so when we think about the cross, you and I declared righteous before god when we trust the lord Jesus Christ as our personal savior.
Let’s go back to Romans chapter 3 for a moment.
And, uh, I I think about this particular verse that often numbs people just sort of skip over it, but the scripture says in verse 25 by that Romans 3, He says in the 23rd verse, one we all know by heart, for all of sin didn’t come short of the glory of god, being justified as a gift by his graced through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom god displayed publicly on the cross as a propitiation as an atoning sacrifice in his blood through faith.
The cross is all about payment for sin.
And the cross is all about Jesus whose life was absolutely sinned as and absolutely perfect.
And so when we come to look at his life and what was going on, he came to die.
And remember, there are three things that god had in mind.
Our sinfulness, his love, and then his justice, and his justice was settled by the death of his son, Jesus, on the cross.
Now, I think about Hebrews, uh, chapter 9 for a moment.
And if you look at these verses, uh, beginning in beginning in verse 24.
Listen to what he says.
For Christ did not enter a holy place, made with hands like the holy of holies in the temple and so forth.
A mere copy of the true one but he listen, but in the heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of god for us, Now he says, no, was it that he would offer himself often, but only once.
As the high priest enters the holy place year by year with the same thing.
Otherwise, he would have needed to have suffered often since the foundation of the world.
But now once at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
So listen. This is not all about some Easter celebration.
This is about the death of god who came in the person of Jesus Christ.
It’s all about payment for your sin and my sin.
It’s all about god being just by saying here’s the penalty. The penalty is death.
And god and his love saying, I will pay that penalty in the person of my son and therefore, we have the cross.
So that’s what he’s saying here. Now think about this for a moment. This settles forever.
People who say Well, um, I’m not so bad, and I I think I’m as good as a lot of Christians I know and I think I’m going to heaven.
So you ask them this question. On what basis? On your on your on your good one.
Do you ever sin? Oh, yeah. But, you know, what god understands that, yes, he does.
God doesn’t ignore your sin. Your sin cost.
God the father, the death of his son, Jesus, whom he willingly sent to die for your sins so that you would not have to die in your sin and be separated from him for all eternity.
So think about it. It caused god to follow Jesus.
To take care of us in.
And so when somebody says, well, you know, I’m not I’m not so bad. Yes. You are you wicked.
Whatever caused god the death of his perfect, wonderful, beautiful son is wicked.
It’s evil It’s sinful. He said, the soul that sent it, it shall die.
That’s god’s opinion about sin.
And we just sort of look over it and we justified and but god doesn’t.
In fact, it’s so evil, it’s so wicked, it’s so terrible, it’s so horrible, people die in their sin and are forever separated from god.
It’s his love that sent the lord Jesus.
But there’s something else I want you to notice, and that’s this.
That crucifixion of Jesus was an event that could never be duplicated and never needed being repeated.
It was a one time thing. Never never duplicated.
Because Jesus came, he died, and he ascended to the father. He can never duplicate that again.
Never. One moment in history.
One moment in the life of all of creation, here is god the in the flesh, his son Jesus.
Dying for the sins of mankind.
And not only that, never needing to repeat it. Think about this.
We don’t know how old this world is.
I mean, god knows, but they’re all kind of estimations how old the world is.
Watch this one time one day on one hill on one cross.
Jesus died in the human flesh to atone for all the sin of mankind from Adam, all the way till Jesus comes back again.
He pay their sin debt. Doesn’t need to be repeated.
Because that’s the power of Jesus dying.
He took all the sin of all mankind upon himself.
Because you see, it was god in the person of Jesus who was dying.
In order to pay a sin debt that he assumed your sins and mine, and he paid the penalty.
And then I wanna mention one last thing. Listen to us.
The death of Jesus Christ covered everything. Everything.
There is nothing to match it. Nothing to compare to it.
So when he died, It affected all those who passed, present, and future.
And you and I live in the awareness of the presence of almighty god.
Listen, our future is set If your name is written in the lamb’s book of life, if you trust the Jesus as your savior, for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that who so ever believes in him places their life before him and in him.
Would be saved. They cross this in something you just wear around your arm, run your neck, It’s about the most momentous event in human history.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing can match it. Nothing can do what it did.
Jesus died for your sins and mine. This is about the son of god.
Loving you enough.
To go to the cross and pay your Senate in full completely.
And that being true Have you ever trusted him as your savior?
I’m talking about have you ever accepted Jesus Christ is god’s only begotten son who went to the cross, died for your sin, took your sin debt in full upon himself.
Have you ever accepted him as your savior and lord and master?
Have you believed him for the forgiveness of your sins?
Anything else you do is inadequate.
You see, the reason it doesn’t need to be repeated is because it was all sufficient.
One time in all of him in history, Jesus died for your sin.
You either accept him as your personal savior, or here’s what you do.
You accept the weight and the guilt of all of your sin before Holy god and you’ll be separated from it for all eternity.
It’s Jesus or no way. Not Jesus one way. Jesus the only way.
Because he’s the only one who paid for your sin and that payment was accepted by the father.
How do we know that? That’s what the resurrection’s all about.
God’s declaration, paid in full, here’s the proof. The proof is in the resurrection.
So how blessed we are to be saved?
How blessed we are, but it’s a message we must tell the whole world That is our assignment, having become followers of Jesus.
Father, we love you and praise you for your goodness and love toward us.
We can’t even grasp it fully.
Our minds cannot fully grasp what you did at the cross.
But you’ve made it clear enough that we wouldn’t wanna face life without Jesus as our savior.
And I pray for somebody who’s seated right here right now.
Someone who is listening or watching.
That they’d be wise enough right now to pray this simple prayer.
Oh, father, I have sinned against you over and over and over again.
I’m coming to you not because I deserve anything.
I’m coming to admit that I’m a center.
And I’m asking you to forgive me of my sense.
Believing that Jesus paid the price on the cross.
And I’m asking you to save me right now. In Jesus’ name.
Amen.