1 Corinthians 15:1

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you... and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. (1 Corinthians 15:1–10)

What should we do with the greatest act of love and sacrifice ever shown to mankind?

The Nicene Creed Series

For those who don't know me, I'm Pastor Mark, the executive pastor here. Pastor Miles asked me to sit in again this week while he takes some well-deserved time off this summer; Pastor Garrett and Pastor Jason will be sharing in the coming weeks.

At Cross Connection we typically go line upon line, verse upon verse, through a book of the Bible—right now we're in Luke. In the summers we take a little pit stop to let other pastors teach and to walk through different subjects. Right now we're going through the Nicene Creed.

Around the year 325, some of the best practices and theology of the church were being ignored, and the practices of different churches were drifting outside the curbs and causing damage to God's people. So theologians met and prayed and came up with a set of best practices—things a Christian church should do—every one found chapter and verse in the Bible. It's not exhaustive, but it's the basics.

If I were teaching the high schoolers, I'd say it's like how somebody had to establish that a red light means stop, a yellow light means caution, and a green light means go. That keeps us safe, keeps us on the same page, and gets us home. The Creed does the same thing spiritually. At the time there was the Orthodox church, the Roman Catholic church, and the Protestant church—which we are—and these are things they all agreed upon.

For Our Sake He Was Crucified

Last week we talked about one of the most powerful statements ever: "for us and for our salvation he came down." That the Creator of the universe—perfect, spotless, holy God—would come down to pay for your sin and mine just blows me away. It's the greatest act of kindness and love mankind has ever witnessed.

Plan A was that nobody fell into trouble in the garden, but that's not what happened. Plan B was the protoevangelium, the first gospel, in Genesis 3:15, where God essentially sits down with Adam and Eve and says, "The world's changed because of what you've done, but here's the solution." That was four thousand years before the birth of Christ. Jesus was always going to be the solution; there was none other.

When someone gives you a gift so amazing you can't repay it, there should be a response. Last week we said our response is to connect with God through prayer, worship, obedience, sacrifice, and His Word; to connect with God's people by being His hands and feet and putting others' needs above our own; to connect with the world through the Great Commission; and—the hardest part—to connect with God through suffering. Nowhere else do we connect with God so quickly and deeply as when we suffer.

The part of the Creed we're looking at today is: "for our sake he was crucified." That's heavy. The crucifixion was an exchange so that I could be forgiven of my sin, and through that sacrifice Jesus proved His authority over sin and death—at His own expense. As a parent, sometimes you have to get off the couch and discipline your kids. God had to get off the couch because of what Adam and Eve did. But instead of whooping His kids, He took the whooping Himself. What a concept.

Jesus' Crucifixion Was the One and Only Solution

The sacrifice was talked about four thousand years before Christ, and the method—crucifixion—was alluded to over seven hundred years before it happened.

And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)

Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great... because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:12)

Crucifixion was probably invented in Persia around 300 or 400 B.C., but it was perfected by the Romans. This is when it got real. Jesus was in the garden asking, "Lord, is there another way?" If I were in His place, I'd have been thinking the same thing—I've got a good fishing business, I'm good at talking to people, Lord, I can just go talk to people. But it was said of Jesus that He was always on God's timetable and always about God's business, and there was only one way this was going to happen.

There's a price tag for salvation—not just a cost, but a currency. It isn't dollars, pesos, or rubles. It's a currency we don't have: the spotless blood of the Lamb. They could have crucified a hundred other people and it would do nothing for you and me. But this was the guy. This is when it got real.

There's a reason the disciples said, "No, you shouldn't do this, Jesus"—they'd actually seen a cross in use. We wear crosses as jewelry, but I've been told that didn't begin until no one was alive anymore who had seen one used. Before that it would have been like walking around with a gold electric chair around your neck. The cross meant something different after Jesus went to it.

When It Got Real

Look at Jesus' day. The night before, He was betrayed by one of His own, beaten, and denied by another. They played a game where they put a bag over His head and kept hitting Him, saying, "Prophesy, who hit you?" It's said that when they were done He was unrecognizable as a man—because sin has a price.

The next day He was whipped—"by His stripes we are healed." They made Him carry the cross most of the way, then drove seven-inch nails through His wrists, through the median artery, so He'd bleed and suffer extreme pain. They nailed His feet so He hung at an angle and had to keep pushing up to breathe; if you didn't bleed to death, you suffocated. And you did all this naked. The cross was Rome's silent way of keeping order—when you saw bodies on crosses, you were careful what you said and did.

So who killed Jesus? We could blame Rome—they held the hammer. But the Bible tells us there's no government God doesn't know about and use for His purposes. He used the Assyrians and other ungodly nations to accomplish what needed to be accomplished. We could blame Judas, the scholars who knew the Scriptures and didn't intervene, the politicians, the soldiers, the religious elite. But they were all just allowed to do what they did. The truth is, we killed Jesus. It was my sin and your sin that put Him there, and it was His love that took Him to it.

When Jesus went to the cross, it was in God's timing and on God's terms. He told Pilate He had a legion of angels who could wipe them all out—"you're not giving me permission to do anything." As He was dying, it looked like defeat, not victory. But that's only in our economy. The truth is, that's exactly what victory over sin and death looks like: God opening the gates and saying, "Come on in—because of My Son."

Freedom for Ourselves, Forgiveness for Others

How do I respond to this bloody, horrible act brought upon my Savior? I have to calculate the cost.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1)

Our response to forgiveness should be freedom for ourselves and forgiveness for others.

Anybody have a legit Mexican mom? You know la chancla—the sandal. You can discipline a nation with that thing. My friend Veronica was the most legit Mexican mom, with four daughters and a husband. She was bettering herself—up early to prep dinner, work all day, then night school for a certification. Every night she'd come home to a sink full of dirty dishes. She talked and talked to her daughters, but they were too big for the chancla.

One day she'd had enough. She washed every dish, put them all in the trunk of her car, and set out one plate, one bowl, one spoon, one fork, one knife, and one cup. She told them, "This is how we're going to live until you figure it out." Four teenage girls battling for one plate at breakfast—they were late and slow; it was a cog in the wheel. And then, finally, they repented and got their plates back.

Do you ever feel stuck—like the Lord isn't hearing your prayers, like something should have happened by now? Maybe God took your plates away to slow you down so you'd look at that one thing. There's a really good chance it has to do with forgiveness—someone you need to forgive, or someone you need to ask.

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14–15)

Forgiving others is hardest when you are right—when you nailed it, did nothing wrong, and they should apologize but don't. And so you feel you don't need to forgive. But the plates are in the trunk.

Walking Up Like Nothing Happened

I've been in vocational ministry since 1999—four kids, seven grandkids, married 38 years—and I've failed at forgiveness more times than I'd want to admit. But here's something I've learned: when someone has wronged me or the church and I run into them later, I walk up to them like nothing ever happened. I don't want them thinking they have a "Mark problem." I want them to sit alone, look at their plate, and realize, "Maybe I've got a Jesus problem." As a pastor I want them to be better, to be okay, not to hurt themselves or others.

When I hear someone is going through a rough time after doing something not so great, I try to be the first to call: "I'm praying for you. I want to walk through this with you." When I run into them in a store and they shrink behind the counter, I walk right up: "Hey, how's it going, bro?" There might be something between them and me on their side, but I'm not letting it take root, because it'll mess me up.

Sometimes we need to seek forgiveness and admit our wrongs. Twelve-step people know all about this—so much of that program runs right to chapter and verse. Let me tell you what's hairy: I was up here to preach one day and a woman I'd had a brief relationship with as a teenager—one that didn't end well—was sitting in the room. The whole time I'm thinking, "Lord, don't let her stand up and testify." But she was a sweet gal. She said, "I just heard you were teaching and wanted to see what God has redeemed." It was a great conversation. I was forgiven.

Forgiving Ourselves and the Chalice of Forgiveness

Sometimes we need to forgive ourselves—not in a weird psychological way, but to stop clinging to guilt and shame for sins we've already repented of. When you walk around town like a second-class citizen because of what you did, you're saying by your actions that the cross wasn't good enough, that the sacrifice wasn't gruesome or costly enough to cover your sin. That's a lie straight from the pit—what the devil whispers to keep you down and blind to the victory of the cross.

I took my wife to the beach one day, and we were talking about some heavy things to do with her illness. I got up to go to the truck, glanced over my shoulder, and there was a man who'd been drawing us the whole time. He had real talent. The drawing wasn't your typical happy beach day—there was a heaviness to it. I struck up a conversation, and this guy was cool: a successful, intelligent businessman with an accent, almost like James Bond. It turned out he was a full-on Jesus-loving Christian. He wanted to give me the painting and asked if I ever got to Escondido.

I met him later at a little art show. He'd been through so much. In Great Britain, wealthier families often sent their kids to boarding schools, and there—against his wishes—he was victimized in ways no one should ever be, consistently, leaving deep scars. He was angry, and he was seeing a believing therapist.

The therapist told him: "I know you're an artist. Take a block of wood and hang it in your backyard. Take a baseball bat, think of everything those people did to you—their names, their faces—and beat the wood until you can't anymore. Then sit, recount each name and each act, and forgive them, because they have a hold on you and they shouldn't." And then, "When you're done, if there's anything left of that wood, do something with it."

He showed me a picture of what he made: a beautiful hand holding what looks like a cup. He calls it The Chalice of Forgiveness. I challenge you this morning—forgiveness will take something ugly and horrible and turn it into something beautiful. The cross was ugly and horrible, and on His terms God made it gorgeous. Bitterness is the poison we swallow hoping to hurt others, but it only eats us up and changes how we see God and the world. Forgiveness will give you a freedom you've never known.

Jesus Has Conquered Sin and Death

I bike with a group of guys every Wednesday—we're all about sixty-plus, and after a ride some of us look closer to death than others. The older we get, the more death we see and feel.

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:54–57)

Our attitude toward death should be formed knowing that Jesus has conquered sin and death. As we age, getting out of a chair comes with a sound effect—"oooh, baby"—and my dad used to count, "uno, dos, tres," like it was some great act. We start appreciating buckets. I walked into Costco and saw buckets for $8.99—three of them, three bucks apiece—not on the list, but I'm getting these buckets.

And birds. My wife has two bird feeders and can name every bird; she kicks the bad ones out—"scrub jays, get out of here." We go through over a pound of birdseed a day, plus grape jam for the orioles. It's an avian obesity epidemic at my house—these birds look like a Weight Watchers commercial. I have to buy forty pounds of birdseed a month. That's how you know you're getting older: we kick the bucket, so we start appreciating buckets.

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:17–19)

That's good to know when you start going to more funerals, when things start hurting, when the doctor walks in with news you never wanted to hear. I still remember that day—the doctor brought really bad news, and my wife answered him, "Well, I know where I'm going, and I'm okay with that." She told me later, "You know that peace that surpasses all understanding? I was there." For about three minutes I felt happy and relieved. We need not be afraid of death, because Jesus paid the price for it.

Three Wooden Crosses

The title today is "Three Wooden Crosses"—some of you have Randy Travis going through your heads. That day there were two thieves and Jesus in the middle. One thief mocked; one accepted. Two guilty people came to that cross—one perished and one was redeemed. First Corinthians tells us the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Most of us here have made a choice to walk with Jesus and accept His forgiveness and His power over sin and death.

But sometimes we need to respond to that message and that sacrifice. Some of us need to forgive people—maybe someone very close who hurt you deeply—because you've got to get rid of that poison; it's eating you up and clouding how you see God and the world. Some of us need to seek forgiveness, to own our wrong honestly and with integrity—it will change your life. Some of us need to forgive ourselves and go to the cross, accepting that Jesus paid for that thing we'd undo if we could. And some of us are afraid because the fear of sin and death has a hold on us, and we've lost sight that Jesus holds the keys. The truth is, God owns that; He's got it. When you accept that Jesus holds the power over sin and death, you will be set free.

Closing Prayer

Dear Father, thank You so much. I don't have to feel bad about anything I've done, because those things are repented of and we walk in obedience away from them. We don't need to walk around like second-class citizens, because Your grace was good enough for us. Lord, set us free this morning—help us forgive others and know that You control every day of our life. We don't need to be afraid; we just need to walk and trust You. It is in Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people said, amen.