Intro:
A centerpiece is the central or most important feature. Centerpieces tend to be the focus or center of attention. Anyone who has ever attended a wedding should be familiar with centerpieces. The centerpiece of the wedding is the bride; the centerpiece of the reception is the couple. The centerpiece of Philosophy is the love of wisdom. The centerpiece of Science is knowledge, knowing how things work. The centerpiece of History is facts. The centerpiece of most religions is works. The most important centerpiece of all time is God’s centerpiece, the Cross. The Cross is the centerpiece between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Cross was the centerpiece of Calvary; Jesus hung on a cross between two thieves. The Cross is the centerpiece of Salvation.
The sinless life of Jesus was always overshadowed by the cross. The cross was seen by those of Jesus’ day as death and defeat. It was not Jesus who was defeated. It took only one swift movement of His nail scarred hand to defeat death, hell and the grave. The blood that spilled from His wounded side drowned death, extinguished the flames of hell, and completely covered the accusations of our enemy the devil. The centerpiece of God’s perfect plan for man is the Cross.
Since the cross is the central focus of God’s plan for man let’s focus on three aspects of the cross found in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, The Priority of the Cross, the Purpose of the Cross, the Promise of the Cross.
I. The Priority of the Cross
1 Corinthians 15.1 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”
The first importance of the cross is
A) The Proclamation of the Love of God (John 3.16, 1John
John 3.16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
(Remember John 17.3 defines eternal life as knowing God the father through Jesus the Son.)
** The cross was used as a way to publicly show off the shame, suffering, and slow death of the criminal that was hung on it.
1) A Public Announcement
God used the cross as a public way to show He loves us. God gave His son to the horribly painful torture of the cross to show how much He loves us all.
(A Public announcement of our importance to God)
2) A Permanent Announcement
2 Peter 3.18 “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God,”
The cross stands forever announcing accept My Son and I forgive your sin.
3) A Prophetic Fulfillment (1 Corinthians 15.3 “according to the Scripture)
B) The Provision for the souls of men
1) Christ Our Substitute
2) Christ Our Savior
Hide and Go seek
Home base is the objective of the ones who hide. The objective of the seeker is to touch them or capture them.
The cross of Christ is our Home base. It is our safe place from the clawed hands of Satan and sin. Sadly many try so hard to hide from the reality of sin and responsibility to God that they never find home base.
Home base was set up on a hill called Golgotha. Jesus Christ the Living son of God made a safe, secure, stable place where all can loose their guilty stains of sin and be safe in the arms of God.
I’m convinced many people are scared by situations in life because they have not yet found the safe place provided by God.
So that brings up the question: Have you found God’s safe place??
What did our substitute and Savior do? An anonymous writer said it this way,
Jesus came to pay a debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay.
C) The Payment of sins debt
Everyone please pay close attention to the personal pronoun our.
10 times the word our, ourselves, we or us is used.
Isaiah 53.1-6
1) He paid our debt
He carried the sorrow, pain, shame, grief, and discipline that rightfully belong to us.
2) He died our death
The cross is the heart of the gospel, the centerpiece.
Life, death on Cross, Resurrection
Between carnal life and eternal life there must be a death.
Our death must be to self and sin with a new birth leading to devotion to God and His Son.
We in the church call it discipleship, following Jesus not matter where he leads or how it hurts.
II. The Purpose of the Cross
“But by the grace of God I am what I am,”
A) A Restoring of Man’s walk with God
All of mankind was designed to walk through life with God.
Micah 6.8 “He has told you o man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to walk humbly with God and man.”
1) Walking with God means allowing God under the surface to change you
CS Lewis wrote about how hard it is to allow God to get beneath the surface to change us.
“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all our wishes and precautions to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way – centered on money or pleasure or ambition – and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us we could not do. As he said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown.”
a) It is an inner change that brings outward service
(It is not enough to come to church I must be the church)
The apostle Paul was changed in his “inner” man.
b) It is an inner change that brings outward sacrifice
Have you ever thought about this? Is it possible that many of us when we try to sacrifice often sacrifice for our own benefit? Pastors can visit peoples homes so that they will come to church. Volunteers give their time so that people will praise their work. Members of the church come on Sunday and Wednesday so that God will bless them.
True sacrifice does not give for the purpose of getting. A sign that our walk with God is changing us from glory to glory is when we have no agenda behind our sacrifice.
This is the type of change where we realize that it is not about me.
Dr David Jeremiah in his book A Bend In The Road “Walking on a treadmill is refreshing, but walking with God is transforming.”
2) Walking with God means giving God all the credit
1 Corinthians 15.10 “I am what I am by the grace of God.”
“I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
Illustration: Veggie tales: Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler
Dr Watson (played by Bob the tomato) says “We solve these cases together but you get all the credit SheerLuck”
Who gets all the credit in your daily life? You or God
Walking with God means He gets all the credit.
B) A Restoring of God’s image in man
2 Corinthians 4.4 “in whose case the god of this world has blinded (Satan is an angel of light) the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
Romans 8.29 “For those he foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”
1) Jesus is the image of God the father.
The visible revealing the invisible.
Illustration: Lightning reveals the presence of electricity.
2) We are to be conformed to the image of Jesus.
3) We are to become just like God
Notice I said just like. We will not become gods. But we can become like God.
God doesn’t just want people to be saved he wants them to be just like him.
What is God like?
The Bible tells us in 1 John 4.8 “God is love”
Then we must say what does that mean. Aren’t you glad God had Paul to write a chapter called affectionately by Christians the love chapter? In this wonderful chapter Paul tells us some of what God is like.
1 Corinthians 13.4 – 8 read (don’t forget 1 Corinthians 13.13)
God wants us to walk with Him so that our relationship will cause us to become more and more like Him.
The great thing about walking with God is that we also get the promises of God.
III. The Promise of the Cross
1 Corinthians 15.11 “Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”
The cross is the promise of Good news. In the Gospel message the Cross is smack dab in the middle of the life of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. There can be no good news without the cross. Have you ever wondered what good news cross brings to those who believe?
If there were no cross there would be no crown. If there were no crucifixion there would be no coronation. Jesus death brings us life. But it doesn’t just end with abundant and eternal life.
A) A place to call home
1) God resides in our hearts now
2) We will live with God forever
B) A Position of complete hope
Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.
Time, terrorists, false teachers, and others have tried to tear down the cross of Christ. But they haven’t even removed one splinter of God’s perfect plan for man. Jesus’ finished work on the cross, resurrection from the tomb still stand as our peace for today and our hope for tomorrow.
C) A Power for the present
Jesus is the door that hung on the doorpost of the cross to give us access to God’s power to work in our present condition.
2 Corinthians 4.8-11 Our weakness is a chance for God to show His power.
Conclusion: Jesus said in Matthew 16.24 Whoever wanted to follow Him would take up their cross and follow.
Is the cross the centerpiece of your life. Does it stand between your old life and you new life as you walk with God?
Do you joyfully thank God for what He’s done?
Do you faithfully serve so he can work through you?
Do you fervently pray for His soon return?
There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not cross- bearers here below.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
Is the cross a priority in your life, has it fulfilled its purpose, are you a recipient of its promises?
When we become conformed to the likeness of Jesus we become the centerpiece of God’s love.
