Preaching and Bearing the Cross

All Christian themes and every Christian doctrine find their source and culmination in one all encompassing truth, the cross. Without the cross there is no Christian faith, and without Calvary Christianity becomes nothing more than a self improvement system. Without the cross there is no redemption, no atonement, and no resurrection. Christ Himself become a way shower and not THE way if indeed there is no cross. The cross is not just our theme, it is our life and our glory.

God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…

History’s pages continue to turn and with them the cross is diminished and assigned to a fringe issue within much of the evangelical community. We ourselves, the sinners for whom the Christ has died, have become the modern theme of Christendom. Our desires, our wants, our talents, and our wisdom have become our idols and replaced the Christ and His cross. The cross centered gospel has made way for the “how to” gospel of societal improvement both individually and collectively. And amidst the din of new theologies and pragmatic advise the message of the cross continues to die an ignoble death of negligence and disregard.

If I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross ceased.

But ours is the message of the cross. Wholly and faithfully holding high its scarlet banner of salvation, the church and every believing follower of Jesus Christ are called to herald Golgotha’s glory. Embedded within a modern and post modern culture, the cross still retains the power to save to the uttermost all who believe upon it’s bleeding Savior, in spite of the hollow sophistication of today’s philosophical guidance that seeks to build upon man instead of Christ.

Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.

The cross must be our standard bearer, it indeed must be what distinguishes us from all other peoples of the world. Our preaching must not just be seasoned by the cross, the cross must be the be the foundation of our gospel message that creates the spiritual phalanx of our entire commission. Boldly and without shame and yet covered with humility, the message of Calvary’s cross which contains the divine power of redemption must be proclaimed relentlessly. Those two Roman planks were preordained to showcase the Son of God, and they were the wooden altar upon which the Lamb was slain for the sins of the world. It seems so archaic and medieval, and to modern sensibilities the cross is another ancient talisman belonging to an outdated religion of superstition and sentimentality.

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

But how can this instrument of death continue to make grown men weep? Why do intellects bow at its feet? Rich and poor men, kings and serfs? What power does it wield over men and women who give their very lives just to deliver its story? Perhaps millions have had their lives taken upon a wooden cross, and yet this one singular cross ceaselessly draws sinners to embrace its forgiveness, experience its redemption, and then while still covered in its blood go forth with passion and joy and with its song on their lips and hearts. This, brothers and sisters, is His cross which was given to us, the Lord‘s doing, and isn‘t it wondrous in our eyes?

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take his cross and follow me.

But while we recognize the falling away of much of the evangelical community, and while we pursue the preaching of the cross, we can never forget that we are prisoners of grace and not our own devices. Let us not receive praise for preaching the cross, and most especially from our own pitiful lips. God forbid we stop our lips from praising Him and His cross so that we can spew forth any self righteousness about our own faithfulness. We are unprofitable servants of the Most High God, and as our great Apostle Paul once observed we are “debtors” that are bound by our own gratefulness to preach the message which saved our own souls from death.

And having made peace through the blood of his cross...

This should be no task, this preaching of the cross, this should be our glorious privilege! And while we speak correction to the compromisers we must be ever so careful not to lift ourselves up as if we have aught to glory in save that same cross we embrace. We are not to be pondered as faithful, He is. All the names we love to splurge upon ourselves, orthodox, fundamentalist, or any other name, serve only to unmask us as self righteous servants that seem enamored by our orthodoxy and not His glory. We did not make the cross, we did not construct the message, we did not die on its bloody wood, and we did not come to its salvation upon the wings of our penetrating intellect. This is all of God and God alone, and so let Him be lifted up forever at the worthless expense of our own spiritual narcissism.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us it is the power of God.

It is a great challenge to preach the cross to the world and also speak correction to the compromising church, and still hold fast to the humility concerning our own state of complete grace. The first ounce of self satisfaction encroaches upon His glory and begins a path that leads to the praise of men and not God. The most faithful man who ever lived, the one who Jesus said was more faithful and anointed than any man born of a woman, said that Jesus must increase and that he, John the Baptist, must decrease. How repulsive is it then for us to claim any praise about our preaching and faith? We preach Christ and Him crucified, and by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit we pray we will be faithful unto death. But at the last breath of death, after having been faithful to the everlasting gospel, let is proclaim with our dying breath, “It was all of Christ and none of me”, and with that being more truth than we can imagine, let us die in the arms of the cross we loved.

**********************

We are called to preach His cross and bear our own as well. Our calling is to die while preaching Him. Take no pride in your preaching, you are dead and only preach by His life. Take no pride in your orthodoxy, you have been kept by His power and not your own. Take no pride in speaking correction and rebuke to others, you are speaking His words and not your own. Take no pride because you preach the cross, but speak the message with tears of breathtaking awe and joy, always remembering that cross is Christ’s and you have been made a partaker by His grace and not anything of your own.

The cross we preach is the altar upon which we died, and the life we now live we live by faith. In reality, we bring a message that invites sinners to

“Come and die…and find life”.