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The Cross is the cure Galatians 3:28
September 21, 2008 Sermon 09A Chinese man and a Jewish man were eating lunch together. Suddenly, without warning the Jew gets up, walks over to this Chinese fellow and smashes him in the mouth, sending him sprawling. The Chinese man picks himself up, rubs his jaw and asks, “What in the world did you do that for?” The Jewish man retorts, “For Pearl Harbor!” Well, this Chinese fellow’s response is total astonishment: “Pearl Harbor? I didn't have anything to do with Pearl Harbor. It was the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor!” The Jewish man responds, “Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese—they’re all the same to me.” With that they both sit back down but before too long the Chinese man gets up, walks over to the Jew and sends him flying with a hard slap to the jaw. The Jewish man yells out, “What did you do that for?” And the answer comes back: “The Titanic.” “The Titanic? Why? I didn't have anything to do with the Titanic!” And the Chinese man replies, “Goldberg, Feinberg, Iceberg – they’re all the same to me!”
Racism is irrational! Evangelist Billy Graham was once asked what he believed the world’s greatest social problem was. Drawing upon his many years of ministering in more than 100 countries around the globe, Dr. Graham replied that the greatest social problem, without question, is racism…the unhealed wounds of racial injustice and animosity.
Our culture is fragmenting. America’s founding fathers believed that America was to be a melting pot – that the diverse ethnic and racial groups would retain their identity yet be united with one Constitution, “one nation under God.” President John Quincy Adams wrote that immigrants must “cast off their European skin, never to resume it; they must look forward to their posterity rather than backward to their ancestors.” Without question he would have been opposed to our present day obsession with ethnicity which insists every group be identified with their past rather than becoming part of the American melting pot. Today we have Polish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Anglo-Americans and hosts of other groups identified by their past roots rather than their present status as Americans. Far from coming together, we seem to be driving more wedges and building more walls further apart.
Now the message today is not about racism. But I want to use this long existing social problem of racism to demonstrate a wonderful truth, The Cross of Jesus Christ is the Cure for what ails us. That’s why we worship each Sunday. The Cross of Christ is our rallying point. It’s our compass, our hope. Because of that old rugged cross, the Church of Jesus Christ exists not for those on the inside of the church but for those who are still on the outside. Our focus is outward, not inward. Life is meant to be given away, not kept. Our purpose is external, not internal.
No other issue facing America so powerfully demonstrates the healing power of the Cross as does racism. Fifty years after the Civil Rights Marches in Selma, Birmingham and Washington. Decades after Dr. King’s powerful I have a dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, racism is still rampant. Social program after social program has done little to remedy the problem. We believe The Cross is the Cure for racism and scores of other social issues. As we work through this today, let me make two introductory observations:
* The Bible does not address every issue. There’s not a “Biblical” position on many major issues. For example, the Bible says nothing about drilling or immigration. While those may be political issues, they’re not Church or Biblical issues. Thus, they’re not part of our mission.
* When it comes to racism, we must also confess that the Church has often failed on this issue. Rather than being part of the solution, we’ve been part of the problem. But racism in the Church or racism perpetuated by Christians is caused by ignoring and twisting Scripture. It’s contrary to what Jesus taught. Racism is abhorrent to the Gospel. We are to go into all the world and reach every tribe and nation with the Gospel. Without apology then, we believe that the Cross is the Cure for what ails our world. The tragedy of racism demonstrates the all-curing power of the Cross of Jesus Christ. If you’re taking notes…
1. There is great division in country and world today.
a) There is ethnic division. Rodney King, the O.J. Simpson trial, the hateful rhetoric over immigration; are all reminders that racial animosity is an ongoing major issue. Blacks accused whites of assuming Simpson was guilty merely because he was black; whites accused blacks of wanting him acquitted simply because he was a member of their group. There is a growing fear by some that if Senator Obama is not elected, there will be race riots across the country. Despite gains made in the civil rights movement, it’s difficult to uproot racism from the human heart.
b) There is economic division. We have the rich and the poor, the servants and the masters, the suburbs and the inner cities. Unfortunately, poverty continues to increase, resistant to government cures. There’s talk of the extinction of the middle class. Despite massive amounts of money for welfare and subsidized work programs, many still live in poverty and are enraged about it. With rising gas costs and the cumulative damage, particularly on those living near the poverty line, the future appears bleak.
c) There is religious division. We have Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists and other religious groups competing for the minds and hearts of our population. A Muslim flight attendant complained that her airline was violating her religious beliefs by prohibiting her from wearing a hijab, or head scarf. The EEOC agreed and sued the airline for discrimination. With the different religious groups demanding their “rights,” we are indeed a nation with the notion of equality continually being tested.
d) There is domestic division. Family life is disintegrating. The high divorce rate, the escalation of abuse and the increasing number of latchkey children all testify to the emotional deprivation of this generation. We’re living together in a nation that’s disconnected and unable to form deep, lasting relationships. Barna describes us as “a fast-paced, experience driven, multiple-option world, where personal values pale beside the possibility of exposure to the latest, the biggest, the fastest, the most prestigious, the best or the most expensive.”In such a world, many relationships are either brief, high-intensity encounters which quickly burn themselves out or they’re casual hook-ups that never satisfy the human desire for love and a lasting connection. Americans are, for the most part, a lonely lot, seeking to fill the void with the latest gadgets or entertainment venues. Deep relationships characterized by love, loyalty and commitment are few in number and little is done to encourage them. As a result, our desires are unmet and as a nation we keep turning to those solutions that only inflame greater unmet desires.
2. The Church is to model Cross-centered relationships. So where do we turn? Is there any hope? The Church of Jesus Christ is called to model wholesome, caring relationships in a culture that no longer believes such friendships are possible. Our calling is to shun that part of our culture which is fueled by a radical individualism, that selfishly seeks one's own "good" at the expense of one's neighbor. God has called us to demonstrate that deep and loyal friendships can exist among those who otherwise have racial, cultural, and economic differences. We’re to model the oneness for which Christ prayed to His Father, “that they may be one as We are one” (Jn. 17:11). It’s at this very point that we should be most unlike the world.
During the Obama-McCain forum at Saddleback Church on August 16th, Rick Warren asked both candidates about their views on evil. Evil or sin exists and sin always divides. When our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed, they were separated from God and their children were separated from one another. Cain killed Abel and from that time onward the history of the human race has been marked by fragmentation and broken relationships. Today sin continues to divide us.
Here are some musings that reflect well the attitudes that prevail in our world today:
- My pride means I’m better than you and cannot accept you unless you are on my level. You must conform to my standards of hygiene, diet, and work ethic. If not, I will deem you inferior.
- My greed means that you can’t touch what’s mine. I’ve worked for it. And if you do not have the same amount of money I have, you’re lazy and mentally challenged. After all, that’s just the American way.
- If you appeal to me—if I like your personality and your appearance and you make me feel good about myself—I will like you. If you begin to drain my emotional energy without making me feel appreciated, I will drop the relationship…and the sooner the better. I need relationships that meet my needs, not relationships where I meet the needs of someone else.
Frequently, we’re not even aware of these attitudes that lie like a coiled serpent in the bottom of our hearts. America has almost unlimited options. We can live where we like, chose whatever vocation we want and move from one part of the country to another if it strikes our fancy. That means we can avoid living and working with those who are different from us, and our prejudices can remain unchallenged. But God wants us to be united within our hearts. Biblical unity is not just peaceful co-existence. It means I’m willing to subject my own personal interests for your good; it means that I can demonstrate love for those whom I by nature would despise. It means I’m willing to put my life on the line for someone else. It means nothing less than the love of a crucified Savior living in my heart. It’s the message of the Cross that the Church is commanded to take into the world.
Think of the hostility that exists between Jews and Arabs. This age old conflict is so deeply rooted in the hearts of those who share the land of Israel that the rules of rationality just don’t apply. A peace treaty may be honored out of political necessity, but it won’t be honored out of love. A piece of paper can’t change the human heart and no reasons are compelling enough to cease the animosity. But the Cross is to change all of this.
3. The Cross is the bridge that knocks dividing walls down. Jesus came to demolish barriers that exist between various peoples groups. Paul wrote that Christ “has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace” (Eph. 2:14-15). The Cross demolished the walls of division. To dramatize this new era, the veil in the Holy of Holies of the Temple split from top to bottom when Christ died. The Cross opened the way for everyone to come to God though the blood that was shed. In the Old Testament God Himself had told the people to keep their distance from His presence which was localized in the Holy of Holies. The new message is, "Come! Come on the basis of the cross. Come from all corners of the earth!"
All people groups, economic sects and genders were made one in Christ, Galatians 3:28 (p. 825). God always wounds only that He might heal; He destroys only that He might build. His desire was to create something entirely different: a true new unity that would be stronger than anything that might divide them. This was a peace treaty that actually changed the hearts of those who accepted it. This was a kind of unity that demonstrated the power of God, a unity that was beyond human power and analysis.4. Because of the Cross there is a new creation. London businessman, Lindsay Clegg, tells of a warehouse property he was selling. The building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Vandals had damaged the doors, smashed the windows and strewn trash around the interior. Showing a prospective buyer the property, Clegg took pains to say that he’d replace broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage. “Forget about the repairs,” the buyer said. “When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building; I want the site.” Compared with the renovation God has in mind, our efforts to improve our own lives are as silly as sweeping a warehouse slated for the wrecking ball. God wants to make all things new. All He wants is the site and the permission to build. Paul used three figures of speech to help us understand what God did through the cross.
a) At the Cross God created a new body. We’re told that Jesus reconciled us "in one body to God" (Eph. 2:16). In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul develops the imagery of the body, affirming both diversity and interdependence.
How did this unity come about? By the power of the Holy Spirit, "through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father" (Eph. 2:18). God does not have one Holy Spirit for blacks, another for whites, and still another for Hispanics. All Christians are indwelt by the same Spirit and have all been baptized into the same Body. It’s a genuine unity because all Christians share the same life and are responsive to Christ, the one head. It's a unity of accomplishment, where deeds are done together; therefore, sorrows and triumphs are shared.
b) At the Cross God created a new nation. Ephesians 2:18, “you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.” The Church is a new nation, not divided by ethnicity. The entire human race descended from Noah’s three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Thanks to the Cross, descendants from all three sons became converted. Paul the apostle, a Shemite, was converted en route to Damascus by a special revelation of Christ. The Ethiopian treasurer, a descendant of Ham, was converted through the witness of Philip as he was returning home from a visit to Jerusalem. And Cornelius, a descendent of Japheth, was added to the body of Christ when Peter was finally willing to give up his prejudices and enter into the house of a Gentile.
So what matters now is not a person's physical lineage, nor is it a matter of blood, for God has made “from one [blood], every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). Medical professionals tell us that blood can be transfused across racial lines. It’s a major common element we all share. Ancestry is not what determines our worth as individuals; on this we’re all equal.
The unity of the Church is now based on the fact that we have been born-again by the same Father in heaven. Christ is our brother and the Holy Spirit is our companion. And this unity takes precedence over all racial histories. We are, says Paul, members of "the household of God.” That’s why the Cross speaks to our fragmented society and disintegrating families. Those who were reared without acceptance and relationships can find their identity through the Church. The Church is where the weak should be protected, the poor helped and the lonely find friends. This is where there can be genuine unity borne of out of love for the same Lord and for one another. In the face of our fragmenting families, we can belong to another family that will meet our needs for acceptance and love. There is a body of unity more powerful than that of the human family: It’s the family of God.
Bear in mind that Jesus never prayed that the world would become one. We know that people in the world can unite for various causes: peace, politics, environment, lower taxes. These coalitions serve their purpose but when individual interests collide with the cause, the members of the group bail and the group dissolves. That's because these groups are collections of individuals who united for a common goal. It’s the agenda that brings the group together. Any disagreement over that agenda spurs disunity.
But the Church is much more than a group of individuals coming together under a common banner. It’s more than a union based upon common interests and aspirations. Though we don’t fully understand it, God’s Word teaches that we actually become one metaphysically, spiritually, and internally. The interrelationship is so direct that if one part of the body suffers, the other parts suffer with it. Or, to put it another way, when we’re divided by racism, personality conflicts, and egotistical turfism, we not only look bad but God’s power in our lives is diminished. We’re tearing at the very fabric of the unity for which Christ prayed. This is a unity in which we consider others better than ourselves. When we become divisive, we grieve the Holy Spirit, who disregarded our differences when He saved us. There is tremendous power in this unity. As Vance Havner once said, “Snowflakes are frail but if enough of them stick together they can stop traffic.” Or, it’s like the first grader who on her first day of school went to a newly integrated school at the height of the segregation storm. Her anxious mother met her at the door to inquire, "How did everything go, honey?" "Oh, Mother! You know what? A little black girl sat next to me!" In fear and trepidation the mother expected trauma, but tried to ask calmly: "And what happened?" "We were both so scared that we just held hands all day." That’s the Church because of the Cross of Christ. We have unity!
The Cross means that we choose grace amid the petty judgments of men, amid our many deeply held differences, we must choose to forgive even when the forgiveness is not requested because we’ve been forgiven so much ourselves. As Jesus cried out from the Cross, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Philip Yancey writes, “Grace is unfair, which is one of the hardest things about it. It is unreasonable to expect a woman to forgive the terrible things her father did to her, just because he apologizes many years later…Grace, however, is not about fairness.”
c) At the Cross God created a new temple. The Bibles says that we are a new temple, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus Himself is the cornerstone "in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit" (Eph. 2:20-22).
During the days of King Solomon the workmen building the temple would go to a quarry and cut out stones which were perfectly shaped for one another. When the stones were brought to Jerusalem, they were put in place without the sound of a hammer or an axe. In the same way God Himself goes into the quarry of sin, choosing stones to be used for building His temple. He’s the Master Architect, fitting the stones into the structure as He sees fit. The purpose of the new temple is not that we might enjoy the music that accompanies our services, nor come to listen to nice sermons. Those merely point to the greater purpose of God, namely, that we might be "built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." God is building a place where He can dwell.
When someone who doesn’t know the Lord is introduced to the church, they should say, "Wow! God dwells among these people!" God’s purpose is to build a temple of redeemed people where His dwelling is very, very evident. This can’t happen unless the stones are unified into a coherent whole, willing to be placed wherever the Chief Architect desires.4. The cost of this reconciliation is very, very high. This unity cost God the Father dearly. It cost Him the life of His only Son. If the Cross is the high price Christ paid to bring unity, then we can’t expect that our earthly expression of heavenly unity will be easily achieved. We need to be willing to forgive one another, humble ourselves before the Lord, and stand on common ground before Him.
God reconciles us to Himself and then to each other. If I’m reconciled to God and content with His grace, I need no longer be imprisoned in my narrow world. The protective shell that once said, "I cannot let you into my heart because it’s already filled with myself" now has room for someone else. In fact, there’s room for a lot of other people who may or may not have anything in common with me.
What’s the goal to which God is moving? He desires to redeem a transnational community of people who are as diverse as our major cities. If we’d stand back and see the bigger picture, we’d see multitudes of dots moving toward God. Upon looking more closely, we’d see that these dots are innumerable human beings—those from every tribe, tongue, and nation gathering to sing praises to the Lamb. Revelation 7:9-10 says, “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” Worthy is the Lamb!
God's purpose is so much larger than the United States, so much larger than Western Civilization. God's purpose is to honor Himself by redeeming people from all the diverse tribes of the world. In that company of redeemed people racial distinctions will be maintained as proof that God's worldwide purpose was accomplished. But the divisions between the races, the prejudice and mistrust, will be gone forever. Gone too will be any feeling of superiority or the belief some are entitled to a better existence than others because they were born into the right country or family.Conclusion: During World War I some French soldiers brought the body of a fallen comrade to a cemetery for burial. The Priest gently told them that the cemetery was only for Roman Catholics and he needed to ask whether the victim was a Catholic. They answered “no,” he wasn’t. The Priest said if that was the case, he could not permit burial in the churchyard. So the soldiers sadly took the body of their friend and buried him just outside the fence of the cemetery. The next day they returned to mark the grave, but to their astonishment, they couldn't find it. They knew that they’d buried him just next to the fence, but the freshly dug soil was not there. As they were about to leave, this Priest saw them and told them what had happened. He said that his conscience had so troubled him that early in the morning, he had the fence moved outward to include the new grave of their friend within the parameters of the churchyard.
The Cross of Jesus Chris is the cure for what ails this world. How does the cross bring about unity? Before the cross we are all equally sinners and before the cross, we are equally accepted if we accept God’s forgiveness in Christ. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:16-17).
Finally, it is at the cross that we are all equally blessed. We stand as those who have inherited a mighty kingdom through the gracious providence of our God.
The Cross is the cure! My friend, have you ever come to the Christ’s Cross? Have you taken God’s medicine of forgiveness personally? Are you part of His Church and His forever family? The Cross is the cure!
