The Cross and My Response

September 8, 2013
"The Cross and My Response"
1 Corinthians chapter 1
Scott Howard

• What makes the Church distinct is the Cross of Jesus Christ

Ways the Cross forms the Christian:

• The Cross humbles us.

   1.  The Contrast: 1 Corinthians 1:18

• To those who are perishing (not saved), the Cross seems absurd.
• To those who are being saved, the Cross evokes awe.

   2.  The Cause:  1 Corinthians 1:26-28

• It's not the specific quality of those who are called.
• It's only the sovereign mercy of the one who calls.

The mercy of God (and our acceptance of it) is what allows us to view the Cross with awe.

   3.  The Caution:  1 Corinthians 1:30

• Recognize the initiative of God. He called, and chose us.
• Remember the responsibility of man.  Everyone is responsible for how he/she responds to the invitation and call to salvation.

Charles Spurgeon pondered these thoughts as well:

 "I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love."

   4.  The Conclusion:  1 Corinthians 1:31

• We don't revel in the wisdom or the ways of this world
• We only revel in the Grace and Glory of our God

Again, let's look at a portion of writings by Charles Spurgeon:

"How then can we be proud? Stand at the foot of the cross, and count the purple drops by which you have been cleansed; see the thorn-crown; mark His scourged shoulders, still gushing with encrimsoned rills; see hands and feet given up to the rough iron, and His whole self to mockery and scorn; see the bitterness, and the pangs, and the throes of inward grief, showing themselves in His outward frame; hear the thrilling shriek, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" And if you do not lie prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen it: if you are not humbled in the presence of Jesus, you do not know Him. You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God's only begotten. Think of that, and as Jesus stooped for you, bow yourself in lowliness at His feet. A sense of Christ's amazing love to us has a tendency to humble us more than even a consciousness of our own guilt. May the Lord bring us in contemplation to Calvary, then our position will no longer be that of the pompous man of pride, but we will take the humble place of one who loves much because much has been forgiven him. Pride cannot live beneath the cross.
Let us sit there and learn our lesson, and then rise and carry it into practice." 

Food for thought: Before God made the heavens, before he laid the foundations of the earth, He sought and chose you to be His child.  You are that important to Him!  Yes, man sinned and chose independence from God, but He made a way.  God opened up a pathway, through the Cross of Jesus Christ, for us to be reconciled to Him and to be made righteous through His sacrifice.  All we need to do is respond.