WHAT THE CROSS MEANS TO THE CHURCH: PROCLAMATION ---

Acts 20:28

“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood,” Acts 20:28.

“To know Jesus is to know all that really matters. No other pursuit in life, no other quest for understanding, no other attempt, acclaim, or accomplishment can satisfy the chief hunger of your soul. Jesus—and Jesus alone—can promise you life beyond yourself, truth beyond compare, and hope beyond the grave,” Calvin Miller, The Celebrate Jesus Millennium Bible, p. xxi.

But is that really how we live? Is that how churches operates in our day?

In March of 2010 I quietly celebrated my 65th birthday. Actually, the December before I officially celebrated it by signing up for Medicare, and you know what that means. I can no longer pretend to be young anymore. As a matter of fact, I now have a strong urge to go to a cafeteria and hike up my pants and shuffle my feet. If my life were a football game I would definitely be in the fourth quarter. Hey, don’t laugh. For those of you who are older than me, you would be in “sudden death.” Seriously, I may live another 20 years, or 20 months, or 20 minutes, or 20 seconds—only God knows!

At this stage of my life I am constantly evaluating and getting rid of things that don’t really matter and holding on to things that have eternal value.

Now in my forty-third consecutive years of ministry as a Baptist pastor, I have seen every imaginable ministry and movement. Bus ministry...Bill Gothard… Deeper life (Keswick)...Family...Satan and spiritual warfare...Prophecy...User-Friendly (Barna)...Seeker-Sensitive (Hybel)...Purpose-Driven (Warren)… Emerging… Promise Keepers...Prayer of Jabez…Experiencing God… enough!

Now think about that list you heard. Where is our sustained appetite for “the old rugged cross”? Could you say a person, or a church, or a seminary or a movement was truly Christians if they quietly ignored the cross, the death, the suffering, the blood of Jesus Christ? Why hasn’t there been a move among Christians to bring back the cross?

I’m not talking about bring back the symbol of the cross, but the substance of the symbol; what the cross means.

Acts 20:28 lays out the responsibilities of a church’s elders which include (1) constant self-examination, followed by (2) congregational leading (overseeing) and (3) consistent feeding of God’s people who constitute a church. Also, this text informs us the appointment of pastors is made by the Holy Ghost, it is not simply by the majority, popular vote of the congregation. “A man does not push himself into the position of an elder. Only the Holy Spirit can qualify and call a man to that work,” John Phillips.

At the conclusion is one of the most remarkable “job descriptions” of pastors found anywhere in the Bible, there is this statement made concerning God’s churches, “which He hath purchased with His own blood.”

· The “redemptive” relationship God has with those of His churches states that they have been “purchased.” The church belongs to God because He bought it. And people in each of the Lord’s churches are twice bought: first, at salvation and in having the privilege of membership in Christ’s blood-bought church.

· The “regal” nature of the price of the church’s redemption, “with His own blood.” This passage understood that when Jesus’ blood was shed, it was the blood of God Himself.

1 Timothy 3:14-16 “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: But if I tarry lone, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”

What is the “truth” for which the church is the “pillar and ground.” We could say generally, God’s truth, or all truth. We would be right, but we need to stay a little longer. What “truth” does the passage say the church should uphold, etc.? Verse 16 The truth of who Jesus is and what He came to do.

Since this is God’s church, and not ours, purchased with His own blood, how did Jesus want His churches to remember Him, then and now? Does He want us to remember Him as...

· The greatest Teacher to ever teach?

· The greatest Leader to ever lead?

· The greatest Healer to ever heal?

· The greatest Man to ever live?

Turn to Luke 22:17-22 and we will discover the answer. Jesus was spending His very last evening on earth quietly with His apostles in an Upper Room. Within less than fifteen hours our Lord will be hanging, bleeding, and dying on the cross. Provision for the room had been pre-arranged and it was made ready, possibly by a friend. There was no servants there to wash feet, so Jesus spends his last hours washing the dirty feet of the men He loved. At some point in the evening after observing the Jewish Passover, He takes from the old and establishes something new. He calls it “the new covenant” and “new testament.” Taking the bread, He breaks it and they eat it. Taking the wine, they drink it. And with it Jesus said to the Apostles, remember they are His First and Only church; He says, “Men, this is how I want to be remembered.”

· “This do in remembrance of me...in remembrance of me.”

· “Ye do shew (proclaim) the Lord death till He come.”

Jesus wants His churches to remember Him for His cross, His shed blood, His broken body, His sacrificial death.

Have you been paying attention to what is going on in churches today? Last year (2009) on a trip to England and Scotland, my wife and I saw a sign in front of an old church building in Edinburgh that stopped us in our tracks. It had a little bit of everything for everybody. Possibly once a center of preaching and teaching and worship and soul saving, it now advertised itself as “Olive Tree Café, Amos Scripture Care Trust, Volunteer Centre Edinburgh, Creative Space (spiritual and faith centre), Scots Music Group, Hadeel (Palestinian crafts), Reforesting Scotland, Bridges: The Actors Agency, Befriending Network.” Churches today are offering day-care for children, weight-loss programs for those who have exceeded the ‘feed limit,’ alcohol/drug recovery programs for abusers, coffee cafes for the trendy, recreation for the athletic, dramas for the artistic, entertainment for the pleasure-seeker, family events for clean fun, fellowship for the lonely and musicals for the gifted—all high tech and non-threatening. Church buildings are now being built to look like stores or malls, complete with food courts and bookstores. In these new, modern church buildings there are no pulpits in them because there is no preaching, just non-threatening, self-help talks. The old hymn have been replaced with the latest radio songs.

I have only one question, “Where’s the cross?”

Symbols are significant: Shell Oil has its seashell sign. McDonalds has its familiar Golden Arches. The Olympics have their five colored rings linked together.

For centuries, the symbol of Christianity has been “the cross.” If you do the research you will find all kinds of crosses: Greek, Coptic, Roman, Protestant, Celtic.

Too many churches have become “gospel-free.” Not by oversight or default or neglect. They are that way on purpose. It is part of the plan not to offend a “market group.” No cross, no blood, no sin, no redemption.

“This do in remembrance of me...in remembrance of me.”

“Ye do shew (proclaim) the Lord death till He come.”

This should be a sort of microcosm, a miniature, a motto, over every moment, every word, every action… “Do in remembrance of Christ.”

1. Body Broken

2. Blood Shed

3. Blessed Hope

John Stott reminds us. “The Lord’s Supper that Jesus instituted was not meant to be a slightly sentimental forget-me-not, but rather a service rich in spiritual significance.”

The Centrality of the cross. “If the cross is not central to our religion, ours is not the religion of Jesus,” John Stott, p. 71.

The Purpose of His Cross. A blood covenant. How many covenants do you recall that God had entered into with other people? Noah, Abraham, Moses, David.

The Need to Appropriate Christ’s death personally. “Drink...eat.” They were not just spectators in the drama of the cross; they were participators in it. Christ died for me. But God does not arbitrarily impose his gifts on people. We have to receive them by faith.

Christ’s Suffering. When you read the gospel you are immediately by the fact that they did not choose and were not led by the Holy Spirit to describe in detail the gory details of our Savior’s crucifixion. It is as though those details were indescribable, that the atrocities were so great they could not be recorded. Each of the gospel writers simply said they “crucified” Him. In my reading and research others have given historical and medical details of crucifixion.

· Physically, He suffered. Exhaustion, dehydration,

· Emotionally, He suffered. The shame of public execution was massive: stripped, staring, taunted, ignored.

· Spiritually, He suffered. He was forsaken by God the Father.

Christ’s Sacrifice. It was not that Jesus made some kind of sacrifice; He was the sacrifice in the Old Testament sense. Jesus was God’s “once for all time sacrifice for sin.” The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that Jesus “became sin for us.”

Christ’s Salvation. Even at the cross Jesus offered forgiveness. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” Luke 23:34. “If Jesus asked the Father to forgive the very men who crucified him, and God did, then there is nothing and no one that He cannot or will not forgive when He is humbly asked,” Anne Graham Lotz, Celebrate the Risen Christ, pp. 105-106.

Christ’s Security. I agree with Rob Shelton who was opposing consumerism and entertainment as a way of reaching young people when he said, “Once a student has been enticed by a neon cross, it is very difficult to get him to take up the bloody one with nails in it.” (Source: Network, p. 7, Fall, 2005).