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The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
During April we are going to continue to work our way through the gospel of John our theme is Responding to the Living Word.
Today we are talking about Moved By The Cross.
Prayer
Suffering Lord, while the crowds screamed their praise, You knew the fear that would silence their hosannas before the week was done.
We come praising You and giving out tithes and offerings.
We do so joyfully and in gratitude that You are our King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Help us to be watchful that our praises are not silenced by our fear and our gifts are not withheld because of selfishness.
Lord, help us to be constant in our love, consistent in our praise, and courageous in our obedience.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Text
John 12:32 NKJV
32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”
Scripture Reading
John 12:27-36 NKJV
Jesus Predicts His Death on the Cross
27 “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
28 Father, glorify Your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”
29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.”
30 Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake.
31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”
33 This He said, signifying by what death He would die.
34 The people answered Him, “We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”
35 Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going.
36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.
Introduction
Never is the appeal of the journey to the cross more sensitively put than in John’s account of our lord’s troubled soul as He approached Calvary.
But He would not turn away.
Paul said when Jesus found Himself in human form, in Philippians 2:8, “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
That obedience is tenderly witnessed as John shows Jesus refusing even to pray for deliverance from dying but yielding in deep obedience to the purpose of God for this hour. (John 12:27)
What was the hope in Jesus’ heart that prepared Him for this journey to death?
Jesus expressed His great conviction in in John 12:32, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”
Jesus was going to the cross because He wanted more than life to bring all people everywhere to Himself that He might present them forgiven and redeemed to God the Father.
Not everyone would come to believe, but He would die for everyone.
The appeal was to be universal.
All people would feel the tug of His great love for them demonstrated at the cross on which He would be lifted up.
What draws you to the crucified Christ?
- Are you moved by the agony you see?
Physical agony arrests us when we consider the cross.
Jesus’ back torn to shreds by a whip, He was pressed down on a rough and splintery cross.
His head was filled with visions of God’s love for humanity, and now it was surrounded by a mock crown of thorns that but painfully into His scalp.
Awful nails pierced His flesh and muscles that held Him with waves of paint His makeshift throne.
As painful as the wounds were, the most desperate need was for breath.
As He hung by His arms, no air could enter His lungs.
So He pressed against the nails in His feet to lift Himself and breathe.
When He could stand that pain no longer, He fell against the cross.
Then His weight was suspended by His arms, which were held by the nails in His hands.
Consider the spiritual agony Jesus endured at the cross that day.
Words can get much closer to describing the physical pain than they can to expressing the spiritual suffering Jesus went through.
Jesus had never known sin in His own life, now He was covered with it.
2 Corinthians 5:21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus, who had never known a moment’s isolation from the Father, cried out, Mark 15:34 tells us, And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”.
Who can illuminate for us the spiritual loneliness Jesus felt in that eternal moment when our sin cut Him off from the Father and the sacrifice fro our sins was offered once and for all?
I am drawn to Jesus by the agony He suffered on the cross.
2. Are you moved by the love you see?
God hs loved us with a love that holds nothing back.
For our selfishness He prescribes a death to self and a sharing with others.
For our cynicism He prescribes a rebirth of innocence and a new beginning in the new birth.
Nothing gets through to us like love can.
A sinner may go to hell unsaved, but he cannot go to hell unloved.
We could think of God as a cook making a dinner that includes many ingredients to get the desired flavour.
‘the cook knows that the dinner is not complete without a little pinch of spice.
A little pinch of spice!
Humanly speaking, what a painful thing, to be sacrificed, to be the little pinch of spice.
But on the other hand, God knows well him who He elects to use this way, and then He knows also how, in the inward understanding of it, to make it so blessed a thing for him to be sacrificed that among the thousands of diverse voices which express, each in its own way, the same thing, his also will be heard, and perhaps his which is so truly profound, proclaiming, God is love!
The birds on the branches, the Lillies in the fields, the animals in the bush, the fish in the sea, happy believers proclaim to them all, God is love!
I am drawn to Jesus by the love He showed to others in His dying.
3. Are you moved by the forgiveness you see?
The willingness to forgive is one of the clearest indicators of the Spirit of Christ residing in a person.
Sure, it is not easy to forgive, but the cross gives us our most powerful encouragement to forgive by the example our Lord gave us.
Luke records that Jesus implored the Father to forgive those who had taken Him to the cross and in mockery proceeded to hang Him there.
In the moments of His greatest personal darkness, Jesus was eager to hear a sinners plea and assure him personally of the glory that was to be theirs together at the end of the day.
And John gives us that ultimate word of courage, “It is finished.”
In these three words from the cross, we see a spirit that refused to retaliate in anger, escape from the needy cry of a dying man, or lay down the task before He had completed it.
Jesus forgave those who nailed Him to the tree.
He pardoned and received the criminal on His right.
His atoning death did not stop short of being adequate to forgive any person or sin.
When He cried, “It is finished,” He had gone far enough to cover every sin in any person’s life.
We all know of people who believe that God can’t forgive them, perhaps we have thought that in the past ourselves.
But those words from the cross urge us to see that if Jesus had died for every sin, but not out sin, that God had made a terrible mistake and Jesus was misled when He called out, “It is finished.”
Jesus’ death is enough, God’s grace is sufficient.
We can all be set free.
No sin is more powerful than His forgiveness and no hurt can outlast His love.
We must all hear the promise of God and experience cleansing and relief that only comes from really hearing what Jesus has to say, we are forgiven, accepted, beloved, and made new.
And it is all because of the cross.
I am drawn to Jesus by the forgiveness I experience there.
4. Are moved to respond when you come to the cross?
Jesus admonishes His listeners in John 12:35, Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going.
What response will you make to the cross?
It is not enough to consider the cross, not enough to meditate on the cross, not enough to believe in the historical reality of the death of Christ.
Jesus calls you to bother response, “Walk in the light”.
Be wary lest the darkness overtake you.
The darkness can be the fright of failure that prevents you from beginning to follow Him.
The darkness can be misplaced priorities that detour you away from doing the one thing on your life that is most needed.
The darkness can be a reluctance to trust, or bandage to pleasure and desires that are not compatible with obedience to Jesus.
Conclusion.
Whatever stands between you and the response of faith in Jesus Christ, I call you to lay it aside, be drawn to the cross, and respond by walking with Him while you have the light.
His invitation to come, His drawing of your spirit, is God’s great gift to you.
I am grateful to God that I could respond in faith when Jesus drew me to Him at the cross.
Will you respond to Him?
Until next time
Stay in the Blessings
Giving
I really want to encourage you to be diligent with your Bible study time, because God has so much more for us than we can get from just going to church once or twice a week and hearing someone else talk about the Word.
When you spend time with God, your life will change in amazing ways, because God is a Redeemer.
Theres nothing thats too hard for Him, and He can make you whole, spirit, soul and body!
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2022 IS A YEAR OF REPENTANCE AND BLESSINGS
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