Cross of Christ

Why be Cross-centered?

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Gospel, Gospel in Culture, John Stott, Obedience to Scripture, spurgeon

Near the end of His earthly life, Jesus gave His perplexed disciples the precious words now synonymous with the Lord’s Supper: “And He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood’” (Luke 22:19-20).

For the disciples, Jesus’ anticipation of an impending Cross was as comprehensible to them as a toddler flipping through a microbiology textbook. For them the importance of the Cross will remain shrouded until after the Resurrection.

In these words, Jesus reveals the prominence of the Cross in His thinking. The disciples may have been confused but Jesus was fully aware that He would soon be forsaken by earth, forsaken by heaven, and hang alone between them both.

In other words, Jesus had a full awareness of the coming Cross. His consciousness included a detailed appreciation of His own death and an expectation of its painful details. His lonely ‘quiet times’ must have certainly been filled with meditations on Isaiah 53, as His own prophetic biography was laid out in the ancient Hebrew words. “Crushed” and “stricken” were in his immediate future.

So let’s pause right here and ask the question: Why are we Cross-centered? Why are the greatest songs we sing filled with the crucifixion event? Why do our sermons drip with the blood of the Lamb who was slain? Why do we exult in the foolishness of God and endure the rebuke of the world? Simply stated, we are Cross-centered because Christ was Cross-centered.

John Stott in his magnum opus The Cross of Christ (IVP: Downers Grove, IL) writes: “Why do we ‘cling to the old rugged cross’ (in the words of a rather sentimental, popular hymn), and insist on its centrality, refusing to let it be pushed to the circumference of our message? Why must we proclaim the scandalous, and glory in the shameful? The answer lies in the single word ‘integrity.’ Christian integrity consists partly in a resolve to unmask the caricatures, but mostly in personal loyalty to Jesus, in Whose mind the saving cross was central” (p. 43).

Living the Cross-centered life is to strike the dart squarely on the bull’s-eye upon which Christ focused His life, ministry and death. Loyalty to Jesus demands that we see the centrality of the Cross in everything because He saw the Cross as central to everything.

This, according to Stott, is the loyalty expected from all Christians and churches whether or not we fully understand the implications right now and whether or not the Cross-centered life is easy or hard. To aim at anything else is to hit a mere caricature of our purpose in life.

So live Cross-centered with confidence:

– Teach the forgiveness and grace of the Cross when disciplining your children.
– Preach the Cross to yourself when condemnation and personal sin haunt your heart.
– Love your wife as Christ loved the church, modeling the sacrifice of the Cross.
– Build friendships with believers and unbelievers with the Cross as the ultimate purpose.
– Boast and rejoice in the Cross as the heartbeat of your life as its lifeblood flows to warm the lukewarm heart.

Whether we can or cannot understand the full plan of God right now, we can rest assured that living a Cross-centered life is the purpose driving the Christian life!

Simply put: Live the Cross-centered life. It’s what Jesus would do.

tsr

John Owen: The excellency of genuine Christian faith

Tony Reinke Cross of Christ, Faith, Great Quotes, Humility, John Owen, Obedience to Scripture, Unbelief

“Herein consists the excellency of faith above all other powers and acts of the soul – that it receives, assents unto, and rests in things in their own nature absolutely incomprehensible [Trinity, incarnation, Cross, etc.] … The more sublime and glorious – the more inaccessible unto sense and reason – the things are which we believe; the more are we changed into the image of God, in the exercise of faith upon them … faith which is truly divine, is never more in its proper exercise – doth never more elevate the soul into conformity unto God – than when it acts in the contemplation and admiration of the most incomprehensible mysteries which are proposed unto it by divine revelation.”

– John Owen, The Glory of Christ, Works 1:50

Why one church in Minneapolis defines herself as ‘Cross-Centered’

Tony Reinke Churches in Minneapolis, Cross of Christ, God, Gospel, Great Quotes, Sovereign Grace Ministries

After recently listening to a great sermon on the Cross I have been convicted. Convicted because I have not been spending enough time studying the Cross. So over the next few weeks and months I am planning to study through John Stott’s, The Cross of Christ (IVP: 1986). I am a big fan of Stott but admittedly have never read the entire book through (please don’t email, I know the shame of this admission). So for the coming weeks I am going to center my attention and affections upon the Cross through this study.

The quote that brought conviction came from a sermon entitled The Glory of the Cross delivered by Rick Gamache, the senior pastor of a neat church in Minneapolis (April, 2006; Sovereign Grace Fellowship). Itself is a wonderful sermon well worth your time this weekend (listen in .mp3). Here is a short excerpt:

“I want to try and articulate briefly for you why we are very careful to refer to Sovereign Grace Fellowship as a ‘Gospel-centered’ or ‘Cross-centered’ church. If you have been around here for any amount of time you know we don’t refer to ourselves mainly as a ‘God-centered’ church though I definitely use those terms. We use that term on occasion because we are thoroughly centered on God here. But we don’t even use terms to refer to ourselves namely as a ‘Christ-centered’ church. Now, again we sometimes use that phrase because here we are thoroughly centered upon Christ. But we prefer to be even more precise so we use the term ‘Gospel-centered’ or ‘Cross-centered’ church … Because the Cross is the centerpiece of the good news, the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 6:14 that he ‘boasts in’ (‘exults in,’ or ‘rejoices in’ – that one Greek word can have all those meanings), he ‘rejoices in’ nothing except the Cross of Jesus Christ because it’s where our salvation was purchased and where God was revealed in glory. So Martin Luther was correct when he wrote this: ‘The Cross alone is our theology. There is not a word in the Bible which we can understand without reference to the Cross.'”

– Rick Gamache, sermon on The Glory of Christ; April, 2006, Sovereign Grace Fellowship; Minneapolis, MN

(sermon on The Glory of Christ; April, 2006, Sovereign Grace Fellowship; church in Minneapolis, MN)

Christ and Him Crucified

Tony Reinke Biblical Quotes, Cross of Christ, Earnestness, Gospel, Gospel in Culture, Great Quotes, Justification, Justification by Faith, Pupit Seriousness

The pulpit is one run-on sermon series on the same thing. Preaching that does not preach Christ as its central focus and neglects words like “sin,” “atonement,” “wrath of God,” “substitute,” etc. is the worldly wisdom that appears quite foolish in the sight of God and remains powerless to change lives.

1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5 … For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 2:1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (ESV)

Preach Christ and Him crucified

Tony Reinke Banner of Truth, Book reviews, Books, Cross of Christ, Gospel, Great Quotes, Horatius Bonar, Justification, Justification by Faith

By God’s grace there are a growing collection of excellent books on the doctrine of justification. I am thankful for all the contemporary works that define this essential doctrine with clarity and accuracy. As you may have seen through this bog, however, I am partial to old books and it happens to be that my favorite book on the doctrine of justification was written in 1874 by Horatius Bonar titled, The Everlasting Righteousness (0851516556). Currently it ranks as my third favorite book. I would heartily recommend it to you as passionate but short work loaded with quotes about the beauty of Christ and the Cross. Going into another weekend and sermons this is a great quote to refocus our attention on the Cross:

“We are never done with the cross, nor ever shall be. Its wonders will be always new, and always fraught with joy. ‘The Lamb as it had been slain’ will be the theme of our praise above [Rev. 5:6,12]. Why should such a name be given to him in such a book as the Revelation, which in one sense carries us far past the cross, were it not that we shall always realize our connection with its one salvation; always be looking to it even in the midst of the glory; and always learning from it some new lesson regarding the work of Him ‘in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace’? What will they who here speak of themselves as being so advanced as to be done with the cross, say to being brought face to face with the Lamb that was slain, in the age of absolute perfection, the age of heavenly glory? … the glory of heaven revolves around the cross; and every object on which the eye lights in the celestial city will remind us of the cross, and carry us back to Golgotha. Never shall we get beyond it, or turn our backs on it, or cease to draw from it the divine virtue which it contains. The tree, be it palm, or cedar, or olive, can never be independent of its roots, however stately its growth, however plentiful its fruit. The building, be it palace or temple, can never be separated from its foundation, however spacious or ornate its structure may be. So never shall the redeemed be independent of the cross, or cease to draw from its fullness.”

– Horatius Bonar, The Everlasting Righteousness (Banner of Truth, 1874/1993) pp. 61-64.

Sermon notes: God sings over the justified sinner!

Tony Reinke Biblical Quotes, C.H. Spurgeon, Cross of Christ, Eloquence, Gospel, Grace, Great Quotes, Humble orthodoxy, Legalism, Omaha NE, Preaching, Preaching notes, Pride, Sermon notes

I had the great opportunity to preach on grace tonight here in Omaha. The sermon notes can be downloaded here (The Grand Canyon of God’s Grace, Tony Reinke, 07/15/06 PM). One of the chief texts was Zephaniah 3:14-17:

“14 Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! 15 The LORD has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil. 16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: ‘Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. 17 The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing’” (ESV).

On this incredible text, C.H. Spurgeon said:

“I can understand a minister rejoicing over a soul that he has brought to Christ; I can also understand believers rejoicing to see others saved from sin and hell; but what shall I say of the infinitely happy and eternally-blessed God finding, as it were, a new joy in souls redeemed? This is another of those great wonders that cluster around the work of divine grace! … The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him, imperfect though they be. He sees them as they are to be, and so he rejoices over them, even when they cannot rejoice in themselves. When your face is blurred with tears, your eyes red with weeping, and your heart heavy with sorrow for sin, the great Father is rejoicing over you. The prodigal son wept in his Father’s bosom, but the Father rejoiced over his son. We are questioning, doubting, sorrowing, trembling; and all the while he who sees the end from the beginning knows what will come out of the present disquietude, and therefore rejoices. Let us rise in faith to share the joy of God.” (sermons from 1837, #1990)

Amen, let us prepare to rise and share the joy of God in Sunday morning worship! – Tony