1 Corinthians 1: 18
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Today, I want to share with you guys a powerful sermon from Ps. Mark Venti of Generations Church, Seattle (dari podcast ku hehe) about the power of the cross & God's sacrifice.
As a start,
we know that Bible is God's love letter with themes like grace, mercy, compassion, and love and with the Cross being the centerpiece of our faith.
God also often refers to the church as a bride and Jesus as the bridegroom.
WHY? "because salvation resembles a marriage covenant and has everything to do with a life-giving relationship that causes you to live out the things you ought to be doing and that comes from our relationship with Jesus Christ."
Refer to Genesis 2: 20-22.
When God created Adam, He creates a "comparable" helper for him, a woman. If it wasn't so, Adam couldn't have fulfilled his destiny (to populate the earth). For that to happen, God had to put Adam "into a deep sleep," took one of his ribs and formed the woman.
The same thing took place thousands of years later when Jesus came into the earth to fulfill God's plan...
of salvation for mankind. Nobody is comparable to Jesus, but God decides to use us humans to work with Jesus to accomplish His plans. He wants His plan to include people. That's why we have the church. In addition to that, He also lets us have the freewill to choose Him & out of this relationship, share the love of God with others. Similarly as to how Adam was put into a deep sleep (sleep is often described similarly to death in the Bible), God calls Jesus to take death upon His shoulder and this sacrifice brings about the church.
A divine exchange took place when Jesus died on the cross.
He paid the penalty of our sins just so that we can be "brand new" & have eternal life.
He traded our wickedness, pride, anger & lust with His righteousness, purity & peace.
It may be hard to comprehend God's love naturally because it's irrational.
Our whole life, we think tt we get only what we deserve & tt we have 2b holy & righteous before we can present ourselves to God.
It's kind of like when we want to trade our stinky, old pair of socks w/ a pair of new shoes. It'll sound foolish if anybody would want to trade with us.
But it's written in Romans 5:8 that "while we are still sinners, Christ died for us."
We are not perfect but we're forgiven.
When God created Adam, He creates a "comparable" helper for him, a woman. If it wasn't so, Adam couldn't have fulfilled his destiny (to populate the earth). For that to happen, God had to put Adam "into a deep sleep," took one of his ribs and formed the woman.
The same thing took place thousands of years later when Jesus came into the earth to fulfill God's plan...
of salvation for mankind. Nobody is comparable to Jesus, but God decides to use us humans to work with Jesus to accomplish His plans. He wants His plan to include people. That's why we have the church. In addition to that, He also lets us have the freewill to choose Him & out of this relationship, share the love of God with others. Similarly as to how Adam was put into a deep sleep (sleep is often described similarly to death in the Bible), God calls Jesus to take death upon His shoulder and this sacrifice brings about the church.
Cross: "power of God to us who have been saved"
We need the power of the cross everyday!
A divine exchange took place when Jesus died on the cross.
He paid the penalty of our sins just so that we can be "brand new" & have eternal life.
He traded our wickedness, pride, anger & lust with His righteousness, purity & peace.
God brought us to Jesus through the cross so that we can be fruitful, multiply & be partner with Jesus to begin the change in the world, make intercession & communicate the truth that sets the generation free.
It may be hard to comprehend God's love naturally because it's irrational.
Our whole life, we think tt we get only what we deserve & tt we have 2b holy & righteous before we can present ourselves to God.
It's kind of like when we want to trade our stinky, old pair of socks w/ a pair of new shoes. It'll sound foolish if anybody would want to trade with us.
But it's written in Romans 5:8 that "while we are still sinners, Christ died for us."
We are not perfect but we're forgiven.
We can't stop our addictions/ fix our lives by our own power.
But,
That's when God wants to come into our lives.
He was waiting for us to cry out to Him to fix our lives.
God wants to trade our imperfections (pain, anger, etc.) for His healing & peace.
But,
That's when God wants to come into our lives.
He was waiting for us to cry out to Him to fix our lives.
God wants to trade our imperfections (pain, anger, etc.) for His healing & peace.
That's the transforming power of the cross.
That's His grace, His love, and His mercy.
That's His grace, His love, and His mercy.
It all happens by the power of the cross, the power of His blood, sacrifice.
Jesus came into our lives wanting to share everything He has with us, to bless & pour out His love for us. He wants to be in our lives & be the all encompassing thing in it.
P.S.
Some of us are still carrying one of those "filthy rags" in our lives right now,
but God is asking us; do we want to hold onto these things or make a trade with Him?
A trade that doesn't make logical sense but is possible only through the power of the cross.
The cross & its power is there both on the day we got saved and on every day of our lives.
So, let go of the things and we can be "partakers of His divine nature" - have a piece of God that comes from inside of you. (2 Peter 1:3-4)
P.S.
Some of us are still carrying one of those "filthy rags" in our lives right now,
but God is asking us; do we want to hold onto these things or make a trade with Him?
A trade that doesn't make logical sense but is possible only through the power of the cross.
The cross & its power is there both on the day we got saved and on every day of our lives.
So, let go of the things and we can be "partakers of His divine nature" - have a piece of God that comes from inside of you. (2 Peter 1:3-4)
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