To Know Him and Make Him Known
The cross where Jesus died is the ultimate proof we really are loved by God. Jesus’s decision to die for us, motivated by love, convinces us of that truth, as do the many benefits we can enjoy because He did. All that is left is to respond to this “cross of love.”
In the middle of the ongoing war between darkness and light, Jesus meets us where we are and invites us as the risen Lord of all to move through the whole world, leaving behind copies of Himself who have learned to LIVE as He lived.
When we look through the eyes of the first witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection, we can learn how God wants US to respond to Jesus’s resurrection today.
While it’s tempting to think of Jesus as simply a helpless victim of injustice, Scripture makes it clear that Jesus willingly chose to suffer and die for very specific reasons which we need to understand and properly respond to.
When deciding the question of who Jesus really was, it’s tempting to want to stay neutral and put it off until later. Pontius Pilate’s story shows us that you can’t maintain that neutrality forever – at some point you will have to make a decision, and that decision will have eternal consequences.
It’s natural to have a war raging within us between our will and God’s will. We can win this war as Jesus did, by running to God and struggling with Him in prayer. As we do so, we will remember who He is until we can surrender to Him and His plan.
Sermon Summary: Jesus targeted the bad leadership of the religious leaders of his day for their lack of courage, their resistance to revelation, their unwillingness to admit their mistakes, and their cynical pragmatism. He came to offer a new kind of leadership that Israel desperately needed.