The Wonderful Cross

He is risen. Goodness gracious, man. Thank you all so much for being here today. This has been an absolutely incredible worship service. By the way, there’s two things that we do do differently with baptisms. People share their stories and we throw a party. We don’t typically run with the portable baptistry, which is the gracious name I’m calling that. Normally we we run it from the the normal baptistry, but man, we have over the past two years, we counting today, I’ll count these. Counting today, we’ve had 22 people profess their faith in Jesus Christ through baptism. Over the last 22, and I’m not sure at what mile marker those 22 happened, we started discovering some leaks. So, our baptistry is out of commission. So we’ve got this little fund going on and man, I’m super excited about what God’s going to continue to do through a refurbished baptistry, through a portable baptistry and all.

You know, at the end of the day, what was displayed there is not anything that any of us can drum up. What was displayed there, what was shared here is purely the work of God in people’s lives. Amen. And that’s why we are all gathered here this morning. We are not gathered here this morning because a really good teacher philosopher had some interesting things to say. We’re not even gathered here this morning because a really good catalytic and charismatic leader created a movement that somehow outlasted his lifetime. We are here today to celebrate that God has accomplished something supernatural and otherworldly and just downright incredible. We are here because Jesus Christ came and lived a perfect life on our behalf. And He died a sacrificial death on our behalf. And He died on the cross on Good Friday. But praise be to the Lord. He did not stay on the cross. He didn’t even stay in a tomb where we could go and we could mourn Him like the family members that we have across the street in the cemetery. He didn’t stay in a tomb. On on the third day Jesus Christ did the unthinkable and He rose from the dead. And that is why we are here this morning. Amen. Amen. We are here this morning because Jesus Christ did that for us. So how could we not respond with our entire lives back to Him? That’s what our five friends displayed this morning as they told their told their stories of what God has accomplished in their lives.

So this morning, we’re going to take a few minutes and continue to reflect on the cross. You came expecting me to only tell the story of what happened that faithful morning when Mary and Mary showed up at the tomb and they discovered there was nobody at the tomb. You came expecting me just to share a few of those kind of thoughts, but I want to talk a little bit more about what Jesus accomplished on Good Friday. I put it simply, when Jesus died on the cross, He accomplished something for us we can never accomplish ourselves. I’d say it this way. The cross of Jesus restores peace with God. The cross of Jesus Christ restored something for you 2,000 years ago that we are still reaping the benefits of today. The peace of God and peace with God. You see, at our core, our intentions and stated commitments to making peace don’t really stand up under the weight of real life. Whether it is skirmishes afar or domestic disputes within that you may have had this morning getting everybody dressed and here on time, we have a very difficult time creating peace.

I got a little pop quiz for you. In July of 1929, something pretty pivotal happens in our nation and in the world. Anybody know what happens July of 1929? That might be a big deal. I’ve got a I’ve got a hand, Mr. Dillard. Yeah, we had the depression. Do you know what started before that? Stock market crashed. It was also the year that President Herbert Hoover inaugurated or he made official the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact. This was a formal renunciation of the use of war as an instrument of national policy for the settling of disputes between nations. You see, World War I had just wrapped up. America, Great Britain, others were tired of war. We’re said we are done with this. We need to create some peace that we can all abide by. We are done with war. So 45 nations signed that document. 45 nations were done with war. They were ready for an age of peace. Their leaders, presidents and chancellors and such made spectacular references to peace on earth in speeches they Made back at their respective parliaments and congresses and nations. Two years after that document was signed, Japan, one of the signatories, would send an armed invasion into Manchuria. Another two years passed, and a guy named Adolf Hitler comes into power in Germany and ultimately would catalyze World War II. Not only that, in September of 1938, one of the signatories, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, returned from meeting with Adolf Hitler to greet the London crowds with an assurance of peace in our time. He himself had just signed a four-party agreement giving Germany the right to invade and occupy portions of Czechoslovakia.

Why do I bring that up right now? It’s to make a point. Whether it’s global wars or household shouting matches, our ability to make peace just stinks. But here’s the good news. While you and me are all terrible peacemakers, God is the perfect peacemaker. And we get to celebrate Easter Sunday because God accomplished something for us we could never do on our own. Specifically, God wants you to know this morning that the cross of Jesus Christ restores peace with God. And this isn’t just my words. This isn’t just Al’s thoughts. This comes straight from God’s Word. This is Ephesians chapter 2, verses 14-18.

We’ve been marching through this book over the last few months. And as I was just kind of planning out this preaching calendar, this passage fell on Easter Sunday. And I knew that was God’s will for us to reflect on the cross this morning. It’ll be on the screens if it’s not already in your laps. This is Ephesians chapter 2, 14-18. It says, “In His flesh, Jesus made of no effect the law, consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that He might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, by which He put the hostility to death. He came and He proclaims the good news of peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

The cross of Jesus Christ restores peace with God. And only the cross of Jesus Christ can restore peace with God. And only the cross of Jesus Christ can create any measurable peace between you and a loved one or our nation and another. You see, we could not restore peace any other way. Verse 15 says this, “In His flesh, Jesus made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations.”

Simply put, our obedience to God’s rules, our obedience to the law, your good works can never restore the peace that you need with God. It can’t. We are all coming in here this morning, I imagine, and I am assured, feeling some sense of turmoil with the idea or the person of God. Either God doesn’t really exist and you came here to support a family, a family member or a friend getting baptized. Or maybe God does exist and you’re just kind of here because you were invited or brought here to get dressed up. Or maybe God for you does exist and you still recognize that there is some sort of tension between you and the big guy upstairs because of the things that you have done. I’m not sure which bucket you would put yourself into. But at the end of the day, what God’s Word says is that we all have some sort of tension with God. And that’s because we can never do what we need to do to make peace with Him. We couldn’t obey all the rules. We couldn’t obey the law well enough.

You see, if obeying the rules that God gives could give you peace with God, then Jesus wouldn’t have had to come. Jesus would not have had to die on Good Friday or lie dead on Silent Saturday or rise on Easter Sunday. I’ll say it this way. In His flesh, Jesus did on the cross what we in our flesh never could. Jesus fully satisfied the requirements of a holy God by keeping all the rules in your place. Jesus made of no effect the law. He did away with these things, not because God gave bad rules, but because we’re so bad, we can never keep God’s rules. We’ve never been able to obey God’s rules.

I think sometimes we would like to think that if God would have just looked at us as those first people, then maybe the world might not be so bad off. You remember that story, the Garden of Eden, where God, He has These first two people, Adam and Eve, and He’s placed them in an utterly ideal place. There’s no sin in the world yet. There is no disease. There’s no shame. There’s no negativity. There’s no darkness. Nothing that would take you away from God whatsoever. And Adam and Eve, they had a perfect relationship with one another. They had a perfect relationship with God Himself. God gave them one rule. Don’t eat from the tree. Don’t eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and you’ll be good. And you know what they do? They eat. They break one rule. When there was just one rule for people to keep, people couldn’t keep it.

You fast forward to the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20. God has delivered His people. He has saved them. He has redeemed them. They passed through the water of the Red Sea in their own salvation moment. As God frees them from slavery in Egypt under the bondage of the Egyptians, God shows His might and His love on their behalf. And He just gives them 10 rules. He says, “Hey, here’s 10 ways to live with Me in the promised land.” You know what they do with those 10 rules? Man, they’re breaking them while He’s given them. God says, “Have no other gods before Me.” All the people are at the base of the mountain and making a god instead of Him. God says, “You shall not murder.” They start killing each other. God says, “Don’t commit adultery.” And you know what they start doing? You fill in the blank there.

We’ve never been able to keep the rules. We have never been able to satisfy all of what God wants us to do. We cannot make peace with God through our obedience. Some of us are coming in here this morning and we feel tension with God because we’re trying to keep all the rules. My question, are you still trying to secure peace with God through ruling? Are you hoping that maybe if you read your Bible hard enough, if you pray long enough, if you give enough, if you do good enough, if you’re self-controlled enough, whatever the [inaudible] is, are you hoping that if you do that thing enough, then maybe, just maybe, God will love you.

Here’s the news. Your goodness can never make God love you anymore. But the good news of the gospel is that your badness could not make God love you any less either. God loves you infinitely. He loved you so much that He moved heaven and earth just to have you. Literally, God left His home in heaven to come and live a life of perfection on your behalf here. Jesus was a carpenter. He had He had splinters from working with wood. He knew real people that He would occasionally have potentially heated conversations with occasionally. Maybe. Can you imagine what that might be like? He had a mom and a dad that He needed to honor. Jesus did all these things, but He did them perfectly because He was doing something for you you cannot do for yourself.

See, on the cross, Jesus does everything necessary to reconcile you with God. That’s what verse 16 says. Verse 16 says that Jesus came and He lived a perfect life. He did this so that He might reconcile us to God through the cross. That word reconcile is beautiful. It means to restore former peace and harmony. Reconciliation is what happens when you have a fight with your friend or with your loved one and you go to them and you say, “Hey, I messed up. I am so sorry for what I said and for what I did. How can I make it right?” And then they say, “I forgive you and I love you. It’s okay.” And you hug it out. That’s reconciliation.

The Bible says you cannot experience that with God any other way than by what Jesus did for you on the cross on Good Friday. You see, we originally had harmony with God, but like I’ve already said, Adam and Eve, they broke that harmony. And you and I are still living in the ripple effects of that today. We are still breaking the harmony with God that God wants with us. We need to be made right with God. We need peace with God. We need harmony with God because our sin has created division and chaos with God. You see, we can’t achieve peace with God any other way than through the cross of Jesus Christ.

But Jesus didn’t just come to make you able to be forgiven by God. He came to give you access to God. Look at verse 18. It says, “For through Jesus, we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Having access to somebody means a relationship with them. Jesus came to give you a relationship with God. Think about this. Before there was anything, when there was nothing in this universe, there was God. And God had dreams for this universe He was going to design. And He starts speaking. And as He’s speaking, man, He’s just flinging solar systems out there. He’s zapping them with life or with just earth, with life, whatever conspiracy theory you might be buying into. I don’t know. God is just creating life everywhere. He’s designing the universe. All the while, He’s thinking about you. And God is saying, “Hey, the Grand Canyon, that’s pretty cool. Galaxies and black holes, man, that’s awesome. The fields of tulips over in the Netherlands. Yeah, that’s stunning. But you know what I really care about? I care about Michael and Owen. I care about Lily Fran and Tiffany. I care about Mariam. I care about Sean.” God was thinking of you when He was designing the universe. He was dreaming of you. And God wants a relationship with you. Imagine this. Just humor me for a second. Regardless of the baggage you may have walked in here with, regardless of the doubts and the presuppositions you may have walked in here with, or the church past, the sins you’ve committed, the bad things you’ve done, put all that aside and consider: if God wants a relationship of love with you, why not? Why not have that? That’s why Jesus came. He came to die on the cross, not just to make you forgivable by God, but to give you a relationship with God. What God wants most from you is not your perfection or your money. What God wants is your presence and your voice and your time. What God wants with you is a relationship, a functional two-way street relationship. The God of the universe wants that with you. So man, we don’t just read our Bibles to check off a check box, but we read to hear God’s voice to us. We don’t just pray to make ourselves feel better. We pray to open our soul to God, the one that knows us. We don’t just attend church, but we can belong to a family of people united around Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus made a way for you to access and experience God because He paid the price for you to have real peace. The cross of Jesus Christ restores your peace with God, your Creator, so He could be God, your Savior. So, are you done with fake peace? Let me explain. I’m not from Charleston, but I’m from South Carolina. I would like to say one day y’all might adopt me as a low country something. I’ll never be a native. I get that. But what I have come to notice is that in the deep south, we really like to try to keep peace. Got some nervous laughter. So, what we like to do is when we have our little skirmishes with people, we have our disagreements or our little dustups, instead of just like approaching the person and saying, “Hey, man, that wasn’t cool. Like, how do we proceed? How do we move forward from this? Like, I feel offended by you.” What we do is we take that little offense and we take the little broom of our relationship and we lift up the rug and we just kind of scoop it under the rug and then we proceed and then we hurt somebody else’s feelings and we know we’ve done it because the words we’ve said or the way they looked at us after we did the thing we did, and instead of us approaching it, we lift up the other corner and we just kind of sweep it under here. Am I right? And we do the same thing with God. We watch the thing online and we sweep it under the rug. We choose to dabble in the thing that we know God doesn’t want us to do. We have that conversation with the coworker or the neighbor who’s getting a little too emotionally or romantically or sexually close and we’re like, “Ah, but I’m not going to address this with the Lord.” We say things we’re not supposed to say. Instead of dealing with that, we choose to live with fake peace. We just want to keep the peace with the Lord and we just kind of sweep stuff under the rug. And that might be what you’ve come in here with, and your heart feels like a can of diet soda. You just been shaking it all week and the tension is just building up and you’re like, “Lord, I would love to get rid of some of this tension.” Do I have some diet soda in the room? I’ve got some. Okay. Is it a can or a bottle? What are we working with? Is it a can or a bottle, Keith? It’s a bottle. Is it a bottle? For real? Can I have it? I do says Luke. Well, that’s great because that’s my son’s name. You’re mostly done with this, right? Okay. See, this is how you know that this wasn’t planned because the the awkwardness and the tension’s too real. So, this is life and this is us.

So we we do this thing with the Lord where we just keep shaking it and we just keep adding Diet Coke to the bottle of our lives and we never get rid of it. And life just keeps shaking this thing up. And what Jesus came to do is He came to give us real peace. One where you can open this thing up. It’s not going to go. It would have gone already. so that we could actually have a functional relationship with Him. But man, we choose to keep all this stuff bottled up. And God is sitting here today on Easter 2025. I get this back to you. I promise. Okay. Sitting here on Easter 2025 and He’s saying, “Hey, do you want to keep bottling this stuff up or do you want some real peace with Me?” I see the tension. I see how you are about to burst at the seams. I see all that you can have freedom. You can have freedom like what Shane and Hugh and Mickey and Monroe and Samantha all demonstrated. They didn’t get baptized because they achieved some level of godliness. We didn’t have some sort of questionnaire. They had to get a hundred on. We had some conversations with them, but they got baptized because God has done something in them they can never achieve on their own. God has given them peace with Himself through the finished work of Jesus Christ on their behalf.

And He’s looking at you this morning and He’s saying, “Do you want that? Or are you content just to get dressed up and come to church, but go home later and still do the same stuff and say the same things and think the same thoughts?” I want to make an offer to you. If that’s you, if you’ve been sweeping stuff under the rug, man, would you just peel back the rug this morning? And would you just give your life to Jesus Christ? For God so loved the world in this way that He gave His one and only Son so that everyone who believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life. For God didn’t send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Jesus Christ came not to look at you and say, “Look how bad you are.” Jesus Christ came to say, “Hey, look at Me and how good I am and how deeply I love you and let Me love you. Let us trade places. Let Me take your punishment and your shame and your fear and let Me hold those things and you can have My freedom and My righteousness and My perfection.

So, how do you get there? Hughes already read it, but I’ll read it for you again. Romans 10:9 and 10. It makes it real simple. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart resulting in righteousness and one confesses with the mouth resulting in salvation. You don’t have to complete some crazy process we have. You’d have to confess and believe. So if you’re here this morning and you’ve never known the peace of God. What’s stopping you right now? The water’s even still warm. Think we got some more towels in the back. I know you came dressed in your nice Easter clothes. Man, what a better way to celebrate Easter than you getting baptized this morning if you give your life to Jesus Christ.

For the person in the room that does know the peace of God, who has given their lives to Him, then man, why not lean into the access with God that God wants for you? God doesn’t just want a Sunday relationship with you. God wants an everyday 247 submitted and letting Him control your life. Kind of a relationship, one where you grow in intimacy with Him, where you Come to know Him, where you see Him working in your life. Why not have that today? So, I want to make everybody an offer. If there’s zero manipulation, nothing like that. I just want everybody to close their eyes and bow their heads. And I want to give you a moment to personally respond.

If you have never known the peace of God for yourself, if you’ve never given your life to Jesus, if you’ve never known the sweetness of Jesus the way that our friends demonstrated in their baptisms, then I would just encourage you and I beg you to admit, you say, “Jesus, I’m a sinner. I’ve done wrong against You. I need Your grace. I need Your forgiveness. I’ve got chaos in my life and I’ve got chaos with You. Can You please create peace?” After you admit that, you would confess that Jesus is the Lord of all and He is the rescuer for you. You would confess that He is God. And then that you would give your life to Him. And you’d say, “God, please take all of me and fill me with Your peace.”

If you have prayed a prayer like that, if you’ve given yourself to Jesus, if you know Him as your Lord and Savior, then I would I’d encourage you to pray a prayer like this: God, again, I surrender to You. You’re the master of my life, and I want to do what You tell me to do. God, help me to avoid sin and temptation and darkness and the things that You hate, and help me to hear Your voice and what You want me to do.

We’re gonna play music for a moment and just give everybody in this room some time to process with the Lord. I’ll be down front if you would like to pray about what that looks like and pray with you. And in a second, Peter’s going to have all of us rise to close our service in worship.

Let me pray for us now as you continue to pray. And we’ll stay like this for a moment. Father, thank You. Thank You for sending Your very best and Your very only. Jesus, thank You for coming and accomplishing for us what we can’t do for ourselves and making a way for there to be peace with the God of the universe. Give all of us peace. Some of us for the first time, others of us for the thousandth time, but give us peace, Lord. Holy Spirit, I pray that You get a hold of somebody’s heart this morning. Whether I get to know about it or not, You would bring somebody from death to life in You. Please.