The Cross of christ is the good news we share to everyone as heralds proclaiming the message of salvation. Our message is the cross of Christ as the only remedy for sin. There is no pathway to heaven other than the cross. This is why we engage in missions. We don’t believe that doing the best you can means that you can make it to heaven. We don’t believe that there exists a single person that deserves heaven (age of accountability is a different category). We believe that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We don’t believe that rejecting Jesus sends you to hell, we believe that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In other words, those who have never heard of Jesus have the same destiny awaiting them as those who have heard and reject - they are forever separated from God because all have sinned.

Reconciliation is messy. Reconciliation looks at the deepest of depravity and says, God’s grace is sufficient. Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Reconciliation says what Corrie Ten Boom famously quipped - “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.”

One of the challenges our society faces is the myth of autonomy and the false sense of individualism. We are autonomous, we are individuals and as free individuals we face consequences of our actions. There are certain limits put in place by God that ensure freedom.

The Bible is specific. Our message is not simply Christ has set us free; he has done that. But, for freedom, Christ has set us free. He has set us free to enjoy freedom. He has not set us free to entrap or enslave us but to free us. In Christ, we are freed to be free.

The Law doesn’t build delight. It can’t! It can only build anxiousness. It can never satisfy. 

Everyone knows someone with a story. What’s your story? I can tell you your story. Though I might not know the details, I can tell you enough of your story. I am able to tell you your story because I know the one story that touches every story. I know the story of Jesus. Amazingly, it’s a story that begins before the foundation of the world. 

Christ is the defining moment of human existence. He created space in order to be known and he orients human history according to himself. He is reality!

Christians have a book, a Holy Book. In that book we have a message from God to us. But not only do we have a book, we have a Word to help us interpret the book. Jesus is the Word of God in flesh appearing, as the carol says, and each Sunday we take our Bible’s and come and adore the Word through taking our Bible’s to turn to hear from God. 

Jesus redeems ruined sinners through being lifted on a cross - through crucifixion. The death of Jesus on the cross is the way that we know God. We cannot know God outside of a cross. John 3:16 tells us that Jesus died on the cross because God so loved the world. 

The question that Christian confession must answer is, why did Jesus die on the cross? According to Scripture, Christ died in order to pay the penalty for our sin. 

No sin was in him and so his death was taking what he didn’t have in order to give what only he could give. He took our sin so that he could give us his sinlessness. He took our unrighteousness so that he could give us his righteousness.