A RIVER OF BLOOD

#10 – The Blood Of The Cross

What Has Happened To The Cross?

Before it became beautiful jewelry, the cross was a torture device.

The cross was covered in blood.

The cross was about suffering.

The cross was a curse.

For Jesus The Cross Was Surrender

• Jesus lived a cruciform life.

• Colossians 1:20 – “(For it was the Father’s good pleasure)…through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross….”

The Cross Shaped The Life Of Jesus

Evident in His victory over Satan in the wilderness temptations.

Evident in His submission to God in the garden of Gethsemane: “Not My will, but Your will be done.”

John 14:30

So that Jesus could with great confidence say…

“I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me….”

The Daily Cross To Do God’s Will

• Hebrews 10:5,7 – “Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, ‘Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me…Then I said, Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of Me, to do Your will, O God.’”

Psalm 40:6 – “Dug my ears…”

Jesus Led A Cross Dominated Life Luke 12:50 – “But I

have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished.”

Philippians 2:8-9

“Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name…”

We Must Live Cruciform Lives

• Hebrews 5:8-9 -- Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation…

All to Him I owe

Galatians 3:13

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—

Are we bold enough to embrace the curse?

Living Cruciform Lives

Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

Romans 6:6

“…knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin….”

Galatians 6:14

But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Matthew 16:24

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.’”

The Love Of God And The Cross John 3:16 – “For God

so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

LOVE GAVE!

1 John 3:16

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

LOVE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE

1 John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we

loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

LOVE SENT LOVE BLED LOVE DIED LOVE SATISFIED