The Purpose of the Cross

This video, 'The Crowd or The Cross' is a great setup for this message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZsaLHz1G5s

Jesus’ dominant triumph over Satan at the cross was the prophetic ‘crushing’ of Satan as seen in Genesis 3:15 and it is a victory that we now share in as His followers. The enemy, death and condemnation were destroyed and the glory of God was revealed. He descended for us in order to bring us captive for His very glory. We have been bought out completely through the high price of the cross to continue to bring glory to Him through the gifts He has given us. Every day we need to be brought to the amazing revelation that the cross is all about the glory of God, the reason that I live and what I live for. Is it any wonder that Paul shudders at any thought in taking glory in anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ as we see in Galatians 6:14

• The cross was a demonstration of His amazing covenant love for us.
Deuteronomy 7:9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.
What are His commands...well go to John 15:9 and you will see there is a call to love others as God loved us by His Son laying down His life for us...no greater love than this.
Jeremiah 31:3 The LORD has appeared to us in the past, saying: I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with lovingkindness.

• The cross was all about our reconciliation to God
Colossians 1:19,20

• The cross was a payment for our freedom.
Hebrews 9:22; 10:12-14. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness

• The cross was all about defeating the stranglehold of Satan.
 Genesis 3:15 – in speaking to the serpent, the Lord God said, ‘He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

• The cross’ purpose was to bring the Holy Spirit and unveil His gifts.
2 Corinthians 3:7-18 It is to inaugurate the ministry of the Spirit to bring the kind of glory that will not fade
Ephesians 4:7 He led us captive in His train.



• The cross’ purpose was ultimately to bring glory to God
John 12:23-30

John 17 In the call to the cross, Jesus was crying out to God, “Glorify your Son so that Your Son may glorify You”
Glory has come to Jesus through us; We are the glory of the risen Christ.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 It is all about ownership, we are His glory. We have been bought out and a heavy price was paid. We were bankrupt.

When a place of business is bought out, you expect the next time they open their doors that it will be radically different. The greatest example of futility is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. There was a place of business in Milton called Coffee Time that I happened to maybe visit once. I don’t remember ever buying anything there but it was a place that was full of smoke...this was before the smoking bylaw... and nothing appealed to me in there obviously.

However, the place went out of business and in came Coffee Culture and it was an incredible sight. The decor was amazing, there were leather seats, free wi-fi, sports updates on the flat screen and better coffee than Tim Horton’s. When I went in there I would also see the owner too, He was never afraid to get in the mix of things.

When we come to Christ, God buys us out completely and wants to do the same radical and complete transformation of our lives.

The CROSS of Christ

• It is deeply personal.
John 15:9

As we saw in the passion of the cross, He loves us so much that He wasn’t willing to just stand by and watch us rot and die in our sins. He didn’t come to buy our minds, He came to buy all of us, buy us out completely and do a radical and total transformation.

The last time I spoke about Crossings Community Church in Acton, I shared how it used to be a crack house called Manny’s Roadhouse. There was a person in our church who was deeply moved by what took place there because for him it used to be a place of deep pain. For him, part of his spiritual journey was to go back there and see the radical change.

What we saw was a place that was completely gutted and totally transformed. When we walked in the front door, it was an incredible sight. We walked into a ‘Starbuck’ like atmosphere and we were greeted by Pastor Richard and Mary. It is now known as Roxy Coffee, a place where you can get chai lattes, cappuccinos and know that conversations may break into spiritual things. They were so committed to this transformation that Mary worked for 6 months at Starbucks just to learn what they do right!

As we walked around the place, Jay took the time to share with us his memories of a place where life was robbed, where knives were pulled and where hope was empty. God bought Jay out completely last summer and that followed with his baptism in the fall

• It is all about loyalty! The cross of Christ calls us to put Jesus above all else. Jesus and our loyalty to Him comes before our own agenda, our family and their agenda, before friends.

Matthew 16:24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

When was the last time Jesus `highjacked’ your day for His agenda? When was the last time that you didn’t get done what you wanted to do? When was the last time your day didn’t go as you expected it to?

Last Monday night, I ended up getting stuck in the GFN store. Now and then I have been called on to open the store, but this night would be different. I started pulling all the bags of recent deliveries to the store in the kitchen and you never know quite what to expect when you pull back the black curtain.

I had barely set things up when I noticed one of my neighbours down the street come in the store. She is a regular from what I understand and she came with her daughter and a friend. It was only a few years ago that she lost her husband suddenly and now does everything she can to look after her daughter and herself.

After she arrived, I met a young mother from Acton who arrived in tears because she couldn’t pay her hydro bill and needed spring clothes for her 18 month old daughter. So, I was able to combine monetary donations from the store and benevolent money to help her out, but not only that, I found a box of clothes that had a number of great outfits for her daughter.

After, my neighbor’s daughter asked if she could help out and began to sort clothes as well. Then Tommy and Lacey showed up and we working together like a fine tuned machine and so many of the new clothes were the exact fit for the needs that came our way that night. Tommy had one of her arms in a sling but she wouldn’t let that stop her!

As you know the store is also open Tuesday, it is 9:20am and we get an emergency request from another new mom who is now going for an interview at 10am and has no business clothes. Sharon and Erin were on and they found so many outfits that you guessed it, fit her perfectly and she loved it. She went straight to her interview looking like a million bucks...ok, well maybe not a million, but with incredible confidence. Then it was Pastor John’s turn to bring ladies in from the Women’s shelter as he so often does to once again help them in their need.

Why do I tell you these stories? It isn’t just for a good feeling in our hearts. While that is great, it is about giving our day, our evening over to Jesus. Sometimes it is inconvenient to open the store, we may not make it a meeting on time, we may not get to go to our Bible study that night, you may not get your supper in, you may have to rush supper possibly. I may lose time in sermon preparation, but you know what, we always learn more about our faith, ourselves when we let Jesus highjack our day!

It is all about God`s glory. Make no mistake about it, we were meant to bring glory to God. In the end it isn’t about what you and I have done, it is about what God has done and where we have been faithful enough to listen and follow through. That is really the amazing thing, that God is really that interested in my day, in what I am doing, that He wants to speak into that.


The fact that I can bring glory to God should really floor me, it is incredibly amazing.

The Takeaway

The purpose of the cross of Christ was to buy my life out completely for the glory of God. (period)


When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ, my God; all the vain things that charm me most—I sacrifice them to His blood. See, from His head, His hands, His feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down; did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown? Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small: Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.     Issac Watts

Questions For Discussion

1. How did Christ’s death on the cross bring glory to God? See John 17
2. Talk about your own personal ‘buyout’? When did you realize that Jesus wanted not only to be your Saviour, but your Lord?
3. When was the last time Jesus ‘highjacked’ your day?
4. In what ways can your life bring glory to God?

The Passion of The Cross

This video really sets up this message well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn2a73B0uB0

It is Jesus who taught us how to love people and bring dignity to their lives. It is Jesus who met people wherever they were, He showed us His passion. He was passionate about the spiritually lost, the hungry, the seeker no matter where they showed up whether it was coming through a roof, climbing up a tree, crying out in a crowd. He saw them, He listened to them, He ate with them.

Take the account of Jesus and the woman at the well; here is a woman who is his complete opposite: Samaritan, female and promiscuous. So, while the disciples purchase food, Jesus asks her for a drink. This could have been a very explosive situation yet it becomes clear very early on that this man is not flirting with her in a culture that segregates men and women from these situations. It is Jesus who immediately confronts her with her moral condition and she is shocked…why? More than likely this is the first time a man who is more interested in her as a person, her redemption more than what she could offer him. It is Jesus who meets us with honest love, who can redeem our sexuality, our dignity, our life.

AND…

It is Jesus who ultimately brought dignity to our lives by showing us the ultimate act of love, He laid down His life for us, who He saw as His friends!


The Passion of Jesus’ Separation v36-38

The cross separates and brings overwhelming sorrow.

It was the Father who listened to His one and only Son’s request. He could feel the pain that was poured out in the intense sorrow and knew the way His Son would be treated. We need to recognize the price the Father paid to let His only son die, to pay the price for the crime of sin he did not commit. He knew the mockery, the slander, the cruelty, the betrayal and the total ungratefulness of mankind. He knew our ignorance and still He determined to turn His back on His Son, to abandon Him to let him die alone because of His great love for us.

Luke 22:44 reads "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."
What does it mean for sweat to be like drops of blood? Certainly it would be showing us the incredible intensity of the moment. Jesus was suffering from a rare medical condition known as 'hematidrosis' It is a condition is brought on by extreme mental stress or anxiety in the patient causing capillaries - small blood vessels - in the patient to burst. Some escaping blood gets into the sweat glands and so the subject literally sweats blood. This is a fairly new medical revelation so even Luke as a doctor at that time would not have been aware of the condition, so he writes as accurately as he is able.  It was 'like blood'. Again, this is a point of reference to the authenticity of the Bible!


The Passionate Love of Jesus for our Dignity v39-42

It is while Christ was lying face down to the ground that He accepted the decision that God had laid out for Him,… Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, it was prophesied of Him, but He still had to in His humanity accept the divine plan for why He would do what He did. The battle wasn't won at Golgotha, it was won when Christ made the decision in His mind and in His spirit to go to the cross.

The price was that He would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you.
M Lucado.

He became sin for us. 2 Cor. 5:21 Jesus Christ alone took upon Himself , not only the physical, but spiritual suffering and death.

He endured the agony of being made sin. He didn't just command the sin to leave, like He did with demons or the hypocrites in the temple. Christ came down in the very mire and stench of our sin. He allowed Himself to be touched by that which shipwrecks our lives and leaves us hollow in our innermost being.

He did this all the while we were sleeping like the disciples in the sense that we were so unaware of the price that He paid for us.

Not my will, but your will be done.

The structure is complete in two clear statements by our Lord.

He shows us

1. Complete honesty
2. Complete surrender

It is a simple and short prayer that bypasses the pain of the heart and goes straight to the will. It is a place where we are often called to go even in the midst of our own ‘gethsemanes of the soul’. It is a place where we feel all alone, a place where we feel our closest friends have deserted us, a place where we are barely holding on.

He also learns to submit to the will of God and teaches us to do the same by His very example.

The call to rise and go with Jesus v43-45

We can never go where Jesus has gone in His payment for our sin to bring us into newness of life; however he calls us to carry our cross as well in recognizing the death sentence that He has placed over the power of sin in our life

Luke 14:26-28 It is call to follow Him with reckless abandon, to give Jesus our ultimate loyalty, no matter what may face us.

A court hearing for Maryam Rustampoor and Marzieh Amirizadeh -- Iranian Christians who were arrested by security forces in March 2009 -- was held on April 13. In November 2009, the two were conditionally released from the notorious Evin Prison

 Although they have been receiving medical treatment for the past five months, they remain weak and suffer from various illnesses. Yet, despite their frailties, they were determined to be faithful to the Lord and speak the truth in court whatever the consequence or personal cost. At last report, the outcome of their hearing was unknown.

I rise with Jesus that in love gives me power over sin

It is a death to self, to my own will. As Christ said, not my will, but God, your will be done.
Mark 14:32. We die to personal, self -seeking desires

We move from the place of ultimate sorrow to ultimate joy.

Co- Crucifixion is allowing the Spirit of God search me until I know what the level and nature of sin is in my life, to see the very things that struggle against God's spirit in me. I have died with Christ to the power that sin has over me, I am sick to death with sin and hate its deadly venom. It is a flat out refusal to give in or to give up.


The cross is no place of concealment of hiding, of covering sin. It is the place where we break with sin the place of exposure, of guilt, of open shame.
The Cross kills. The man who exposes himself to Calvary soon discovers that a hidden fire burns within his bones. Oh. let me, put no limits to is concentrated force. May its death-dealing, life giving and healing rays penetrate my most secret life, until its hidden fire burns in all the bones of my inmost being. But let me not fear to expose myself to the divine treatment. As I allow this to happen, I will continue to conform to the image of the Son. 

Roy Hession in  'The Calvary Road'


Christ fulfilled His destiny as Savior of the world. God raised him from the dead freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Acts 2:24
His resurrection means He has the power to convey His life to me. We have a new nature.


A follower of Christ must realize that there is no sin that should have complete and total domination over us. If we live in the power of the Spirit as a result of our union with Christ, then we have the winning formula. The key is that we continue to yield to Christ's living his life through me. In a nutshell, If sin rules in me, God's life in me will be suffocated, if God rules in me, sin will be suffocated.


Galatians 2:20

To be resurrected to a new life is a recognition of the fact that my ties to my former life are severed and my new allegiance is to Christ.
When a person immigrates to Canada, my feeling is that they've got to become a Canadian outright, love the great white north, know all the provinces, enjoy the great outdoors, pay their taxes before April 30th and of course follow hockey.
I don't want to hear anybody talk about how good it was over there. The same is true of the Christian life, we have a new citizenship and the cross has cut me off from my old nature.

I not only rise up to conquer the power of sin in Christ but...


I no longer live for myself. I live to bring Christ’s redeeming love and dignity to the life of others.

God gave Heather Derrick a vision for Romania, a passion for Goldie!

It is the same reason our youth went 30 hours without food to raise funds for World Vision


The Takeaway

The passion of Christ’s cross redeems me and brings dignity to others.

The cross changes the way I look at everyone. Each person that I see is a person that Jesus died for so that is why even when helping my wife sell scrapbook kits at Scrapfest, I had one of those moments where I was overwhelmed in sorrow and called to prayer as a woman I met shared with me about her son Aaron going off to Afghanistan yesterday with the largest contingent of soldiers ever to be deployed. I believe she said 2000 troops left yesterday. He is an engineer that goes ahead of the army to clear the path and make the way safe as possible for the troops.

Why do I care about Aaron. He is a person that Christ died for.

Questions For Discussion

1. How does the man of sorrows, how does someone 'overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death' yet go through with his task?
2. How can we, when we find ourselves in our Gethsemanes', echo Jesus' "yet not my will, your will"?'
3. Can you identify how the resurrection power of Christ has given your power over the compulsion to sin?
4. In what ways can you bring dignity to the life of others?

The Power of the Cross

This is the video that really sets this message up really well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwzt9jRUPNg

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Acts 18 – gives us the context of Paul’s message to those in Corinth. He would normally first began in the Jewish synagogue and gain an audience there. He would reason with those there that Christ had to suffer and die. Once he got kicked out of there, he went next door to Titius Justus. (specifically v6,7)

was a significant place because of its geographical location. It was a great place for trade, being on the coast, for athletics as well. It was the temple of Aphrodite...the god of sexuality that would stand prominent on their skyline.

The cross is mission critical to my preaching because it holds the very teaching of the Word. The cross speaks to the power of God in the judgment and payment of sin. We stand here today only because of the finished work of the cross. It isn’t a message that is readily accepted by our world where even in Christian circles, there is the teaching of reaching our own divinity, that it is within us. The world doesn’t understand the cross because it looks like weakness, defeat and helplessness. And it is all that, because in Christ, our weakness, defeat and helplessness to sin will dealt a death blow at the cross.
To the majority of the world that watch as bystanders to the cross, it appears that a man was arrested, given a quick trial, and executed. It appears to them that if Jesus was really God's Son, that God was unable to do anything.

It would appear that Paul had a recipe for disaster. He certainly was hated by many; however God’s power and plan as we see in revealed in weakness.

The message of the Cross is POWERFUL because it
1. reveals the central plan of God
2. brings clarity to our sinfulness
3. is absolutely critical to the heart of the Christian Faith

The central plan of God

The message of the cross...even in the OT was pointing forward to a great sacrifice, the one who was to come would be a king who would reign, a priest, a prophet

Overview of the Power of the Cross

1. Covenant. The cross is all about “covenant”, It was the beginning of the new covenant, a new agreement made by God for us (Lk.22:20). In and of itself, the Old Covenant did everything it was supposed to do. It was there to point us forward, to know that there was a Messiah coming and He would be a suffering servant. The cross of Christ was the fulfillment of the Law. The law served its purpose of making us aware of sinfulness; however it was incomplete. The law was incapable of bringing life to us, the law could never make us righteous.

The Old Testament through prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel spoke of a day when that power would be made available and God would make a new covenant with his people that would replace the old (Jer.31:31-34). The New Covenant included God’s law being written on our hearts along with the internal ability to obey by the power of the Holy Spirit who is in us (Rom.8:3).

2. Reconciliation.The cross is also about “reconciliation” between God and us (Col.1:13-29).

There are two components to our reconciliation:
Vertical – between God and man reaching out to everyone who has ever lived and needing to become right with God

Horizontal – between people (Eph. 2:14-18) In the power of the cross, we can experience forgiveness with each other and we are called to a life of forgiveness with others. In that reconciliation, we are called to forgive those who have offended and to seek healing in our relationships... as much as it depends on us to live at peace with everyone.

3. Overcoming.The cross is also about Jesus overcoming the devil and his plan. It’s about Jesus’ ultimate defeat of our arch enemy and sacking his kingdom. (Col.2:13-15).

It is about Jesus overcoming Satan, sin and sickness and inaugurating the arrival of God’s kingdom which is known by righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Realize as well that it is not about Jesus who overcomes, but for us as His servants who also are overcomers through Him and because of Him.

Christ lives in us and we have every opportunity to be conquerors no matter what situation we face, no matter how dark. A believer may often be in times of deep desperation, but should never be in despair! (1 Jn.5:4-5. Rev.2:7. 1 Cor.10:13-14. Rom.8:35-39).

Is there something too painful that you are unable to deal with? Is there something that you struggle with that beats you around like a rag doll every time you try to face it? The power of Christ’s cross is not just another self help mechanism. It is an all out drag down, total control takeover! It is ours by faith if we simply accept and receive it.


4. Substitution.

Simply put, Jesus stepped in and took our place. He was our sinless substitute who died in our place for the crimes we committed. It is the essence of the gospel. It was a debt that we could never pay back and He paid it all in our place. He faced our penalty and made it possible for us to receive the most precious gift known to mankind. In taking our sin, He then clothed us in His righteousness and made us whole through His forgiveness. We now stand in His righteousness alone, the guilt of our sin has been removed and the death sentence hanging over us is now gone.
1 Corinthians 15:1-8; 1 Peter 2:24

5. Salvation. The last and most important quality of the cross is that it brought our salvation.

Salvation” means to be rescued or delivered from something or someone. So what are we saved from?
• sin and its consequences,
• from the devil,
• from ourselves,
• from hell,
• from pain and suffering,
• from rejection,
• from fear,
• every evil, negative and destructive thing. Salvation is the very purpose for Jesus coming into the world (1 Tim.1:15. Acts 4:12. Rom.1:16. 1 Thess.5:9-10). We have been saved (past) are being saved (present) and are yet to be saved (future).                                                                         Mark Connor

As the time progresses, the closer the gospels get to Jerusalem, the slower the biographies become of Jesus and we see with greater focus on the giving of His life than on the living of His life. Most biographies center around the living not the dying. That is usually the end of the story, but it is a new and powerful beginning for Christ Jesus.

It is a message that brings clarity to our sinfulness

**Whenever we take our eyes of the cross, we will lose our way around Scripture. It is the pivotal event of human history.

Think about how many sermons start with fixing our felt needs....we fail to understand than you can fix it all in the here and now and still be destined for hell.

I will declare the necessity of the cross, preach the meaning of the cross and I will not shy away from the offence of the cross.

1 Peter 2:24 He bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

It’s an offence to people because it strikes right at the heart of the human condition. We are not all born innocent...sorry Sarah McLaughlin. It hits our pride because we are unable to save ourselves. We are unworthy and unacceptable.

The teaching of the cross establishes the reality of my complete separation from God apart from Christ’s sacrifice.

It is executing the punishment of God for the payment for the price of sin. Christ took upon Himself the sins that He never committed.

The awfulness of sin is seen in the cross, it was seen in Gethsemane from the awfulness and the awesomeness of the weight of sin

It makes us aware of the gravity of sin and the necessity of grace.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21

God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us to become the righteousness of God...Something that could only be received through the cross of Calvary and freely given to me because of Jesus.
It is out of the mouth of babes that we can get an incredible insight.

Rylan shared with me after the Good Friday service last week....’ “I had no idea just how much Jesus went through....He must have really loved us to do that!!’

Look at the man who was dying on the cross next to Jesus who said, ‘we deserve what we are getting’ in Luke 23:41
It is absolutely critical to our faith

Man by nature is perishing. We are alienated from the God who made us. It is also God who seeks us
We are not out there looking for God. He comes to us in our crucial predicament.

It is the crossroads between life and death, between emptiness and fullness, between the power to succeed and going down in defeat.

Do we really believe that the people around us are perishing; that they are dead in their trespasses and sins?
Without the shedding of blood there is no remission for our sins. Hebrews 9:22

We are being saved from sin’s power; we have been saved from sin’s penalty, that we are naturally bent on rebellion against God, we are under His judgement, that we are lost in our trespasses and sins and that only because of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Or if we are not careful the message may become like this...

You have tremendous human potential, I want to remind you that you have phenomenal abilities and the exhibition of the cross is not to deal with you sin but to inspire you to rise to the occasion, to become the people you should be.

A message like this doesn’t make you realize that have to face up to the fact that we have broken God’s laws, that we have missed the mark of God’s righteousness, that I am undone and have no hope except by the grace of God.

He was covered in shame in order that we might be covered in glory.

For those of us who believe:

The power of the cross guards me against myself, gives me confidence only in Christ and compels me to go.
Alistair Begg broke it down this way -

The message of the cross provides us with a divine corrective. When we take our eyes off the cross, we start trying to justify ourselves by our own actions as Paul addressed in Galatians 3. I am only justified by what was done for me not what I have done for me. This guards me against pride and Pharisee – like tendencies. It also guards me against shame

It also provides us with divine confidence...When I start pulling out the list and think about where my confidence lies...Does it lie in the fact that I am reading the Bible more now than I did in 1989....

It creates within us a divine compulsion...what gets me ready for the day when I get up. “One died for all” The love of Christ compels me to go to the lonely people. ..to deal with what burdens them, with what ensnares them and brings them to true freedom.

Rescue the perishing
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save. He is mighty to save

Fanny Crosby

Discussion Questions

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘cross’?
What thoughts and feelings come to your mind when you partake of the Lord’s Supper or communion?
Why is forgiveness so hard and yet so important (see Matthew 6:9-15; 18)?
In what practical and tangible ways can we appropriate the power of the cross in our daily lives, especially in living an ‘overcoming life’?

Let the river flow from the "southside"!

Ezekiel 47

Do you see the river flowing? v1,2

¹ The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. ² He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the 

south side.

As I was preparing to speak this week, I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of time with 7 baptismal candidates, but still felt strongly led that I needed to still speak and God reminded of the vision of Ezekiel in chapter 47.  I was familiar with how the prophet was led to get into river flowing from the temple but what I needed to be reminded of was found in verse 2.

I have been serving here at Southside for close to 9 years and one of my greatest joys has been the growing tradition of Easter Sunday baptisms.  I felt like I needed to share something very fresh at this service and God showed up!  First the testimonies of our candidates were incredibly powerful and the last testimony shared by Jordan B was so illustrative of the process the prophet went though from first coming to the river to experience God to moving to the place where he was immersed in the river.

The source of the river is the sanctuary of God. When we follow Jesus and our redeemed by Him we come to the place where we learn what surrender means, we submit to Him and He breathes His Holy Spirit into us.  We see in Scripture as well that water is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit.

Prior to coming to Southside, it had been prophesied over me that I would bring springs of living water to a dry and weary land.  I have always taken great encouragement in that sense of calling as there have definitely been times where it has felt dry and weary, the road has been difficult and it has felt like a desert.  You can imagine the joy and the smile that came across my faith as I read this passage again this week and being reminded that the water from the temple was flowing from the south side.  I circled south side and laughed and told God, You are good!  It was like He was saying, "Hey Jack, I'm alive and well in this place and my Spirit is flowing and moving.”  It was a wonderful moment of reaffirmation for me.

Be immersed in the Spirit of God v3-6

the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. ⁴ He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. ⁵ He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. ⁶ He asked me, "Son of man, do you see this?"

 For me the journey into the deeper things of the Spirit of God has been one where He truly has taken me from being in ankle-deep, to my knees, to my waist and I trust I will continually turn over this church to the control of the Spirit where I can’t touch with my feet and where I am controlled by the current and flow of the Holy Spirit!

This is the call for all of us that we get to the place where we as the people of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, allow His streams of living water flow through us.

Don’t get swamped by what consumes your world. v11

 But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt.

There are always things that will grieve as well as quench the flow of the Spirit in our lives and we have to first recognize these distractions and not allow them to consume us to the point where we stagnate the work of the Spirit in our lives.  The Spirit’s work is to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.  John 16:8   We are then called  to walk in the Spirit and when we do that we will not be as easily drawn into fulfilling our selfish desires as we see in Galatians 5:16 

When we walk away from God and refuse the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we are like the swamps and mashes. No life will flow from us and everything we touch does not bring life and draw others to God.  There is power in the flow of the river. The force of the river brings life. The amount of flow will depend on how much we are willing to allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives.

(from sermonalive.com)

The healing power of the River of God v9,12

 ⁹ Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live  ¹² Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the

We move from the work of the Spirit to being led by the Spirit to ultimately the place where we bear the fruit of the Spirit of God in our lives.  We flow to a place where the very fruit of our lives show up and reveals that the Spirit of God is living and active and producing the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self control in our lives and by God’s Holy Spirit and grace flowing into the lives of others.

We become “medicine” for others who needed a helping hand, a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on. As we help the poor and needy, we bring healing to their souls through our kindness, love, compassion. They will see God and the goodness of God through you.

(from sermonalive.com)

The Glorious SONrise!!

John 20

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
3So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
10Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"
"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
16Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).


Jesus...moving me from my darkest moments into the most glorious of days v1-16

It is often in our darkest moments that we are met by God. To Mary it would seem that all hope was lost and a visit to mourn Jesus turned into a frantic frenzy. She had come to visit the place of her greatest loss and in her grief, Jesus reveals Himself to her. It is a powerful encounter and she is overwhelmed in the moment.
Jesus died and rose again! He conquered the grave, He conquered sin and He reigns supreme; however, we can know these truths and still its power can be lost on us in a very desperate situation. Jesus had told His followers that His death wasn’t the end but that it would be a new beginning. Even in our darkest of nights, we need to remember His joy comes in the morning. Cry out to Him and let Him reveal Himself to you in those dark places. We can know true hope and just like resurrection morning for Mary, our new day can be as glorious as the sunrise!


You were never meant to hold on to Jesus, He holds on to you! v17,18


17Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "
18Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
Do not hold on to me is a really powerful statement to me. It reminds me that it is Jesus who places us into the hands of the Father when we call on His name. It was Jesus who also said that no man can snatch them out of my Father`s hand. It is an incredible thing to know that my salvation, my faith rests in Him alone and in His finished work on the cross. All too often we get so fixated on what we are doing to hold on to our faith when it should be the assurance of our faith in Him that motivates, inspires and gives us everything we need to persevere and press on in the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Breath in and receive the Holy Spirit v19-21

19On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.
The disciples were the first to receive the Holy Spirit in what can only be understood as a very powerful and intimate moment. Jesus breathes on them and now the new covenant is sealed in them through the empowering work of the Holy Spirit. This morning take the time to pray a ‘receiving prayer’of empowerment. As you pray, in this moment, breathe in and ask Jesus to once again fill you with the peace, joy and enabling of the Holy Spirit. I have said it many times but all too often we live on an ‘achieving system’ and we were never meant to achieve our spiritual life. We are called to receive it and walk in it.

3 Movements to the Cross

I want to challenge you to be still, to fix your eyes on Jesus and the cross He bore for you, to let Him enter in ‘like spontaneous thoughts that light up on your mind let Him speak to you.' as Mark Virkler shares on hearing God's voice.   Take a blank sheet of paper and be ready to journal those very thoughts as they come to you.

I’m going to ask you to do something this morning as an act of worship and that is to remove your shoes. I want you to prepare yourself in a way that you realize that you are in the presence of God and and that you are on holy ground.

Take time to prepare yourself in a covering prayer.

Read Mark 15:1-42 in the NLT

The CROSS in Three Movements

The first movement - I never knew You...

I was one of them, I praised you like all the rest last week but I wasn’t ready to walk down the road less travelled. I was afraid Jesus and I cried out like everyone else, ‘crucify Him, crucify Him, crucify Him’. I turned my back on you, I denied you, I ran away in humiliation. My heart was stiff inside me, I had betrayed the one who told me He was the way. I chose my own way, I choose the darkness. It is everything I’ve always known.
Here I am, without hope, without love, without meaning, without a Saviour.
I am in a dry and weary land where there is no water, my lips are parched, my soul is dry and I thirst for the living water that you told me to drink from. I have lost my way and my heart pounds for meaning.
My sins, they are too numerous to count and they accuse me, they bury me in defeat. They tell me that You didn’t die for me and that I will die in my sins and there is no hope. But my ways are not your ways. The enemy would love to me to wallow in defeat and never rise up. I am not alone, but he would like to make me think that I am. I cling to the cross and the anointing that You have provided in it for me.

I never knew you but You always knew me.

watch Good Friday – Jason Tremblay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EsstwjAV6Y

 Respond to the question, 'Where would I be Jesus if I never knew you?' Allow God to speak to your heart on this.


The second movement – When did You care?


Why do you care about me, Why do you know the exact number of hairs on my head? Why are you mindful of me? You told me that you crowned me with glory and honor.
When did you call my name? You knew me before I even had any thought of you, but one day I called and You answered and You came to my rescue. You lifted me out of the miry clay, the much and the stench of my sin. Your love flowed to every fibre of my being. Your love is so strong, it is a warming presence in my life. I cannot deny how strong I feel when I’m in Your presence Jesus. Without You I am troubled about many things so I ask that You keep my heart in tune with You. You have called me to wait so that You can give me fresh glimpses of Yourself. May I stay the course and see what is in store. You are the Rock, I AM. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of your life, your ministry, your everything. Walk in my ways and You will never be led astray. Keep your heart soft and true and I will show you the glorious things that I can do.

Watch Lead Me To The Cross - Hillsong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdq9Q8wJdjc&feature=related

When did you call my name?  Once again let the Father speak to into your being as You listen to His voice.

The Third Movement – Why You Died for me

You died to bring me healing...You died to remove the shame and rejection and You died to give me a new name, a new and glorious hope. You died so I could be brought to a new and living hope. You told me to let your love wash over me, to feel the strength of and vigor in Your presence. You want me to walk in sacred communion with You in the cool of the day.
You died and you laid down your life in surrender for me so that I would know how beautiful the love is that you have for me.
You died for me to make an altar of blessing for you to pour out Your love through me to others. You called me to show others Your way, it may not seem right to them, but it is right to You. You have told me to fill the whole room with Your life giving presence

By His Wounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCdd3YRw_KA&feature=related

Why did you die for me?  Finally ask Christ why He gave His life for you, why He cared....

Take time for communion and as you do prepare yourself by reading:

Isaiah 52:13 – Isaiah 53

Be blessed.

Fight With Everything You've Got!

This video is a great lead in for this subject...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX63X8cFXIU&feature=related

Ephesians 6:10-20

Fight With Everything You’ve Got!

Once you become a believer, you become an enemy of the kingdom of the air and the war on our lives intensifies. Everything heats up and Satan would love nothing more than to neutralize us in the battle for the hearts and minds of men and women. Writing in prison, Paul would not have to look far to gain his inspiration for writing this part of his letter. He knew that the believers were targeted by the state as well as the religious establishment. Following Jesus was seen as an all out threat to everything that was good and right about the world at the time. So, they needed to be exposed, taken out and dealt with in a way that anyone thinking about contemplating Christ would know the cost. Paul turned it around and used it as an opportunity to teach the believers everything they needed in terms of a defensive and offensive preparation in becoming defiant soldiers of Christ.


1. Take A Stand!

BE strong in the Lord. Entering into the battle is not optional for the believer. It is a battle and we are called to keep advancing, to be strong in the victory that is ours in the Lord. Put on the full armour

Matthew 16:18 upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Know what you are taking a stand against and we can know this by recognizing the playbook of the enemy



We are up against the schemes of the devil and there is nothing better for him than to have us fascinated and or immobilized by him. Every time that he can get someone to go to a medium, a horoscope or allow other voices in their life to rise above God’s, he is delighted. Anytime he can get our eyes off trusting the Lord we our future, he succeeds.

His schemes speak of cunning acts, his deceit and trickery. He loves to trip up believers, especially those in places of leadership to cause many to doubt and fall away. How does he develop his schemes? Most of the time he works from within through a spirit of discouragement and frustration, the root of bitterness.

He also wants us to be ignorant of the way he works. He would love for us to just believe that he is a non-factor in our sophisticated Western society where we can explain everything away and diagnose every problem and addiction. It is a place where the power is in ourselves and we can do it by our own belief in ourselves, our own positive thinking, our own telekinesis, He also encourages us through the spirit of discontent and the desire and accumulation of things.

When we value and hold up people or possessions before God they become idols

2 Corinthians 2:11 – don’t be unaware of his schemes

The enemy wants you to substitute yourself for God.

It was the lie that he spoke to Eve in the garden and it is the same lie that he tells people today. ‘You will be like God’.

“For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” (KJV)

The enemy wants you to believe that people are the real enemy. He loves nothing better than to see us consumed by the actions of others and get us completely twisted in a knot by all of it. Take for example Michael Moore and his movie Fahrenheit 9/11 where his did his absolute best to convince everyone that George W. Bush was the real enemy and I think that is the smallness of the human condition to try to make it that simplistic when it comes to the real challenges that we face. It is human nature that wants to narrow it down instead of really recognizing the invisible enemies that we face.

Paul wants us to realize that more is going on here than meets the eye and while yes, the enemy can use people as his pawns, we have to pray for the pulling down on strongholds in the spiritual realm.

v12 What does Paul say....we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. WE WRESTLE - in Roman times the winner would place his hands on his arch rival’s neck and usually gouge out the eyes of the loser resulting in blindness. Here is the parallel, our enemy, Satan, rules the air and it is ultimate goal to keep men blinded to the light of the glorious gospel.



1 Peter 5:8 “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”

He is the accuser and he loves to sow disunity and bitterness between believers as well. Anything he can do to drive wedges into solid Christian community, he will do it. He loves to destroy marriages as well. Every time we choose to malign another person, speak ill will of them, the devil gains a foothold.

2. Stand Your Ground!

• The belt of truth

The first piece of armour that Paul speaks about is the belt of truth because the enemy is the father of lies and he wants us to doubt, he wants us to deceive us and he’ll twist even Scripture to that end. We also need to be people of our word and being dishonest with ourselves and others will open the doors to Satanic influence.

• The breastplate of righteousness.

Where the belt of truth might refer to an internal quality the breastplate of righteousness refers to an outward quality of our life. We will never be free from sin entirely in this life, but this quality speaks to us not becoming entangled in twined with it...throw it off. Hebrews 12:1

This plate protects one’s most vital organs, the places of our greatest vulnerability as well and so in order for the HS to do His work, we must guard our heart for our of it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23

This is the very quality that Gord spoke to yesterday morning at our men’s breakfast. Don’t even entertain lustful thoughts for even a moment.

On another level, we must remember to put on the breastplate. We must never get to the place where we substitute our own righteousness for the righteousness of Christ. We do that when we take more stock in our own good behaviour than realizing where that righteousness comes from. It is not our own...our own righteous acts are like filthy rags Isa. 64:6.

• Feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace
There is a readiness that we take into battle. We have a firm foundation and we are here to steal back from the enemy the souls he has tried to rob of that very peace with God. We are called to bring the light into very dark places much like what Crossings Community Church in Acton did with ‘Manny’s Roadhouse’ which was a crack house and a placed filled with all kinds of deviant behaviour. The police were always on hand there.

The devil resents this and does everything to prevent it by keeping us as busy as possible with everything else that we never have any time to meet with others.

When we share the gospel and some one fails to respond, we give up. We think “we did it wrong” or “they just aren’t interested.” Then we become disheartened and are no longer ready to share the gospel. This is warfare beloved! We have to understand and recognize that rejection of the gospel is demonic. It is inspired by the enemy. So how do we fight this? We fight it by being ready to share the gospel! Adrian Warnock

The fact is that most people have to hear the gospel 5 or 6 times in different settings and often from different people just to grasp the truth. As Galatians 6 states, ‘don’t be weary in welldoing...you will receive a reward in due time’

• The shield of faith

The shield that Paul would have seen in his day would be about 4ft by 2.5 ft and curved inward. The shields were made of animal skins that were saturated with water to quench fiery darts.

The darts that God has called us to extinguish are doubts on every side, as well as deceit, pride, independence, self seeking... In the heat of the battle, never cease trusting in God. When you are backed into a corner and you feel you have no resolve and nothing left, keep your faith in God. It is in those times when our burdens are the heaviest that God shows up and does the miraculous and somehow we take flight on wings as the prophet Isaiah calls us to wait on the Lord and renew our strength!

• The helmet of salvation

The helmet speaks to our hope and no matter how the enemy seeks to destroy, he cannot crush our hope. We are more than conquerors as Romans 8 proclaims

It is our mindset that sets the tone for our day. It is with our minds that we choose to either look back on past defeats or look forward to new victories.

The morning is a critically important time of th day. You must never face the day until you have faced God, nor look into the face of others until you have looked into His. You cannot expect to be victorious, if you begin your day in your own strength alone.

L.B. Cowman Streams In The Desert


3. Stand up and be counted

• The sword of the Spirit
Jesus counter attacked the enemy with the Word. However it is the sword of the Spirit because it is not mere reading of the Word that makes the difference, it is the living, active, power of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit of God who brings revelation, who makes the words leap off the page, who teaches us new things!

On the other hand, the devil would love nothing more than to breed passivity in us, to just get us to believe that people really don’t care and it really is not worth the effort. The devil would rather breed doubt, fear and mistrust.

• The power of prayer. Paul concluded by telling us to be alert and keep on praying for all the saints.

Like that old hymn...

Stand up, Stand up for Jesus
Stand in His strength alone
The arm of flesh will fail you
You dare not trust your own
Put on the gospel armour
Every piece put on with prayer
Where duty calls or danger
Be never wanting there!


In Acts 19:1-17, we read about great power encounters that took place in Ephesus.

• First of all we see the real power of God coming down in the power of the Holy Spirit among the believers. It was following their baptism into Christ, a water baptism, that they began to walk in the fullness of their gifting. Paul prayed over them, placed his hands on them and the resulting change was immediate. The two gift that they experienced were speaking in tongues and the prophetic.
• The second power encounter is seen in the 7 sons of Sceva who merely tried to imitate the power of God and went face to face with an evil spirit. They were overpowered and took on a huge beating.


The Why were they overtaken? They were not prepared for the battle. You cannot merely profess the weapons of your warfare, you have to possess them and appropriate them.

I’ll never forget dealing with the enemy manifesting himself to me head on in a previous ministry. However, what we learned in that situation was that there was no way we were going to walk into that home in a nonchalant want. As a pastoral team we prepared ourselves in prayer and fasting. At Southside we have been in homes and had to pray the blood and presence of Christ over the home as well as be incredibly sensitive to items in the homes that may have carried an evil presence.

Some of you will remember that we had to deal with an evil presence in our home after learning that one of the bedrooms was set up as a shrine

• The third power encounter is the act of repentance. When you see the power of God on display, the enemy’s tricks are a cheap substitute. A significant number of those who practiced sorcery had turned over and burned

1 drachma = a day’s wages...so determine what you make in a day and multiply that by 50 000. On an average wage we are talking about $20 million dollars. This act of repentance was a complete turning over of an idol in their life.

The Takeaway

Take a stand in the power in the Lord and stand your ground in your heavenly armour

But don’t stop there

Stand up and be counted in the battle for the hearts and minds of men and women.

This week coming up is the most Holy week on our calendar and there are times in a believer’s life when the battle really heats up and intensifies. One of those times especially is before and after water baptism because it is public confession of faith.

Speak to Good Friday, Sunrise, Breakfast and Easter Service.

Closing

Leonard Ravenhill – Why Revival Tarries.




Questions For Discussion

1. To what extent have I put on the whole armour of God?
• Personal integrity and honesty
• Godly character
• A readiness to speak the gospel of peace
• A sense of security in my relationship with Jesus

2. What does wrestling in the spiritual realms look like to me?
3. When was the last time you had to use your sword in battle and what did that look like?