The Cross Gives Us Access to God

Welcome to week 4 of our Easter sermon series where we take a look at the Power of The Cross! This service is a part of our quarterly Family Worship Sundays, and Pastor Steve explores the truth that we have access to God through Jesus and the cross.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

And the challenge I think that this presents to us is if you have this access to God, take advantage of it. Take advantage of your access to God. Because what we have been given, this gift that has been made available to us through Jesus, it has not been available to everyone throughout history. It has not always been the case that we can just go to God anytime, any place, but because of Jesus, we now have this gift.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hey everyone, welcome to the Brick by Brick Podcast from Renovation Church, where faith gets built one truth at a time. In this sermon episode, you'll listen to our most recent Sunday morning message. So whether you're new to faith or have been walking with Jesus for years, there's something here for you. Kickback, hit play, and let's build this thing together.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

We just wanted to let you know of some really, really good news here at the church. We have officially met our goal for Project Renewal. And so we wanted to, after Easter, take some time and really lean into celebrating what I think God has done, looking at the course of I've been here three and a half years, and we've had a lot of things, including even a tornado removing us from this space for over or from right about a year, and then we were still able to come together and still renovate the building, no pun intended, and raising this amount. So what we want to do in celebration of us completing our renewal project is we want to take three weeks, not just one, but three whole weeks back to back to back and celebrate project renewal and the completion of it. And we want to celebrate in those spaces that we actually renovated. And so on April 19th, we're gonna celebrate in the gym. We were laughing in staff, they're like Lyle's mom's cakes have become like a thing. People love them. And so we're gonna chow down on some of Lyle's mom's cake in the gym area, give people an opportunity to walk through. Yeah! Give people an opportunity to walk through that space, hang out in that space, and fellowship in that space. The following week on the 26th, I'm like, oh my dates, but yes, the following week, uh we're going to celebrate the completion of the bathrooms. And so we're all gonna cram into the That would be amazing, wouldn't it, Pastor Craig? Anyway, uh we're gonna celebrate in the foyer representing the bathrooms, uh, where we're gonna create an ice cream bar for everybody to come hang out and relax, right? Ice cream. And then to celebrate the parking lot, uh, we pushed it to the very last one. Hopefully, Michigan will cooperate May 3rd. We are going to do an outside party uh food trucks, uh games, and things like that in the parking lot, all after service to celebrate us coming together to renovate the building. Project renewal. Come on. Yeah. And so more information to come, more hype to come, you'll know those things, but everybody is welcome. Consider uh every single one of those, the 19th, the 26th, and the third, and invite your one. Because bring the people, celebrate, have fun uh to celebrate what God did through us. Would you join me in prayer as we invite Pastor Steve up? Father God, I thank you for really the ways in which you allowed us as a body to rally together and um continue to bless one another through the blessing of this building, Lord. We really do pray that this building becomes a place where um not only our church family, but our community at large can come, can enjoy themselves, Lord, can enjoy the spaces that we've created, God, because we believe that um to find, follow, and be like you, Jesus, is to open ourselves up to the community, God. And so we hope that you will continue to allow us to do that, to be salt and light uh in this area, Lord, and in the city at large, Father God. And so we thank you for one more way that you've blessed us to be able to do that, God. Here and now we just ask that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear, oh God, what you would say to us in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Good morning. I'm Steve, I'm the family director here at Renovation. Welcome to Family Worship Sunday and to Palm Sunday. So this is the day when we celebrate Jesus coming into Jerusalem as the King and just kicking off all of the events that led up to Easter, which we celebrate next Sunday. So we can't wait to celebrate that with you next week as well. Well, another thing that we celebrate in the spring, not just Easter, that's the most important thing we celebrate in the spring, but maybe something some of you might have celebrated this week was opening day of baseball. Any baseball fans? Okay, I got a couple, right? Tigers are off to a decent start, you know, two and one, not bad. Okay. Um my wife and I used to go to a lot of baseball games in the days before kids. And you know, here's the thing. Any any of you kids go to any sporting events ever? Yeah, any of you ever been to a baseball game or a football game? Okay. And if you go to the stadium, like if you're going to see the Tigers or you're gonna see the Lions, and you walk up to the stadium and you just say, I'm a really big fan, you should let me in. Do they let you in?

unknown 5:28

No.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

No, what do you need to get in the stadium? You need a ticket, right? Because the ticket gives you access into the stadium. A few years ago, um remember the when the Tigers were like doing really good, they made it to the World Series, Justin Verlander won a Cy Young and an MVP in the same year. Anybody remember that? Okay, some of our adults might. Great season for the Tigers. And Verlander was my favorite player, and so there was this night he was gonna be pitching, and this friend of mine came to me and he was like, Hey, Verlander's pitching tonight. Did you know if you go to Tiger Stadium, you can just go to the ticket booth and ask for standing room-only tickets, and they're only like 15 bucks. I don't know what they cost now, but they were really cheap back then. Um, like if they're sold out, you can get these really cheap tickets. They'll let you and you and like, I mean, what what it says, you have to stand around like kind of this concourse area. You don't get to sit, but you can stand in there, and we're like, let's do it. And so Jen and I and my friend, we drive to Detroit and we're like, what if they're out of the standing room only tickets? Or what if they're not doing it today for some reason? But we drove all the way there, we get to the ticket booth, they sure enough had the standing room only tickets, and so we get to go in during this amazing season the Tigers were having and have these standing room only seats, you know, or not seats, standing room only spots. Um, but the ticket, you know, got us in so that we could just stand there. And so, you know, we bought some hot dogs, we're having to stand there and eat hot dogs, kind of crowded in amongst all these other people. But then after like the fourth or fifth inning, something like that, this woman comes up to us and she's like, How many people are in your group? We're like, just three of us. She's like, I have some tickets. We have to leave early. Would you want to take our seats? We're like, sure, you know, we've been standing there for five innings or so. We take the tickets, and you know, you you read off like there's the section number, there's the row, and we realize our section is like the section right behind home plate. And we start walking down the aisle, and we realize, like, as the letters are getting closer and closer to our seats, we're like, we're in like the fifth row. Like these are the best seats I have ever had at any professional sporting event in my entire life. And this woman just handed them to us. Like, we go in, we find our seats, and we're like five, six rows back from home plate. We can see the facial expressions on Justin Verlander's face. Like we could hear them talking out on the field, like texting our family, like, we're right behind home plate. If you watch the game on TV, you might see us. You know, and we we had now not only access to the stadium because of this ticket, but because of the one that was handed to us, we now have access to some of the best seats that I've ever sat in for a sporting event in my life. And it was awesome, right? The ticket gets you access into the venue. The ticket gives you access to your seat. In the same sort of way, what we're learning about the cross this morning is that the cross gives us access to God. We've been learning truths about the cross throughout this Easter season, not just looking at the events that led up to Easter, but looking at what the cross did. What did Jesus accomplish by dying on the cross? And we've talked about how the cross was the fulfillment of God's plan. The entire Old Testament led to this event. The cross means that we must be willing to suffer humiliation for Christ. Right? There's gonna be great things about following Jesus, but there's also difficult things, and we need to be willing to do that. And then last week we talked about the cross paid for sin. We all have a sin problem, and Petrovsky walked us through that last week. How sin came into the world, why sin is so damaging, and Jesus, through what he did on the cross, pays the price for that. And because of that, we now have access to God. Last week Petrovsky led us into the first books of the Bible, or the first book of the Bible, first chapters, Genesis, and showed in Genesis chapter three how sin came into the world because Adam and Eve took the fruit from that tree they weren't supposed to eat from, and they they ate it anyway. And if we keep looking ahead into that chapter in Genesis chapter three, right after this had all happened, starting in, excuse me, starting in verse eight, it says, Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Now that's something that none of us have ever experienced, is it? Just walking along outside in a beautiful place like the garden, and God is just walking there physically with us. We don't get to experience that. But that was reality for Adam and Eve before sin happened. But then this day, after they've eaten from this fruit, after sin has come into the world, God is walking and they hide from him because they feel guilt and they feel shame, and so they hide from God. And their relationship with God is now severed. We don't see this picture anymore in Scripture of God walking among human beings just in the cool of the day, like it says here, because now sin has broken our relationship with God, and that access has been cut off. But if we keep reading, even though God now starts to speak the consequences of these sins to Adam and Eve and to the serpent, if we keep on reading, we also get some hope of what's going to happen. See, God calls out to Adam and he finds Adam and Eve and he says to Adam, Did you eat from the tree that I told you not to eat from? And Adam's like, the woman that you gave me made me do it. And so he goes to Eve and he's like, Eve, did you eat from this tree? And she's like, The serpent over here, he made me do it. And he goes to the serpent, and the serpent's like, Nobody left to blame. All right, yeah, I did it. Uh and so God pronounces this curse on the serpent. And part of that curse, he says in verse 15, I will put enmity. It's a big word, kids, but it just means like hostility or or uh he's making an enemy of them. So he says, I'm gonna make an enemy between you and the woman. So there's this rivalry now between between evil and between humanity. And he says, between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head and you will strike his heel. And this is a promise that God is making that he's going to fix everything that was made wrong with this sin. He is going to crush the serpent, he is going to destroy evil, he is going to reverse sin and death. But in the process of doing this, the offspring of the woman, the person that is going to come, that is going to do this, even though he's going to defeat Satan and defeat sin and death, he's going to be injured in the process. It says your heel will be struck. And so this is what we have now to look forward to. That somebody is going to come and he's going to rescue us, but he's going to be injured in the process. And that's what we have to look forward to with a cross. And that's really what Palm Sunday is pointing toward. And we are told in the Gospel of John, chapter 12, starting in verse 12, it says, The next day the great crowd had come for the festival. The great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. So what festival? This is the this is Passover. This is the high point of the Jewish calendar. And Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and these crowds of people, they start to hear about it. And it says they took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. This is why we call it Palm Sunday. You know, I think though it would make it more sense if instead of me just talking about it, if we acted it out, don't you? Alright, and so we actually have some palm branches up here. You know, this crowd, I think it would have included family, it's most likely, right? And so um, parents, why don't you grab your kids? Come up here, you can grab a palm branch. I think there should be enough that every kid should get one, their parents could probably grab one too. If there's any other adults who are like, my kid's not here and I want a palm branch, you can come grab a palm branch too. And so these crowds of people, they they get their palm branches. Alright? And once you have one, they're gonna they're gonna lie in the street. So we're gonna pretend this middle aisle is the street leading into Jerusalem. And so get your palm branch and families, you can stand together and just stand on either side of this aisle, okay? I know there's some adults who are like, I really want one of these palm branches. I want to begin on this. Don't be shy, you can come out up. Alright, I knew it, Becky. Alright, we got a couple more. Alright, so let's make a nice line down the center aisle here, and we're gonna pretend that Jesus is on his way. Alright? Alright, and so they line the streets, and it says they're shouting Hosanna. So they're waving their palm branches and they shout Hosanna. Hold on a second. Who knows what Hosanna means? Hosanna means save us. Alright? We don't speak Hebrew, and so you guys are free to say either Hosanna or you can say save us. As they're waving their palm branches, they're saying, save us, and they're saying, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord and they say, Blessed is the king of Israel. All right, good job. And some of them even laid their palm branches down on the ground. Why do you think they would have done that? Any guesses? Why did they lay what's that to protect the feet? Guys, we still do this today. Who's ever watched the Oscars or you've watched like the Espies, like the award shows? What do they do? They don't make celebrities walk on normal ground. Who would do that, right? They roll out the red carpet, don't they? Because why should they touch why should their feet touch anything but red carpet? Are you with me? And so they that's what they were doing for Jesus. They're laying out their palm branches. Some people took off their coats and they laid their coats on the ground because we don't want our king to be walking on dirt roads. We want our king to have the welcome, right? We want to show that that we are bowing down to our king, right? We're giving him this awesome welcome. Like we're rolling out the red carpet for Jesus. There's another thing though, and that's that palm branches had become a symbol in Israel for the king. Right? Israel had been taken over by the Romans. Um, Israel was was being oppressed by other people, and they also even had their own religious leaders. Everybody's telling them what to do. Who loves being told what to do? Nobody I didn't think so. We don't like being told what to do. So all the Israelites, they've got the religious leaders telling them what to do, they've got the Romans telling them what to do, and they're like, you know what? We need a king. The Bible has promised us that the king is coming. The king is gonna conquer all these people who are just coming in here and telling us what to do. And remember, I mean, in that verse in Genesis, it said he was gonna crush the head of the serpent. Right? There's a lot of verses about the about the Messiah, about the one who is to come that's that talk about him being the conquering one. Right? He's gonna conquer sin, he's gonna conquer death, but he's gonna conquer those oppressors too, those people telling us what to do. And so they had these palm branches, they're saying, a king is coming. Now, do you think the Romans who see these palm branches being waved and they know that's a sign that the Israelites have of a king, do you think that they like that very much? Probably not, right? They're thinking, like, hey, there's only one king, his name is Caesar, and you need to respect him, you need to do what he says. And so Jesus comes in, but he does something kind of unexpected. It says, Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written, Do not be afraid, daughters Ion, see your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt. Now, when the king comes, now today we've got tanks, we've got fighter jets, all those kinds of things that the conquering ones would come in on. But back then, what do you expect the conquering one to ride on? A horse, right? Like the white stallion, right? You want him on a big, tough animal, but Jesus comes in on a donkey. A donkey's a farm animal. I mean, they're strong, but they're slow, they're not very tall, right? A donkey is not what you would expect the conquering king to ride on. He's riding on on something, that's right. He's riding in on something humble. And I think Jesus is sending a message. He's saying, Yes, I am coming in as the king, but not the way that you expect. I'm coming in as the humble king because I have a different job to do. Because where does this road lead? Not to a throne, but to a cross. Jesus knew that the road that he was coming in on to Jerusalem was the rope to the cross. He was coming in humbly because the way to conquer what he needed to conquer was by dying on the cross, by suffering for us. Right? He's going to come again as the conquering king, but first he had to come as the humble servant, the one willing to suffer on our behalf, to die on our behalf. So, as Petroski talked about last week, we have that sin problem. That's why he died. And by dying on the cross, he gives us access to God. It says after this, at first of the disciples did not understand. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had to be done to him. He knew that he had to come and die on the cross. And so he went down that road anyway, but he went humbly on a donkey, showing the people that he needed to come in to suffer, not just to conquer right away. Alright, you guys can sit down and you know if you want to take a palm branch home, you can, if it's okay with your parents. Maybe uh let your parents hang on to them if they want you to take them home with you. Let's give our families a round of applause. Thank you so much for reenacting that for us. Alright, so once again, the cross gives us access to God. And we might be wondering, well, how does that happen? Right? How in the world does the cross give us access to God? Well, there is this there is this statement at the in the Gospel of Mark while Jesus is dying on the cross, that it's an interesting detail. It says in Mark chapter 15, verses 38 and 39. I'm one page off. It says the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion who stood there in front of Jesus saw how he died, he said, Surely this man was the Son of God. Now, why this detail, the curtain of the temple was torn in two? Well, to really understand that we've got to take a look at the temple itself. So the the temple in Israel, this is uh one of the only pictures I could find of really the that gives a picture of the layout of the temple. You can almost think of it as these like concentric circles getting further and further into the middle. Not a circle, it's more of a rectangle, but there's layers to the temple. And on the outermost layers, anybody could be there. You know, if you're outside that that outer wall, if you're it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a gentile, anybody could be out there. But then there's a certain gate that to go through you had to be a Jew, you had to be one of the Israelites. They called this the court of women, because this is the only part of the temple that they allowed women into, right? Different times back then. And so this is called the court of women, but then there's another gate that you could go through, and and only Jewish men could go through this part of the gate, and only if they were ritually pure. And so fewer and fewer people now are going in. And then there's another gate, and on the inside of this, it's called the court of the priests. So only the priests are able to go inside of this area. Now the priests are people from a certain tribe, the tribe of Levi, they have these certain jobs that they can do, and again, they can only go in there if they're purified and able to do the tasks that was before them to do. And then finally, you get the actual structure of the building. And the first area of this building is called the holy place. And in there, only certain priests could go in if they had a job to perform. This is where there would be incense burning or there was bread sitting out, or certain sacrifices were done there. And so only the priests that were doing those duties were allowed to go in, perform that duty, and then get back out. And then finally we have the innermost area, it's called the Holy of Holies, or the most holy place. And only on one day a year, the Day of Atonement, could one priest, the high priest, enter the Holy of Holies, offer a sacrifice, and then leave. And that was it. And the reason for this is the people believed that God was present. God was there in a very special way inside of the Holy of Holies. And so to be there was essentially to be face to face with God. And so then the further out you go, the farther away you are getting from God. And so only that high priest is allowed to be there face to face with God that one day a year. And then only certain other priests are allowed to be in that next layer, and then only the other priests are allowed to be in the next layer, and then only the men, then only the women, and then finally everybody else, far away on the outside, far from God. But what does it say that happened when Jesus died on the cross? It says the curtain in the temple was torn in two. The curtain was what separated the holy place from the holy of holies. So when that high priest went into that space, he had to go through this curtain, and nobody else could even see inside. But when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain was torn, and it was showing that the access to God is. Now available to everybody. This is the amazing thing that happened on the cross. That we no longer have to rely on just one priest going into one place one day of the year, but anyone who believes in Jesus can have access to God any time, any place. We're told in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, starting in verse 19, therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened to us or opened for us through the curtain that is his body, and since we have a great high great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience, and having our bodies washed with pure water. This is the gift that we are given if we believe in Jesus, that we can now confidently enter God's presence, not just in a building, not just on a certain day of the year, not only if we are a certain position, but any of us who believe in Jesus can enter into God's presence anytime, any place, through the blood of Jesus. This is amazing news for us. And the challenge I think that this presents to us is if you have this access to God, take advantage of it. Take advantage of your access to God. Because what we have been given, this gift that has been made available to us through Jesus, it has not been available to everyone throughout history. It has not always been the case that we can just go to God any time, any place, but because of Jesus, we now have this gift. And so what are we doing with that gift? Are we using this ability that we now have? And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching. There's two things I think that are happening here in Hebrews. First of all, in 22, it says, Let us draw near to God. One of the ways we take advantage of our access to God is we just get close to him. We can read scripture and encounter God in Scripture. We can pray and speak with God and we can hear from him. And so we we can go to God, we can draw near to him, we can let him speak to us. But also it says, let us spur each other on to love and good works. So we also have this thing called the church. We can gather together with other believers and we can worship God together and we can encourage each other to do good in his name. I mean, if if God is now present in us when we accept Christ, then what happens when you gather a whole lot of other people together that God is present with? God is even more present there, right? God is present in a special way when we gather as the church, and that's why we're told here to not forsake the assembling together, but but draw near to each other too. Because something beautiful happens when the church gathers together. And it says that we spur each other on to love, to good works, we encourage each other as we see the day approaching. And so, church, we also need to make sure that we're gathering together, that we're encouraging each other, that we're helping each other to do things that are good, that we are helping to correct each other and to set each other on that right path to make sure that we are drawing to God together. You know, and this is why as a church we take part in all these different activities like what we even just saw in our announcements, why we have things like vacation Bible school, so that as a church we can share the gospel with the community around us. This is why we go into neighborhoods in our community and serve Chile. This is why we go on mission trips. This is why we do all of the activities that we do so that we can share the love of Jesus, not just with each other, but with our neighborhood, with our city, with our nation, with the entire world. We want everybody to be able to have the same access to God. We want to be able to share this message. That's why we encourage you to invite somebody on Easter that you know needs to hear the gospel, that doesn't have a relationship with Jesus, so that they can have this access to God too. That's why we have stations of the cross coming up this Friday night so that people can see and experience what Jesus went through, so that they can understand what He did for them so that they can have that access, so they can have an opportunity to accept Christ for themselves. We as a church have a job to do. You know, we see the world around us, we see all of the evil in the world, the darkness in the world, but when we gather together, something special should happen. We should be showing the world the goodness of God, the love of Jesus. Something different should be happening when we're here together. It shouldn't look like how it looks in the world, it shouldn't have that darkness and that heaviness over it, but there should be a joy and an excitement because we have access to God, right? We can draw near to him and we can show others how to draw near to him. And so let's do that together. Let's let's make sure that we are all individually and collectively taking advantage of this access that we have to God through what Jesus did for us on the cross. And so I want to encourage you, you know, though you have those cards and your chairs, think of somebody who could use that access to God and make it a point this week to invite them to come back for good for stations of the cross or for Easter. Share the love of Jesus with people around you that need to know him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, again, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for bringing our families together, for giving us a great time of worship, and and for just giving us your your body, the church, so that we have other believers to join together with, to encourage, to work alongside of, so that we can share your love with this world. God, I pray that you would put it on each one of our hearts, um somebody that that needs you, that we can reach out to this week, that we can serve, that we can help, that we can even invite, so that they can hear the gospel on Easter. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Thanks for tuning in to the Brick by Brick Podcast. We're so glad you've joined us on our journey to build faith, one truth at a time. Be sure to follow us so you never miss another episode. We've got plenty more coming your way.