What the Cross Reveals About God—and About Us

I said something on Sunday that is probably the most honest way I can describe where I am right now: I don’t really have something new to share. I have the same thing I can’t let go of, and somehow it keeps hitting me in a new way.

I’m a curious person. If I get interested in something, I want to know everything about it. I want the next book, the next idea, the next conversation. But over the last couple of years, I’ve found myself doing something different with the gospel. I keep returning to the same handful of passages and sitting with them long enough for them to expose what I actually believe.

And sometimes that process is uncomfortable.

I joked Sunday that God seems perfectly happy to play Jenga with our theology. He pulls one piece out, then another, and eventually you begin to realize how much of your thinking was being held up by structures you assumed were necessary. Some of those pieces are true and worth keeping. Others were never load-bearing walls to begin with.

I think that is happening in me right now.

Seeing the Finished Thing

I had just come back from spending time with my family in Florida, and nearly everyone in my family has some involvement with renovating houses. They can walk into a place that looks terrible and immediately begin describing what it is going to become.

My brother will stand in front of a wall and say, “This is coming out, and then this room will open into that room, and over here we’ll…” Meanwhile, I’m still staring at the wall.

But he is already walking around a room that doesn’t exist yet.

There is something very Pauline about that.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 that because Christ died for all, “from now on” we regard no one according to the flesh. That is an astonishing conclusion. He is saying that something about the finished work of Christ has fundamentally changed the way he sees people.

That doesn’t mean Paul is pretending the dilapidation isn’t there. I’m certainly not suggesting we pretend people aren’t hurting or that sin isn’t destructive. I’m saying there is a difference between recognizing the ruins and agreeing with the ruins.

The architect can look at a crumbling house and see exactly what is wrong with it without ever confusing its present condition with his finished design.

I want to learn to see that way.

I want to agree with God about my own life, and I want to agree with Him about yours. I don’t want to spend my time repainting walls He intends to remove.

“We Have Concluded This”

This is where the passage gets very personal for me.

Paul writes, “We have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died.”

He says they have concluded it.

If I’m being completely honest with you, I feel like I am still wrestling to come to that conclusion.

I know the verse. I can teach the verse. But when I really allow the magnitude of what Paul is saying to settle into me, I feel all kinds of religious infrastructure begin to rise up and say, “Wait a minute. We need to qualify that. We need to make sure nobody misunderstands.”

And I understand why. I feel the tension myself.

If we preach the finished work of Christ too freely, will someone think sin doesn’t matter? Will they think response doesn’t matter? Will they assume we’re saying everyone should just carry on however they want?

Paul heard those questions too.

His answer in Romans is basically, “By no means.”

But he doesn’t solve the problem by backing away from the announcement.

That matters to me.

I don’t want fear of misunderstanding to make the gospel sound less like good news. I want to give the truth enough room to work its way into our hearts before I rush in with a ladder, some bricks, and instructions for how we can contribute something to what Jesus has already accomplished.

Our belief matters enormously. But our belief does not complete the work of Jesus.

I believe because the good news is true.

My belief doesn’t make it true.

And once I believe what is true, I can finally begin to live from it.

What Actually Brings Repentance?

This has also been changing the way I think about repentance and evangelism.

I said Sunday that, as someone who once sold cocaine, nobody needed to find me and explain that selling cocaine was probably not a great spiritual life choice. I knew I was living in darkness. I knew exactly what I was doing.

And I could have stopped selling drugs without ever discovering the life of God.

That distinction has become very important to me.

We can change behavior without changing what we believe about God. We can stop doing one thing, start doing another, become respectable, attend church, and still live with a distorted picture of the Father.

But when Jesus reveals the Father, something deeper begins to happen. We start seeing God differently, and because we see Him differently, we begin seeing ourselves differently too.

That is repentance at a much deeper level.

And nowhere is God revealed more clearly than at the cross.

God in Our Hands

For centuries Christians have known the phrase Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

But when I look at the cross, I see something that almost feels like the reversal of that picture.

I see God in the hands of angry sinners.

We strip Him. We mock Him. We beat Him. We crucify Him.

And while we are murdering Him, Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

That scene has been doing something to me.

Who is angry at the cross?

Humanity is.

Jesus isn’t.

He does not retaliate. He does not withdraw. He does not answer our violence with violence. He entrusts Himself completely into our hands, and in the middle of our worst display He reveals the heart of God toward us.

“Father, forgive them.”

What if the cross is where our accusation against God is finally exposed?

We imagined hostility in Him, while hostility was actually pouring out of us. We feared rejection from Him while we were the ones rejecting Him. We assumed He was standing at a distance because of our sin, and then He came all the way into our humanity and allowed us to do our worst.

And still He loved.

It is only when I behold that Man that I can begin to see my sin for what it actually is. His kindness exposes me in a way accusation never could.

That is why I no longer think the primary job of evangelism is convincing people how far away they are.

Paul says God has entrusted us with the message of reconciliation.

There is a very different sound to that message.

God has come near.

God has acted in Christ.

God is not counting your trespasses against you.

Be reconciled to God.

Believe the good news.

Come home.

Maybe Our Own Love Is Telling Us Something

Near the end of the message, I asked everyone to think about someone they love who has gone far away. Maybe it’s a child. Maybe a friend. Maybe someone who has cut you off or even decided that you are their enemy.

What happens to your love when they leave?

Does it disappear?

In my experience, it often does the opposite. You think about them more. You pray more. You notice the empty space more. Your heart somehow stretches toward the distance.

The people who are doing well don’t always occupy our thoughts in the same way. But the one who is lost? The one who is hurting? The one who has walked away? We carry them.

And I found myself wondering Sunday: where did we learn to love like that?

We are made in the image of God.

Maybe our own love is giving us a little window into His.

Maybe the Father is not standing with His arms crossed, waiting for the prodigal to get the apology exactly right. Maybe He is already looking down the road.

Maybe the distance is entirely real, but it isn’t coming from Him.

That changes the way I hear the gospel invitation.

Be reconciled to God.

Come home.

There is a ring here. There is a robe here. There is a table here.

And there is a Father who has never stopped loving you.

I’m still letting this gospel work its way through me. I’m still finding pieces of old scaffolding that need to come down. I’m still asking God to show me where I have made my contribution, my performance, my repentance, or even my faith into something that completes what Jesus has already finished.

Maybe you are too.

If so, I don’t think we need to rush the process.

We can stay here for a while.

We can keep looking at Jesus.

We can keep letting the light come on.

And perhaps our prayer can be as simple as this:

Father, give me eyes to see what You see. Teach me to agree with You about who You are, about what Your Son has accomplished, about my own life, and about every person You put in front of me.

Let everything else come down.

Watch the Full Message

This post comes from my Sunday message, God in Our Hands | What the Cross Reveals About God—and About Us.

Watch the full message on YouTube

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