The Road To The Cross

The Cup That Belongs To Jesus

Read Mark 10:38, “38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

We want by our human nature to approach God, in a way that is beneficial to our state and is beneficial to our inclinations and our weakness. The ability for us to move beyond what we are able and capable of, is something that we dread to approach. We are comfortable if we are living and residing and acting in what we are able to do ourselves. Early on in the ministry of Jesus, even the disciples of Jesus, were confident that their allegiance with him, would probably remain within something that they can do of their own powers and that it would also suit them, and their self-interest.

We need to understand that the cup, that belongs to Jesus, and that God the Father had called Jesus to, is patterned and it has like-ness.

Philippians 3:10, explains a secret to the life of the apostle Paul and his success in the view of God’s kingdom. Paul explained something here about the road, that leads to the cross. “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Yes, today, when this is being spoken is Easter Sunday, and it’s about the resurrection. But there is magnitude implications that led up to the resurrection and also even to the cross. Today, we are going to examine the road, that leads to the cross. Today, our focus, is to get there. We want to gain the resurrection, just like Paul states, and we need to have this attitude and this exact goal. But the thing is, the Biblical thing, is that it is not an easy road to get there. It is not an easy road, to gain the resurrection.

Paul even says, that “by some means”. He hopes. He knows it is hard, and that he has to face hell, head on. Satan, does not want glory to be seen. He did not want Jesus to be the victor of the grave. But it happened. For some reason. Satan still thinks he can win at things. And when we face life. We face an all-out battle ---- IF ---- we want to live for God in the true sense of the biblical way.

There is a cup, but most people, engage Christianity, to the point of eyeing the cup, but with weakness drop to the knees, and say they cannot do it. They despair, they battle their own will. And find that even their own nature is opposed to it, and many end up in despair and replace discipleship, with becoming religious. Choosing to replace the cup that Jesus represents with a form of religion that does not require them to reach the cup and to reach the resurrection life.

So today, we look at the road, to the cross.

The Road To The Cross

Read Luke 9:21-22, “21Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. 22“The Son of Man must suffer many things,” He said. “He must be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

Early on, Jesus explained his purpose. The life the miracles and power and words and teachings and the testimony of God’s perfect Son, all had eternally important implications and purposes. But he spoke about the cross, and that, all that this God-Man was, actually meant a humiliation, a kenosis - a biblical word by the way, of the son giving his divine privileges aside (not divine attributes) so as to identify as a man, and become the Savior.

But to get there meant that Jesus would have no choice but to go to a cross:

The road to the cross:

He was plotted against

He was betrayed by Judas

He was betrayed by Peter

He HAD to stand trial before rulers (Rome rulers Herod and Pilate)

He HAD to stand trial before chief rulers of Israel

“These are the things that he had to go through, so as to enter life”.

He was and had to face misunderstanding. He had to face it, because he knew, that as he entered Jerusalem, that all this and all previous tastes of this would c culminate in completely facing these things full and head on.

He had to face being treated as rubbish, and something un-valuable, while being in actuality the source of life and something that value cannot have a price to.

He had to be slighted. and treated presumptuously, by Judas.

He had to be judged as reject-able by the highest authorities, and thought of as evil.

He had to face loving others, who were irresponsible to his love.

He had to be treated as worth less than what money could buy.

Then, he had to face the Garden of Gethsemane.

He had to face the full and complete onslaught of Satan.

He had to face the full and complete human nature that he became in his birth and in sharing our flesh, as the Word in the flesh.

He had to face any temptations that every human, man, woman or child has ever faced, and to do this with success and limiting his will to say, “not my will but your will”. This is where salvation becomes possible for the world. This is where his sacrifice, for the world as well as those who are already saved, becomes something that the cross does not deny as a real possibility for sinners to be saved and for anyone to be rescued.

The Garden of Gethsemane, was treacherous.

Then, Jesus had to face the flogging, whipping, the beating and the crucifixion. What is worse, the emotional and psychological sufferings, or the physical?

Then he had to face the rejection by the Father.

This is road to the cross my friends. This is what Paul was referring to. Listen very carefully here. Very carefully. Paul made the sharing of Christ’s sufferings, as necessary as it was in identity for Christ, in regards to entering life. It is not something possible, to deny the road to the cross and the difficulties of our will, and the world and the difficulties in temptations, and to think that if we live as fakes, that we will be welcomed by Jesus into life.

The Road To The Cross

Read Colossians 3:1, “Since then you have been raised with Christ. Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

The goal is a good goal. The goal is the resurrection. But the road there, must be understood. Jesus said, the cost of a building must be understood before a building is built. Today we look to the resurrection. But we cannot bypass the blood and the suffering that we cannot avoid, in sharing the road with the way of Jesus. It’s not just love, and sitting in comfort. It is a very difficult road, and it is hard to enter the resurrection. Don’t fall in despair, like so many, down to your knees, and look at the cup and say, “there is no way I can do this.” You can call out to Jesus today. Ask him to have mercy on you and don’t listen to lies. We must gain the resurrection. But we must honestly gain it! There is no joy, that we have experienced, as to what is ahead, only if we do it the way and road of the cross.

Have a good Easter!