Death on a Cross

Didn’t See That Coming, Pt. 4

Every time we gather as a group, these are some ways we ensure the best group discussion:

• We make the circle safe by staying honest and transparent - leave the masks at the door.

• We keep it inside the circle. Each person’s story is theirs alone to share.

• We look to the Bible for wisdom and truth, and work together to let it shape how we see the world.

• We don’t try to fix each other in front of each other or give unsolicited advice. We lovingly save hard conversations for private moments.

• We respect each others’ time by starting and ending when we say we will.

• We believe that in Jesus Christ, there is hope for everyone.

This was the plan.

• God created us for life and a relationship with Him

• We broke the relationship with our sin

• God had a plan for redemption 

John 1:29b

“Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Isaiah 53:3-9

“He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
 We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
 And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.
 He was beaten so we could be whole.
 He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
 Yet the Lord laid on him 
the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word.
 He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, 
he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned,
 he was led away.
 No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream.
 But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone.
 But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.”

This was a choice.

Matthew 26:53-54

“Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?"

John 10:18

“No one can take my life from me. I lay down my life voluntarily.” 

This was personal.
This IS personal.

1 Peter 2:24

“He personally carried away our sins in His own body on the cross so we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. You have been healed by His wounds.” 

Romans 6:23

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 3:23-25

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.  For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.”

1 John 4:9-10

“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Start with M.U.D.
Memorable + Understandable + Doable

• What was the most memorable part of the message or service this weekend for you personally? Why?

• Did anything you heard challenge or influence how you think about God or your life?

• How can what you learned influence or change how you live in everyday life? What tangible steps would it take to make that change a reality?

Additional Questions

The account of Jesus’ crucifixion is brutal and agonizing.

• Throughout your life, what have you known or been taught about Jesus’ crucifixion?

God’s plan for redemption is clear all throughout the Old Testament - Jodi talked about just some of the predictions that Old Testament prophets made about Jesus hundreds of years before he was born (especially Isaiah 53:3-9).

• What observations can you make about those predictions about Jesus and the plan for redemption? Why are they so important?

Death on a cross was Jesus’ intentional choice - a decision to sacrifice himself painfully on our behalf instead of doing it some other way. “No one can take my life from me. I lay down my life voluntarily.”

• What message does Jesus’ intentional choice to die on a cross send to us?

This was not just personal then - it is personal now. Jesus’ sacrifice is an invitation for all of us to not just gain entry into heaven… but live every moment as fully redeemed and loved children of God.

• Think about the way you view yourself, the way you talk to yourself, and the way you live… Jesus would say that you are worth his death. Do you think you treat yourself with that same worth?