Sebastien Braxton

GYC 2014: At The Cross

Cross-Check: Finding Your Personal Story At the Cross

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

2. Cross-Words: Lord, Speak to Me… Please!

This message was presented at the GYC 2014 conference at the Cross in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

Lord, we pray that you give us the strength, give us the guidance, and that you would give us your spirit.

That he may revive us again, that he may speak to us, and Lord, that he may lead us as well.

We love you and we thank you for the story.

And we pray, Father, that we would find that our stories cross with yours.

And as we go into this session on cross words, Lord speak to me, please.

We pray, Father, that you would guide us in this session.

Now, in the first session, we ended with a quote talking about the slaves, black slaves in America.

And 1 of the things that shocked them was as they began to find their story in the story of the cross and they realize that going through their slavery, going through their abuse, that this was just a tale that had already been told.

That there's something that struck them about Christ.

And the thing that struck them is the first in the list of the words that we're going to address in this session.

And that's found in Luke chapter 23 beginning in verse 34.

You find that when Jesus was crucified, there are typically described as 7 last sayings of Jesus.

So supposedly, these are the 7 last things that Jesus said.

And there's a lot of interesting facts that I believe continue to build off of our first session.

All right, the Bible says, before that, let's start in verse 32.

It says, There were also 2 others, criminals, led with him to be put to death.

And when they had come to the place called Calvary, There they crucified him and the criminals, 1 on the right hand and the other on the left.

Then Jesus said, Father forgive them for they do not know what they do.

Now I want you to first understand that the precursor to this phrase is important to get the story.

You see, when we talk about cross words, we're looking at the fact that right before Jesus says this, His cross has just been thrown into the ground.

So the Bible says that as soon as Jesus is hoisted onto the cross, hoisted into a hole, and he's feeling the first pains of crucifixion, his first reaction is not a cry of pain.

Lord give me strength to bear this situation.

His first reaction is, Father, forgive them.

This is an interesting fact to know that the first words of Jesus as he's feeling the first pains is prayer.

That even the pain of crucifixion, even the suffering of the divine judgment, even drinking the cup that he wished would pass from him, his first reaction is to turn heavenward.

His first reaction is to pray and that even in his pain, prayer will not stop Christ.

And not only will it not stop Christ from praying, it won't stop Christ from praying a prayer of intercession.

See I can understand that in many of our stories.

When we find ourselves in great suffering, our first reaction is to pray that this thing will go away.

Our first prayer is, Lord, please resolve this thing.

We say, Lord, you said in Psalm 50, verse 15, call upon you in the day of trouble, and you will deliver me, and I shall glorify you.

So we claim your promise that you will deliver us from this situation but that's not Christ's first prayer.

And it is a wondrous thing to think first of all that Christ's first reaction to his suffering is to pray.

His first words are not to humanity, but his words are for humanity.

His first words are to God in recognizing that, Lord, it is not about how they're offending me.

It's not about the roughness of the soldiers.

He doesn't say Lord give me strength to forgive them.

See we have to start off in our own personal stories and recognize that when we find our story in the cross sometimes we discover that we didn't handle our situation correctly.

You see when you and I are being wronged by someone, and we're talking about cruelly wronged, we're talking about injustice, miscarriage of justice.

Our first reaction is I don't deserve this.

But we find with Jesus, he says, listen, my first thing is to pray, it is to turn to God, not to turn to the people.

Jesus has the capacity to look beyond his own pain.

Can you and I think of a time in our lives, in our stories, where we were able to look beyond our own pain and see God's.

You see, when you and I first think about our suffering, when you and I first think about our discomfort, we're not understanding that what we are feeling is only a microcosm.

It is only an ounce of what he is feeling in your injustice.

Christ doesn't say, Father, help me to forgive them.

He doesn't say, I forgive you even because you don't know what you're doing to me.

Christ doesn't say, listen, guys, Lord, give me strength so that I can maintain a Christ like demeanor in the midst of this situation.

Someone cannot forgive someone unless that person has wronged them.

So because of that Christ is looking down and he's saying okay when you and I are being mistreated when you and I are being mistreated, when you and I are being mishandled, our story says, you know what, I'm gonna tell this person, I'm gonna fight for my rights, I'm gonna confront them, I'm gonna let them know this is how you offended me.

But Jesus says what you need to do is not even let them know how they've offended God.

What you need to do is go to the Father and say, Father forgive them.

And to argue and understand that what I am suffering, they don't even understand what they are doing.

You see the first thing That Jesus teaches us here is that prayer should be the first reaction When we look at our stories in life Is there a time where we found that as soon as the pain set in as soon as the discomfort came?

Not for strength, not for energy, not for a right spirit, but for their own forgiveness.

The second thing that Jesus teaches us in this first saying on the cross, on these cross words is that Jesus remembers that he is still God's child.

He hasn't forgotten his sonship in his pain.

You see it is very quick for us to start asking God why are you allowing this to happen to me?

When we look at our stories, you see, there's something about finding your personal story in the cross that there comes a day, brothers and sisters, and if it hasn't come, I pray that it will come.

That when you and I are going through our pain, when we're going through our difficulties, we still remember that we are still sons and daughters of God.

That we still remember that we can behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.

That we should be called children of God.

That we can remember that now beloved we are the children of God.

Now when I don't see a way out of my situation, now when I feel like I just don't have the energy to go on, I must remember my sonship.

1. Cross-Check: Did I Do That?

All right, anybody here for the 10th time?

So this is actually my 11th or 12th, but I don't wanna give away my age.

Just know I didn't pay the $100 surcharge.

So anyway, I just want to welcome you all to our seminar this morning.

For the next 2 days, my intention is to take us upon a journey in looking at the cross in a different way than we typically look at it, which is predominantly for theological benefit.

To say that this is what Jesus did for us, he died for me, or this is the implications in terms of the sanctuary, or the impact that this has upon the great controversy.

All those things are very important, and we should pursue them theologically.

But my intention in this seminar is to do what I've entitled it, which is a cross-check.

And when you cross-check something, you kind of go back and you compare different things to see, like, wait a minute, did I miss a detail that I didn't catch before?

Or Maybe I realized that this person was actually there at the same time in the same place.

And this is oftentimes how police catch criminals who thought that they slipped under the radar.

And in the same sense, this seminar is not so much to implicate you and myself as criminals, as much as it is to say there's a story that is being told and that story is your life and that story at 1 point was Jesus's life and his story ended in a very tragic way At least it seemed on the surface.

And what we discover is that just like Jesus found his story in the stories of others, that in the same sense, our story can be found in Jesus' story.

In fact, not only can it be found there, but we find that your story, my story, Christ's story is a tale that has already been told.

And that is my goal in these 6 sessions, is to show us that much of the things that we experience in life, much of what Jesus experienced, particularly around the crucifixion, is a tale that's already been told.

And we're gonna find, I believe, by God's grace and through the leading of His Holy Spirit, that that tale is being told again in you.

And our goal then as Christians, when we talk about uplifting the cross, when we talk about sharing the cross, it is to help others to also find their personal story in the cross.

And so with that being said, I'd like to pray to begin and then we will immediately dive into our topic.

This is abuse to a preacher, but nevertheless Jesus says, Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

Mighty God, everlasting Father, what an amazing privilege to be able to have the space, the time, the word, and the spirit to be here right now, to study that which we will continue to study through eternal ages.

It is our prayer, Lord, that as we reexamine the details, as we reexamine the general principles, as we reexamine the big story, the big picture, Father, that you will help us to find our story in Jesus' story.

We thank you for your promise to speak to us if we would come to you in humility and with openness of heart and mind.

Grant us this request, not for our sake or because of our own righteousness, but for your mercy's sake, is our prayer in Jesus' name.

Take your Bibles and go to Matthew chapter 23.

I hope you brought your Bibles, we're gonna use them.

I don't know, I feel uncomfortable without it.

Matthew chapter 23, when you're there, you can say amen.

Okay, if you're not there, just say have mercy.

Matthew chapter 23, we're gonna begin in verse 32.

Alright, the Bible says, the words of Christ in red, fill up then the measure of your father's guilt.

Serpents, brood of vipers, how can you escape the condemnation of hell?

Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men and scribes.

Some of them you will kill and crucify and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.

That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth.

From the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Now, the word archetype is a technical word in certain fields.

It is a word that is used in behavioral psychology.

It is a word that is used in terms of analyzing literature.

And it's also a word that is used even in other areas that I don't want to get into, which are of no interest and use to us at this time.

But an archetype in a very simple definition is a constantly recurring pattern in life or in literature.

Now the word archetype comes from 2 Greek words.

Maybe you know this word because of the archangel, right?

So we come to 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 16, and it says, And he will come with the sound of a trumpet and the voice of the archangel.

The word arch meaning first or the ruler.

But now The second part of it, the type, or what we call in Greek the toupon, is the model or the pattern.

And that's the noun form, the adjective is archetypos, which basically means this is the first model or the first pattern.

This is the principle pattern from which all others are copied.

You see an archetype are the things that stories are made of.

When you think of an archetype I want you to think in your mind of Superman.

Think of the fact that There's a hero and there's a villain, right?

And this is the archetype that the hero is always perfectly good, right?

He's so loving, he's so patient, he's always willing to sacrifice, or she.

And so you have the fact that This is who they are.

He's perfectly evil, always bent on destruction, always bent on selfishness or greed or power at any cost.

There is nothing he is not willing to do to accomplish his end.

So now this is what we call an archetype in terms of the characters.

There's a hero, there's a villain, there's the trickster, there's the outcast, right?

The person that doesn't fit in but they're like the diamond in the rough.

No 1 ever knew that they were actually the coolest person in school but no 1 just ever knew about them.

We graduate from high school, go to college and now she's the prettiest girl at the University of Maryland and we're all thinking, man why was I so mean to her in high school?

There's also archetypes in terms of images.

Life With the Spirit

Northampton SDA Church

I Want to See Jesus

So, this is going to serve as the final message in our series that we started last night called Life with the Spirit.

And I want to kind of take a different direction to this 1 because I want to do a little bit of teaching, if that's okay.

And I want to talk about the Holy Spirit in the context of the sanctuary in the Bible and in specificity in relationship to Christ.

And so if I were to give this message a title, I would give it the title, I want to see Jesus.

Mighty God, everlasting Father, we are so grateful that you have counted us worthy, even though we are not worthy, to be recipients of your grace.

Father, we need all the grace that heaven is willing to bestow, that we may live before you and be perfect.

We ask that the Spirit of God whom Jesus promised, that when he has come he would guide us into all truth, that he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.

Guide us, Lord, as we study this all-important topic and continue in our final message, I want to see Jesus in an experience of life with the Spirit.

We thank you so much for how you're gonna answer this prayer in our hearts this evening And we trust that we leave this place blessed and encouraged Loving Christ more than when we came In Jesus name we pray amen I want to begin with a statement.

It says, Soon after this, I had another dream.

I seemed to be sitting in abject despair, with my face and my hands reflecting like this.

If Jesus were on earth, I would go to him, throw myself at his feet, and tell him all my sufferings.

He would have mercy upon me and I would love and serve him always." Have you ever felt that way before?

That going through a situation of great despair, of great sorrow, of great problems, and you said to yourself, I wish Jesus was upon the earth, and I could go to him and tell him all my sufferings.

She had been in such a place of pain and of discouragement she wished that she could go to Jesus's doorbell and know that Jesus was home and ring the doorbell and know that Jesus will answer and say Jesus can I come in I just want to tell you my sufferings and Jesus will say come in and so you can imagine that as we all go through different struggles as we all face different problems we can resonate with this desire can you say amen that if I could go to Jesus and think about my parents getting divorced or the fact that me and my wife are not getting along the way that I hope we could get along I could actually go to Jesus and tell him all my sufferings and I know Jesus would have mercy upon me?

And I know he wouldn't turn me away and I would love and serve him always.

But it goes on and says, just then the door opened and a person of beautiful form and countenance entered.

He looked upon me pitifully and said, do you wish to see Jesus?

He is here and you can see him if you desire it take everything you possess and follow me I Heard this with unspeakable joy And gladly gathered up all my little possessions every treasure trinket and followed my guide He led me to a steep and apparently fair stairway Frail stairway, excuse me as I began to ascend the steps.

He cautioned me to keep my eyes fixed upward lest.

I should grow dizzy and fall Lest I should grow dizzy and fall many others who were climbing the steep ascent fell before gaining to the top Finally we reached the last step and stood before a door and here my guide directed me to leave all the things that I had brought with me.

He then opened the door and bade me enter.

There was no mistaking that beautiful countenance that expression of benevolence and majesty could belong to no other as His gaze rested upon me.

I knew at once that he was acquainted with every circumstance of my life and my inner thoughts and feelings.

I tried to shield myself from his gaze, feeling unable to endure his searching eyes, but he drew near with a smile, and laying his hand upon my head said, fear not.

The sound of his sweet voice thrilled my heart with a happiness it had never before experienced.

I was too joyful to utter a word, but overcome with emotion, sank prostrate at his feet.

While I was lying helpless there, scenes of beauty and glory passed before me, and I seemed to have reached the safety and peace of heaven.

At length my strength returned and I arose.

The loving eyes of Jesus were still upon me and his smile filled my soul with gladness.

His presence awoke in me a holy reverence and an inexpressible love My guide now opened the door and we both passed out He bade me take up again all the things I had left without This done he handed me a green cord coiled up closely This he directed me to place next to my heart.

And when I wished to see Jesus, take it from my bosom and stretch it to the utmost.

He cautioned me not to let it remain coiled for any length of time, lest it should become knotted and difficult to straighten.

I placed the cord near my heart and joyfully descended the narrow stairs, praising the Lord, and telling all whom I met where they could find Jesus.

The green cord represented faith to my mind.

And the beauty and simplicity of trusting in God began to dawn upon my soul.

When I read this, not the first time, but the second time in my life, I was running a missionary training school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, about 6 blocks from Harvard University.

And as I read this, I was really impressed with it, and I was going through a lot of difficulties in my life, and I said to myself, man, I wonder if this thing will work, right?

So I started getting up early in the morning, and I would go down to the basement of the home where we were staying at the missionary residence.

And I would go down and I would pray and I would pray and I would pray and I would say, man, I'm going to stay here until you show me Jesus.

And I recall that When I stopped doing this and I kind of gave up and was like yeah, you know, there's not really nothing to this I reread the statement again, and when I read it again, I realized Something I did not pick up on at first You remember that she started off by telling the dream by saying in the dream.

She was in abject despair She was discouraged.

She was broken in life and all she was thinking was man I wish Jesus were upon the earth.

I would go to him and tell him my sufferings.

But do you also remember that when she got into the presence of Jesus?

She didn't say anything She said as soon as his eyes met her, she immediately knew that he was acquainted with every thought and feeling of her heart.

In other words, we may think that if Jesus was upon the earth and we could go see him, we would go and tell Jesus all of our challenges.

We would tell Jesus all the things that we're afraid of.

We would go to Jesus and say Jesus, you know what?

I should study in university What do you think about this young lady or this young man that I'm considering for a relationship?

What do you think about this young lady or this young man that I'm considering for a relationship?

What do you think about this struggle that I have with music?

Sometimes I wonder, should I listen, should I not?

But yet you find the fact that we are thinking something that is not actually going to take place.

That if we were in the presence of Jesus, we would say nothing.

Because immediately, as she told us in the dream, I already knew that he was acquainted with every thought and feeling of my being.

To such a degree that she said she tried to shield herself from his gaze, But she couldn't get away from his searching eyes.

To recognize this reality bids us to the fact that this desire to see Jesus, to be in his presence, To want to be with Him, to bring our cares, our sorrows, our burdens, our pains, our problems to Christ, we would recognize He already knows.

But what we do realize is that there's something healing about the presence of Jesus.

There was something encouraging about the presence of Jesus.

There was something that ministered to her heart and to her life, to her mind, that gave her new courage, that gave her fresh resolve by being in the presence of Jesus.

But you see, our message tonight is about the fact that we don't have to despair.

We don't have to be discouraged and say but Jesus is in heaven.

But Jesus is ministering in the heavenly sanctuary.

Back to Menu

Presenter

Sebastien Braxton

All Recordings

2. Cross-Words: Lord, Speak to Me… Please!

51m

1. Cross-Check: Did I Do That?

1h

I Want to See Jesus

1h 4m

A Leader You Can Trust

35m

What’s the Best Thing I Can Do For My Family

1h

Keep the Heart

56m

Back to Eden

1h 13m

A Solemn Appeal

2h 12m

A Praying Man

1h 3m

Song of Songs

39m

Yes, Lord

49m

The Purpose of Power

1h 10m

Sound Doctrine