The Cross & The Crown36

Revelation 19 shows us a picture of the Bride of Christ, which is His church. We see that a day is coming where we will have made ourselves ready for His return, but what does that mean for us today? How do we make ourselves ready to be the Bride that Christ deserves?

What kind of people ought we to be in the light of His return? In this podcast, we explore the essential framework needed to be in place in order for us to be productive in playing our part in God’s purposes for our lives. Viewing the world through the lens of mission means very little unless we have the frame in place to support the lenses. We explore several themes which will help us focus our time and priorities better and be more productive in our time here on earth between His ascent up to heaven and our wait for His return!

Jesus will return at the time of “the restoration of all things” (Acs 3:21), which, crucially, will include the restoration of the Church. In this message we consider what this means and explore some of the big pictures and magnificent images the apostles use to describe the mature, restored church. Jesus is not returning to rescue a weak and powerless remnant of people, but rather to be joined with His glorious Bride! The restored church is the City of God, the Temple of the Spirit and an expression of all the Fulness of Christ…

Jesus is coming back! We look at the nature of Christ’s return and why we should anticipate and prepare for this awesome event with great eagerness and excitement.

Christ’s return is the ultimate unfulfilled prophecy, and when it happens it will mark the end of the Present Age and the start of the Age to Come. The ‘Second Coming’ will transcend and eclipse everything else in human history! However, the NT writers want us to be filled with faith not with fear and to focus on WHY Jesus will return rather than WHEN – and on what the Church should be doing in the meantime…

Jesus Christ did a magnificent thing on the cross. Although He could have been overwhelmed by the influences of the fleshly human nature He had taken on, Christ, in loving submission and obedience to His father, overcame the flesh and defeated it completely. It was as He did this that the veil was torn in two and access into God’s most holy place was granted. In His presence we are made more like Christ and can expect to receive gladness, refreshing and forgiveness!

The Cross has changed everything, including how we are to perceive every aspect of life! We consider how this can rightly impact our view of God, ourselves, our future and purpose, the mission, the situations we face, other people, and the world around us. We must learn to look at all things through the lens of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Recently the Lord has been speaking to us about seeing all things through the Cross, but also moving out of ‘maintenance mode’ into ‘mission mode’. At the heart of the Mission, is the Cross. And the purpose of the Cross is the Mission. We have been co-Missioned by Jesus, to continue His great work of restoring all things to God. In this message we look at Paul’s words, to the Philippians (2:6-11), describing how Jesus embraced His own co-Mission from the Father, by embracing the Cross – inviting us to do the same. We consider how we should therefore view the Mission through the ‘lens’ of the Cross, and approach the Cross in light of the Mission.

Luke 24 tells of two ordinary disciples who met the risen Lord Jesus on their way to an obscure village near Jerusalem.  Along the way He addresses their sadness and disappointment, before revealing His identity to them in the breaking of bread.

The Cross of Jesus Christ changes everything. When we look through the lens of the Cross it changes how we see God, ourselves, one another and the world!

The Bible’s first mention of “worship” occurs in the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22), and provides us with a rich understanding of what worship involves and what it produces. Just as God put Abraham to the test, so He asks whether we will put Him first, offer everything to Him, and learn what AW Tozer called “the blessedness of possessing nothing.”

The Covenant Meal is about Remembrance of what He has done, our Royal identity in Him and Rejoicing in all he accomplished. In Jesus, we are made alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ, raised up together with Him and are seated together in the heavenly realms by virtue of our being in Christ Jesus.

The Cross of Christ must be understood within the wider perspective of God’s eternal plan, and in this message Roger shows us how God stripped His enemies bare, displayed His power in the supernatural realm, and dealt with human sin – in order to use us in His purpose. The Father sowed His Son, in order to reap a family of sons.

Our revelation and appreciation of all that Jesus achieved for us through the work of the Cross must have a very practical outworking. What does it mean for us here and now and how does it affect the kind of church we are building in our locality? In this message, we consider some of these things including the way we love and care for the lost, our experience of healing and the way we relate together as God’s family.

As we continue to unpack The Cross & The Crown series, Stefan Ruhig brings us this powerful message on how to live out the power of the cross in our…

In his awesome vision of Jesus, the apostle John sees Him “wearing many royal crowns” (Rev 19:12). These many crowns were received as He defeated every enemy on the Cross:…

In His death and resurrection Jesus not only saves us and pays, He also shows us the way. The pattern we are to follow is that to share in His…