The Cross and the Greatness God Calls Us To

This sermon contrasts the Christian way of the Holy Cross with the comfortable pseudo-faith of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which reduces God to a distant helper whose purpose is to make life pleasant and secure. Christ, however, does not descend from the Cross to save Himself but willingly embraces suffering to save humanity, revealing the Cross as “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Like the two thieves crucified beside Christ, every person must decide how to respond to suffering: either with bitterness and rejection or with repentance, faith, and union with the suffering Savior. Christians therefore honor the Cross not because suffering is good in itself, but because God can transform betrayal, pain, and even death into sacrificial love, joy, and abundant life. The Cross challenges our desire for comfort and smallness, calling us instead to the greatness for which God created us—a greatness found only by taking up our own cross and following Christ.