3/24/2002

Let’s bow in prayer:

Father as we enjoy this time of year, we recognize again that today is the day we call Palm Sunday. And as the children and people sang out Hosanna to the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Father the priest said, ‘Keep these kids quiet and you said that the rocks would shout out.’ So Father it is our privilege this morning to take the place of rocks. We get to shout out to you and to enjoy you as our redeemer and to thank you for your great sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins. Father we just pray that you would help us to enjoy and commemorate and love this time of year as we commemorate your great sacrifice for us. In Jesus Name, Amen

Luke Chapter 23, We are going to read that this morning and do some looking at the cross. Because this is the account of Jesus on the cross. If you read it in the different passages in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all four of them include the crucifixion each one from a little different perspectives. Some include words from the cross that Jesus spoke, that others don’t. There are a number of different views that are taken, but this one is Luke’s particular perspective.

‘And when they came to the place call The Skull, there they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots, to divide up His clothing and the people stood by watching but the leaders scoffed at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Messiah of God, His Chosen One.” The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up and offering Him sour wine saying, “If you are the King of the Jews save yourself.” There also was an inscription over Him, ‘THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”

One of the criminals who was hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are You not the Messiah? Save Yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? “And we indeed have been condemned justly for we were getting what we deserved for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the suns light failed and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father , INTO THY HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT.” Having said this he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.” When all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle was what had taken place they returned home beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance watching these things.

Let’s Pray: Father as we consider this wonderful event and tragic at the same time. Father help us to see the meaning that it has not just for the world but also for us particularly. In Jesus Name, Amen.

When you stand at the foot of the cross, as you know behind the screen here right now, Tom why don’t you lift the screen if you don’t mind. The cross means a great number of things to a great number of people, but actually means one primary thing doesn’t it. It means the death of Jesus Christ in our place.

Last Sunday we talked about sacrifice and offering and punishment. The difference among the three. We discovered that sacrifice was always the price paid by the sinner as a cost of his sin. When the Old Testament economy, when God required them to bring sacrifices there were certain offerings for certain sins. There were certain sacrifices, I should say for certain sins. If the sin was large the sacrifice was also large. If it was small and unintentional, it was a smaller sacrifice. But the sacrifice always meant that blood was shed, life was taken, the cost of sin was a life with the blood being shed. The Bible says that the life of the body is in the blood. And when the blood is shed, of course, the life is gone. And so God’s requirements for sin was that there be a sacrifice, death as a result of sin. There is always a cost to sin. And so the cost was the sacrifice. And so we see first of all, when we see the cross, we see the sacrifice that was there. But Jesus didn’t sacrifice for his own sins, of course. He didn’t sacrifice for his own because he had none of his own. The Bible says, ‘He was tempted in all points, as we are, yet without sin. So therefore he came innocently to the cross, he came voluntarily to the cross, not paying a price of his own, but paying a price for our sin. It is called vicarious or substitutionary. He did it in our place. He gave himself. In fact, in Jesus case he became the sacrifice and the sacrificer. The offerer of the sacrifice, even though he had none of his own to sacrifice for, he gave himself as actually the eternal, infinite sacrifice, for our sakes because he had no sin. And being God in the flesh he could sacrifice an eternal, infinite sacrifice for us, which he did.

We also see a number of people standing around at the foot of the cross. We come upon the criminals. It says he was there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. We see their response. One man derides him and says, ‘Hey, if you are really the Messiah, save yourself and us too.” We would just as soon get out of here too. We see the leaders, we see the people. It said the people were just standing there watching. But the leaders scoffed at him and said, ‘Save yourself, if you are the Messiah’. If you are really the chosen one of God, if you really want to prove to us and we will tell everybody else, if you would step down from the cross that would prove it for us. We would acknowledge you as the Messiah and he didn’t say all these things but they had always been looking for proof that he was the Messiah. They wanted to see signs and wonders. They wanted to see all kinds of magnificent things. They said, ‘If you will come down from the cross, if you are the Messiah you can do that. So why don’t you?’ Of course, he didn’t. Instead he said, “Father forgive them for the know not what they are doing.”

The soldiers, it said, mocked him. They divided up his clothing, that was the right of the one’s who did the crucify. They had the opportunity to take the belongings of the one that they had crucified. So the took his robe, remember the one that they had given him, the purple robe, and cast lots for it. One of them,. Of course, won the robe. They didn’t want to tear it apart because it was a seamless robe and so one person took it home. And some of them were scoffing at him. Later on we see one of them kind of change his mind.

You’ll see the criminals. We don’t know for sure what they were on the cross for. They might has been zealots, they might have been murders, they might have been thieves. There are some other indications that say some things about them but they were deserving of death. And crucifixion, by the way, was reserved for people who were not Romans. The Roman government had devised crucifixion as a way to humiliate and ridicule their enemies. There was not for Romans, they could not be crucified. They were only for non-Romans. There were other ways of dealing with criminals who were Romans.

It is interesting that in history we find that if Jesus had been killed by the Jewish leaders, he would have been stoned. That was the prescribed way of killing somebody in Jewish ways. But about three years before this time the Roman government had removed from the Jewish leaders the ability, the authority, to kill anyone on their own. They could sentence them to death but they could not carry out the death sentence. That is why the had to bring him to Pilate, then to Herod. That is why Pilate had to be the one who gave them permission to carry out the death sentence, but the death sentence was carried out in a Roman fashion, not a Jewish fashion. And it was only about three years before this that the Roman government had changed the rules for them. The Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews, could say he is worthy of death but they had no authority to carry it out. And that was some of Pilate’s doing here. And so they had to go to him for permission. Very interesting because up until about three years before Christ’s death the prophecies that you find in Psalms and Isaiah and different places where it talks about his body being pierced and things like that would not have made sense because, and not a bone of his body being broken would not have made sense to the Jews. Because you see when you stone somebody almost every bone of the body is broken. Because they would actually push them off a cliff and throw huge stones down on top of them. And it wasn’t like you would stand around in a circle and throw stones they would actually push them off the cliff and drop large stones upon them, which would of course, break many bones. And so the prophecies of the crucifixion made no sense to the Jews up until about three years before he was killed. And he was crucified, of course.

You can understand the pain that would be involved there. The thorns that were in the crown that they placed on his head, the whippings that he had already experienced. The pain of suffocation and sustentation as he was on the cross. The pain of the nails. All those things would have been excruciating. More than we can probably even imagine. And he voluntarily did so. He voluntarily did so for our sake. Because the life of something innocent dies when we sin. So therefore Jesus became the sacrificer, the offerer of sacrifice, and the sacrifice itself. Now when we stand and look at the cross and see that reality, what is our response, of course, that is the question that we have to watch. The people standing by said, they just watched. The one’s who said the very last verse we read says, ‘All of his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him, stood at a distance watching these things’. Of course, after his death they went into action. They took his body down and Joseph Arimathea took his body, put it into his own tomb, Nicodemus was most likely there, Joseph Arimathea was the leading Jew and also was a hidden disciple up until this point. The ladies, of course, helped embalm him and they placed him in the tomb. But during the crucifixion they were just standing watching. As were most of the crowd. The soldiers, of course, derided him, the leaders derided him, the criminals, at least one of them did.

You see we are seeing a picture. When we see the cross we see a piece of wood up there right now, we see just a piece of wood. We don’t know if the cross would have looked exactly like that, I have seen renditions where they would actually be a maze of wooden structures and they would just put a cross bar upon there and nail it in place. Others you have seen where there were actually a cross and they stand it up and set it in the hole. We are not exactly sure how to took place. In fact we are not even sure why the place of the skull if called The Place of the Skull. Some believe because there were so many people killed at that place that it became known as The Place of the Skull. May have been a hillside that looked like a skull. We are not really sure exactly why it was called that. We do know some of the wonderful events that took place had great meaning. Besides just seeing a cross. We see many things in the cross. We see death, we see life, we see Christ’s death, we see our life. We see pain, we see sacrifice, we see scoffing. It tells us in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 1, it says, ‘That when some see the cross, some see it has the foolishness of God, but others see it the power of God to save. And so we see in very different things. If you take a person who has no regard for Christ and they see the cross, they say, ‘Ah, it is just a symbol.’ You see many people who are doing terrible things with cross’ on their necklaces. And you say, ‘Don’t you understand the meaning of the cross. Don’t they understand it should mean something in there life. We see some just think it is the silliest thing, we see the Ted Turner’s of the world, say that Christians are weak minded people who need the crutch. And are Jesus freaks and things like that. You see others who say, ‘No I know what the cross means and it means something in my life and so therefore I revere the cross as the power of God to save. So the cross means a great number of things.

First of all it means, what I said before, sacrifice. First of all it means sacrifice, it means that somebody in our place took our punishment. The deserving punishment that we had coming to us was taken upon another person. The person who had no sense of their own, to die for, died in our place. The Bible says, the soul that sins must die. The wages of sin is death but the gift of Jog is eternal life through Jesus Christ, Jesus our Lord.

And so there is the rightful response of God as a result of his wrath and his holiness. Holiness means that God is holy and righteous, There is nothing in him that allows for sin because of that sin must be punished. Because of his great love and great mercy, he says, yes you must be punished but I will send someone to die in your place. So you do not have to face the pain and suffering and sacrifice of our own sin.

The wages of sin is death, which means separation from God. If we continue in sin we separated from God right now. And if we die in that state we are separated from God in eternity. Which means hell, of course. And so therefore we reside in a place that is so apart from God it is hell. And there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.. It was that the fire will not be quenched there. It is an eternal place of not knowing God and being so remorseful and so pained because we refused to acknowledge him. And the power of the cross. So sacrifice means, God said, ‘Souls that sin must die, but I love you. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.’

So we says, ‘My righteousness says, You must die, my love says I will die for you.’ So he came to earth in the name of, in the form of Jesus Christ, who sinned none of his own and offered himself on the cross for your sins. So the price was paid. That is why it is called redemption. He redeemed us from the cost of our own sin. But the cost was paid.

Don’t you realize what you are saying here. The thief gives a pattern of confession that is perfect for us. Notice what he says, ‘Do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation. And we in deed have been condemned justly for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ That is exactly the response that God requires of us. To acknowledge that we should get what we deserve. But he took what he didn’t deserve upon himself. And so we transfer our love and affection and trust from what we can do to earn salvation, to what he has done for us. And so there is a proper understanding that the thief had. And it is interesting that the very last act of Jesus, almost his last act, was to promise this man, upon the basis of his repentance and confession, that we would have a place in paradise with him. So in a sense the thief on the cross was the first Christian, wasn’t he? He was the first one who benefitted by the death of Christ. Because he said, ‘ When you come into our kingdom remember me.’ And when Jesus came into his kingdom, in fact before hand he said, ‘I remember you. In fact this day you will be with me in paradise.’ And so we see the first confession of the first Christian in Jesus’ last day. We also we the patten of our confession. There is a danger here, however, this was the last day of the thief’s life. There are many people in the world who think that I can put off a decision for Christ until that day when I am old and feeble and I am just about to go. I will live for myself up until then, then I will decide for Christ. I will accept Christ for my Savior and then I’ll have my ticket to heaven.

An interesting fellow in the church where I grew up, his last name was Lloyd, his daughters were in school the same time I was and I can’t think of his first name right now. He told my Dad who was his pastor at the time, he attended church occasionally, his family did, and he said, Charles, Pastor, when I reach forty I am going to serve God. I know what Jesus did on the cross, I know that but I have some things I want to do, some things that I want to get done for myself and when I turn forty, says I will live the rest of my life for God. At forty years of age, he didn’t make that decision. At forty-two years of age he died. Never having done that. How long is your life going to be? We think that forty two is a fairly short time if you are twenty you that forty two is a long time. If you are fifty you think forty two is along ago. Ok for time becomes fairly relative don’t they. And so we think that we have a certain length of time that we can count on. Ok up until this time I can live for myself from then on I can live for God.

Interesting thing Matthew Henry wrote a number of commentaries on the Bible. In fact a whole volumes of commentaries on the whole Bible he said this, ‘It is certain that true repentance is never to late but it is as certain that late repentance is seldom true.’ I’ll read that again, ‘It is certain that true repentance is never to late,’ the people on the cross, it was never to late for him to be truly repentant. ‘But it is as certain that late repentance is seldom true.’ How many times have you seen somebody on there death bed praying a prayer that we hope is genuine but really wonder if they really understand what they are doing? Wouldn’t it be a whole lot better, with full knowledge of understanding you said, ‘Jesus I thank you for what you did on the cross and I am going to live for you the rest of my life, no matter when we start it.’ Instead of saying I will start in a month or two or a year or two or sometime later on. And I will get there in time as long as I got my ticket to heaven I am ok. That is not what is required of us. Jesus gave his life for us. St Paul says, ‘We have been bought with a price, so we are to glorify God in our body. That means we are not our own so therefore God owns us. So therefore we are to serve him throughout our life.

In light of the cross as we stand viewing this cross which reminds us of the cross of Christ, we are also reminded that it requires a decision. You can not look at the cross passively. There is a precursory, or they call it a type of the cross in the Old Testament, when Moses was leading the people of Israel through the wilderness, at one point as they did many times, they rebelled and actually serpents came among them, snakes came among them and begin biting people. They begin to die from the venom. And Moses said, ‘What do I do God, we have to stop this?’ God says, ‘Place a serpent on a stick, actually form one out of bronze and hold it up. Says anyone who looks at that serpent will be healed. Means in faith they had to trust that , that’s what was happening and they would, by the way, when there are three million people their this thing would have had to been awful big to be able to see it from a long ways away, ok? It is not like they just turned and looked in that direction. No, no, no, that wasn’t it. Because no matter how big you make it, you put three million people around it and you have to make an effort to get there to look at it. Especially when there is a crowd there. So I think people had to make a forced effort to get there. Especially if they were sick from the venom. It wasn’t as if it’s like, oh yah just turn and look. Like oh yah look at that star up there or look at that cloud. Oh yah, ok. That wasn’t it. They had to make a concerted, forced effort to be able to make it to the place where they could make it to see that cross or see that snake on the stick. Same with this. It is not just be look at the cross that saves. It is to look to the cross that saves. When we look to Christ and say, ‘Jesus what you did on the cross paid for my sins I am going to give myself to you forever because of it.’ That is our decision. There is also no other way. Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.’ There is only one, that is to ask Jesus Christ to be our Savior. He has made it possible for all of us. It says, his death is the professation, the satisfaction of God’s righteous requirements for the whole world if accept what we offers by faith.

If you can find a hymnal near you, this is a hymnus rendition of what his words are at the cross. This is by Issac Watts, Hymn 128, ‘When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but lose. And pour contempt on all my pride. Forbid it Lord that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my Lord. All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood. See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did air such love and sorrow meet or thorns compose so rich a crown. Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were present far to small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my awe.’ That is a decision that is called for when we view the cross. When we see the cross it says this, we are the whole realm of nature mind that were present far to small. Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my awe.

Let’s pray:

Father you gave everything. You tell us in Philippines 2 that Jesus did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasp or to be held onto with all it’s might but he gave himself up. He gave himself up, he emptied himself. He came down here and lived as a man, as a man with all the limitations that we have. Experience the pain, the tiredness, the hunger of being human. And yet he is still divine. Still God in the flesh. Still sinless. Went through all of his years of life without sinning. Therefore, he could become that innocent, without blemished sacrifice that we need that is on the cross he was killed. He offered himself in our place that we might have life. We don’t have to die for your own sins because you did it for us. You stepped in our way, you said greater love is no man that he would lay down his life for his friend, Father you gave infinitely because you are an infinite God who came to earth to be limited by human frailties and weaknesses and yet still retain God hood and you died on the cross an infinite death that pays infinitely for sins of a fineied man. We thank you Father that you loved us so much. We thank you that you took our sin upon yourself on the cross. Father I pray now that you would just strike it into our hearts so clearly that we can not miss the fact that we are making a decision right now. We are making a decision. Some have said yes, some have said yes I accept Jesus Christ for my Savior and his death now has paid for my sins and I will live for him. Others have said no I am not going to do that. Others are like a crowd waiting and watching. Father we know that waiting and watching is the same thing as deciding not to at this time. Just like the fellow I mentioned, up until forty I am going to live my own way, beyond that I will live his way. We may never have that chance. Even if we did, you require our life. As the song said, it requires my soul, my life, my awe. Father I thank you that even this week we have had one who has come to you and he accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and the angels of heaven rejoice and are throwing a party even now because of that. Father I pray that there will be those this morning who would make that same decision. Not waiting and watching any longer but deciding for Christ. That heaven may erupt in a celebration of joy at sinners who repent. Father help us tp know that we are all in the same boat. Everyone of us has sinned, everyone of us still sins but because of the blood Jesus Christ shed for us in our place, we may have life and have it eternally and have it abundantly and we thank you for it. In Jesus Name.

Keep your heads bowed if you would for a second. I don’t want you to go away thinking that you can still wait and watch. No, the cross requires a decision. It says that the Jews sought for signs. They wanted Jesus to prove himself as the Messiah by coming down. The Bible tells us that the Gentiles seek wisdom and to them the cross is just foolishness. Why would a God do something like this? But to those of us who are being saved, it is the power of God to salvation. I don’t want you to go away without making that decision. I am not going to ask you to do anything right now. You’re not going to have to come forward or anything like that. I want you to just know that this is a decision that is already been made by you against Christ until you decide for Christ. It is not yes, no, and maybe. It is yes or no. If there has been no decision, yes; the decision has been made no. I would hate to see that become a permanent decision in your life. Change your mind, trust Christ. Father we thank you for that possibility in Jesus, Amen

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