This is a really important sermon. It’s also appropriate for me, personally, beause the last post I put on here was about Pharisees and hurt, then this sermon is about some of the resolution and forgiveness from where I was when I preached on the Pharisees.
I hope this makes you love Jesus more than ever.
Automatic Transcript of the Sermon
When people die. Those of us that are left. Make a really big deal about people’s last words. And. I bet I’m not the only person that at some point in their life thought they were about to die and started thinking, what do I want my last words to be? If I’m if this is it, if this is my moment. It was food poisoning. It was 2 holidays. I was sick. For about a week. And then I was fine. That’s that was my. Near death experience. So I want to look at. Jesus’s last words. And The funny thing is, and I’ve already hinted at it, Jesus has two sets of last words, because that’s what happens to you when you die. And then you come back, you have a whole another set of last words. We’ll talk about the back to life set of last words next week. This week, we’re going to talk about his last words as a son of Adam. And we’re going to start in Luke 23. Luke 23, verse 26 as they led him away. This is during. While Jesus is getting crucified. As they led him away, they seized 1 Simon of Sirene, who was coming in from the country, and they laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus. This dude Simon of Cyrene was probably North African, could have been like a dark skinned African guy that had converted to Judaism. And was coming from Cyrene, born a Gentile, most of the sirenians were Gentiles, and we’ve talked about him before. We might talk about him again in a few months. But he’s probably also one of the founders. Ohh no, I’m getting ahead of myself. He came from Cyrene, probably a Gentile converted to Judaism, traveled for days and days and days to celebrate Passover. He’s out on the street and by Roman law, if they ask you to carry something, you gotta carry it for a mile. And they grab him and they make him carry this bloody cross. Now he’s unclean. His whole Passover holiday is canceled. He’s probably not allowed in the hotel that he’s already booked reservations for. He probably can’t touch his wife. He probably can’t touch his kids. He can’t eat the Passover meal with all of them. And if he wants to celebrate Passover, which he’s required to do, he has to come back in a month. And start all over again and do the Passover. So now he’s got to double his hotel stay. And he has to make special provisions. I don’t know if any of you guys have, like, ohh, we can’t celebrate Christmas on Christmas. So we’re going to celebrate in January or in February, right? And it’s just not the same like it’s warm or it’s like -20. It’s not Christmas weather. This all happens to Simon of Sirene. All instead of Jesus. It goes to show Jesus was so weak that he could not carry his cross anymore. He was so beat up he was so whipped. He was just all kinds of hurt. But they didn’t want him to die in the streets. So they. Let him save his energy. They also don’t want to carry him. So he’s that torn up that beat down. There followed him a great multitude of the people and women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them, Jesus said he’s got enough strength to talk to them. We don’t know that, he said this loud like he did in the streets on other holidays and other other times, or if he just said it enough just for them to hear. He said daughters of Jerusalem do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, for behold, the days are coming when they will say blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore, and the breast that never even nursed. Yikes. Then they will begin to say to the mountains fall on us and to the hills cover us. For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it’s dry? If the world does such terrible things to an innocent man. What horrible things is the world going to do? To people that are guilty. If this is happening to me, how much worse is it going to get? Some people he’s quoting Zechariah, he’s quoting Hosea. These are this isn’t Jesus just making stuff up? He’s totally quoting prophets. And the things that those prophets prophesied, a lot of people thought that happened with the Babylonian captivity, and we don’t have to worry about that anymore. And all of a sudden, Jesus is saying the Babylonian captivity was nothing. Y’all. Need to repent. A lot of people say that this all happened in AD 70, when the temple was destroyed and the whole temple was burned down by the Romans. The fire burned so hot that the gold turned to liquid and flowed out from the bottom, and the Roman soldiers dug it up out of the dirt to take home the gold. But then in AD 90, between 90 and 120 AD. John the Apostle writes in the Book of Revelation this same kind of language. So the fulfillment of it was not in 70 AD because in 90 somewhere between 90 and 120 AD, he said. It’s still going to happen. So he is still trying to tell them he is bloodied and beaten. He is so weak he can’t carry his cross and he is still trying to tell them turn believe. Believe that the father has sent me. He doesn’t. He doesn’t tell him. Hey, beat up these Romans. Smack him over the head with your purse and get me. Out of here. No, he’s saying believe, believe, believe to others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with him when they came to the place that’s called the skull. There they crucified him and the criminals one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said. Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. Hmm. He had enough strength. After being crucified, I don’t know if you guys. Have ever hit the wrong nail. There’s a minute you can’t talk, right? One time I was in the basement and I was moving things around. This big old iron fire. Great thing fell off the shelf and banged right into my knee and bang. And it made a racket and somebody hollered down. Are you OK? I was not OK. It hurt. All I could get out was just a minute. Had to sit down on a bucket. Gained my composure. In the midst of all of his pain. Through that pain. Through the you guys, I get. I can’t even hang the shower. Curtain up, keep my arms up that long without my arms hurting. Jesus is crucified hanging on a cross. And he finds the energy. And the strength to get out the words. Forgive them. Father. They don’t know what they’re doing. They cast lots to divide his clothes. Every picture you’ve ever seen of Jesus is inaccurate if he’s not naked. Because he was naked, all the paintings, all the pictures, they help us out a little bit because I wouldn’t be able to bear to see the horror of that. But they’re throwing dice and flipping a coin to divide up his clothes. People stood by and the rulers scoffed at him and made fun of him. They weren’t even disgusted by the scene. He saved others, let him save himself. If he is the Christ of God his chosen one. The soldiers also mocked him coming up, offering him sour wine and saying if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself and they hung up a sign above him, king of the Jews. One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him. This dude. The dude’s gonna die, right? Like he could just shut up and die. But instead in his wickedness. He starts shouting at Jesus. Are you not the Christ save yourself and us like that dude deserves to get saved by anybody. But the other one told that guy shut up, rebuked him, saying. Don’t you fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? We indeed are justly being condemned for we’re receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. He said Jesus Remember Me when you come into your Kingdom? That guy is the only guy that shows any faith. That Jesus really is the son of God. And he’s and he says, your Kingdom. What is that guy thinking of? He’s thinking he’s the dude. He’s the tax collector in the back row that can’t even come in and lift his face up. It’s like Jesus. I hope you Remember Me. Me. When you come into your Kingdom, he does not see Jesus as defeated. Even John and the Marys are standing there and they see Jesus as defeated. But this dude who’s some crook’s got no back story. We don’t know a thing about him. Remember Me when you come into your Kingdom? And Jesus. Has enough strength, has enough breath in his lungs to say truly, I say to you today you will be with me in paradise. Of all the power and all the strength that he has on the cross, he uses it. To forgive that dude. He could have brought 168,000 angels down on the head of this other dude. He could have made all of those Pharisees turn into slices of bacon, the blink of an eye. Whatever. But he uses his strength. To forgive this guy. It was about the 6th hour and there was darkness over the whole land until the 9th hour. While the sun’s light failed. The curtain of the temple was torn into and Jesus calling out with a loud voice, said father into your hands. I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. Jesus was so submitting to God’s will. That he even is the finally the one that said, OK, I’m not going to use any miraculous powers to keep myself alive. I can heal myself. There’s a chance that he might have healed himself along the way to make it to the cross. Because that’s where he had to die. And so he cries out. I’m. I’m not using any of my powers at all. And I am submitting to your will. And he dies. Forgiveness is what he did on the cross. He forgave all the people that were actually doing it, doing the act of crucifixion on him in the process. While they were scoffing at him. Gosh. So here we are. And Jesus said over and over he said to Peter, Peter said, how many times should I forgive my brother that sins against me in a day 7 * 70 times Jesus says 7 * 70 times. You should forgive in a day like so many that you will totally lose count. Just forgive, forgive, forgive. When he taught him how to pray the Lord’s prayer, he said, forgive others for as you forgive others, you will be forgiven. Wow. And he doesn’t put any conditions on it as long as they ask for forgiveness the right way. Forgive them. Nope. He didn’t say that. As long as they bring you a sheep, as long as they make it right, forgive. On them. As long as they pay you cash money and give a really good public apology, forgive them. Nope. Forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive. I only said that five times. OK, I got another 465 to go. Forgive. Forgive, forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive, forgive. Can you imagine that’s in a day? Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. That is what? Jesus. All the things he could have done. On the cross. He could have just shut up and just rested be like. Sure. I’m gonna die. I’m just gonna rest and die. But no, he exert he couldn’t even walk the right way, and he exerts himself to bring forgiveness. But Jesus doesn’t forgive everything.
What?
Let’s go to Matthew 1232 one time. Jesus was doing a teaching. And he talked about the unforgivable sin. Talked to a guy at the rescue mission one time. And he said, Dan, I love being in your Bible studies. I love talking to you. It’s just it makes me so sad that I’m going to go to hell. And I said, why are you, why are you gonna go to hell? And he said cause I I committed the the sin against the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin. I said. Ohh dude, we are going to have a great Bible study tomorrow. Make sure you come. And so we came and we dove into Matthew 12. The one verse that everybody takes out of context. 1232 whoever speaks a word against the son of man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven even in this age or in the age. To come. And people will pluck that phrase speaks a word against the Holy Spirit. Out. Will not be forgiven. And they think if I ever said anything bad against the Holy Spirit, it’s done. I’m hell bound. There’s no hope for me. Context is everything. So let’s look at the context the demon possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to him. They healed him so that the man spoke and he saw. I’m going to tell it real fast, so the Pharisees all said, wow, it’s with the power of the devil that this guy casts out demons. He uses the devil’s power to do it. And Jesus said, OK, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If the devil wants to harass people, it doesn’t make any sense that I would use devil power. Who wants to harass them? To make them unharassed and delivered. That’s just stupid. Like that doesn’t make any sense at all. The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy the devil. I’m not going to use the devil’s power to heal anybody. And you guys, whenever you try to heal somebody whose power do you use to heal, like, do you think that you have devil power over the devils to heal people like you? You can’t even think that way. But it’s the Holy Spirit. It’s the power of God. And if you deny the power of God, if you don’t believe that God can heal. Then you’re not believing in God. You’re not believing that God has this power, and that is the sin of the Holy Spirit, is to not believe in God. Not believe that he has power. And so the statement that whoever doesn’t believe. Won’t be forgiven is the same. It’s just a different way of saying the same thing. When Jesus said in John 14 six, I’m the way and the truth and the life, nobody comes to the father by except by me. If you believe Jesus is the son of God and he is the way and the truth in life, then you are forgiven. If you don’t believe. Then you aren’t forgiven. So I get to tell this dude that. And he just cries. Because he got to learn. You commit the unforgivable sin by not believing that Jesus is who he said that he is. Not having faith if you have faith as big as a mustard seed and y’all I have planted mustard and it is tiny. If you have the smallest little shred bit junk, piece of faith. You are saved. Now, do you want to do a whole bunch with that and grow and be awesome? Yes, dude on the cross. Did he get to do anything with his faith? All he did with his face, faith was tell somebody to shut up and we don’t allow that in our house. But that was his only work of holiness that he ever got to do. And to declare that Jesus is going to have a Kingdom. Kind of bold. Kind of arrogant. Hey, Jesus. Remember Me when you enter your Kingdom, we get mad at the sons of Zebedee. Jesus. We want to sit at your right hand and your left hand. When? You enter your Kingdom. Stew did the same thing. Forgiveness. Hmm OK so. If there’s only one sin that isn’t forgiven. And Jesus’s hard work on the cross was to forgive sins. Where does that put us as his disciples? We can actually be empowered. To forgive. Anybody. Any sin? At anytime. All the time. The hard truth is that a lot of times the way people sin against us isn’t even a sin. It’s due to a zip didn’t put enough roasted garlic on my pizza. I just paid 10 bucks. Dagnabbit don’t short me my garlic. Right. Where’s the sin? He didn’t sin. He’s working. He’s cooking like 30 pizzas in nine seconds. How often are the things that we don’t have forgiveness for people for they aren’t even the sin in? The first place. But we turn it into a sin when we have unforgiveness for it. Here’s a worse one. When I sin against somebody and I want to apologize. And I want to explain and think through why did I do that wrong thing. I can’t even figure out the real reason why I sinned myself. And I I mean, I know every single thought I have, I know every motivation. I know every fear I have, and I can’t even fully understand why I sinned. Why in the world do I think I’m such an expert on why other people sin against me? So now all of a sudden I’m in a spot so and so sinned against me. I know every thought I have. I know all the thoughts of my heart. How can I possibly know what in the world they were thinking? Maybe. They didn’t know what they were doing. Jesus didn’t say on the cross. Forgive them because I don’t know what they’re doing. Jesus knew what they were doing. He could look right down into their hearts. He knew the motivations of every single thing that they did in their life from the day they were born, Jew or Gentile. And he was able to say, father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. So here I am looking at knucklehead that sins against me. And I can say, father, forgive them. Because I know I don’t know what they were doing. And I’m pretty confident they don’t know what they were doing either. And then all of a sudden, what happens? Because they haven’t sinned against the Holy Spirit, they just did something dumb. And then all of a sudden Romans 5 happens. And Romans five starts to happen in us as a people. Ohh wait, I got one more. Ohh shoot, this is a hard one. What about forgiving somebody? That doesn’t even know who I am. That did something stupid. They did something stupid and they don’t even know who I am like Vladimir Putin. If you go into Moscow and you go get on his super awesome train of war. And you’re like, oh, hey, I’m with Sully. It’s cool. He is not going to know what you said. But if I don’t know. What he’s doing and what his motives are. Pretty sure he doesn’t know. Can I forgive him? Or can I walk around and every time I see his face on Facebook, I can stir up unforgiveness? Jesus said forgive them, father. They don’t know what they’re doing. And then. They flipped a coin for his underpants. And they stood, and the Pharisees mocked him, and Jesus was asking God the father to forgive them. Romans 5. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have been made right in the eyes of God, just with our mustard seed, speck of faith, that Jesus is real. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I I have peace with God. God is not out to get me. He is not counting my wrongs. He has so forgiven me. You guys like everywhere I walked there was like a crater of forgiveness around me. I have been so forgiven. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace. I am walking around in it. I can’t get out of it. I am in his grace at wherever I go. We rejoice in hope for the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. Knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You guys know the the footsteps poem. Where there’s two sets of footsteps, you look back on your life. There’s two sets of footsteps, and that’s where Jesus was walking along with you. And then there’s a couple of spots where the hardest parts in your life, where there is only one set of footsteps and the person says Jesus, why weren’t you with me then? And he says it’s there that I carried you. It’s just his footsteps. Was talking to a bunch of guys yesterday, and the more we talked about it. I don’t want the suffering, but don’t you just want Jesus to carry you all the time? Don’t you just want just his footsteps through your whole life and not yours? Cause I’m gonna mess stuff up. I just want his. And so all of a sudden we look forward to suffering. Because suffering is going to bring endurance, and endurance is going to build character in us, that makes us hope in him and let him do The Walking. While we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. I don’t know about you. I was a really wicked knucklehead about 20 minutes before I got saved. I was very, very evil. I was very, very evil. I would. You would give me a pink slip, Mike would say you’re great, Dan, but you don’t have to come back next week. If you met that guy. While we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. One will scarcely die for a righteous person. Somebody might die for a good person, die for a good cause, right? Nobody’s ever going to die for. An unrighteous, wicked person like I was. But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. I needed forgiveness. I didn’t ask for it, and Jesus died on the cross for my sins. There are people that need our forgiveness that aren’t going to ask. You for it. Since therefore, we have now been justified by his blood much more, how much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God? We are so saved from the wrath of God. We do not have to be afraid of. The end of the world. Or his wrath while we were enemies while we were enemies with God, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son on the cross, and how much more now that we’ve been reconciled, will we be saved by his life as he lives in us? More than that, we rejoice in God. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. I am back to the Adam and Eve relationship with God. I sit in the garden. I have apple. Skin in my teeth and I can have fellowship with God even better than Adam and Eve because God never lived in Adam.
What?
God blew his breath into Adam and gave him life, but God’s life was not being lived out by Adam. It was Adam’s separate life. Now I have the life of God in me. Forgiveness. Let’s pray. Lord, thank you so much for forgiving us on the cross. For forgiving our sins before we even asked, and even as we would continue to not even know what we’re doing 2000 years later. And thank you, Lord, for giving us reconciliation that we are close to you, God. That you you have poured your life into our hearts. Into our souls and our being, and that we can watch your life get lived out as we live it. We love you. Lord, and we praise your name. Amen.