Mountainside UMC SERMON NOTES
March 9, 2014
Lent Series – Last Words from the Cross
Luke 23:26, 33-34a
This morning we are beginning a six week series of sermons for
the season of Lent called “Last Words from the Cross” and we will
look at these final words that Jesus speaks as he is hanging for six
hours on a Roman cross. We will look at all seven of these phrases
throughout this series believing they hold a special significance as
these were the last words Jesus spoke from the cross. This
mornings verses come from Luke 23:33-34 So just listen and
imagine this place called Calvary as we hear these words. Close-E
When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him
there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his
left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what
they are doing.”
33
Over the years I have had the opportunity to be present when final
words were spoken before the passing away of a loved one. Most
of the words spoken were from the living seeking to comfort the
one passing away. Sometimes the one passing away would
acknowledge or echo their words of comfort. I don’t personally
recall being present when the dying said anything profound about
their faith but it has happened. John Wesley’s final words before
passing were, “The best of all is this, God is with us.”
In the case of one being crucified, the very act of speaking was
painful and required great exertion. It is thought that death comes
to those being crucified due to some combination of exhaustion,
shock, buildup of fluid around the heart and in the lungs, and
asphyxiation. To speak while being crucified would require
incredible effort as the victim would have to pull himself up by the
nails in the wrists in order to expand the diaphragm to speak. For
all of these reasons words were rare among the victims of
crucifixion. So for Jesus to speak at all, these words were serious.
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“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
These first words from the cross are offered as a prayer, as a
request from Jesus to the Father and this prayer leads to some
questions. For whom was Jesus praying? Who was the them?
How is this prayer related to us?
He was obviously speaking to those present. Praying for the
soldiers who cruelly tortured him and crucified him and who were
preparing to gamble for his clothes. “Father forgive them”
He was also praying for the religious leaders and the crowd who,
verbally assault on him – “Father forgive them.” There were the
disciples who abandoned him and denied being his followers. For
these he prayed, “Father, forgive them.”
But most of us know that they are not the only ones to whom Jesus
offers this prayer. It spreads from the cross in two directions that of
into the future and into the past. Concerning the future, it reaches
even to us we who are alive 2000 years following are among those
to whom these words apply. We are among the “them” Jesus was
praying for as he said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not
what they are doing.”
There’s the gospel hymn many of us are familiar with that asks,
“Where you there when they crucified my Lord?” It’s a semirhetorical question that assumes that the answer is a “Yes.” Why
might the author of this famous hymn suggest such a thing?
The death of Jesus is an event that transcended time. Jesus’ prayer
gave voice to what Jesus was doing on the cross. He was offering
himself to God his Father as an offering of atonement. In this
moment he was both the High Priest pleading for atonement for the
human race and the offering itself. This sacrificial act was for those
who had come before and those who would come after as much as
it was for those who heard his words that day. “Behold the Lamb
of God who comes to take away the sins of the world.”
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You and I were there when they crucified the Lord. In a sense
Jesus prayed, “Father forgive John. Father forgive..(your name).
The fact that Jesus made this one his seven last statements is a
declaration by Jesus to our need of forgiveness. Our need for
forgiveness and God’s willingness to offer forgiveness are the two
major themes of the Bible. We need forgiveness because we have
sinned. We have chosen repeatedly throughout our life to do that
which was selfish, self-centered, deceptive and destructive. We
have at times broken promises, broken relationships and hearts.Sin
Some suggest that Christians or preachers spend too much time
dwelling on sin(missing the mark) and making people feel guilty
and that may be true in some churches, but that is not the central
focus of the gospel. The central focus is not the disease but that
there is a cure, there is the mercy of God that is sufficient. But the
cure is of no value unless we apply it to the need.
So when Christianity speaks of sin, the aim is not the make us feel
guilty but to help us discover the grace and healing mercy of God
that we so desperately need. For example, Imagine you have been
feeling chest pains and shortness of breath and now your
experiencing pain in your arm. Although you might say as many
have, “It’s really nothing; I’ll be okay, I just need to stop and rest,
I’m not going to worry about it.” The reality is that you might be
having a heart attack and need to be seen by a doctor. If you ignore
the symptoms you may die an early death.
If you are wise, you will want to know what’s causing these
symptoms and will go to the ER or doctor’s office. After running
some tests the doctor comes in and says, “Listen, we’ve found
serious blockage, and you need surgery,” would you think that the
doctor is being overly pessimistic or trying to help you so that you
can bet better? Would you say, “That doctor is such a downer and
has a really negative attitude. I don’t want to hear that. I'm going
to find a doctor who will make me feel good about my heart”
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Hopefully not. Hopefully you would be thankful that the doctor
found the problem and told you the truth and could possibly cure it
with surgery. Yet when it comes to our spiritual heart and soul that
lasts forever, often people often don’t want to know the truth and
when there is blockage that leads to death. The response is I just
want to find someone or something that makes me feel good about
my present condition regardless of how sick I really am.
And yet the signs appear unexpected and unannounced. The rage
of anger, the little lie, the cover up, the jealously, hopelessness,
despair, discouragement, resentment, overwhelming fear, the
choice to take instead of give, rebel instead obey, giving in to an
obsession or addiction instead of overcoming. All these are signs
pointing to the eternal condition of our heart and eternal soul.
And God the Creator of our soul, body,mind and spirit knows the
truth of our condition and offers to us that which brings healing to
our greatest wound and offers to us forgiveness. “Father, Forgive
them for they know not what they are doing.” Yet unless we place
ourselves at the foot of the cross and hunger for this offer of
forgiveness and know that deep within our soul we need this offer
of amazing grace and forgiveness these words fall on deaf ears.
Unless we really stop and take time and sit at the foot of the cross
and let God show us the areas of our need for forgiveness, then
these words will have little or no transforming effect in our life.
When we do really stop and allow the Spirit to search our hearts.
Psalm 139 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know
my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and
lead me in the way everlasting. Recently I was praying and I
sensed the Holy Spirit put his finger on resentment that I was really
not expecting. Long story short I found some resentment towards
a couple of people that I didn’t even know personally and even a
little towards God. “Unfairness” issue. This makes no sense to me.
How would I need to forgive God for something when God doesn’t
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technically sin? I resolved that by saying God I don’t understand
this, it really bothers me, but I trust you. Help me to trust you.
Cleanse me from any part of me that has anger toward you.
And here is something that I sensed the Holy Spirit impress upon
me saying, “Just because all my ways are just doesn’t mean that I
come across as fair.” In fact in a sermons I heard this week, I was
reminded about Noah and Abraham. God gave both of these men
covenants and confirmed these covenants. God gave Noah a
covenant that he would never again destroy the world with a flood
and he confirmed it to Noah with a beautiful rainbow. God gave
Abraham a covenant that he would make him into a great nation
and make him a great blessing and all the nations of the world
would be blessed through him. God then told Abraham that he
would confirm that covenant through circumcision. Abraham had
to be thinking, “Wait a minute, Noah got a rainbow…” God
allows events that seem unfair, that God’s unfair…forgiveness..
Earlier I mentioned how that these words of Jesus saying, “Father,
forgive them for they know not what they do went forward into the
future but also they spoke into the entirety of the past. I was
thinking of this in two ways. The first was directly to every person
who ever lived from Adam and Eve to the time of Jesus. In
Romans 3:22-26 Paul addresses this matter.
22 This
righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all
who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by
Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,
through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did
this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance
he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it
to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be
just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
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So this act on the cross is shed across all humanity throughout
history. However there is another sense in which these words
apply to the past in the sense that they were already spoken once
before. Can you recall a time in the Bible where were such as these
were spoken and thereby having a profound historical impact.
I was thinking about a boy crying out for help after being thrown
in a pit as a result of his brother’s jealousy. He was then sold into
slavery and sent away to a foreign land. He worked as a servant but
then was falsely accused and thrown into prison for about 11-13
years. At 30 years of age he is finally hauled out of prison and
raised to Prime Minister of all of Egypt only second in power to
Pharaoh. When he is in power he discovers his brothers come
before him pleading for help from the devastation of the famine
that destroyed their homeland. He had the power to throw them all
in prison but he doesn’t and provides for the needs for his brothers
their families and gives them their own land called Goshen.
After Jacob dies, the father of these twelve sons, the remaining
sons throw themselves at the feet of Joseph believing that now that
the father has died he will then inflict his vengeance upon them
and then what is Joseph’s response.
19 But
Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of
God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to
accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So
then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.”
And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
As a result of Joseph’s words and actions he released forgiveness
and as a result the Hebrew grew from 70 -100 to a nation of over a
million and half people during their stay in Egypt before God lead
them back to the promised land. That is Joseph’s amazing fruit of
forgiveness. Did Joseph have any idea how God would take his
choice to allow forgiveness to flow through him and be the
foundation of building this great nation of people?
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Neither do you nor I know what God will do when we hear these
words from Jesus spoken to us and take them to heart. When we
take the time to sit at the feet of Jesus hanging on the cross and
allow his words and life flow down from the cross and set us free.
So that thought was what I thought that this was the end of this
message and after writing it out I hit the send button Thursday
night on this document and sent it off to our media team to prep it
for Sunday morning, then something unusual happened on Friday
which connected to the message and here is a further application of
this message and related more to the series than the message.
Friday my usual day off, I was at Walmart shopping and the
cashier checked out all my items and then handed me the receipt
which caused me to do a double take. First I was a little surprised
that I had loaded $300 worth of items in my shopping cart, but I
had bought a small appliance which spiked the bill a little. But the
real double-take was that the ticket was exactly $300.00 to the
penny. I don’t ever remember making any purchase that was taxincluded $300.00 to the penny. That receipt raised my curiosity. I
got home and unloaded the groceries and then walked into my
bedroom and looked at the digital clock and it read exactly
3:00p.m. That is two 300’s in less than an hour. I remember verses
“that everything is confirmed by two or three witnesses.”
That evening Lindy and I go out for dinner as it’s our date night. I
tell her about this. She asks what I thought it meant. Not sure at
the moment. We leave dinner and go to the movie theatre to see
Son of God(missed last week-out of town traveling). We are
standing in line and I look up at the movie time board to see that
this is the opening weekend for the movie 300: Rise of an Empire.
That did it. As soon as I got home did a brief Internet search and
initially came up with a connection of the number 300 in Hebrew
that referred to the Spirit of God and also a connection to the one
of the Judges of the OT Gideon. It was late, I was tired, morning.
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I didn’t realize that it would be really early in the morning as I
would be awaked by a dream. An extremely unusual dream
because the dream was so vivid and clear. 99% of my dreams are
what dream interpreters call “Pizza Dreams” where they just don’t
make any sense at all. They are just weird.
But this dream was crystal clear and it was so strong that it woke
me up early in the morning and I couldn’t go back to sleep. When
I got out of bed I went and researched 300 again this time I simply
pulled up the Bible Gateway website and typed out the words three
hundred and clicked the search. When I did that three Bible stories
surfaced that caught my attention related to this dream. 2 of 3
characters already in my sermon. There are more than 3 references
to 300 if you search in different ways using numbers or different
translations, but these were the three that surfaced the first time I
did the search. Here are the three stories then I’ll mention the
dream and my interpretation. Together it is a Good News/Bad
News scenario. Please understand what I am sharing is my
interpretation and I could be on target or way off. You will
probably have one of two reactions either that was different/
strange and forget this part OR others of you might search these
Scriptures and ask is there some truth to what I am saying, if so
how should I respond?
Of the three Scripture references that I was drawn two are both bad
and good news and the third one is just good news. The first
reference I saw was Genesis 6:15(NIV) This is how you are to
build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits
wide and thirty cubits high. This was instructions regarding the
building of Noah’s Ark. Noah’s Ark saved that Noah and his
family built saved Noah and his family from God’s judgment. The
interpretation – roughly speaking - Something “Noah like” is
going to happen. Some type of storm-Financial-PhysicalSomething- Obvious. Along with that some Hard times are coming
and the details in the first two sermons this year.
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When people or a nation does not respond to his message of
mercy, God’s judgment is his mercy.
The second passage is out of Judges where Gideon is called to go
to war against the Midianite army of 100K plus soldiers with 32K
Israelites and God says the army is to big and in Judges 7:7 (NIV)
7 The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that
lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let
all the others go home.”
This to me spoke of the battle that is before us(Movie 300 is about
a battle) – The last two Sunday’s I preached out of Ephesians 6
speaking about spiritual warfare. But the predominant message
from Gideons story is about God’s amazing provision for those
who trust and obey in the midst of impossible odds.
The last passage is Genesis 45:22(NIV) To each of them he
(JOSEPH) gave new clothing, but to Benjamin he gave three
hundred shekels of silver and five sets of clothes.
This scripture really caught my attention because I had already
been led to close my message with this Scripture even before the
messages that I believe I received on Friday. This Scripture of
God speaks of two things two me the first is the amazing favor
from God that we have in Christ. In one place in Scripture Jesus is
referred to as our brother and in this context we have an older
brother who delights to provide for us more than we imagine.
On the flip side of this, Joseph had such a great ability to provide
for his family because he heeded the warning given to him in a
dream and stored up when everyone else might have thought him
foolish. God provided for Joseph through obedience to store up in
a prosperous time to prepare for the famine that was coming.
Didn’t Jesus say don’t worry-Worry no-Plan and Prepare Yes-J&N
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In Summary, hard times are coming, God’s hand will be clear. By
the way the dream I had was like bands of light streaming across
the sky(asteroids-Russia) and when I looked up it was obvious to
see that it was a sign of God confirming his word. After I saw this I
looked around and everyone around me agreed that God was
confirming in signs that his activity in the world was clear. I said
the first two Sundays that the nearer we get the clearer it will be.
The most important word and reality that I got in my spirit was
God wanting us to know that His presence, His confidence and His
Holy Spirit was going to be stronger in us and through us than any
of us could imagine. Isaiah 40:28-31 and Isaiah 60:1-2 were
ringing in my ears. I believe the Lord is going to speak to all of us
with increasing clarity. Pay attention, search its meanings. If you
do, your spiritual ears will be sharpened and increase in their
sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit and give you supernatural
strength that will be a sign and a wonder to a lost and confused
world.
The one thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from
history and we assume that what happened to others would never
happen to us. Jesus warns us about these things in Scripture that I
highlighted in the first two messages this year and I feel like he is
calling attention to them as the reality of those passages are and
will become even more clear and near. Be Award & Encouraged.
Last thing. I wondered why did I believe I received this additional
message on Friday related to today’s message and this series on
Jesus’ words from the cross? Possible connection. Jesus, God in
flesh spoke these words while in his moment of greatest trial. They
were all words that as we will see can give us comfort in our
greatest time of trial. Some of these words/ or phrases are one’s
which we may need to be speaking as well during our trials.
Prevailing reality-Prevailing incredible presence-regardless of
what we face. Have His confidence.