Father Forgive Them!
Last Words of Jesus on the Cross • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Why are the final words and actions of a dying person significant?
Over the next 6 weeks we’ll be looking at the last words of Jesus as He died on the cross.
Jesus hung on the cross from about 9AM till about 3PM.
6 agonizing hours after being beaten to a pulp.
The Passion of the Christ - Mel Gibson / Jim Caviezel - testimony
Struck by lightening.
A separated shoulder.
Accidentally got struck by the whip during the flogging scene and cut a 14” gash on his back and knocked the wind out of him.
Bit through his tongue.
Hypothermia. Five and a half months of cold just shooting the crucifixion scene.
I had to have two heart surgeries, including open-heart surgery, because of that film.”
But, all that Jim experienced was nothing compared to what Christ actually experienced.
And it was in the midst of that suffering that Jesus utters 7 of the most amazing words ever uttered by a dying man.
7 Last Words of a Dying Man:
7 Last Words of a Dying Man:
“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
“Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
“Woman, behold, your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” (John 19:26-27)
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt 27:46, Mark 15:34)
“I am thirsty.” (John 19:28)
“It is finished!” (John 19:30)
“Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
Today we’ll tackle the first one:
“Father, Forgive Them; For They Do Not Know What They Are Doing.”
“Father, Forgive Them; For They Do Not Know What They Are Doing.”
Read Luke 23:32-38
As Jim Caviezel hung on that cross, he felt his fleshly nature starting to get a grip on him because of the conditions he was under. He wanted to lash out, curse, complain, but he knew this wasn’t about him.
So he started to pray.
The prayer that came from him was, “I don't want people to see me. I just want them to see Jesus.”
I hope that through this morning you will see Jesus more clearly than you saw Him before.
Secondly, I hope you will see your position in Christ more clearly than you had before.
Finally, I pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will be able to react in the same way that Jesus did as He was hanging on the cross.
Just as Jim began to pray while hanging on the cross, we see a similar response from Jesus.
His public ministry opened with prayer and it ends with a prayer.
Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened,
And the prayer we’re looking at this morning comes when conditions were at their worst and begins simply with, “Father.”
Father...
Father...
A Relational Prayer.
Communion / Unity
Trust
Deference and Submission
A Petitionary Prayer.
Freedom to make a request.
Recognition that the Father is the only one who can answer the request.
A Directional Prayer
Not focused on Himself.
This is The Father’s work on our behalf.
A Mediatorial Prayer
Jesus is our Mediator.
He goes to the Father in our behalf.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
...Forgive Them...
...Forgive Them...
Man’s Great and Primary Need.
We need to be forgiven.
We have a sin debt we owe that we can’t pay.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
For the wages of sin is death...
The Father desires that we be forgiven.
“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
Forgiveness is obtained through Jesus’ willingness to be the sacrifice necessary to appease the justice of God
By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Propitiation - sacrifice, atonement, justice is satisfied.
To pay the necessary price for the removal of sins.
Our substitute.
The term here is connected to Mercy seat - blood sprinkled.
Identifies With Mankind
For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Prior to this moment on the cross, Jesus had always forgiven sins Himself.
And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.”
“Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, and walk’? “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home.”
Why all of a sudden is Jesus asking the Father to forgive?
Forgiveness of sins is for God alone and so Jesus in His divinity as the Son of God was able to offer forgiveness.
But Jesus on the cross was identifying with us and acting as our substitute.
Jesus on the cross was the Son of Man dying for mankind. The just for the unjust.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf...
Jim Caviezel - And let me tell you, I was on that cross. Many people who looked up there, I may be playing Christ, but a lot of times I felt like Satan. I had obscenities wanting to come out of me. It was so cold it was like knives coming through me. I had hypothermia. I don't know whether you've dealt with that, but on one day of hypothermia I was so cold I could barely get the lines out. My mouth was shaking uncontrollably. My arms and legs went numb. I was suffocating on that cross.
Jesus was experiencing the human condition to its fullest including the burden of bearing our sin.
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus was no longer in the place of authority where he might exercise his own divine prerogative, and was identifying with us.
Here I hang to be the substitute for the very ones that hung me here.
So according to your promise and your faithfulness to your word, Father, forgive them.
I am giving my life so that they can be forgiven and live.
A Wonderful Example Of His Own Teaching
And this request for forgiveness was regarding His enemies.
“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
He practiced what He taught.
Oh wait, we’re His enemies.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
He’s praying for us.
Application: Can we see our enemies from the same vantage point as Jesus?
Can we pray this about our enemy?
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?
Then, if they ask for forgiveness, can we forgive them as Christ forgave us?
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
...For They Do Not Know What They Are Doing.
...For They Do Not Know What They Are Doing.
The Blindness Of The Unregenerate Human Heart.
Peter says what they did they did in ignorance.
“And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also.
They were ignorant of the enormity of their crime.
Had they known they were crucifying the Lord of Glory...
the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;
We think we serve God and yet we serve ourselves.
We think we worship God and yet worship ourselves.
We think we love God and yet we love ourselves.
We don’t know what we are doing.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
We can’t bring an end to the reign of sin in our life by our own devices.
Only the Father can do it. If the Father doesn’t act, we are doomed.
Hence, Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.
Grace Extends Even To Areas In Which We Don’t Even Know We Need Grace.
There was even a sacrifice in the OT for the sin committed in ignorance.
“But if you sin unintentionally, and do not observe all these commandments that the Lord has spoken to Moses, all that the Lord has commanded you by Moses, from the day that the Lord gave commandment, and onward throughout your generations,
then if it was done unintentionally without the knowledge of the congregation, all the congregation shall offer one bull from the herd for a burnt offering, a pleasing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the rule, and one male goat for a sin offering.
‘Then the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and they will be forgiven; for it was an error, and they have brought their offering, an offering by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord, for their error.
This is how much God is willing to cover.
He doesn’t go part way.
He goes all the way.
The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
Application: Are you holding onto something that you think God can’t forgive?
Christ’s death on the cross secures forgiveness for even sins of ignorance. Things that we didn’t even know we committed in error. His grace will cover ANY and EVERY sin. You just have to trust Him for it and don’t let Satan hold you bound to guilt and shame.
The Triumph Of Redeeming Love
The Triumph Of Redeeming Love
The Madness of The Mockings:
Mockings of Jesus:
“He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.”
“If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!”
“Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!”
“Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself!”
“If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”
“He saved others; He cannot save Himself.”
“Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!”
He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him.
“He trusts in God; let God rescue Him now, if He delights in Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ”
The Pain of Unrequited Love
In Max Lucado’s book, No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, he says: “Sometimes I wonder if we don’t see Christ’s love as much in the people He tolerated as in the pain He endured.”
Jim describes this sentiment this way: It was so cold it was like knives coming through me...My arms and legs went numb...I was suffocating on that cross. In the mean time, you watch people have coffee and laugh. They were very indifferent about what I was going through. I wanted to burst out in my own humanity and tell this guy to shut up or take off.
But, then, Jim described a dream he had while working on the movie where he “felt God’s love so powerful.”
“The pain I felt was all the people in the world that do not love Him,” Caviezel explained of the scene.
Victims of Sin
Jesus considered this blood thirsty, death hungry crowd not as murderers, but as victims.
He is able to look beyond the atrocities that these men are committing against Him and was able to see them through the eyes of love as people.
The Son turns to the Father and says, these humans are victims of sin.
They will fall under your wrath and eternal judgment, if you do not forgive them.
And the mission you gave me to do by sending me to become human was to provide the propitiation necessary to appease your wrath.
So here I hang about to finish my mission and I’m praying and pleading that you will be faithful to your word.
The First Word of Christ On The Cross: Forgiveness
The First Word of Christ On The Cross: Forgiveness
Forgiveness: It is available because Jesus paid the price and intercedes for us on our behalf.
Forgiveness: Then we are to forgive because Christ forgave us.
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
Forgiveness: Letting go of the anger and giving up the right for revenge.
Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
Forgiveness: Turning the just outcome of any hurt or offense over to God to let Him deal with it.
and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;
Unforgiveness: We don’t think someone deserves to be forgiven because we forget that neither do we.
“For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. “But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.
What is keeping you from coming to the cross and receiving forgiveness? Guilt, shame, pride?
What is keeping you from forgiving others as you have been forgiven? Anger, hurt?
Let it go.
Give it to God.
And thank Him for His forgiveness.
Father, Forgive Them For They Do Not Know What They Are Doing
Father, Forgive Them For They Do Not Know What They Are Doing
Thank-you Jesus.
Closing Song: Love Ran Red, O Come To The Altar
