Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? and we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.' Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus cried out with a loud voice, he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last. So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man. And the whole crowd who came together to that site, seeing what had been done, beat their breast and returned. But all his acquaintances and the women who followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things." You may be seated. Indeed you may. Thank you for your grace. allowing me to come down here and be near you in a special way where we can be less formal. It is good to be with you tonight and to consider and reflect upon these marvelous events that we've already sung of. The songs, the hymns, excellent choices, Wayne, and so pertinent and so powerful. A blessed study during Holy Week is that which looks at what we call the last words of our Redeemer as he hung on the cross. And often times, last words are important ones. So, let's go to the Lorian prayer right now. Father, we do thank you for this little study, this meditation tonight. We pray that you would take it and seal it to our hearts by your Holy Spirit and use the words of Jesus that he uttered while in the flesh before his glorified bodily resurrection. He still utters words every Sunday to his church. He's given his word in the Bible. But these words, Father, where he hung on that cross, have some very special significance for us. We pray that we might glean all the benefits of them tonight. In Jesus' name, Amen. As I mentioned, a lot of times people are remembered by the very last things that are remembered from their mouth. They're memorialized by those, and there are many examples in history of of people saying things at the end of their life that they wanted to be said, something that's really important. So you can imagine with the Lord Jesus Christ there, he had that same perspective. What's especially amazing to me about our Savior on the cross is that even there, in so much agony, pain, scorn, disdain, and mistreatment, He was more concerned about his father, his will, his church, and her salvation, and the world around him, more than himself. Yes, he had natural concern for himself. We'll actually see that. But the priority is on others. While hanging on the cross, the Lord Jesus didn't forget all the things he had practiced and preached to us in all of his doctrine. He remembered that we were to love our enemies, do good to those who spitefully use us. He remembered that we were to love others and to think about them, even in the most difficult time and most unlikely time from our perspective. It's interesting to see that the four Gospels record a number seven of the statements Jesus made on the cross. Actually, they're taken from three of the four Gospels, Luke, Matthew, and John. But there are seven, and I don't want to make too much of this, but seven is a number of completeness or perfection. So in a certain sense, even as Jesus was dying on the cross, we have these seven sayings left for us. I think you all know that on the back of your yellow sheet we do have this outline. You're free to use them as we consider a number of texts from Matthew, Luke, and John tonight. The first saying of Jesus on the cross indicates that Jesus cares for his persecutors. Luke 23, 34a. Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. reading recent years the Puritans, they often remark that some of the people that nailed Jesus to the cross are now in glory with Him. And if we take these words literally, which we should, it's remarkable to consider that the very people that did that were forgiven that particular sin, which could be considered the most egregious iniquity ever performed in the history of the world. I mean, Adam's sin was bad. It thrust all of humanity into sin and misery and despair and death and heartache and everything that we deal with. But can you imagine a worse sin than murdering the Son of God? Now, in terms of these Roman soldiers, they were carrying out their orders. They were doing what they were told. And one might say that they were ignorant of what they were doing. In fact, Jesus even says that. He says, for they do not know what they do. I mean, there's a very real sense in which they were simply carrying out the moral and spiritual death that resided not only in their own souls, but in those of the entire world that had conspired against the Savior. The religious world, the Roman world, the whole world, the sinful world, the demonic world, everybody conspiring against him. Now three days later all that world would be conquered by him when he would live again and put his feet on that earth and begin the marvelous new heavens and new earth. Some of the soldiers came to realize what was going on in fact in Matthew 2754 the centurion said surely This was the Son of God. But let me proper this to you, dears. What about the remarkable fact to realize that we have been forgiven? Do we understand one of our hymns tonight actually intimated it? And I also hinted at it in a prayer. But we, all the believers, all those who are forgiven, all the redeemed, all those who are regenerate, all those who are the true church, all those who are saved by grace. So I'm talking about every person who really is a saved person. And we're still sinners, and we still have problems, and we struggle and all that. But if we are really redeemed, the fact is that we were as responsible for Jesus' death as anyone. In fact, it could be argued that those who were going to hell, their sins didn't put Jesus on the cross. The atonement was made for those who would receive it. Efficiency. Romans 5.8. God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now, unlike the Roman soldiers about whom Jesus could say they do not know what they do, we on this side of the cross, in this state of the church, in our understanding of the Bible and doctrine and history, we don't have that excuse, do we? That ought to be all the more compulsion for us to live faith-filled lives. lives that are marked by faith in Jesus, not in ourselves or what we can do, but what he did for us. Alright, so the first word, Jesus cares for his persecutors. Next, Jesus cares for a repentant man, Luke 23, 43. And Jesus said to the repentant thief on the cross, assuredly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Elder Tan read that verse earlier, I think. He did not. No, he didn't. He read from Luke, didn't he? Well, this is Luke. That's right. So he did read that. That's right. Now, while I got confused, you might be saying, what's wrong with your pastor? Is he losing his mind? Well, yeah, that's true, too. But the other part of it is that earlier in Matthew's account, now, if you put Matthew and Luke together, Matthew also talks about this same thief, the repentant thief, but never talks about his repentance. All he tells us about was how this same thief started out despising Christ. Now, he changes on the cross. Something happens to him there. He's converted. He has literally changed from death to life, from darkness to light, from Satan to God. Something remarkable happens. And this request is beautiful. Luke 23, 42, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Can you imagine? three men on these three crosses, Christ in the middle, the one on one side being belligerently sinful, vile, and wicked, and unrepentant to the very end, and one on the other side, starting out with his partner over there on the other side, but then coming to faith and repentance, and looking to Jesus and saying, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. It's one of the most beautiful prayers in the Bible right there. That very day he would be with his Savior in paradise. We know that from what Jesus told him. Now the same promises for all of us faith-filled, repentant believers who receive that grace. The very day the Holy Spirit opened our eyes and we are regenerated and we believe the gospel, we ascend to it and we believe it, and that can happen at any point in our lives. It can happen while we're in the womb, it can happen later in life. As long as that is our state of being, we also go from dead rebellious hearts to being delivered into paradise. As per Colossians 1.13, God delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. And his gospel message is still in simple words, Mark 115b, repent and believe the good news. And that's what that man did. So the first word, Jesus is actually caring for these soldiers, forgive them. The second, he's caring for that one man who had been a thief and a criminal. Jesus cares for his earthly family, John 19, 26 and 27. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her to his home. Incidentally, if some of you are wondering about the order of these seven statements, it's not totally clear exactly how they line up, but the way we've done it seems to match most scholars' efforts to make it chronological. Toward the end, we'll have a little that could meld together. But there are seven distinct statements. Now, Elder Craig Ruffalo often speaks of this, that even on the cross Jesus was making, his will, if you will. He was taking care of business. He was making sure that his temporal family and his goods and things that he had would be cared for properly. Keep in mind that the Lord is the God of the covenant. Therefore, he cares about families, particularly church families. Jesus cares here for Mary's need. Dear woman, here is your son, verse 26. So Mary, who had children, we know that, besides just Jesus, she and Joseph had sons and daughters. Mark's Gospel mentions it. We're not sure what the state of their relationship was, but at any point here, Jesus gives a new son to Mary, and that would be John. And then Jesus cares for John's need. John needed a mother. And he says, here is your mother, verse 27. This reminds me, too, of the great life in the family of God, the church. We're all brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children, grandparents. Do we know that God cares for our families? In the church, Acts 2.39, the promise is for you and your children and for all whom the Lord God will call. Let us be sure that we always lead our families to the Lord. And we do that every Sabbath in worship, and we should do that through the week in consistency with that worship of God. Jesus cares for his persecutors, repentant men, earthly family. Jesus cares for his church. Matthew 27, 46, in about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now here the Lord Jesus is quoting the Psalm 22, 1. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the people there, perhaps not understanding Aramaic very well or something else, thought he was calling on Elijah. But Eli and Elijah obviously sound alike. But this is a call upon God. Now, what's amazing is that God the Father did forsake his son for us. He had to if we were going to be forgiven. This is an amazing fact. For the benefit of the church of God, the father turned his face from his son while he bore the sins of all the elect. So there on the cross there was this time and all the sufferings Jesus had physical sufferings, emotional, societal, just the hardness of the whole thing. None of it compared to the suffering that he had with being separated in this moment from his father. And he had to be because father cannot look upon sin, remember, So Jesus is bearing, on that moment on the cross, he's bearing the sins of all the elect church, of all time, from Adam to the last person to ever be saved, all of them. And at that moment, the Father looks not upon him. Now this would be the great suffering of Christ. A few years ago, the movie came out, which I never saw and don't intend to. It tried to portray this terrible, awful, horrible suffering that Jesus went through. The pain and agony and the horribleness and the abuse and whatnot. But it just misses the point entirely. There's no way to quantify, no way to put in a movie this kind of suffering. And this was the worst. Ephesians 5.25, Christ loved the church. and gave himself up for her. And that's who he died for. That's what the Bible teaches. Let us therefore be grateful, thankful, and humbled members of the body of Christ by grace through faith. Jesus cares for his persecutors, repentant man, his earthly family, his church, Jesus cares for God's will, John 19, 28. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ's personal need as a man for water coincides with his constant attention to fulfilling the Father's will for him. In fact, for this regard, some liberal scholars have tried to contend that Christ just set all this stuff up. He knew the Bible, and he knew what had to happen, which is ridiculous. But the germ of truth in that is that Jesus knew that there was a psalm here, Psalm 69, 21, that had to be fulfilled. It said, they put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst. So this prophecy would be fulfilled so that the will of God would truly happen in its total fullness. So Jesus didn't want to leave out anything. In fact, earlier in John 4.34, He said, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. And here, even on the cross, He's finishing the work of the Father. It was no accident that He asked for water. He says, I thirst. And it was no mystery to him that they wouldn't give him water, but they would fulfill the song. See, the whole scripture had to be fulfilled. It's our life's passion, like Jesus, to do God's will, to live in that perspective of finishing his work. I hope so. That's what we're here to do. We need to be persistent in that. He did all the way to the end. Christ did. He never gave up. When it got really tough, he continued and persisted to the very end. So Jesus cares for his persecutors, for a repentant man, his earthly family, his church, God's will. Jesus cares for his mission. John 19.30. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. Now, some might say, well, obviously that should be the seventh word. But there's no problem in saying that it's the sixth, and then we'll look at the seventh as well. His mission, it is finished. Now, those were precious words. It is finished. It's won. The victory is his, consequently ours. Now, that's because he knew. that the very same will of God that he was doing would be totally concluded in the resurrection in three days. Now, if Jesus hadn't risen from the dead, it wouldn't have been finished. But he's speaking here prophetically. It is finished. It is finished in my death, which will assure and bring about my resurrection. And that is where we are today in the resurrection. Now, in the old Greek Roman world, the Greek term Tetelestai, which means it is finished, would be put up on jail cells when a term of service and punishment was fulfilled. So let's say you had a sentence from a judge and you were sentenced to four months, six months, eight years, whatever. And then when you fulfilled the sentence, this word, the same word Jesus used, it is finished, would be put up. We ought to be liberated by the Savior's cry, it is finished. See, what does that mean for us? That means it is finished. Our efforts to please God in our own best try, in the flesh, to bribe Him, to gain His favor, to work out a deal with God, to sort of manage it with him or maybe others or something, put ourselves in the... No, all that is finished. It is finished. He did it. And we cannot earn or merit our salvation. It has been finished. It is attained by grace through faith alone. Okay, one more, dears. Jesus cares for his life, Luke 23, 44-46, and that was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last. He cares for his life here. Into your hands I commit my spirit. Notice the veil being torn in two. We now have access to God. We don't need that old temple. We don't need the priest order. We don't need the Holy of Holies. We don't need all the old ceremonial laws. He cares for his life because he knew that through his life we would live. So that's how Jesus cared for us, by caring even for his own life. Incidentally, we have a responsibility to care for our lives so that we can serve God in fullness as long as we can for his glory. We would live because the infinite barrier between God and man was gone forever. This also is a direct quote from the Old Testament. Psalm 31 5 read, into your hands I commit my spirit. Have we been blessed by the Savior who gave His life for us? Have we also committed our spirits to the Lord? Everything Jesus did here in these seven words or statements, we can and should do as well in a pattern of faith in terms of not as He could uniquely do it as the Savior, but nonetheless as we are called upon in His training to follow Him. And so as he would say into your hands, I commit my spirit, that's another good prayer for us at any time, especially in difficult straits. What do these last seven statements of Christ say to us tonight? With which of them are we perhaps most powerfully impacted? Remember that Jesus covers a lot of ground in these statements. He cares for our souls. He's remitted our sins, He cares for His church, He cares for our families, and He cares for the world. God showed this in the most supreme way by offering His Son as the propitiation for our sins. Our response is one of faith, humility, thanks, repentance, joy, praise, and service to Him. With that in mind then, let's pray together, shall we? Father, thank you for the seven last statements of Christ on the cross. They are very instructive to us and we are marveling at them. We thank you for the way that they led to his burial and then his resurrection. And we thank you that he's alive. This is what makes us so, so happy and fills us with all the hope that we need through all the trials of this world, following in his example, committing our soul spirits to him as well. We do that tonight with Thanksgiving in Jesus name. Amen.