You Get What You Deserve

Open with prayer:

For world situations…

For our nation…

For our church/sick/unity…

For the lost…

For Alpha…

For forgiveness…

Connection/Tension

Christ is risen!

We are finishing a series of messages we started a few weeks ago called Things Jesus Never Said. Jesus’ teachings have been described as “otherworldly”. They are profound. But oftentimes he said gets obscured or confused or watered down. So in this series, we’ve been contrasting what Jesus didn’t say so that we can better understand the impact of what he did say. This morning we are going to look at what Jesus didn’t say about guilt.

One last time, for fun, let’s look at some things Jesus did not say:

Blessed are those who wear drip Easter fits, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

As often as you gather together, eat chocolate covered bunnies in remembrance of me.

Follow me, and no one will fight in the car on the way to Easter services.

Have you ever felt guilty? Probably most of us have felt guilty about something at some point in our life. Mark Twain famously said that “Human beings are the only animal that blushes - or needs to”. Most of the time our guilt is minor and passes quickly. You tell a little white lie when someone asks you if you have used the homemade yogurt maker they bought you for a wedding gift. Yes, we love it! But the truth is that you returned it the day after opening it.

Things people feel guilty about poll...

There’s all kinds of guilt. There’s mom guilt. Pressure to measure up. If you work, you feel guilty that you’re not home. If you’re home, you feel guilty your not working. And you’ve got that Instagram-perfect friend who you love and hate at the same time bc they never forget an event and show up with a homemade baked good - and if you remember to show up at all you don’t bring anything and forgot your kid in the car!

There’s spiritual guilt. I don’t pray enough. Don’t read my Bible enough. I don’t serve or give enough. You said a bad word. You’re curiosity got the best of you and you clicked on a link you shouldn’t have. You’re closet is full but you still want more shoes - I’ve discovered I have a minor shoe addiction that I have moderate guilt about.

I understand guilt. I have pastor’s guilt. When our kids were still home I felt guilty if I had to spend an evening away for church. Or if I chose to be home I’d feel guilty that I wasn’t at church. I feel guilty if I’m not at every single event the church is doing. Believe it or not, sometimes I get stressed out, and in moments of stress the best Kevin does NOT shine through and things come out of my mouth and them I’m shock and guilty wondering where that came from! And then I usually blame it on Julie and I feel better after that.

What do we do with the guilt that we sometimes feel? Today we are going to look at what Jesus did not say about guilt. We are going to see that Jesus never said You Get What You Deserve.

Text and Context

This morning we will be in Luke 23. This passage describes the final hours of Jesus life as he is tried before Pilate and Herod, handed over to be flogged, and crucified. We see Jesus in the chapter:

the one who should be wearing a golden crown is wearing a crown of thorns

the one who should be surrounded by servants is surrounded by criminals

the one who should be sitting on a throne is instead hanging on a cross

We see this, starting in verse 32:

Luke 23:32–33 “Two others also, [*] who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.”

* - Everyone say “two”. Remember this, bc I’m going to ask you a math question in a sec and I want you to get it right so you don’t feel guilty for not paying attention in church.

Here’s the math question: how many people were hanging on a cross? Three.

The Bible doesn’t offer many details about death by crucifixion. But we know from history that it was one of the most painful and brutal ways to die. It was reserved for the very worst of the worst criminal. We don’t know exactly what these other two men did, but it wasn’t something as simple as pick-pocketing. Usually the people crucified were seen an enemies of the state. It was brutal, bloody, cruel, and excruciating - which we get from the word crucifix.

While Jesus is hanging there between these two criminals, as the crowd gathered around to mock him, curse him, spit at him, he prayed. What he didn’t pray was “Father, send a legion of your biggest angels with swords and wipe them out.” He doesn’t pray, “Father…give them hemorrhoids.” That’s what I would have prayed. What he did pray was “Father, please forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.” He forgives the ppl doing the very worst to him.

Luke 23:39 “One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

One man is insulting Jesus. He’s arrogant. He’s dying but has no fear of God or sees no need for mercy or forgiveness. He just adds to the insults people are throwing at Jesus.

Luke 23:40–41 “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 are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”

The second man is admitting that they did something significant - maybe something evil - and that what is happening to them is just and fair. We are getting what we deserve.

We live the same way, believing we and others get what they deserve. Pervasive in our language. Let’s play a game called finish the statement. I’m going to say something, and I want you to finish it.

What goes around…comes around.

Your past will come back to… haunt you.

You made your bed, now… lie in it.

These are all ways of saying the same thing. That you get… what you deserve. Now they call it karma.

I have to admit that there is this little black place in my heart that wants to see people get what’s coming to them when they do something wrong. Like when I’m driving, trying to get home after a long day, and some idiot blows by me at 90 miles an hour - in a sports car - a convertible sports car - and then a few miles later I see them pulled over and blue lights flashing, there’s some dark part of me that’s like “yes!”. You got what you deserved, baby! There’s this really sick part of me that likes when people get what they deserve - except when it’s me!

Luke 23:41–42 “And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Let me tell you what Jesus did not say.

“Nah, sorry, I never really liked you.”

“I really would like to, but you just get on my nerves.”

“Nope. I saw you while I was preaching the sermon on the mount, and you weren't paying attention. You were on your phone playing video games and posting cat pictures. You had your chance, but you missed it sucker.”

He didn’t say anything like that. Let me tell you what he did say and who he said it to. He said it to a guilty criminal who couldn’t:

Do a single thing to make amends for his actions or earn a right standing with God.

Do any good deeds because his hands were nailed to a cross.

Turn over a new leaf bc his feet were bound.

He couldn’t get baptized. He couldn’t go to church. He couldn’t even put his hands together in prayer. He couldn’t do a single thing to make things right. And Jesus looks at this guilty, sinful - but repentant man - and this is what he DID say:

Luke 23:43 “He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

What he did say is - Your sins will be forgiven. Even though you don’t deserve it. Even though you can’t earn it. I will give you grace. And you’ll be with me in Paradise.

Wait, that’s not fair. He doesn’t deserve for that to happen. Where’s the justice?! Let me tell you about the scandal of God’s grace.

John Newton was raised in a Christian home. But by the time he was a young man he had abandoned his faith and was earning his living working on board ships that were hauling slaves. In fact, he was so good at this that he eventually became a captain of his own slave-hauling ship. Here was someone who made his living from the enslavement and sale of human beings. When he suffered a stroke and could no longer captain a ship, he continued to invest his money in the slave trade through others.

Shortly before his stroke, during one particularly bad storm when he thought that they were about to sink, he cried out to God for mercy for him and his ship, and the storm began to dissipate. This is the moment he would later point to as his conversion - even though he would continue to be in the slave trade for several more years. But slowly change came. He began to change on the inside. And this trade that used to make him money now became loathsome to him.

John Newton was a man racked with guilt for what he had done. There was no way he could go back and free the men and women and children he sold into slavery. But he repented and spent the rest of his life trying to abolish slavery in his country. John Newton was the second man on the cross. Even though he was so guilty for his crimes, he cried out to God in repentance. And as someone who spent the rest of his life living in God’s grace, he gave the church one of the most famous hymns in history - Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound...

The was the second criminal’s story. Amazing grace. Grace that is greater than our guilt. This was John Newton’s story. This is my story. I don’t deserve to be up here preaching to you. I was a church kid. I knew the stories. I shared some of my story a couple of weeks ago of how I became addicted to pornography and how it almost wrecked my marriage. But there was more. I began drinking when I was 13, spending the night as friend’s homes who had access to liquor. My weekends in high school and college where spent getting drunk. On the outside I looked like a good kid. I was respectful to adults. I did what I was supposed to do. But inside I was filled with all kinds of evil thoughts, desires, and secret sins. I was filled with guilt and shame. I felt dead on the inside.

And so I can relate - and maybe you can relate this morning - to what the apostle Paul wrote to a church in the city of Ephesus:

Ephesians 2:3–5 “All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—”

In Christ, God’s amazing grace has come. Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive. It’s amazing grace.

Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Every day, I am aware that I did not get what I deserve. I deserve punishment. I deserve wrath. There we times in my life where I was the first criminal, cursing God. But then I came upon the scandal of grace, and I told God I was sorry, and I didn’t get what I deserved. I got amazing grace.

Psalm 103:10-12 (NLT) “He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.”

That’s the amazing grace of God found in Jesus. We don’t get what we deserve. We get grace. We get life.

How many people were hanging on a cross? Three (all together).

There’s a topic in Christian theology called Numerology. It’s the study of the spiritual significance of certain numbers in the Bible. It gets WAY overused and abused today, with people trying to find codes and hidden meanings in the Bible. But still there are these patterns throughout the Bible that are important to understand.

One often signifies the unity or oneness of God.

Seven is the number of perfection.

One less than that, six, is the number of man.

Eight means new beginning.

Forty often relates to times of testing and trial.

Three is the number of wholeness, completion, or perfection. It runs throughout the Bible:

God is revealed as 3 persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Man is portrayed as having 3 parts - body, mind, and soul

In the OT:

Three Patriarchs of the faith - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob

The Tabernacle was built with 3 sections - outer court, inner court, holy of holies

The vision of throne in Isaiah angels cry out “Holy” 3 times - God is perfect/complete holiness

Daniel prayed three times a day.

Jonah was in the belly of the whale 3 days.

In NT:

Apostle Paul blind for 3 days after seeing the risen Jesus.

He prayed 3 times for a thorn in his flesh to be removed.

He heard 3 times my grace is sufficient for you.

Jesus was visited by wise men bringing 3 gifts - gold, frank, myrrh.

At age 12 separated from parents for 3 days.

His public ministry lasted 3 years.

He was tempted by the devil 3 times in the desert.

Predicted Peter would deny him 3 times. Then he restored him 3 times - complete forgiveness.

God spoke audibly to Jesus 3 times.

Jesus raised 3 people from the dead.

Prayed 3 times in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Tradition tells us he fell 3 times while carrying the cross.

The sign above his head on the cross proclaiming him king of the Jews was written in 3 languages.

He was placed on the cross at the third hour. At the 9th hour - 3pm - he said 3 words, “It is finished!”

The earth shook and darkness fell on the land for 3 hours.

And the world waited. Day 1 nothing. Day 2 nothing. But on the 3rd day, when the women went to the grave, the stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty, Christ was risen. The perfect, the complete, the total work for the forgiveness of sin was accomplished. God will no longer count our sins against us. In Christ was are forgiven, free, released from the guilt of our sin.

If you came in here today feeling guilty, unworthy, unloved, ashamed, you don’t have to leave that way. You don’t get what you deserve. You get to encounter the scandal of amazing grace found in Jesus Christ.

You don’t get what you deserve. You get the unmerited grace and love of God.

Gospel/Response

Your not here by accident. You may have been a Christian for a long time, but you’ve allowed some things into your life that you know displease God, that are not good for you, and you walk with guilt and shame and fear that someone might find out. Be reminded this morning of Jesus’ victory and the scandal of his grace toward you. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive…

I’ve met with many Christians who walk around feeling guilty but they aren’t sure why. It’s just a vague guilty feeling that robs your joy. It’s spiritual warfare. Let the scandal of grace free you today from the lies and attacks of the enemy. At the cross Jesus pronounced you “not guilty”.

And maybe some of you came this morning aware that there are things that are wrong in your life, you are far from God, and you feel dead on the inside. Jesus did not come to make bad people good; he came to bring dead people back to life. His work on the cross is finished. Everything that needs to happen for you to be forgiven, set free, and in relationship with God, has been done. All that’s waiting is for you to say, “yes”.

If you’ve never done this, I’d like to lead you in a prayer of commitment. You need to understand that it isn’t the words of a prayer that saves you but rather it is by placing your trust in Jesus’ finished work on your behalf. But this prayer can be a way of expressing what is in your heart, and if you are ready to commit your life to Jesus, I invite you to pray this with me:

(Prayer of commitment slide) Heavenly Father, I admit that I have sinned against you by what I’ve thought, by what I’ve said, and by what I’ve done. [Take a moment to confess anything in particular that is troubling your conscience.] I’m sorry and I turn away from this old way of living. Please forgive me. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for my sins. I receive your forgiveness and give you my life. Fill me, Holy Spirit, so that I can learn to love and follow you for the rest of my days. Amen.

If you prayed that today for the first time, let me be the first to welcome you to God’s family! This is only the beginning. I’d love to meet with you and talk about next steps in your new life. (Next steps slide).

I’ll tell you the truth: God’s grace is greater than your guilt.