Sermon Tone Analysis

Three Crosses

Introduction I think one of the reasons Luke records Jesus being crucified between two thieves might have something to do with illustrating two different ways of responding to Jesus.

Read Passage

-43New King James Version (NKJV)

32 There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death.

33 And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.

34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”[b]

And they divided His garments and cast lots.

35 And the people stood looking on.

But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”

36 The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.”

38 And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew:[c]

THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

39 Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “Are you not the Christ,[d] save Yourself and us.”

40 But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?

41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.”

42 Then he said to Jesus, “Jesus,[e]remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”

43 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Prayer

Comments When we read any of the accounts of the crucifixion, we have a strong tendency to focus on Christ and the purpose of His death there.

We also need to take the time to think about all the implications of that event.

Luke goes into great detail about the thieves crucified as well.

And so I believe there is something he is trying to show us.

Cautions

Dangerous to deduct doctrine entirely from inference based on a story.

Be careful with our conclusion derived from this passage

Technically under the Old Testament yet

Jesus had authority while on earth to forgive sins

This passage is probably not to teach the way to salvation but there are several essential attitudes expressed in the second thief that make a huge difference

Goals

Exalt Jesus by pointing to his work on the cross

See attitudes that are essential to saving faith

Sermon

Two Thieves

Similarities

Similarities between the thieves

Both are on crosses suffering right beside Jesus.

Both are guilty of crime ("We are receiving the due reward of our deeds," v. 41).

Matthew says they were both robbers

Both were hurling insults at him ()

Both see Jesus, the sign over his head ("King of the Jews," v. 38);

Both presumably hear the words from his mouth ("Father forgive them," v. 34).

Both of these thieves want desperately to be saved from death.

And both even call out to be saved

Similarities to us Most of us have these things in common with these two thieves:

We have, are, or will suffer sometime in our life.

We have sinned and therefore none of us will be able to say: "I do not deserve this."

Most of us have “seen” Jesus on the cross and have “heard” his claim to kingship

Most of us have “heard” his gracious words of forgiveness.

And all of us want to be saved from death one way or the other.

Yet at times we may have “hurtled insults” at Jesus

It doesn’t look good but in this scene we are the thieves.

Differences

The First Thief

But then the ways divide between these two thieves.

The first thief says, "Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us!"

This is a picture of a spiritually destitute, worldly man.

He doesn’t care that he is suffering "the due reward of his deeds."

To him right and wrong are of no interest: his one objective is to save his earthly skin.

When this he cries out to Jesus to save him, there was no brokenness or humility in his heart.

He had no repentance over his sin.

He just saw Jesus as someone he could manipulate to get him off the cross.

You would think that if you were on a cross bleeding and dying with just a few more minutes to live, you would be open to the gospel.

But he wasn’t.

(ESV) 18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

This is the Greek word moronos, where we get the word moronic.

These people are going to hear the message that God created us, we sinned, so He came in the flesh and lived a perfect life then died on the cross paying the penalty, absorbing the wrath of God for us so that if we trust in Him we can have eternal life.

They’re going to hear this and say it’s moronic, foolishness, and stupid.

And so he hurled abuse and rejection at Jesus.

He blasphemed Him all the way to his dying breath.

He rejected the only hope he had in the world that was right next to him.

The Second Thief (this is who Luke wants us to be like)

Change of Heart 39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself!

If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself.

He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.

43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him.

For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

This man was going right along with the crowd when something changed.

He saw Jesus for who he was and he recognized what he was doing was wrong.

He must have fell silent for a moment then suddenly he begins to rebuke his partner in crime.

This kind of a drastic change reminds me of where we read 1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the bodya and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.b

4Butc God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ

Feared God "But he rebuked him saying, 'Do you not fear God?"' God was real to him.

God was his creator, and he knew that a pot can't take up arms against the potter.

He started realizing that It is fitting that a creature bow in submission before his creator and subject all his life to his wisdom.

Salamander Story A few evenings ago I was at Lamar’s house and we were outside talking when a salamander came out of his home (Lamar’s or salamander’s???).

This fellow had a very low ground clearance and it was taking him quite a while to get around.

He had such a low ground clearance that we weren’t even sure he could go through the lawn.

This got me thinking.

That salamander has more right to back up and kick against the foothills of Mt.

Everest demanding that is flatten out into a smooth plain than we have to rebel against God.

Confessed He Had Done Wrong: "We are receiving the due reward of our deeds" (v.

41).

He had no desire to save face any more; he had no more will to assert himself.

He was here and laid open before the God he feared and there was no way to hide his guilt.

Recently I read a news article where a fellow running for U.S. Congress or something like that took a screenshot of some complement or something he received online, but… he forgot to close the other tabs he had open and they weren’t exactly sites he wanted everyone to know he was on.

Rather than admit it he came up with a story of how he was testing to see if “there was some evil operator waiting for the one in a gazillion chance that a candidate for federal office would go to that particular website and thereby be infected with a virus that would cause his or her FEC data file to crash the FECfile application each time that it was loaded on the day of the filing deadline, as well as impact other critical campaign systems.”

We go to such great lengths to justify ourselves…

The penitent thief gave it up.