"Father Forgive Them"

Now, let’s press the pause button and let’s review what led Jesus to this point. If you remember, the Bible says this clearly, that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, Jesus, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but would inherit eternal life. God gave us His Son, Jesus, who was born of a virgin, Mary, without the sin nature. And what did Jesus do? Well, Jesus lived the perfect sin-less life, and He completely fulfilled the will of God for His life. When you study His life stories, completely amazing. The guy never did anything wrong. He loved everyone. He loved with an unconditional kind of love. He loved the ones that society rejected, and He came with this revolutionary, against-the-grain message. He talked to the religious folks and He said, “You guys don’t get it. You’re the hypocrites. You’re the one with the plank in your own eye. You’re the one that preached religion, but don’t know God personally.” He said, “I didn’t come just to preach the law, but instead, to fulfill the law,” and Jesus did miracle after miracle. His teaching changed lives. He would touch people with blind eyes, and their eyes would be opened. They would see. He touched deaf ears, and they would hear. He had the ability to speak to those who had died, and they would come back to life. He loved anyone and everyone that He came in contact with and preached the message of God’s kind of life in an awesome way. Even though He did everything just right, living to fulfill the will of God, He was betrayed by one of His own. He was taken before a mock trial, and even though He had done nothing wrong, and even Pilate acknowledged the fact that this man, “I find no fault in Him,” He was falsely accused, tried, condemned, even though He was an innocent man, and the creation mocked the Creator, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, and tortured Him. And that’s what they did. They took His clothes, stripped them off, and beat Him over and over and over again with a whip with metal balls and sharp rocks and glass that would rip His back completely open. He, the internal organs would often be exposed when a person was beaten this way. They took a crown of thorns in a mocking way and placed it upon His brow and drove it down over His head, so his beaten and bruised face became so bloody. In the Old Testament, it was prophesied of Him that you couldn’t even recognize Him as a man, so maybe He looked more like an animal, a wounded animal, than a man. They took a scepter, kind of like a king stick, and gave it to Him as a mockery and they beat Him in the head with it. They took Jesus, God’s Son. They blindfolded Him, and then the Roman soldiers, who were known for wearing these great big rings, pounded Him in the face and said, “Prophesy. Tell us who hit You.” They spit on Him. They mocked Him. They said, “Hail, King of the Jews”. Then they forced this guy, who was Jesus, fighting to remain conscious, to carry the cross to the point of execution, and it was there that they drove the spikes through His flesh in His wrists and in His feet, lifted him off of earth, and Jesus, suspended between Heaven and earth, was in complete control the whole time. Never retaliated, never spoke a word of evil against those who were torturing Him, didn’t even speak up to this point, according to the Gospels. We have no record of it, and hanging there on the cross, suffering for our sins, Jesus’ lips started to move.

Now, had I been there, I’d be leaning in. I’d want to know what is it that this man is about to say? Is He going to curse those who were abusing Him? Is He going to pray to God for relief from His physical pain? Jesus did nothing like that. Jesus uttered the first of His famous last words, when He said this. Verse 34, He prayed to His Heavenly Father.

Luke 23:34 NKJV

34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And they divided His garments and cast lots.

I think often we might pray about those who have hurt us like David prayed about his enemies...

Psalm 55:9–15 NKJV

9 Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues, For I have seen violence and strife in the city. 10 Day and night they go around it on its walls; Iniquity and trouble are also in the midst of it. 11 Destruction is in its midst; Oppression and deceit do not depart from its streets. 12 For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; Then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; Then I could hide from him. 13 But it was you, a man my equal, My companion and my acquaintance. 14 We took sweet counsel together, And walked to the house of God in the throng. 15 Let death seize them; Let them go down alive into hell, For wickedness is in their dwellings and among them.

But that’s not what Jesus did.

He Fulfilled a 700 Hundred Year Old Prophecy

Isaiah 53:12 NKJV

12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

But why? Why did He pray THAT prayer?

1) It is mankind’s greatest need.

a) People need to receive forgiveness.

Romans 3:23 NKJV

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 6:23 NKJV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John 12:32 ESV

32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

b) People need to grant forgiveness.

Ephesians 2:16 AMP

16 And [He designed] to reconcile to God both [Jew and Gentile, united] in a single body by means of His cross, thereby killing the mutual enmity and bringing the feud to an end.

One guy got bitten by a rabid dog and he could have been treated by his doctor and been completely healed, but he didn’t. And he waited too long, and he went in before his doctor and his doctor said, “Man, I’m sorry. If you’d been here earlier, you’d been fine, but you’re not going to be fine. It’s way too late. You’re going to die.” The guy freaked out, and after a while, he kind of worked through the emotion and kind of sobered up, and he started to make a list of people, writing names down on a piece of paper and the doctor said, “What are you doing?” Are these people to contact, or people to give your possessions to? He said, “No, no, no. These are people I hate. I’ve got rabies. This a list of the people I am going to bite.” And that’s the way a lot of people live today. Wounded, angry, bitter, full of unforgiveness as our heart grows harder and harder.

Think about the context in which Jesus was raised. Jesus was a Jew. He was born in a system that was known as being under the law. Now, He came and fulfilled the law, but according to the law in that which Jesus was raised, they lived by a pretty fair system. If someone plucks out your eye, an eye for an eye. You pluck theirs out. If someone knocks out your tooth, there were no dentists, so you would not have a tooth. Tell them to smile, and you’re popping their tooth out. It was pretty simple. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He also lived very near a Roman grecco world, where the Romans worshipped a false god known as revenge, and the Romans were famous for it. If someone wronged the Romans, they were going to take it out on you ten times what you did to them. Now, notice this. Jesus, born in an environment known as and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, knew a society of revenge. Yet, the whole time, He was in control and never once did He speak a word of retaliation. Never once did He act in a way to get them back. Instead, what did He do? The same thing that God wants us to do … to pray. To pray, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t even know what they’re doing.”

2) It’s what Jesus modeled.

1 Peter 2:21 NKJV

21 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:

1 Peter 2:22 NKJV

22 “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;

1 Peter 2:23 NKJV

23 who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously;

1 Peter 2:24–25 NKJV

24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Hebrews 2:18 ESV

18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Hebrews 4:15 NKJV

15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

3) It’s what Jesus commands.

Matthew 5:38–42 NKJV

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. 41 And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.

Matthew 5:43–44 NKJV

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,

Matthew 5:45 NKJV

45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

4) It’s What Jesus Offers

Remember that 700-year-old prophecy:

Isaiah 53:12 NKJV

Isaiah 53:1–8 NKJV

1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.

Romans 5:8 NKJV

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 10:9–10 NKJV

9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Romans 10:13 NKJV

13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

John 6:37 NKJV

37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.

John 6:37 AMP

37 All whom My Father gives (entrusts) to Me will come to Me; and the one who comes to Me I will most certainly not cast out [I will never, no never, reject one of them who comes to Me].

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