Untitled Sermon (14)

Scripture Introduction:

It’s the Sunday in which we celebrate the Resurrection. So the text that I’ve chosen might seem a little strange…but I believe by the end you’ll see a beautiful picture. We’re going to start out by looking at Luke 23:32-43. There is something in here that three different sets of people tell Jesus to do…see if you can pick it up.

Luke 23:32–43 ESV

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Sermon Introduction:

Did you catch it? Verse 35…the rulers scoffed and said “if he is the Christ of God, if he is the Chosen One…let him save himself.”

verse 37 the soliders mock him and offer sour wine and say to him… “if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

verse 39 one of the criminals hanging on cross right beside Jesus. “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.”

The assumption behind each of these is that the Christ, the King of the Jews, should be one to preserve self. If you’re really who you say you are then this bad thing isn’t going to be happening to you. If you really are the Christ then you aren’t going to die and suffer and be hanged on a tree.

God’s Chosen One, the Christ doesn’t suffer.

You are suffering.

Therefore, you must not be God’s chosen.

You’ve maybe even heard some false teaching similar to that. If bad things are happening to you then it must be some kind of sin issue, there must be some problem between you and the Lord. Those whom God loves own’t suffer. I think the Cross tells us something quite different....

But the Cross isn’t the end of the story. I’m going to show you why this is such good news. Here is the point that I want to make.

Because Jesus did not save himself he is fit to save you. He is fit to be our representative. Therefore, His resurrection is your resurrection if you are “in Christ”.

Here is why that is Good News. Here is why we get so excited about celebrating Easter—celebrating the resurrection. Because we believe all of our sin has been nailed to the Cross and furthermore we believe that if we are connected to Jesus what happens to him happens to us.

I’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now…taking a text and then tracing it through the whole of Scripture. We’ll be back in the gospel of Luke, chapter 14 next week, but I want us to do that again this week—trace this theme throughout the Bible and then show how it’s such good news for us on this Easter Sunday.

The path of Adam

Genesis 1-2. God called Adam to work and keep the garden. What did they choose, though? Did they choose flourishing over others? They saw that fruit was good--”it’s what they wanted” they took it and ate. And then when they get busted what path do they choose? What path does Adam choose? Hiding in a bush and then blaming God and the woman He had given.

Now you might be wondering why does this matter for me? Some dude thousands of years did the opposite of what God told him to do—and so now everything in the world is all messed up? Why is that?

Adam was our representative. What does that mean?

We’re on team Adam. It’s kind of like with board games. I’m thinking particularly of a game that our family likes to play Cranium. There are different categories like “humming a song”, “drawing a picture with your eyes closed”, spelling something backwards…stuff like that. And it’s really fun when you have multiple people playing on your team. You pick someone to be your representative....”this dude, this lady, can hum this song the best...” And if they totally blow it what happens…the team doesn’t get a point. Whatever your representative does it impacts the whole squad.

But there’s another thing that happens here with Adam—his choices impact us organically…and the choice of his kids and their kids and their kids, etc. And so to fast forward to Luke 23 what do you see with the sons of Adam.

You see the rulers…who ought to be doing what? Leading people into love of God and neighbor…but what do we see? They are scoffing (v35), ridiculing him.

Then the soldiers…other sons of Adam…join into this as well. mocking him…save yourself King of the Jews…and then the thief on the Cross another son of Adam…save yourself, save us…aren’t you supposed to be the Savior?

This principle is what has caused every ounce of pain in your life and it’s this principle—that we are sons and daughters of Adam—that has caused every single pain that we’ve caused of others. Oh, don’t hear me wrong…we are doing exactly what we want. We can’t blame Adam…our sin is our sin, just as the rulers, the soldiers, and the mocking thief on the cross had ....

As a general rule we choose self over others. And we think that ruling is more about self-preservation than self-giving. ANDY CROUCH?

This is the path of death. In Adam…all die. If he is your representative…then what you inherit is death. Now let me tell you a different story.

There is a scene in the first part of the gospels…Jesus is cast out into the wilderness and he is immediately tempted. It’s like a reproduction of Adam and Eve in the garden being tempted with the forbidden fruit. There is one temptation in particular that I want us to focus on:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”

So what Satan is offering here....and never mind that he is only telling a half truth, he’s offering promises he can’t keep…but nevermind that....what he’s offering here is for Jesus to fulfill his calling without suffering. He’s giving him the END that he’s supposed—glory, authority. BUT He’s giving it to Him by the wrong means.

I love how Russell Moore teases this out. He notes that:

What was at stake in the [this] temptation was the gospel. Think about the implications of this offer. If Jesus had accepted it, Satan would have surrendered his reign of terror. Jesus could have directed the kingdoms of the world however he wanted. No more babies would be miscarried. No more women would die in childbirth. Ended immediately would be all human slavery, all genocide, all disease, all poverty, all torture, and all ecological catastrophes. The rows and rows of crosses across the highway of the Roman Empire would suddenly be gone. There would never be a Nero or a Napoleon or a Hitler or a Stalin, or at least you would never hear the infamy of those names. There would be no world of divorce courts and abortion clinics and electric chairs and pornographic images. Whatever is troubling you right now would be gone, centuries before you were ever conceived. This sounds like paradise.

Well then why didn’t he take the offer? If Jesus came to be a king, if he came to be glorified, if he came to rescue....then why not take this offer. He would have had it all at his disposal without suffering?

He didn’t take the offer because he didn’t just come to be a king. He came to be the king whom the Father sets upon the throne. It’s not just to rule…it’s to rule as an image bearer of God. And to rightly reflect God ruling is about self-giving and not self-preservation.

Satan’s temptation here is the same words that Jesus would hear in Luke 23. Save yourself. If you are really....the Son of God…Satan even uses that language in the temptation…Save yourself.

But Jesus doesn’t bite. And at the end of that narrative it says that Satan left him for a more opportune time…well, he’s got one a couple years later. Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus in the Garden

It’s his moment of greatest human need. He’s looking upon the cup of God’s wrath, the suffering he will have to endure, and he’s seeing that the ones he is dying for—they seem to have abandoned him in his greatest moment. They are sleeping while he is suffering, sweating blood he is in such anguish. I appreciate what Jonathan Edwards says of this moment:

Christ was going to be cast into a dreadful furnace of wrath, and it was not proper that he should plunge himself into it blindfold, as not knowing how dreadful the furnace was. Therefore that he might not do so, God first brought him and set him at the mouth of the furnace, that he might look in, and stand and view its fierce and raging flames, and might see where he was going, and might voluntarily enter into it and bear it for sinners, as knowing what it was. This view Christ had in his agony. Then God brought the cup that he was to drink, and set it down before him, that he might have a full view of it, and see what it was before he took it and drank it.

Jesus’ humanity is fully in seen here in the Garden. We see Jesus in his, dare I say, weakest moment. He remains sinless, yet he is now experiencing the fullness of what it truly means to be human. It is here that he will experience our grief. It is here that he will experience stronger temptation than any of us, so that it is fitting to say that He was tempted in every way. And it is the view into the cup that causes Christ to pray, “if it is possible take this cup from me.”

“Save yourself....” Don’t drink the cup. Let them drink it.

Can you hear Jesus’ prayer? Papa, you can do anything. Can you take this cup from me? Is it possible that we can redeem sinners and yet me not suffer estrangement from you? Is it possible to redeem them in any way other than me being the sin-bearer?

He appeals. Silence. He appeals a second time. Silence. He appeals a third time. Silence. Why silence? But there is no other way. Now certainly, it would have been possible for God to have not poured out the cup of His wrath on Jesus. He would not have contradicted his nature had he chosen not to send his Son and left sinners to their just reward. But because God had purposed before the foundation of the world to save sinners, this then was not possible. As John Stott has said, “God’s purpose of love was to save sinners, and to save them righteously; but this would be impossible without the sin-bearing death of the Savior.”

And so what does Jesus do…he gets up with resolve and marches toward Jerusalem. To his death. Why? Because Jesus passes every single test. You see it’s true that on occasion humanity might choose a noble path. We may actually sacrifice ourselves for the good of someone else. We will do it for our family. For our kids. For our friends. For our country. Maybe even the most noble might do it for any fellow image bearer. But Jesus....Jesus ALWAYS chose that path. He never took the selfish self-preservation path. NEVER. Ruling is about self-giving not self-preservation. Working and keeping the garden isn’t about self. It’s about flourishing for others. And Jesus ALWAYS did that.

So you see that by the time Jesus is in Luke 23, those words “If you really are King of the Jews....” The mocking…save yourself, save us…that mocking doesn’t really land. Jesus has already won the battle…it’s who he is. It is BECAUSE He is who he says he is that he doesn’t climb down from the cross, he doesn’t call upon a legion of angels to come to his rescue, he doesn’t swallow up all those soldiers, or use force to deal with the religious leaders. He empties himself of every bit of power, authority, etc. at his disposal and he dies a criminals death.

And even there he hears those same words. As if, through this one criminal, he hears that serpents voice one more time. “Save yourself and save us...”

But there is another thief on the cross that day. There is another voice. Luke 23:39-43

Luke 23:39–43 ESV

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Now how can Jesus say that? Why can Jesus say that? Think about that thief on the cross for just a moment…and I’m indebted to Alistair Begg for this illustration…think about that thief...

Never been in a Bible study, never baptized, never knew anything about church, was condemned as criminal, seems to have lived a terrible life, this guy has absolutely nothing going for him.

And so picture him standing before the gates of heaven...”Why are you here. Why should I let you in?”

I don’t know.

What do you mean you don’t know.

“I don’t know”…the angel grabs his supervisor.

Are you clear on the doctrine of justification, doctrine of Scripture,....on what basis are you here.

“The man on the middle cross said I can come.....”

Friends, that’s the only answer and the only hope any of us have. The man on the middle cross said that I can come. Christ is our representative…he says, “you’ll be with me in paradise because there was something in that man where he was uniting himself—connecting himself to Jesus…I’m not even sure he knew what he was doing…but he was doing it…he was trusting in Jesus’ identity.”

So what does that mean then. If you are in Christ, then all that he has and all that he has done is yours. His death is our death. That means that his resurrection is OUR resurrection. That’s why we celebrate Easter.

The resurrection isn’t just graveyard talk but is the stuff of living rooms and dinner tables. It is absolutely true that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ death has lost its sting. And so it is the stuff of graveyards. We have hope over caskets because of the resurrection. But this is the stuff for your dinner tables too. This is everyday life stuff…everything Jesus has done is given to our account.

That’s the way Paul argues in Romans 6. You’ve died and your alive in Christ. Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal bodies…you have a new life. That’s why we celebrate Easter…because of the accomplishment of Christ. And because by grace we are united to that accomplishment. Everything he did belongs to us…if we are in Christ.

And so...

Why is that true? Because we are united in Christ…and so His resurrection is OUR resurrection…is record is OUR record…if you’re in Christ…or are you in Adam?

—tells us something about leadership and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Ruling is about self-giving no self-preservation

—come to Christ