Sermon Notes

March 2, 2025

Forgiving Like Jesus

Luke 23:32-34

No other event in history was more anticipated or had a greater impact than the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Every story in history, our struggles, and future events point to that one day. We are told in 1 Peter 1:18-20 that the crucifixion was pointed to before the world was ever created. Peter says, “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose Him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days He has been revealed for your sake.” It’s the event the Mosaic Law found in the Old Testament pointed us to, with its impossible standards and sacrificial system (Hebrews 10). It’s what our present suffering and brokenness points us to. Only because of the cross of Jesus can we be promised a future free from all the brokenness we are experiencing now (Revelation 20:11-15, Revelation 21:1-7). It’s those who have trusted Jesus as their Lord and Savior who will sing about when this life is over and for all eternity as recorded in Revelation 5:12. When we see the choirs in Heaven sing, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” The crucifixion was such a monumental event. It’s something that we proclaim and celebrate every week here at FBC Bloomfield as we sing about and praise God for the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us on the cross. There is one day out of the year that we set aside for a special service to focus 100% on the cross of Jesus and that occurs every Good Friday. It’s the Friday that Jesus was crucified and each year we stop and reflect on that day that (as the Hymn writer Isaac Watts wrote) the greatest love and sorrow met. One of the reflections that usually occurs on Good Friday is a reflection on the last 7 things Jesus said before He died. Jesus never speaks in vain or wastes words. Therefore these 7 sayings have a very deep meaning. To speak on everything that Jesus said and only being able to a lot 5 minutes or so on each causes us to miss the depth of those words. So this morning I want to start a new sermon series that will lead us up to Resurrection Sunday that is entitled, “The Final Proclamations”. We will be looking at the 7 sayings of Jesus on the cross to understand that Jesus was not merely speaking human words, but was God Himself declaring how the willing sacrifice of His life was going to change everything forever. The Latin word for “Cross” is Crux. It’s where we get the word critical from and it carries with it the idea of crisis. The cross of Jesus was just that, it was a critical moment in history, as well as a moment of crisis, where the Perfect One, the Great I Am became sin. It’s been said that you can tell a lot about a person when they are faced with a crisis in their life. It’s in those moments that their real character can be seen, you can tell their priorities, and you can truly see what is most important to them. This was true in the life of Jesus as well. It was on the cross and through His last words that we see the character of Jesus, the priorities of Jesus, and His mission.

Those who follow - Luke 23:32-33

Two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. When they came to a place called The Skull, they nailed him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on his right and one on his left.

In Ephesians 5:1, Christians are called to live a life based on the example that Jesus lived out while He was here on earth. Even the title “Christian” itself denotes this command. The name “Christian” literally means “little Christ”, so we must be little Christ in everything that we do. Do you realize how ridiculously hard that is to do? I’m not sure we do. Many times when we think we are living like Jesus, we are basing our behavior and obedience on an idea we have of Jesus and not the real Jesus that is revealed in Scripture. As we said a few weeks ago in our sermon on the Helmet of Salvation, Jesus didn’t come to make us a better version of ourselves. He came to give us a brand new life. A life that is full of new ways of living, that go against the flow of this world's ways. This is something we see in the lives of the disciples as well. They thought following Jesus meant one thing and Jesus had to show them that in fact to follow Him is much different than their selfish ideas. We see this played out in the Gospel of Matthew through a few different recorded conversations Jesus had with His disciples. In Matthew 16 after Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus starts to tell them about what was going to happen to Him soon. He would be killed by religious leaders in Jerusalem, but He would be raised from the dead after three days. Peter jumps in because he had another idea of what the Messiah should be and Jesus rebuked him and even called Him Satan. Saying he was dangerous to the mission of God because he only was seeing things from his point of view and not that of God. He goes on and tells Peter and the rest of the disciples, that if any of you want to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ideas of what you think I should do, take up your cross, and then follow me. A brief time later, we are told of another conversation that Jesus had with His disciples in Matthew 20:23. Many times throughout the four Gospels we are told of arguments that Jesus’ disciples had with each other over who was the greatest and who would be the most honored once they got to heaven. In Matthew 20, we are told of the Mom of two of the disciples who came with her sons to ask Jesus point blank if they could both hold a place of honor in heaven, one on his right side and one on his left. Jesus responded by saying, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup that I’m about to drink?” Of course, the two sons (James and John) answered, “Yes!!!” However, in Luke 23, the time had come to live that out. It was the time when the rubber was meeting the road, where theology became life, now was the time for them to show that they were true followers of Jesus. It was time for Jesus to die by crucifixion.

Jesus had been betrayed by Judas into the hands of the religious leaders and was made to stand before a handful of leaders both Jewish and Gentile. None of those who had the power to convict could find anything that Jesus had done wrong. Those who hated Jesus and wanted to see Him die because of His teachings would not take “no” for an answer. They seemingly moved the mob that was present to demand that Jesus be crucified. The Roman Leader in charge of Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate, did not want to have a riot on his hands, so he gave into the crowd's demands and turned Jesus over to the soldiers to be crucified. This is what Jesus had spoken of while talking to his disciples for a long time. It was at this moment that we didn’t see any hint of his disciples being nearby. During the events that Jesus endured since His betrayal, He had been beaten by Roman Soldiers within an inch of His life (Pilate thought this could calm the crowds). He was extremely weakened from the punishment He received as well as the blood loss that had occurred. Due to this trauma, Jesus couldn’t carry the cross or couldn’t carry it fast enough for the soldiers' liking, so the soldiers looked for someone to help carry the cross of Jesus. We don’t see a disciple jump in to carry the cross of Jesus even though they were very eager to when it was just talk. Instead, the soldiers had to grab a man out of the crowd named Simon from Cyrene to carry the cross of Jesus to Golgotha, the place where Jesus would die. When times got tough and life became real, the disciples did not want to follow Jesus, they would rather sit on the sidelines or far off and just watch the events as they unfolded. However that is what fans do and Jesus isn’t looking for fans, He is looking for followers. These men who told Jesus, “Yes, we will suffer so that we can have a place of honor at your right and left” are now cowards who hid amongst the crowd who was gathered that day. The place at his right and left hand were not filled with His followers as they wished, but rather it was filled by two criminals just as it was prophesied in Isaiah 53:12 and referenced by Jesus in Luke 22:37.

When it comes to ourselves following Jesus, we are going to have to make a decision that the disciples made that day. Are we going to truly take up our cross and follow Jesus wherever He leads by following His example? Or are we just going to stand by and watch and cheer on those who do? Will you be like the disciples and just give lip service when it comes to following Jesus or will you be like Simon from Cyrene and take up the cross of Jesus and follow Him even if it leads to Golgotha? Before you answer these questions, let’s take a look at the first saying of Jesus as He was being crucified on Good Friday. It’s in this simple statement we will see what it means to carry our cross and follow Jesus every day.

The Jesus they follow - Luke 23:34

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.

When it comes to following Jesus, we are not just called to follow Jesus in our actions, we are also called to follow Jesus with our thoughts — to have the Mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5). We can pretend to follow Jesus in our actions by adopting some legalistic sense of duty and living out His rules for a time, but if we are truly a follower of Jesus, we must have His mind as well. That means we have His plans, His purpose, and His perspective that Jesus reveals throughout Scripture. Especially in the context of our sermon as we look at what He said while He hung dying on the cross. It is here in the text that we see the beginning of the last hours of the life of Jesus. We can see a little bit of the pain that He suffered. There are many articles in which physicians report on the unimaginable pain Jesus would have been physically subjected to on the cross. The Gospel writers did not focus much on the pain and physical suffering Jesus endured, but rather they focused on the emotional and spiritual suffering of Jesus. They usually refer to this type of suffering as “shame”, and it’s something the writer of Hebrews mentions specifically in Hebrews 12:2. For the cultures who would have been present that day (and still some in the East to this very day) the shame of the cross was a greater punishment than the pain of the cross. Even though Jesus suffered both, He still looked upon those who stood by covered in The blood that had beaten Him and nailed Him to the cross. He still looked upon those who were scorning and mocking Him, and He still looked upon those who just a week ago were shouting Hosanna, but were now shouting “Crucify Him”. His first response through all that pain was “Father, forgive them they don’t know what they are doing”. This is not normal. This is not what we see in the world when someone is trying to harm someone else physically or mentally. However, this is what Jesus did and it’s what He calls us to do if we are His followers. Again this is not easy, but it's through this offering of forgiveness that we see the character of Jesus come shining through. It's in character that we see the attitudes we must embrace if we are going to take up our cross and forgive others like Jesus did.

His Justice

Our natural reaction to being hurt is to want to hurt those who hurt us as just as bad as we have been hurt. We want justice for our pain and we think that when we offer forgiveness we are somehow saying that justice will not be done on our behalf. This could not be further from the truth. Justice will still be done because God is always just. Whether it’s at the hands of God or at the hands of those He has trusted to carry out justice here on earth, justice will be done. When Jesus forgave those who had hurt Him on the cross, they were not immediately forgiven of all their sins and had a promise of heaven. No one gets to heaven without faith in Jesus Christ alone, therefore that’s not the type of forgiveness that is being extended here. Jesus said at any time He could have called down a legion of angels to destroy them and it would have been the just thing to do. God is perfectly just, but Jesus wanted to give them a chance to respond and to understand what truly took place on that cross that day. We have been called to forgive like Jesus forgave. This is a call for obedience because when we refuse to forgive, we are only hurting ourselves. When we don’t forgive we are building up resentment, we are building up anger, and we are building up bitterness. Those things have no place in the life of a follower of Jesus. We are called to forgive and trust the justice of the one who is perfectly just.

His Patience

As we said before Jesus could have stopped this whole thing but didn’t because Scripture had to be fulfilled. How was it fulfilled? Jesus had to become sin, even though He was sinless so that we might be clothed in the righteousness of God. It was the gift of salvation that was going to be offered because of what Jesus did on the cross. Not only did all of this have to occur so that we could be saved, but Jesus also wanted to give those involved the chance to seek Him as their Lord and Savior. We don’t know exactly what happened to everyone who took part in the crucifixion that day, but we are given some hints in Scripture. In the Book of Mark, we see that not only was the man who was picked out of the crowd called Simon from Cyrene but it also tells us that He was the father of Rufus and Alexander. Now this doesn’t mean a lot until you read Romans and see that Paul greets Rufus and his mother as followers of Jesus. Now again we don’t know for sure that this is the same Rufus, but we know God is patient not wanting anyone to perish on the cross. It’s possible that neither he nor his family would have ever had an opportunity to hear about what happened on the cross and experience the Salvation that only comes through faith in Jesus Christ. How about the soldier who was there participating in Jesus' death who proclaimed “Surely this was the Son of God” after all the events of the cross had taken place? This would have never happened if Jesus would not have been patient with them and offered forgiveness at that moment. When we are called to take up our cross and forgive as Jesus did, we must wait on God’s timing for justice to be done, not ours. Remember what Scripture says in Galatians 6:7 - “Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant”.

His Grace

When it comes to forgiveness we often think we don’t need to give it because it is not deserved, and we are 100% correct. No one deserves forgiveness. Forgiveness only comes by grace. By definition, grace is getting something that we don’t deserve. The fact that the soldiers and mockers were able to continue with their behavior is proof that God is gracious. The very fact that we are all still here to talk about grace, means we have received God’s grace in some measure since we are all sinners and the wages of sin is death. It’s God’s grace that saves us once we put faith in Him. It’s a grace that we are called to give as freely as we have received it. When we look at Jesus and His gracious response on the cross, we might be tempted to say, “Well that’s Jesus there is no way anyone else could respond that way.” However, when we look at other Scripture we see followers of Jesus do just that. In Acts 7:60 we see Stephen do just this as he is being killed. He prays the same prayer Jesus did. Stephen extended the grace that He had received when he put his faith in Jesus. It’s the exact thing we are called to do as well.

We are going to have to forgive no matter the offense if we are going to truly be a follower of Jesus. We must forgive to not let anger, bitterness, and resentment build up and run our lives. For our invitation this morning, I want to extend an invitation for you to take up your cross and forgive as Jesus forgave. There are offenses you might have been holding on to for a long time and today can be the day you can be set free from the pain unforgiveness brings into your life. Take up your cross and follow Jesus!

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Sermon Notes

Forgiving Like Jesus

Luke 23:32-34

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