A Cry Of Submission

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Certainly, Jesus taught us how to live, but He also taught us how to die. Since all of us will face that eventual day, let's learn some crucial lessons from the last words of Christ on the cross. Today we'll hear a cry of submission.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, today you conclude your series on cries from the cross with, Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit. And you know, Dave, I believe that when Jesus Christ died and said, Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit, He was giving us an example of how we also should die. As a matter of fact, in this message and also in the book I've written entitled, Cries from the Cross, I show how Jesus Christ is an example for us as we approach death. Today is one of the last days we are making this book available to you. It is entitled, Cries from the Cross, for a gift of any amount it can be yours. Here's what you do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. We can never hear too much about the wonders of the cross. We'd like to begin today with a question. How are you going to die? The question isn't whether you will die. The question isn't even when you will die because we don't know the answer to that question.

I'm asking you how will you die? In our example of how to die is the Lord Jesus Christ as we shall see. And not only does he teach us how to die but his resurrection is the prototype.

He is the first fruits. His body with which he was raised from the dead is a body like the one we shall someday have. So this message today is for two kinds of people. First, for those who are going to die quite soon, those who are about to die, and there may be more here today than we realize who fit into that category. But then it's also for those who will die someday in the future.

Did I include you in that? That's why there was an undertaker in Washington D.C. who used to sign his letters eventually yours. Today we come to the last cry from the cross. This has been a series of messages on the cross. Jesus uttered seven cries from the cross and today we come to the last.

It's recorded for us in Luke. We have these words in Luke chapter 23 verse 46. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

When he had said this, he breathed his last. First of all, I want you to know that he died as we can see in the Father's presence. He died in the presence of the Father. Seven cries from the cross.

Cry number one, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He cries to God in the middle one, number four, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he gets to the end now and he again says, Father. His fellowship with the Father was restored.

The Father had turned his back as Jesus became an offering for sin, but now everything was fine again. He said, Father. The word Father was always on the lips of Jesus.

As a boy of 12 years old in the temple, when his parents came to see him, he said, do you not know that I must be about my Father's business? Those are the first recorded words of Jesus in the flesh. Isn't it interesting that the first words have the word Father and the last words of Jesus in the flesh have the word Father? That word Father was constantly upon his lips and one of the reasons that he could die in the presence of God is because he was also dying with a promise from God. Those words my God, my God, why have you forsaken me are actually taken from Psalm 31 verse 5. David writing many years before said, into your hands I commit my spirit.

Redeem me, O Lord, God of truth. When Jesus quoted it here on the cross, he makes two changes. First of all, he adds the word Father because in the Old Testament, not many people, including David, called God Father. When Jesus said to his disciples that he had made known the Father's name to him, he meant that he was introducing him to the fatherhood of God. And so he adds the word Father and he omits the word thou hast redeemed me because Jesus did not need redemption. He dies in the presence of the father. Remember his words to Mary after the resurrection, I ascend to my father and to your father and to my God and your God. What he was doing is inviting all of us who know his son personally to be able to call him father.

Listen to me carefully. When you suffer, always remember if you're a child of God that you have a compassionate father, you have an omnipotent father, you have a loving father, you have a caring father who sees even the sparrow fall to the ground. His agenda is different from ours, so sometimes it's hard for us to understand his ways, but we look up and we say, father, and that's how we die. We have a friend whose mother was found dead in an apartment. She had been there for several days and because there was some evidence that perhaps she had suffered, they said, oh, this friend said, to think that my mother died alone.

We understand what he means. I don't want to die alone. I'd prefer to die with somebody next to me, preferably somebody who's alive.

That's my personal preference. But we were able to say to that friend that because his mother knew Christ as savior, she did not die alone. She died in the presence of God.

Could I say that Jesus also died within what we could call the providence of God, God's providence? I know that Luke simply says that he breathed his last. The Gospel of Matthew, which carries the same account, puts it more interestingly.

He says that Jesus cried with a loud voice and Matthew is referring to these words. Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. And then Jesus dismissed his spirit.

I like that. He was in charge. He was in charge of when he died. He died exactly when the Passover lambs were being slain so that he could represent being the Passover lamb.

He not only died according to his timetable, but the very fact that he died was his decision. He said, no man takes my life from me. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. I have the power to die and I also have the power of resurrection.

All of that is in my hand. Jesus died willingly. He was always in control, always in control. He was in control when he was sleeping there on the boat on the Sea of Galilee and the storm came up. He was in control when the soldiers came to arrest him. He said I could call and there would be legions of angels that would be sent to deliver me.

He was in control. He died willingly within the providence of God's governing of the world. Now you and I can't choose the time we're going to die like Jesus did, but we also fall within the bounds of God's providence. We know that we are not subject randomly to tornadoes and to cancer and to accidents. These things of course happen, but what we need to do is to understand that even that is of God because God rules providentially and especially where his children are involved and death is the chariot that he sends to take us home to himself. If you were to go to the Drake Hotel today you would find a man at the door willing to help you in and the Drake Hotel I think is open at least 24 hours a day.

In fact I think it would be difficult to be open longer than that come to think of it. But in the very same way God sends someone to bring us and death is the means by which we enter into his presence and we die within that providence, the providence of God. I want you to notice also that he died within the protection of God. Let's look at the phrase Father into thy hands I commit my spirit he said with a loud voice into thy hands. There are two kinds of hands in the life of Jesus.

One is the hands of men. He said in the Gospel of Matthew explaining to the disciples soon he said I shall be delivered into the hands of sinners. When Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost he said these words that God delivered Christ up into wicked hands, wicked hands. It was wicked hands you see that lacerated his back. It was wicked hands that led him so that he would be beaten. It was wicked hands that shoved him. It was wicked hands that plucked out his beard.

It was wicked hands that put on him the crown of thorns. That all was done by wicked hands but there comes a time my friend when wicked hands can do no more and he committed himself into the hands of his loving heavenly Father. In fact even when he was in the hands of men believe me that those evil hands were ultimately in the hands of God and that's why it says in Psalm 31 which Jesus quoted from my times are in thy hands. Ultimately we are in the hands of God and Jesus committed his spirit to safekeeping in the Father's hands. Listen to what Jesus said.

He said my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hands and then he said and this is a continuation my Father who gave them to me is greater than all and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father's hands. So here you have hands in harmony. You have the hand of the Son and you have the hands of the Father. Unitedly they hold those who are theirs. That's security.

That's protection. What was God's response to the words of Jesus? What did the Father think when the Son finally in such obedience and submission said Father into thy hands I commit my spirit.

The Father knowing that the Son now would speak no more in the flesh the Father now decided to speak in a language of his own. One thing that happened is that the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and it began at the top and it ripped to the bottom because God was doing it and he and he ripped that veil aside because he said that those things the veil that separates sinners from God has now been taken away. The issue of sin has been conquered.

It's been taken care of. That was one response of the Father. The second response of the Father was the resurrection. The fact that Jesus was raised from the dead and we celebrate that and we rejoice in it and the recognition that the resurrection was God's amen to what Jesus did on the cross and God was saying now at last sin has been conquered. The veil of the temple has been torn into death has been conquered because Jesus was raised from the dead. You say oh yeah sin and death are still with us. Yes they are with us but they are temporary and that's why we already read today oh death where is your sting oh grave where is your victory and that which is so ugly and that which is so reprehensible and that which we try to avoid namely death becomes now the gateway into the entrance of heaven and as our spirits go to God even as the Spirit of Christ went to God we shall be raised and we shall be like Christ.

That's the kind of body we will have someday. Beloved now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and that's the great hope of the resurrection. That's the great hope of believers. The wonder and the truth of God entering our world coming in the person of Jesus dying for our sins and being raised again for our resurrection and the assurance that we have of the eternal life that he grants.

Let's help each other now by trying to nail this down by three very important lessons. First of all it is obvious that death does not end everything does it. Death does not end everything. Into thy hands I commit my spirit.

Let's think that through. Jesus Christ's body though it was lacerated his spirit went to God and your spirit will go somewhere when you die and that spirit is the real you. It's personality. It's the ability that you have to communicate. It is all that you are as a person.

It is your memories. That all goes somewhere after death. You know there are people who die today and then they come back and they say well you know we found out that there's no judgment. We've had this near-death experience.

Well isn't it wonderful? Wouldn't you rather trust somebody who wasn't just near death but somebody who was dead who was actually dead and has the keys of death and of Hades. Let's look at a second lesson. If your spirit does not go to God. If your spirit does not go to God your spirit will go to Hades.

Those are the only two options. Jesus told a story about a rich man and he said he died and was buried and was taken into Hades and then he talks about Lazarus who was a believer and it says he was carried away. He gets special treatment. Carried away by angels into paradise into Abraham's bosom and so what you have is these two places and Hades is eventually cast into hell. Now folks this becomes very solemn doesn't it? Because if there's anything that you want to be confused about don't let it be this point.

You can be confused about the value of Social Security. You can be confused about what the government may be doing in some of its departments but please don't be confused about the issue of eternity. One day there was a man by the name of John Huss who was taken to the Council of Constance in 1415 and tried for heresy but before Huss was burned the anger against him was very strong because he believed in this idea that one must trust Christ alone for salvation and that all the rituals and all the good works that we can add to the work of Jesus Christ actually detract from it and so he understood the good news of the gospel but they said to him, Huss we are committing your soul to the devil. But Huss died by saying the marvelous words into thy hands O Lord I commit my spirit.

Do you? Do you have that assurance? Oh you say well just before I die I'll say into thy hands I commit my spirit.

No no no you will probably die just as you have lived. It is only those who trust Christ who know where their spirit will go to the Father. Let's look at a third lesson and that is that God does not promise a calm passage only a safe landing.

He doesn't promise a calm passage just a safe landing. Let's look at the body of Jesus Christ and see how bruised it was. See how disfigured it was in fact the scripture says in the book of Isaiah that he was more disfigured than any other man so much so that you could scarcely recognize him as being a man. The suffering that he endured physically is incredible. That's the way the path to death sometimes is is it not?

I've seen cancer take a 200 pound man healthy and strong and reduce him to a hundred emaciated pounds. It's not a very calm passage but if they know Christ as Savior they have a safe landing because in the end their spirit goes to God and it is in his hands that the spirit rests for safekeeping. I think that's maybe what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he said I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. So my dear friend I have to ask you today how will you die that's the question. Will you die with the assurance that your spirit is going to the Father? Will you die like Voltaire who on his deathbed said I am going to hell?

And it's not just skeptics that go there. It's good religious people who have never understood that they must trust Christ as Savior and we contrast someone like Voltaire with D.L. Moody who before he died says earth is receding heaven is opening if this be death it is glorious. Do you remember Shakespeare writing Hamlet? Hamlet gives that soliloquy. He says to be or not to be that is the question what he's saying is should I commit suicide or should I not? And he begins to contemplate suicide because life is so miserable and finally he says to himself but in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.

Hamlet is saying that this life is terrible and if I commit suicide who knows the life to come may be even more terrible than this miserable existence. Contrast that with the Apostle Paul. He said I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better. He says I want to die and go to be with Jesus nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. So he says to live is Christ to die is gain. Now look at the contrast Hamlet said live or die I lose. Paul says live or die I win and it's Christ who made the difference.

Well this is Pastor Lutzer. The middle cry from the cross was my God my God why has thou forsaken me? But by the time Jesus Christ dies the father's relationship with the son was restored and Jesus committed himself into the hands of his father.

I love that phrase wicked hands had done what wicked hands desired to do but there comes a point in time in which wicked hands can only do so much and the hands of God take over. Do you have that kind of confidence when you approach the subject of death? I've written a book entitled cries from the cross a journey into the heart of Jesus. I show the suffering that Jesus Christ endured reminding us that our suffering is but a small amount of suffering in comparison to his suffering on our behalf. This is the second to last day that we are making this resource available I believe it will expand your conception of the cross it will enable you to worship it will enable you to face life and death. For a gift of any amount it can be yours here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 I'm going to be giving you that contact info once again go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 one of the last opportunities we're making this resource available cries from the cross. You can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614 Running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. As we think about the resurrection of Jesus we recall a doubting disciple who needed solid evidence before believing the master was really alive. Jesus showed him his wounded hands and side saying blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed next time don't miss the story of doubting Thomas will turn to the Gospel of John and gain confidence in the Christ who invites your belief and trust. Thanks for listening for Pastor Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister. Running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.