Jesus Loves Criminals - Part A

Jesus was the friend of sinners. Did you know he's called that in the Bible, the friend of sinners?

I wish more of us had that reputation. Oh, she's a friend of sinners. He's the friend of sinners. See, this has been Jesus' style all along. When he was born, he was born among animals in a manger. And when Jesus died, he died among criminals.

This is divine humility. The most important thing you can do as a believer is share the hope of Jesus with others. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip explores Jesus' interaction with two criminals and the hope you can find in their story. But before we begin, here's a great resource that will give you fresh insight on what Jesus' resurrection means for you. The aftermath of 2020 has left so many of us wrestling with questions about the future and wondering, what's next?

Here's Skip Heitzig. That's a question, by the way, that people ask anytime there is a catastrophe. Any kind of catastrophic event causes people to ask the question, what's next? If there's a car accident that happens, well, what's next? Is somebody going to be able to walk after this? If a disease strikes someone, what's next? Am I going to be cured? If somebody we love dies, we ask, what's next? Am I going to be able to go on? We want to help you live with confidence, no matter what the future holds, by sending you a powerful collection of Easter weekend messages from Skip Heitzig on the hope of the resurrection.

Everything's possible. If the one who said he's going to die and rise again died and rose again, that means all of the promises Jesus ever made are possible and can come true. That's why it's called The Living Hope. The Morning That Changed Everything with Skip Heitzig is a DVD collection of six life-changing Easter messages. And it's our thanks for your gift of $35 or more today to help connect more people to the living hope of Jesus Christ.

To give online securely, visit connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Okay, we're in Luke chapter 23 today as we get into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. People die differently. What I mean by that is some people die peacefully, some people die restlessly.

Some are very confident, some are very fearful. Some die joyfully, some die angrily. People die differently because in part people live differently.

And how you live will, to a large degree, determine how you die. In the 1700s, one of the most outspoken critics of Christianity was a man by the name of Voltaire. He took lots of potshots at Christ, at the church, was very persuasive and very arrogant in his speech. But on his deathbed, his last words were these, I am abandoned by God and by man.

I shall go to hell. O Christ, O Jesus Christ. And he moaned like that for hours. Afterwards, the nurse that attended him said, I would not attend the death of another unbeliever in Europe for all the money in Europe. When Mahatma Gandhi was on earth and fought for the independence of India, he was pluralistic in his outlook. But when he died, it was a very different picture. His last words were these, My days are numbered.

For the first time in 50 years, I find myself in the slough of despond. All about me is darkness and I am praying for light. Very different from men like Martin Luther, who when he died said, God is the God from whom comes salvation. God is the Lord by whom we escape death. Or when John Knox, the great Scottish reformer died, his last words were live in Christ, die in Christ.

And you need not fear in the flesh the death that comes upon us. In our story, in Luke chapter 23, we discover a deathbed conversation. There are two men, two criminals, both of them hopeless, both of them heartless, both of them Christless.

Then there is one of the two criminals to whom Jesus Christ actually promises heaven. Max Lucado is a pastor and a very, very great author. He said that he has struggled. He struggled and one of the greatest struggles he ever had, he said, one of the most difficult truths he had to come to grips with was the greatness of God's grace to reach somebody like a Jeffrey Dahmer. Have you heard that name, Jeffrey Dahmer? If you know him, it sends chills up your spine. He was the Wisconsin murderer who not only murdered his victims, but raped many of them, dismembered them and ate them.

As low as you could possibly go. Now while he was in prison, he made a profession of faith in Christ. I know, I know what a lot of us think. Yeah, right, he got religion, how convenient. But when Roy Ratcliff, who was a local pastor, was invited to come to the prison because a prisoner wanted to get baptized, he had no idea that it would be Jeffrey Dahmer who wanted to be baptized. So he baptized him. But in the weeks to come, this pastor spent every week with him, one hour a week, talking to him, discipling him. And that pastor said, you know, I believe it's a true conversion.

Lucado said, I struggle with the idea. I know Jesus is savior, but could he save somebody that bad? That vicious a criminal? And he finally said, I've come to rest in the truth that forgiveness for criminals like Dahmer is at the very heart of the gospel.

Jesus loves criminals. And I'll tell you why we should even pay attention to this, because there are so many of them. Now, the United States of America has the second highest incarceration rate in the world, second only to Russia. The current prison population is about two and a half million people. But I wonder if you can guess how many Americans have criminal records. Venture to guess?

About 20 to 25%. You know what that means? That means one out of every four people you meet has a criminal record. And that's just the ones that have been caught. The rest of us haven't been caught yet.

One out of four. So this is a very poignant issue. And I speak to you not as somebody on a high horse. I speak to you as somebody who has been arrested before. I had the police come to my door. They put handcuffs on me.

I was carted off to jail, broke my mother's heart. But that's been, oh, two, three months ago. So things have dramatically changed in my life since then. That was a long time ago.

But nonetheless, I speak a little bit from some personal experience. I remember when I was applying to the FBI for chaplaincy, and I had to have a background check. And they said, fill this paper out, and I want you to tell us everything you've ever done. And I said, oh, come on now, everything.

And they said, skip, we're going to find out what color shoelaces you wore in second grade. So I would just have full disclosure. Well, here in Luke chapter 23, we have a foxhole conversion. We have somebody on their deathbed who turns his life over to Christ. Now, the story, this part of the crucifixion neatly flows into two sections. Jesus and his relationship to the criminals, plural, and then Jesus and his relationship to one particular criminal, singular. So we have Jesus and the company of criminals, and then Jesus and the converted criminal.

I want to take you, first of all, to Luke chapter 23, verse 32. There were also two others, criminals, led with him to be put to death. 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. Criminals, kakourgos is the Greek word. It means really bad dudes, literally evil working men.

Evil working men, kakourgos. Now, we are not told what they did. We are not told their names.

We're just given this generic name, criminals. But the other two gospels, the other two synoptic gospels, Matthew and Mark, actually tell us what the crime was specifically. It says in both of those gospels, there were two robbers or thieves who were crucified with him. The word means bandits, and it refers to bandits who pillage after they steal. So these are not petty thieves, these are heartless criminals.

Those who would steal and then take pleasure in hurting their victims, or killing their victims, or abusing their victims. And very possibly, these two criminals on the cross with Jesus were associated with Barabbas, the notorious criminal who should have occupied the middle cross. But he was released and Jesus died in his place. Something else, both of these criminals we believe were Jewish for two reasons, simply because this was a Jewish nation. This is a Jewish city.

Most people were Jewish at the time, but also in the conversation of the ones speaking to Jesus, there is language employed that would lend us to believe that this is a Jewish man, or at one time a practicing Jewish man. But get the picture, there is Jesus dying with two criminals. And just the fact that Jesus is dying among criminals is not accidental.

It is not incidental, it is intentional. 700 years before the crucifixion, the prophet Isaiah said that he would be numbered among the transgressors. In other words, it was always part of the plan of God that when Jesus died, he would die among criminals.

Why? Why would that be in the plan of God? Simply because Jesus was the friend of sinners. Did you know he's called that in the Bible, the friend of sinners?

I wish more of us had that reputation, oh, she's a friend of sinners. He's the friend of sinners. See, this has been Jesus' style all along. When he was born, he was born among animals in a manger. When Jesus died, he died among criminals.

This is divine humility. Born among animals, died among criminals. Born in a cave, died on a cross.

This is the friend of sinners, dying among sinners. I read a blog this week from a pastor in South Carolina named Perry Noble and something that he wrote. He wrote this to his church, by the way.

Just stop me in my tracks. He said, Jesus never intended for the church to be a group of isolated, self-righteous, angry people. Yet I meet church people like that. He said, in the past, the church has spent so much time debating with people over social issues that we forget to love people like Jesus told us to. We have to remember that we will reach way more people through conversation than with condemnation. So Jesus dying among criminals shows us divine humility. It shows us something else, though.

It shows us human opportunity. Here's two men dying next to Jesus, both having an equal opportunity. Jesus was an equal opportunity savior. There's two people just as close to Jesus. Both of them committed the same crime. Both of them were dying the same death. Both of them were reviling the same Lord, as you'll see in a minute. One dies saved, the other dies lost. Both had the opportunity, two different outcomes.

You know why? Because proximity and opportunity don't guarantee eternal destiny. Just because you were close, just because you observed, just because you heard, just because you were exposed, doesn't mean you'll be saved. So Jesus in the midst of criminals, divine humility, human opportunity. Look at verse 32 and verse 33. Notice that we're introduced to criminals.

I highlighted the word verbally. But then go down to verse 39. It says, Then one of the criminals, there's two criminals, one of these two who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing that you are under the same condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we received the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. And then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Now Luke tells us about one of the criminals hurling insults at Jesus, blaspheming, blaspheming him.

And then the other one saying, Why are you doing this? This is where we need the testimony of the other gospel writers to get the full picture. Because as the crucifixion began and went on, everyone was hurling insults at Jesus. Priests, elders, rulers, soldiers, people in the crowd and, and both, not one, both of the criminals. Both of them. Both Matthew and Mark draw our attention to the fact that everybody's voices was against Jesus.

Listen to this. I'll just read one of the texts. This is Matthew 27 verse 44. Where the crowd, the priests, the elders, the soldiers are mocking and jeering. And the text says, Even the robbers, plural. Even the robbers who were crucified with him, reviled him with the same thing.

So here's the picture I want you to get. Everyone is piling insults and jeering upon Christ. Even two criminals who are dying. Now you've got to be pretty low to be dying an excruciating death and muster up enough energy to mock somebody dying next to you. But that shows you the power of the moment.

Everybody is insulting Christ. And so they went along with it. But then something happened. And Luke highlights what happened. Suddenly one of these criminals grows silent in his jeering. Suddenly his mind becomes very clear about what is happening with him and with that other man named Jesus who's dying. Suddenly in his mind there's a clear thinking, a lucidity he has never experienced before. There's a sudden change of heart.

There's this massive transformation, a 180 degree turn internally. And instead of mocking he stops. And he rebukes the other criminal who is mocking. And he reaches out to Jesus Christ. Verse 39, one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other answering rebuked him saying, Do you not even fear God seeing that you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly for we have received the due reward of our deeds but this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said, assuredly I say to you, you will be with me in paradise.

What happened? What happened to this man? Was it that he heard what Jesus had just said, Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing? And that man who was dying just dawned on him and thought, Forgive them? Is that possible?

Could I be forgiven? Or was it that he saw the sign over Jesus that said, This is the king of the Jews? And he thought, really? That's what they're saying about him? He's the king of the Jews? Could he be my king?

Could he rule and reign over my life even at this late hour? Or maybe just picking up some of the thoughts of the crowd, they were jeering him and saying, He saved others himself he cannot save. Maybe the thief thought, He saved others? How did he save others? And is it possible that he could save me? Whatever it was, he had some realization, some epiphany that caused him to stop what he was doing, rebuke his friend and trust in Christ.

Before you get too suspect that such a thing is possible, let me give you a parallel account of somebody else who had this happen. Saul of Tarsus had this happen. He became Paul the Apostle and it happened instantly. He had papers in hand, he's leaving Jerusalem, he's going out to incarcerate and eliminate people who call on Jesus Christ in Damascus. While he's on the road, he gets knocked off his horse by the Lord, thrown into the dirt, is blinded and is instantly transformed.

It's a miraculous occurrence of the extension of God's grace. So this is Jesus in the company of criminals. Now, let's zero in on this conversation with this one criminal, Jesus and the converted criminal. Did you hear the promise that our Lord makes to him? He says, Assuredly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Question, why did he say assuredly?

It means truly or verily if you like the old King James. Why did he just say, you'll be with me in paradise? No, he said, assuredly I say to you, you will be with me in paradise. You know why he said that? Because it's so hard to believe. Because this is unthinkable, this is unimaginable. No one in the scripture is given more explicit assurance of forgiveness and heaven from Jesus Christ as this man.

And yet no one ever seemed more outwardly undeserving than this man. Now, how could Jesus promise a guy like that? Instant heaven.

How is that possible? How can you say, today you will be with me in paradise? That thief didn't get baptized yet. Jesus didn't say, well, you know what?

If you can get off the cross, get baptized, I'll think about it. He had never gone to church. He never did a good work. But Jesus said, assuredly I say. In fact, his prayer wasn't even that great.

It was very self-centered. Remember me when you come into your kingdom. It's all it takes. There's a realization of your heart that leads me to say, today you will be with me in paradise. Folks, this is one of the greatest demonstrations of salvation by grace through faith, not works.

It's one of the greatest demonstrations of what it says in Titus chapter 3, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. That's Skip Heitig with a message for you from the series Jesus Loves People. Right now, here's Skip to tell you how your support helps keep these messages coming your way and connects more people to the good news of Jesus. God is a God of second chances. He loves you so much.

He'll take you just the way you are, even when you've made mistakes in life. We want to share this message of hope and love with people all over the world. And you can be a part of that life-changing work by giving a gift today to keep these messages coming to listeners like you.

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Again, that's 800-922-1888. Now, real quick, we want to invite you to follow Skip on social media to get important updates and biblical encouragement. Just follow Skip on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for all the latest from Skip and from this ministry. That's at Skip Heisig, at Skip H-E-I-T-Z-I-G. Coming up tomorrow, Skip Heisig shares how you can have the eternal hope of Christ no matter what your past looks like. Jesus said, you will be with me in paradise.

You get the answer here? Here's a criminal saying, I just want you to remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus is saying, remember you. I'm going to walk with you. We're going to be in my kingdom together in fellowship. Connect with Skip Heisig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.