Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. How would you react if you had stood watching Jesus die? The crowd jeered him, the chief priests mocked him, while his mother simply wept. The central event in human history drew many kinds of responses.
What would yours have been? 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, can you imagine being on the outskirts of that mocking crowd, knowing that in a short time, the savior of the world would be put to death? You know Dave, the way you put it, what comes to my mind is this, I'm asking the question, would I be among the mockers or would I be among the worshippers?
That's a question that all of us have to ask and answer. I trust that all of us would say that our desire would be to be among the worshippers, those who recognize him to be the son of God, even as the centurion said, indeed he is the son of God. This is the last week we're making a devotional available for you. It's actually a 30-day devotional that I've written entitled For Us. Each day you receive a reading that you can read in the Bible. There's a meditation.
There's an opportunity to respond. Day one to eight, you reflect on the significance of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. Days nine to twenty-five, Christ's final words. Day twenty-six to thirty have to do with the resurrection. Now we're making it available because we think it will be of tremendous help in your walk with God. I want you to leave every day with something in mind that you have learned regarding the cross and the redemption that God provided.
For a gift of any amount, we're making it available for you and at the end of this message, I'm going to be giving you some contact info. For now, let us listen. But now the crowd, they think, weakness. If you're a king, if you're the son of God, come down from the cross.
They did not understand that it was not a matter of weakness. It was a matter of strength. It was his love for us that kept him there. That's what kept him on the cross. Jesus was not crucified because he couldn't help it. He was crucified because he knew that this was God's plan that he had agreed to. And so he was bearing the sin of many. God help that crowd. They should have been saying, woe is us, woe is us, because our sin is being paid for on this cross. We are the ones who need to repent of our hardness of heart. But the crowd didn't see it that way, did they?
And the crowd still doesn't see it that way today, do they? Well, let's go on now and talk about the religious leaders, the chief priests. We're in verse 31. You'll notice it says now, verse 31, so also the chief priests with the scribes, they mocked him to one another saying, he saved others. He cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the king of Israel come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.
And I want to say, give me a break. Of course, they wouldn't have believed. They had seen miracles. They had seen demonic deliverance.
They had seen even and known of a few resurrections that Jesus performed. You'll notice that they are different from the passers by. The passers by actually call out to Jesus, save yourself, come down from the cross. The religious leaders don't. They talk to one another and they say, but losing all their dignity. Well, why doesn't he come down from the cross?
And they talk among themselves. They say lest if he were to do this, we would believe. No, you wouldn't believe you wouldn't believe you've had a chance to believe and you are angry and full of contempt and hatred and you will not believe.
But that's what they said. Now visualize the scene. Here you have Jesus dying.
The disciples have forsaken him and fled, though John shows up later. You have the situation with the women. They are watching a far off. They had more courage than the men. God bless them. And oftentimes it's the same way today. But Jesus is dying there alone. You have all of this blasphemy taking place around him. All of the mocking, all of the ridicule, all of the contempt, all of the humiliation, horrid sins. What do we expect? Wouldn't we expect God to come out of heaven and to say enough already? I'm going to just zap these people with my judgment.
I am going to give them what they deserve for treating my son like this. We'd expect that, wouldn't we? But Jesus takes all of this kindly and then something happens. If you and I had written the Bible, we'd have never come up with what follows next. Because instead of the wrath of God falling on these people who are blaspheming and ridiculing and humiliating the Son of God, something mysterious and terrifying happens. The judgment of God does fall, but not on them. It falls on Jesus of all things.
Wow. Verse 32, and when the sixth hour had come, we're talking now about noon. There was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, which means my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
What's that all about? For three hours from nine o'clock in the morning till noon, Jesus suffers under the hands of men. Beginning at high noon, when darkness comes over the whole land, Jesus is now suffering under the hand of God. Jesus is now being made sin for us, the one who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Jesus is now as a sinless savior, becoming a sin bearer. Holiness, searing holiness coming in contact with sin, horrid, impure sin.
We cannot take it in. And in those three hours, Jesus is going to suffer what you and I would suffer through an eternity of suffering, were it not for the fact that in those three hours he bore for us an eternity of hell. A young Christian woman who newly received Jesus Christ as savior and said that when she read the Bible and came to the crucifixion of Jesus, she was overwhelmed with love that she wept. But when she read about hell, she became hardened and angry with God. You cannot understand the crucifixion unless you understand hell. Hell visited Calvary that day. Hell was there breaking upon the savior in darkness.
We have no account of what really happened between noon and three, because there is darkness over the whole land, a darkness that could be felt, the darkness the likes of which this world has never seen as Jesus and the father complete the work of redemption for fallen sinners. And then Jesus cries out, Why have you forsaken me? You begin the crucifixion and he says, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He says, Father, you get to the end and the last word of the cross is father into thy hands.
I commit my spirit. But now the fourth word of the cross, the middle of the seven words, he does not call him father. It's not that he's still not his father, but right now there's no fellowship. The father has forsaken the son.
It's not that there was a break in the trinity. It was a break of fellowship, and it was necessary because of the holiness of God for who can withstand his wrath and who can endure his anger. So Jesus there is going to bear the full weight of our sin alone, separated from the father who had been with him all of this time.
And he cries out, Why have you forsaken me? You see on the cross, the whole purposes of God converged. What you have on the cross is first of all, man did his thing, his work, namely crucifying the sinless son of God. That's what man did. Satan did his work. He nipped the heel of the seed of the woman. That's the best he could do. He thought he had done a whole lot more, but resurrection Sunday proved him differently.
He nipped the heel of the woman's seed. Jesus did his work. He died the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. And God did his work. God was vindicated and displayed his complete justice and said, My justice and holiness is satisfied for those who believe. And so God did his work and showed forth that he was completely righteous. Deaths had to be paid and our debt was paid when Jesus died. And so you have the purposes of God coming together in the cross of Jesus Christ. And when Jesus Christ called and said, My God, my God, though he did not use the word father, notice that in his distress, he still used the word my, my God, my God. It was a sign and a cry, not of distrust, but of distress. And by the time Jesus is finished these last three hours, the father's fellowship is back.
But what a horrid time those three hours were. So what you have is the response of Jesus and the judgment on Jesus because of our sin. No wonder worship was changed forever. Verse 38 and the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom.
And when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way, he breathed his last, Jesus breathed his last, the centurion says, truly, this man was the son of God. And you'll notice that the curtain of the temple was torn. That curtain, which separated the holy place from the holy of holies where the high priest could go on the on the day of atonement once a year, that was now torn into.
And God says, in light of the fact that it is torn into now, you are welcome to come into the holy of holies through the blood of Christ, as it says in the book of Hebrews, and that the barrier is gone. Gone is the Old Testament priesthood. Gone are the Old Testament sacrifices.
Gone are all the rituals. Come now, come, come into my presence, because you actually live in the presence of God. You and I, we live in God's presence. We sin in God's presence. We rebel in God's presence, and we repent in God's presence as the way to the holy of holies is not only open, but biblically, we're actually living there every day of our lives. What can we say about a passage of scripture like this that has such profound implications? First of all, we have to see ourselves as we think of the crucifixion.
We have to see ourselves as one of the mockers. You know, when Jesus prayed and he prayed this, his lips were moving. They are the first words of the cross. When Jesus prayed and said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. Did he mean that the people who crucified him were completely innocent?
I don't think so. Pilate knew right well he had condemned an innocent man. Judas knew that he had betrayed innocent blood. The religious leaders, they knew that they had trumped up charges that they had paid people to give false testimony. They knew that they were guilty. But one thing they did not know was the enormity of their sin. In fact, it says in Corinthians that had they known they would have not crucified the Lord of glory.
They really didn't know how terrible this deed was. But you and I know exactly how terrible it was. You and I know a whole lot more than they did. We know that Jesus is the son of God. We know that Jesus died for sinners. We know the proofs. We live on this side of the resurrection.
We live on this side of all of the evidence that is compelling that Jesus was who he claimed to be evidence that has never been refuted. We know better. And yet and yet there we are sometimes even as Christians taking sin lightly, walking there among the scoffers and saying, well, it's nice that he died, but sin can't be that bad. The death of Jesus reminds us that it is just that bad.
And we are more responsible than they are. If you were here today and you've never trusted Jesus as your savior, your judgment is going to be greater than those who lived in that day because they didn't know how terrible the crime was that they'd committed. And we know, don't we? Secondly, crucifixion, the crucifixion of Jesus, both hardens and softens hearts.
It does both, but it usually does one or the other. No doubt there is some people who went away from the crucifixion more determined than ever to not believe. But thank God that there were some who when they saw it and understood it, they had a change of heart. I personally believe without any doubt that the centurion who stood facing Jesus, when he saw that Jesus died that way, this Roman soldier, God bless him, said truly, this was the son of God.
He believed, he believed. And later on, Peter is going to preach on the day of Pentecost and thousands of people are going to believe, many of whom I believe were among the mockers. In fact, when Jesus said, father, forgive them for they know not what they do, this was not blanket forgiveness. It was forgiveness for those who would believe, forgiveness for those who would know that what they were doing and thousands of people who were part of the crucifixion scene, I believe were saved.
In fact, the Bible says expressly in the book of Acts that many of the priests believed in Jesus. But usually crucifixion does one or the other. Usually a message like the one that you are hearing today will either soften your heart, will either soften your heart or if you turn from it and you've never trusted Christ as savior, your heart will become just a little bit more callous and it'll be easier for you to say no when you hear the gospel again.
That's why the Bible says if you hear the word, don't harden your heart. Today is the day of visitation. Here's a final observation I want to make and that is, I love this, even on the cross, Jesus was still King.
I love it. There he is to a thief, a criminal actually, someone who woke up that morning with no hope of forgiveness, knowing that crucifixion awaited him. Jesus said to this man, today you shall be with me in paradise. Imagine Jesus on the cross. Look at the brow. Look at the crown of thorns and the blood that it produced. Look at his broken body having been lashed 39 times.
Just look at him. In fact, the Bible says it was so awful. It says in the book of Isaiah that it was scarcely recognizable as a human being. And there he is opening paradise for a criminal and then dying. And his last words are actually into thy hands. I dismiss my spirit still in charge, though willing to be crucified in such weakness. I want to conclude today by reminding you that both thieves prayed.
They did. Both criminals prayed. One of them, if you look at the book of Luke and the other accounts, you'll find that he was praying too. He says, if you're the Christ, save yourself and us. That's a prayer. He wasn't so concerned about eternity.
Just get me off this cross. He prayed and was lost forever. But the other thief, God bless him. King of the Jews.
Wow. Remember me when you come to your kingdom today. Today you shall be with me in paradise. Jesus' last friend on earth becomes his first friend whom he meets that very day in paradise, having redeemed one of his own, even while he was dying and being crucified in weakness. But even on the cross, Jesus was king.
And then when we think of resurrection Sunday, we know for sure King of Kings, Lord of Lords, God of all gods, redemption accomplished for those who believe. So I ask you today, do you believe? Do you trust Christ? Do you have a personal relationship with him?
Have you asked him to be your sin bearer? And if you will, let us pray. Father, I'm amazed at the mystery. I'm amazed at the love.
I'm amazed by what we know and curious about all that we don't know about those three hours. I just know that I personally, I personally want to thank you that you drew me to yourself when I was a teenager and that I knew I was a sinner and that I needed a savior. But Father, my heart breaks for the many who are listening to this message, who who may know that they are sinners, but they aren't willing to accept a savior. I pray that the thief on the cross might instruct all of us. Jesus, remember me. If you're here today my friend and you've never trusted Christ to savior, now I'm talking to you as people or you're listening on the internet or radio or whatever. You've never trusted Christ. Why don't you right here say, Jesus, you remember me, forgive me, cleanse me. I receive what you did for me as my own. Would you tell them that? And help them to know that if they don't, they've taken their position among the scoffers. Lord, we've done all we can do.
It's all up to you. In Jesus name. Amen. You know, I remember one pastor who visualized the thief arriving in heaven and asking the question, how did I get here? Well, the answer is the man who died on the cross said that he would be with me in paradise. It all has to do with Jesus.
Let me ask you a question. Have you savingly believed on Christ? Have you trusted him as savior? Are you redeemed? If you're not sure, this would be the moment in which you repent of your sins and receive all that Jesus did for us on the cross that you might be forgiven and welcomed into paradise. This is the last week we're making a special devotional available for you. It's entitled For Us 30 Meditations at the Foot of the Cross. For a gift of any amount, it can be yours. And each day you'll be given a passage of scripture, a meditation, a prayer.
It will help you to set your day in the right direction. Go to RTWOffer.com. That's RTWOffer.com.
Did I say that too quickly? Well, it is RTWOffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let me give you that phone number again, 1-888-218-9337.
You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Erwin Lutzer wrapping up Jesus crucified for us. Next time, the triumph of Jesus raised for us. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
