The Word of Forgiveness

Good morning, my name is Mark, by the way, I'm one of the pastors and I wanna welcome all of you. Glad that you could join us here on this wet weekend. Yahoo, that's another thing to be excited about. Headliner today, Sentinel, a river runs through it. But that was cool, and when's the last time we could say a river runs through Santa Cruz? So that was a nice and a blessing and we're grateful for the Lord's goodness in that regard.

And I am so excited about this series, crosswords that we are kicking off today. We're gonna be looking at the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross, and I just think that God has some rich moments for us in the weeks to come and hopefully today as well. I wanna set this up, set the stage, so to speak, by telling a story that actually came out of this week's news up in Northern California.

A couple was walking their dog on their property, as they do almost every day, but on this particular day, they stumbled upon a literal treasure trove. Went by a tree on this part of their property they call Saddle Ridge, and on that day, some erosion had uncovered an old tin can. The woman goes down to investigate it, and I guess it's a good idea to investigate these things, because when she opens it up, there it is, it's stuffed with these gold coins, and better yet, there's five more cans just like it. And get this, these coins, I should say, they were minted here in California in the mid 1800s when paper money was illegal, and they've been sitting in these cans for some 150 years.

The face value of the five, 10, and $20 coins is $27,000, but because they're in such pristine condition, they're so rare, experts estimate that some of them will sell for $1 million each. Oh, wow, that's awesome. I read that and it motivated me to start poking around in my backyard. Found a couple dog bones, mash boxes, nothing like that yet, but I was also thinking of the previous owner of this property. I don't know how long this couple has had this, but at some point, some guy opens up the newspaper and he's like, don't, oh, missed it by that much.

It's incredible, the treasure. And I mention that today because for these next seven weeks, we're going to be traveling through the gold country of the Bible as we focus on what our Lord Jesus did for us on the cross, and it really is rich, but it's also familiar, so familiar that I think we can sometimes lose the impact or miss the treasure, so to speak. I mean, you don't even have to be a Christian to be familiar with this story. I would venture to say if you've heard the name Jesus, you probably know how he died. You probably know that if you don't know anything else.

And because of that, this passage of scripture, as rich as it is, it can be buried under layers of familiarity. Think about it, 150 years ago, some guy goes and buries those six cans next to this tree, and of course, at the moment that he did that, it was this precious treasure, it was priceless, and yet somehow it became forgotten, neglected. And for 150 years, how many people have walked by that same spot? How many millions of cars drive through the gold country every year, and people look out their windows and they admire the beautiful view, and they might even take some time to learn about the history, but all the while they forget, there's a reason, it's called the gold country, there's gold in them, thar hills.

The same thing is true with these seven sayings, these passages that come from the cross. There is treasure to be found and discovered if we're willing to do a little bit of digging. And as I look out over this room, I have to think that we all fall into one of three camps here today. There are some of us that are here relatively new to Twin Lakes Church, you're new to Christianity, maybe this is your very first time here today, and you're here because a friend or family member, they dragged you here this morning, you were just too polite to say no, but I just wanna say welcome, I'm so glad you're here.

I'm hoping that there will be some treasures for you today, or if you're able to stay with us in the weeks to come as well. The second camp is one that I think a lot of us occupy much of the time, I think I live in this one often. You know this story very well, you understand the theological implications that are eternal and how this changes everything about your life and the world, and yet most of that lives up in your head most of the time, if you're honest. It's intellectually stimulating, but rarely is it emotionally stirring, and so I pray for us that God will maybe move us into this third camp, and these are folks, these are some of you who are here today.

I talked to a woman who lives in this camp I think last night, you just start talking about the cross, you see a cross here on stage like we have, and immediately it just becomes personal. Your heart just starts to swell and you are reminded that the Lord Jesus, he died for some very specific things in your life and you feel liberated, you feel free, you feel unburdened, and it just fills you with joy, and so I pray that whether we're in the first camp or the second camp, we'd all maybe move a little bit closer to the third camp.

And if that's your prayer as well, I want you to join me as I pray for all of us as we kick off this series, and you can just agree with me in your head and your heart as I pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity we have to look at these very significant words. And Lord, as we contemplate what it means for your son to come to this world, to die for us on the cross, to take our sins upon himself so that there would be no barrier between us and you, a holy righteous God, I pray that that would thrill us.

And Lord, may we be like the man that he talked about the parable of a guy who discovers buried treasure in a field and he, in response, he sells every single thing he has so that he can possess that field and call the treasure of his own. Lord, give us that kind of passion, that kind of drive to discover the riches that you have for us. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

We'll open up your Bibles today to Luke 23, if you like, Luke 23, feel free to borrow one of the TLC Bibles and the Purex there in front of you. You can also follow along on the screen or in your notes. I'm only gonna be reading verses 33 in the first half of 34. So if you don't feel like it's worthwhile to find that because it's so short, you can just follow along again on the screen, there's no shame in that.

I wanna remind you if you're here today and you think to yourself, man, boy, this doesn't really apply to me but it really applies to someone I know and they don't happen to be here today, you can put them to our website, TLC.org, they can watch this sermon and many, many others for free for as long as there is an internet, TLC.org. All right, Luke 23, starting at verse 33. When they came to the place called the skull, they crucified him there along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."

Without going into the gory details of crucifixion, there's one aspect that bears mentioning here this morning. The goal, the aim behind crucifixion was to ultimately suffocate the condemned person, to suffocate them. And this will make sense to you if you have ever tried to do pull ups and for some of us we might have to think way, way back in our memory bank, so time when we actually attempted a pull up. But if you recall, when you're hanging on the bar and as your rib cage gets stretched out, it presses in on your lungs, it becomes harder and harder for you to take a full breath.

So you're not just getting tired, you're running out of breath and that's the sadistic thing about crucifixion. In order to get a full lungful of air, you have to press on your feet and pull on your wrists which then amplifies the magnitude of the pain. That's the sick thing about it. And I mention this because not only are these words precious to us because they're the last seven sayings that Jesus would make on the cross, but they're precious to us because in order for him to say them, it cost him. It ratcheted up the pain. It would have been easier for him to say nothing.

And yet he so desperately wanted us to hear these things that he pushed through the pain and his words reach us even to this day. So they are all the more worthy of our consideration. And no sooner have they nailed him to the cross, then his very first words are a prayer which begins, "Father, forgive them." And if this doesn't impress you about Jesus, I don't know what will because he's praying for the people who are crucifying him. And he could have prayed in any number of things.

It would have been perfectly fair for him to pray, "Father, I left the privilege, the comfort, the perfection of heaven. I came here, I healed them, I fed them, I taught them, I revealed you to them perfectly. This is the reception I got on planet earth, unleash the angels." He said he could have done that. He could have said a legion of angels and he could have obliterated the scene right there but he didn't do that. We've come to expect that he wouldn't do that. But he could have just as easily prayed, "Father, comfort me in my prayer, in my pain."

We wouldn't have thought anything less of them if he would have just said, "Lord, take away some of the pain." We pray that all the time for our kids, our loved ones, ourselves, nothing wrong with that but these breaths are too precious to him. And so he says, "Father, forgive them." Which raises the question, who's them? Who's the them Jesus is asking the Father to forgive? Well, there's soldiers there that have put him on the cross so I think we can safely assume that they are part of them and these guys are such a hardened group that they're more preoccupied with divvying up his clothing than with anything that they've just done.

It's like, "We just want to get the clothes, get what we got and can get out of this." But when they get to his outer garment that can only be taken by one of them, they're more concerned that it might get torn up. They've just torn apart human flesh without batting an eye. They got to roll dice for the outer garment. That's how hardened these guys are. But I guess you could say in their defense that they're taking their orders from their commanders and at the top of the command chain, in that area is a guy named Pontius Pilate.

If you've read about Pilate, he comes off as somewhat of a waffler in this situation. He seems more concerned of not letting this turn into a huge uproar. There are clues both in the Bible and outside the Bible, ancient historical sources, that could present a picture of that. In Luke 13, it says that Pilate, unless we think that he was kind of a soft guy, in Luke 13, it mentions a revolt that he put down in Galilee where he crucified thousands of people. Jesus would have grown up in this area and it says Pilate mixed their blood with their sacrifices.

So this was a ruthless guy. So ruthless that two ancient historians, Josephus and Philo of Alexandria, they talk about him, talk about how he would stir up the occupied Jews in Jerusalem. One time when he needed money for an aqueduct, he stole it from the temple treasury, which caused a huge uproar. In fact, Philo, who was alive at the time, talks about how the emperor, Tiberius Caesar, sent a scathing letter of rebuke to Pilate because of his heavy-handed way of managing his region.

And so it's very likely that Pilate is one uproar away from getting into serious trouble with the emperor. And so his number one goal, just suppress the crowd, just mollify them, just don't let this become a huge dustup. There's the crowd. These are presumably the same people who a few days earlier were saying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, and they're cheering him on. They think he's gonna go into the temple and he's gonna kick out those Romans and set up shop and then it's gonna be a new day.

And what does Jesus do? Jesus meek and mild pulls out a whip and starts lashing the money changers, kicking them out, telling them, hey, my father's house is supposed to be a house of prayer. You've turned it into a den of thieves kicking over their tables, which doesn't just anger them, but it angers the ones operating the temple, the religious rulers, because they're also part of them. In fact, this is when they plot to kill Jesus in earnest, when he exposes the racket that's going on in the temple.

But there's one more group that belongs in the category of them, that Jesus is asking his father to forgive, and that's us. We are also them. Now you weren't there physically, but in a spiritual sense, you and I, we were very much there in a very real way, because the Bible tells us over and over again, that Jesus didn't just die for them, he died for us. Romans 5:8, the apostle Paul says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Who did God demonstrate his love to? Who? Us. Who did Christ die for? Us, that makes us part of them.

It reminds me of a hymn that we sometimes sing on Good Friday, that goes, "How deep the fathers love for us, how vast beyond measure, that he should give his only son to make a wretch his treasure. Behold the man upon a cross, my sin upon his shoulders. As shamed, I hear my mocking voice cry out among the scoffers. We are part of them." And yet in response, Jesus says, "Forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing." And at this point, I wanna say, well, time out, Jesus.

I understand the father forgive them part, that they don't know what they're doing. They seem to know what they're doing. Pilate knows that he's just sentenced an innocent man. The religious rulers know that they've held a kangaroo court where they couldn't even find one credible witness. The crowd certainly knows what they're doing when they're mocking him and spitting on him the soldiers. While they know all too well with professional skill, they carry out what they do. How can he say they don't know what they're doing? Does that mean they're not guilty? Is Jesus just giving them a pass?

Reminds me of a phase my sons went through. I'm sure it's not unique to them, but being older brothers, fitting into that part just fine, they, well, from time to time, tease their little sister. They will harass her. And when she runs to us, upset, and seeking some measure of justice, when we talk to the boys about it, invariably, they did this for a couple years, they would say, "She's just being sensitive." It's not, we didn't say anything. Anna is just so sensitive, it's not us, it's her. She's the problem here.

And Jesus isn't saying you can play that card. Like, "I don't know, it's not my part, I didn't do anything." He's saying, look, they understand on a basic level that they are doing something wrong. They understand the facts here. What they don't understand is the enormity of their sin. It's the magnitude of what they're doing that he says they don't even know what they're doing. In other words, they did not know what they were doing because they did not know who they were doing it to.

They didn't know what they were doing, not in its entirety, because they didn't know who they were doing it to. And Peter is going to bring up the same thought in one of his first sermons, sometime after the resurrection. Peter is speaking to some of the very same people who were there at the crucifixion, who were mocking Jesus, who were part of the them. And he says to them in Acts 3:17, "Friends, I realize that what you and your leaders did to Jesus was done in ignorance." You didn't get the full enormity of what was going on. Paul's gonna pick up this very same theme in 1 Corinthians 2:8. None of the rulers of this age understood it for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

And these verses, taken together with the crucifixion itself, says something about humankind that we don't like to think about very often, especially if we consider ourselves to be civilized or educated, but what this all points towards is the fact that when it comes to really understanding the enormity and the consequence of our decision, when it comes to having moral clarity or spiritual insight, most of the time, we completely miss it. These guys were crucifying the Son of God and they had no clue.

And not only that, but they found a way in their own minds to essentially justify what they were doing. Think about it. They didn't wake up that morning going, "I wonder how I can be the most despicable person on the planet today. I wonder how I can be ultra evil." No. Whether it was some sort of political consideration, putting politics over principle like Pilate did, whether it was personal ambition, self-interest, "Hey, I'm just following orders, I'm defending the truth," whatever they perceived they were doing, they found a way to justify it in their own minds. And here's the thing, we're not that different from them.

In fact, we're not different at all because we find ways to do the same thing. Man's lusting after a woman. I can guarantee you, he's not thinking into himself, she's an image bearer of God. She's somebody's daughter. She might even be my sister in Christ. No, he's not doing that. He's dehumanized her, he's reduced her, he's diminished her, he's turned her into an object. Well, would that mouth someone? And we'd say, "Oh man, you deserve that." Don't we diminish the person? Don't we have to justify in our own minds that somehow we're entitled to hold a grudge?

And so here's the thing that ought to scare us about ourselves, which is this, it's not real flattering, but I think it's true. And it's this. We almost always manage to excuse what we're doing and almost never understand the extent of what we're doing. We are so good at excusing ourselves, it just comes very naturally to us. But in those moments, we rarely have the full comprehension of what's actually going on, just like at the crucifixion. And that's why Jesus would say, "Man, you don't even really get what's really going on here." Solomon says, Proverbs 21, "Every man's way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart." Every man's way, every woman's way is right in the moment, it just seems so right.

Hey, I gave that guy what he deserved, he had it coming. Or no, I haven't forgiven her, she hasn't said sorry yet. Seems right in your eyes. But then time goes by, and you start to maybe pick up a little bit more clarity. And eventually, the way that maybe you spent that spring break in college, it just seemed like the right thing to do. Well, now you think differently. Or that relationship that you thought was, "Oh, it's perfect, this is great, it's not so golden now." Or whatever it was that seemed like the right thing in the moment, then it actually reared its ugly head and it started to master you.

Whatever it was or is, over time, we can look back and inside, well, we could feel a little bit like this kid on this roller coaster here in this photo. What in the world did I get myself into? Mommy, I wanna go on the roller coaster! No, I don't. And I use this lighthearted example because I'm aware that a lot of us came here today and every day you drag this big burden of guilt behind you. I don't wanna add to that at all. I don't wanna make you feel any further guilt or make you feel bad. I'm actually here to remind you that God loved you so much that he offered up his son so that guilt could be removed for you once and for all, forever, for all eternity.

I'm here to remind you that Jesus was crucified. You don't have to keep crucifying yourself. You can be free because you're forgiven. And here's the amazing thing, this ought to just stutter because I spoke of the various groups that were there at the crucifixion scene and how we're also part of that. But in the final analysis, the one who ultimately put Jesus on the cross wasn't any of them, it was Jesus himself. We're culpable, but Jesus is the one who was fully in control.

And he said as much a number of times in the gospels, like he does here in John 10:18, he says, "No one takes my life from me." "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and the authority to take it up again. This command I received from my father." This was his mission, this was his mission of love from before you were even born. He died for sins that you were yet to commit. He died for sins you don't even know you're gonna commit yet. And yet he put himself on the cross voluntarily.

So when you look at the cross, by all means be reminded that God takes sin very, very seriously. More seriously than we do, because God sees all of the ravages of sin. God sees how it rips through one heart to the next and one relationship to the next and one generation to the next and the full devastation that we are very rarely aware of. God sees it all, so he takes it seriously. Sometimes people will go, "It seems like Jesus had to pay such a heavy price." And we almost have this attitude that if he was just dying for us, some of us, like maybe he would have had to have a couple days of detention or something like that. Like, "I'm not that bad." But the cross, God takes sin very seriously, but don't stop there.

Don't stop there, but be reminded also of the love motivation behind it. Because more than it being about the problem, it's about the cure. It's more about the cure than it is the problem, the love that God would pour out for us. So here's the bottom line. The cross reveals that our sins aren't right. Greater than we often appreciate, but that God's love is even greater. And when you start to understand how God could love you so much that he would willingly give his only begotten son, and that even a verse as familiar as John 3:16, it just hits you in a new way and sinks in.

You realize if I'm willing to trust that he did that, and that that actually atones for my sins, that I can have eternal life, and that Jesus came not to condemn me, but to save me, wow. When that fills your heart, when that ignites you, it will fill you with a sense of joy and freedom and make you feel unburdened because you realize if God did that for me, I mean, my goodness, what is there left to prove or earn in his sight? Nothing. And not only when we live in the light of that love and that grace does it change our outlook on everything else, but as God's spirit starts to change us, we start to actually resemble the one who died for us on that cross, including in this area, in fact, especially in this area of forgiveness.

When we realize that God is a God of generous grace, we're all the one wrapped to be generous with grace towards others because we know we received it first. In fact, I would venture to say this much. If you are stingy about forgiving others, on some level, you believe that God is stingy with his own grace. And he meets it out very carefully, in a very stingy manner, and so you feel entitled to do the same. But when it washes over you and fills you, it just makes you more generous.

I'll prove it to you. I'll give you a dramatic example. I found an article in The New Yorker this last week about a guy named Lou Labello, the article's Lou Labello's Atonement. Lou grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was a wild guy, loved to party, liked to have a good time. And then at 22 years old, he finds himself a Marine in the streets of Baghdad in a horrific firefight. A couple of his buddies have already been shot, and it's just the chaos of war. And suddenly down this city street, there are three cars heading towards them, and Lou and the other soldiers, they don't know, is this a terrorist, is there a bomb in that, or what is gonna happen?

He assumes that if they were just civilians, someone would have ordered them to stop. But the car keeps coming. And so Lou sights up the driver of the first car and shoots him. A man named Nick Kechedorian. Nick's a member of a large Armenian Christian family that lived on the east side of Baghdad. They were visiting relatives that day in the city, and when this firefight broke out, they were desperately trying to get out of the area, and they happened to drive right into the worst of it. Nick, his brother, his father, who were driving the other two cars, were also killed. Nick's sister Nora, Lou shot her in the shoulder, shattered her shoulder, very large rounds that he's firing.

And then finally, Nora's mother, Margaret, stumbles out of the car, waving a little T-shirt that belonged to a little child that thankfully wasn't injured. She waves and she says, "Why are you shooting at us? We are the peace people." The fog of that battle starts to clear as the medics come in, and they take away the dead, and they take away Nora, and the memory of Nora strikes Lou the most because she has blonde hair, and he didn't see a lot of blond-haired women in Baghdad. And he last sees her being loaded into an ambulance, clutching her shoulder.

He's shortly back here in the States, living in San Diego, and for 10 years, he lives the nightmare of that day, living with post-traumatic stress disorder, living with insomnia, with paranoia, when he could go to bed. It was with a loaded assault rifle and two pistols. And then one night, almost 10 years to the day, out of desperation, at 2.30 in the morning, he sits down in front of his computer, and he records himself, making somewhat of a confession and explanation to this blond-haired woman who he doesn't know where she is or what became of her, but he just puts it out there on the internet.

It lands somehow, it lands in lap of a reporter who wrote an article about the Cachadorians from their side. And this reporter tracks the family down, turns out they're living in Glendale, California, what remains of them, Margaret, Nora, her husband, Assad. And he engineers a meeting, in fact, when he asks the Cachadorians if they'd like to meet with Nick. Here they are, by the way. That's Margaret and Nora.

It says, Margaret says, "If he's asking for forgiveness, then we will give him forgiveness. God ordered us to forgive. He forgives us, so we must forgive others, even people who killed our deers," as she calls her family. "I want him to come," Nora said. And Lou arrives at their house, and he just loses it, right? As soon as they open the door, Margaret puts her arm around him and brings him in, pats him on the back, sits him in a chair in the living room.

And then here's the conversation that the reporter recorded. I just wanna read it because this is an example of the gospel being lived out in real life. This is the spirit of Jesus, the grace of God, pouring through these women to a man who didn't know what he was doing legitimately, and yet was desperate for forgiveness nonetheless. "You're crying," Margaret replied. "You know, I cannot cry. My eyes have no tears left. You said you're suffering." "I never sleep," Labello answered. "I too not sleep. Every day, you know. Yesterday, it was four o'clock. I not sleep. I take the Bible, I go to the kitchen to read. I have the same, this depression, you know. I think it's because you are sensitive. We are sensitive person. You know, forgiveness is something strong. I think not everyone would say I forgive you, but we forgive you. We don't think, but don't think we forget our dears."

"Yeah," Labello's eyes turned to the floor. "But we want you not be hurt. It's not your fault. I am right." Labello began to cry. "I appreciate you came," Nora said. "You are like my brother. We are brother and sister." Margot looked exhausted, but serene. "You have done as best you can to come here and say, 'I did it. I appreciate this.'" She looked toward the family photograph. "You remind me of my older son, Nicholas. Even your behavior, your looking, everything, everything. Believe me," Labello nodded, seeming relieved. "Everything is okay now," Margot said. "You are welcome to our house. I thank you very much. This is good behavior, you know." "Can I have a hug now?" Labello asked. Margot pulled herself up from the couch. Labello was waiting for her. "All us are not perfect," Margot said. And that's the moment of their embrace. Right there.

That is the power of the gospel lived out through ordinary human lives. Lives that have much hurt, and yet lives that are receiving the peace of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. 2,000 years later. You and I are still answers to that prayer, "Father, forgive them," just as much as Lou and the Cachadorians who need forgiveness, I'm sure, for things in their life as well. In fact, here they are. Look, I mean, that is the power of the gospel. That's Margaret, Nora, Asad, and Lou. And Lou is welcome in their house any time. This is real life. This is not just some fable. This is the power of the cross, the power of the gospel in our lives when Jesus would take it all upon himself.

Well, let me ask you this. That's how it applies to their life in their particular situation. Where their hurts and their needs, how does it apply to yours? Back there on the bottom of your notes, it says, "How can I apply this?" And you'll notice I put the prayer there at the bottom with some blanks because maybe for you, you've never received the forgiveness that Jesus so freely offers. So for you, you might fill in those blanks with something like this, "Father, forgive me," or you can write your own name because I didn't know, I thought I knew, but I didn't really know the full extent of what I was doing. Forgive me, Lord. As much as I know, I confess.

If you've never done that before, there's an opportunity for you to do that today, even in these moments. And God is waiting to just pour his forgiveness upon you. Or for others of us, maybe you've prayed that prayer before, you've prayed it many times, but there's someone who hurt you in your life. And I don't bring this up in a casual way or an eglib way because I know that some of you have suffered horrible abuses, I know that all too well. But if you insist on hanging on to that and nursing the resentment, it is toxic, it's a cancer, it's a prison, and Jesus died to free you from all of that, and so today might be the day that you say forgive, and you know the name that goes there.

For he or she or they, maybe they knew what they were doing, maybe they didn't. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to get to the bottom of that. Suffice it to say, Jesus says, forgive them, I forgave you. And we would never say this, but here's what's implied, when we refuse to forgive, it's as if we're turning to the cross and we're saying Jesus, what you did there, it's not enough. And so I'll hold on to this. Now I know that's not what you wanna say. You would never say that, but that's what resentment ultimately communicates. And so maybe today is the day that you say, I'm ready to entrust this wound, this hurt, this bitterness, I'm willing to entrust it to the one who judges justly, the one who died on the cross for me, and among his last words, were a prayer of forgiveness on my behalf.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your goodness and your grace. Wherever we are today, Lord, I pray that you meet us, whether it's in the cage of unforgiveness, I pray that you would weaken those bars or that you would bust the door open. Or Lord, if it's just understanding that you would love us so much that you would overcome everything that would separate us by giving your son, who gave everything he had to give on that cross. Or Lord, maybe it's just a story that's become so familiar, it just doesn't touch us the way it did years ago or the first time we came to you. I pray that Lord, you would fill our hearts, give us a fresh sense of how much you love us. And may that leave us changed here today. I pray this in Jesus' name. Our precious Lord and Savior, Amen.