[0:00] so let's turn back to look 23 and we want to focus on the words of verse 46 tonight then jesus calling out with a loud voice said father into your hands i commit my spirit and having said this he breathed his last now we're doing a mini series over the next two weeks about the last words of jesus from the cross and there are two very helpful books if you're interested in reading more one is 14 words from jesus by montgomery boyce and philip reichen an excellent little book this is a spare copy so if you smile at me at the door you can have this one and of course the cross he bore by fred leahy a fantastic little book on the sufferings of christ if you want to read more about the cross and the last words of jesus this morning we saw that the golgotha or calvary should be one of the most precious places for the christian we saw that it was a horrible place of despair and judgment and death and justice but it's also a place of deliverance and mercy it's the place as we read and sang in psalm 85 where truth met with mercy and righteousness and peace have kissed or embraced god's justice was satisfied in christ and god's people were redeemed at calvary we saw this morning that atonement literally means to cover and how christ covers his people from the justice and wrath of god we saw this morning how christ died as he had lived in prayer and how the first and the last sayings from the cross are bookended with prayer we saw this morning how christ was steeped in scripture and how so many of the sayings from the cross are scripture quotations and fulfillments of prophecy but tonight we want to turn to christ's final seeing and his death and perhaps next week we can go back to look at some of the other gospels and their sayings from the cross now we read in verses in we read in verse 44 that christ's death was surrounded by signs and wonders and if you go to matthew 27 you get more detail about that but luke only records that there was darkness over the whole land and that the the temple curtain tore in two but matthew also records that there was an earthquake that the rocks split and that the dead rose from their graves and walked about and people met people that had been dead there were signs and wonders all around the death of christ and it's good for us to remember of course that whenever god speaks in a new way whenever there is revelation from god there are always signs and wonders so when we think of mount sinai when god gave the law there were signs and wonders around mount sinai when we think of the old testament prophets and when they were revealing things new things with regard to what god was seeing their works were accompanied by miracles and signs and wonders people like elijah and of course there were signs and wonders around the ministry of jesus because there was fresh revelation and of course the mistake that so many make is that these signs and wonders are for all times but of course they're not they are just to accompany fresh revelation and that's the great mistake of the modern charismatic movement these miraculous signs and wonders are no longer for today it doesn't mean that the holy spirit doesn't come with power it doesn't mean that christ that god can't heal it just means that these signs and wonders that were around at the time of christ's ministry are no longer as they were but we have these signs and wonders around the cross because it is such a special time of revelation and in particular in luke he focuses on the darkness at the sixth hour which would have been noon this great darkness that came in the whole land and the temple being torn in two now if you study the bible what does darkness represent well we don't want to go into it too much tonight but just four quick four or five quick things darkness of course emphasizes judgment when you think of the first passover back in egypt there was darkness came in judgment on the egyptians and as the curse of god comes upon jesus so there is darkness it emphasizes judgment it also emphasizes as a symbol of god's wrath in many ways we can say that the darkness covered christ to shield us from or shield people from the horror of his suffering as hendrickson says god's wrath was burning itself out in the heart of jesus this darkness of course was the fulfillment of daniel 9 26 an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing and isaiah 53 verse 8 he was cut off out of the land of the living stricken for the transgression of my people and of course a couple of months later at the preaching of on the day of pentecost peter would quote joel and of course the people who were listening to that sermon would have been would have experienced this darkness
[6:51] Acts 2 verse 20 the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and glorious day of the lord comes darkness was a symbol of god's wrath it was also of course symbolic of of christ's battle with the powers of darkness if we just flip back over to look 22 and verse 53 when i was with you day after being in the temple you did not lay hands on me but this is your hour and the power of darkness christ of course had this great struggle with the forces and the powers of darkness and it's interesting when we think back to the first passover and the darkness that came over the land of egypt of course the light still shone in goshen where the people of israel were but of course now darkness is over the whole land even jerusalem itself and i think we could say one other thing that fed lehi brings out in his book which i think is a good one that the darkness is a reminder of creation's sympathy with its master and of course there is this great link between christ and creation and it seems as if the very creation itself is in sympathy with the sufferings of christ and it's almost as if christ goes through these agonies the creation itself is going through the agonies with the rocks splitting as it says in matthew and i suppose we could also see of course that darkness symbolizes mystery there is a great mystery with regard to so many of the things around christ and the cross and well we understand some of what is happening at the cross there is a great there is great mystery and we just need to bow and worship and then of course there is the tearing of the curtain what is the tearing of the curtain about well of course it is to symbolize that the cross makes the way open into the holiest of holies no longer was there a barrier to approaching god and of course now we are able to approach god with boldness it says in hebrews 10 having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of jesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil that is to say his flesh and having a high priest over the house of god let us draw near with full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our hearts washed with pure water hebrews chapter 10 verses 19 to 22 the atonement the salvation of god washed and cleansed sinners so that we are now able and acceptable in his sight so tonight i want to look having just set some context there we want to look at christ's final saying from the cross father into your hands i commit my spirit or as the av has it father into thy hands i commend my spirit and i don't want to spend too much time on each of these points i just really want to notice them in passing but you've got them in the new sheet a loving commendation an inspired quotation a clear instruction a powerful action and a loud acclamation so first of all a loving commendation christ commits or commends his soul to god as we said this morning he died as he lived in prayer he bookends the start and the end of his experience on the cross with prayer as we said this morning christ was always praying he prayed at his baptism he prayed as he chose his disciples he prayed as he drew near to the agony of gethsemane now not all the words of christ on the cross were prayers some of them were words of comfort like the ones to his mother and to the one the one the saying that he said to the dying thief but his first and his last words were words of prayer and christ commends himself into the hands of his heavenly father his final words were words of commendation into the hands of his heavenly father and what an example that should be to us to start and begin every day everything that we do with prayer through all life's traumas and difficulties and challenges we should start every day and we should end every day storming the mercy seat and of course jesus couldn't have died in prayer if he hadn't lived in prayer his whole life was a life of prayer so it's natural as he dies that he prays because his whole direction in life was a life of prayer prayer what does the word commendation mean or commitment as it has in the
[12:31] ESV well surely when you commend yourself to somebody you lay in trust you surrender something over to somebody expecting it back and christ commends his soul to his father because he knows that his father will look after his soul and reunite it in three days when his soul and body will be reunited he commends his soul to his father and you see this saying from the cross is not a shout of victory it's not a sigh of despair and there are no better hands than the hands of the heavenly father that christ can commend his soul to jesus had just said as the other gospels tell us it is finished his work of redemption was finished his humiliation was over and he commends his soul into better hands and you see the use of the word hands in scripture if you go to look 24 verses 6 and 7 sorry look 23 6 and 7 sorry got the wrong quotation he talks about the hands of sinful men and matthew 26 tells us he was betrayed into the hands of wicked men and you see in this new note of triumph christ is saying i am no longer in the hands of wicked men but i am in the hands of my heavenly father and he knows that the day is coming very shortly when he will return and judge heaven and earth and all the wicked will be in his hands the tables will be turned the crucified savior will one day be the judge of all the earth psalm 45 that we heard christopher ash preaching on the last week in the faith mission convention he was preaching on psalm 45 about christ and he talks about the spiritual war that the king will wage with his right hand christ will return to this world and the wicked will be in his hands and in that day it will be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god as hebrews 10 31 tells us so the question tonight for us is are we committing everything into the hands of our heavenly father as christ did our present our future our aspirations our dreams are we committing all these things into the hands of our heavenly father or are we holding on to them what bigger and better hands can we commit our future to but the hands of our heavenly father the heavenly father that has his people engraved on the palms of his hands but then secondly we notice an inspired quotation isn't it interesting that the greater son of david the lord jesus christ quotes from psalm 31 verse 5 and as your sheep says a quote from joe beeky the word incarnate goes to the word inspired to find comfort the word incarnate goes to the word inspired to find comfort you see the greater david set an example for us that we should live by the written word and just like prayer this is how christ lived his ministry what happened at the start of christ's ministry he was led out into the wilderness wasn't he and he was tempted by the devil and what did he say to the devil on three occasions it is written it is written it is written quoting from deuteronomy and psalm 91 christ was steeped in the scriptures isn't it interesting to notice how jesus brings to his father his father's own handwriting and of course this is what we are to do in prayer we are to use scripture in prayer martin luther's preface to the psalter says this as a teacher will compose letters or little speeches for his pupils to write to their parents so by this book he prepares both the language and the mood in which we should address the heavenly father we are to use the psalms back to god in prayer as the lord jesus christ did if you're anything like me prayer is a difficult thing it's difficult to find the words but we are to use the psalms as prayer athanasius said that the psalms have a unique place in the bible because most of the scripture speaks to us but the psalms speak for us again just to mention christopher ash when he was preaching at the faith mission convention this week he preached on the psalms and he's just got these two new volumes of psalms that i highly commend them to you really excellent books and he in the first volume he talks about how we we should use the psalms much more in our prayers to realign our sinful emotion and so we see that scripture informs christ's mind helps his own soul guides him in the midst of sufferings and he is showing us in this final saying from the cross how we should live and how we should die with scripture on our lips how often do we see in christ's ministry how he quotes scripture from the old testament again and again and if christ incarnate needed the inspired word how much more do we need it if the most original sinless clear mind in history needed the scripture how much more do our sinful minds need the word of god and of course notice that christ doesn't quote the second half of psalm 31 which is of course is about redemption because he is the redeemer he doesn't need redemption so he doesn't quote the second half of psalm 31 verse 5 so we see an inspired quotation but then we see thirdly a clear instruction in verse 46 i commit my spirit i commit my spirit father into your hands i commit my spirit what's interesting about that phrase well christ wasn't committing his body he was committing his spirit into the hands of his father his main concern was not his body it was his spirit it was his soul joseph of arimathea would take care of his body and nicodemus would take care of his body they would come out as they were secret disciples but the looking after the body of christ brought them out into the open and you see this is teaching us that our bodies are important but how much more important are our souls people spend their lives looking after their bodies they spend their lives looking after their bodies even at death with regard to funerals and so on and there's a place for that but we are obsessed with our bodies and yet we take so little time over our souls i was just looking up some statistics apparently the global cosmetic industry is expected to be worth 805 billion over the next two years we spend billions on our bodies and making our bodies look better how much time is spent on our souls as beaky says the dust of his humanity did not enter into the prayer of the redeemer on the cross he knew that men would look after his body his great concern was his soul and committing his soul to his heavenly father mark reminds us what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul you see both body and soul are involved in the eternal punishment in hell jesus knew that his soul would live on and his body and soul would be separated for three days but you see we live in a society we live in a world that says there is nothing beyond there is nothing after death that's why we live in such a narcissistic society people are consuming themselves because they feel that there is nothing beyond but you see our souls will have a self-consciousness beyond the grave either in heaven or hell and the big question for us tonight is will we spend our lives on our bodies or on our souls christ commends his soul to his father who are we giving our souls to tonight but then fourthly we see a powerful action it says he breathed his last and you see as with the other sayings of christ on the cross we are reminded that christ was in complete control the whole time he was on the cross he never lost control while he was on the cross that's why luke tells us in verse 46 he cried with a loud voice then jesus calling out with a loud voice said father into your hands i commit my spirit jesus never lost control he voluntarily gave up his life when we go to john 18 in the garden of gethsemane and this reading party came to to take jesus they asked him if he was jesus of nazareth and he says i am he he used the very words of the self-existent gods john 18 verse 6 tells us they step back and fell to the ground throughout his whole ministry in the garden of gethsemane and on the cross jesus was in complete control and death didn't take him christ gave up his life christ went out to meet death he went out to conquer death he gave out a loud cry not a dying weak pimper he cried out in a loud voice christ had the power to lay down his life and to take up it again take it up again and just as christ's life was unique so his death was completely unique no other person has been able to lay down their life in a voluntary way and you see christ conquered death so that you and i don't have to face the last enemy alone as first corinthians says oh death is swallowed up in victory oh death where is your victory oh death where is your sting and you see christ laid down his life willingly so that we could enjoy life in all its fullness and life everlasting and then fifthly and lastly we see a loud acclamation a loud acclamation a loud eager expression of approval and praise signifying victory father into your hands a cry of praise a cry of approval to his father who had brought him through all this christ is like a captain on a battlefield giving a great shout of victory anticipatory victory as we win the war and you see the serpent had been nibbling at jesus's heel throughout the whole of the cross his time on the cross but christ crushed the serpent with his heel christ drank the cup of god's wrath all the hell that you and i deserve he drank it down to the bitterest dregs and you see christ's cry was not a farewell cry it was not a cry of defeat it was a cry of victory as he re-enters glory and of course that's what we have in psalm 24 isn't it you gates lift up your heads on high who is the king of glory the lord strong and mighty the lord mighty in battle the picture is of christ re-entering glory the great strong and mighty warrior who has defeated death and sin and satan and of course his cry was loud because it was prophetic we see in the cry on the cross the connection between the cross and the crown between the lamb and the conqueror it was a cry of victory and of course after the humiliation of the cross comes the exaltation and ascension of christ and the cross is ultimately a place of victory jesus is saying this is not the end this is a cry of faith a cry of hope a cry of assurance a cry of trust and a cry of eternal security and victory the best is yet to come we don't need to visit Golgotha and just hear the screams of terror we can hear the scream of victory and when we die as believers we can now say into thy hands
[27:44] I commit my spirit way back in the 15th century Spain had a coin and on the coin was the pillars of Hercules which was of course at the straits of Gibraltar and on the coin Spain had imprinted the latin words ne plus ultra ne plus ultra nothing beyond there was nothing beyond Spain they thought in those days that the Atlantic was the end of the world and then something happened Christopher Columbus decided to sail across the ocean and he landed at some of the Caribbean islands and discovered the new world he landed in South America and he came back to Spain and of course what happened to the coins they had to be chucked in the bin and they had to be reminted with the names plus ultra more beyond and as we look at the cross tonight the cross is saying to us there is more beyond the world is saying to us there is no more beyond death but the cross is saying that there is more beyond there is another world beyond us there is another world to be enjoyed or to be shunned in heaven or hell or hell our lives are just the title our lives are just the cover and the title page we are just here for a moment but we have an eternity beyond this world so tonight we have seen a loving commendation an inspired quotation a clear instruction a powerful action and a loud acclamation and the question for us tonight is whose hands are we committing ourselves into is it the hands of our heavenly father are you committing everything into the hands of your heavenly father tonight when the water is cold and deep when the stairway of life is windy who will you commit your hands into maybe you will face disease in the future you can say into your hands
[30:18] I commit my spirit maybe one of us will face cancer you can say into your hands I commit my spirit whatever we face whether it's miscarriage or depression or mental illness or death or whatever it might be we can say with Christ tonight into your hands I commit my spirit these hands are strong and secure and nothing can separate us out of these hands for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor power nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord Christ died well he committed his soul to his father in heaven what about you tonight what if you are not in God's hands it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God and if you don't know God tonight you need to flee to Christ you need to flee to him and to cry for mercy to encamp your soul upon his mercy
[31:37] Christ gave us an example of how to die well how about you we don't know when death will come to us it may be around the corner it may be years away but Christ gives us an example of how to die well come to Christ tonight commit yourselves into the everlasting and eternal arms life is too short to delay father into thy hands I commit my spirit let's pray Lord we are conscious again as we gave upon the cross we are on holy ground and as we read the last words of Christ Lord we thank you for that powerful commendation we thank you oh God that Christ was able to commit himself into your eternal hands we pray that Lord you would help us to do the same tonight
[32:50] Lord we are conscious that we struggle to trust other people and sometimes Lord we struggle to trust you but we pray that Lord you would help us to say with Christ father into your hands I commit my spirit we thank you oh God for your safe and everlasting hands we thank you Lord that your people are engraved in the palms of your hands we thank you oh God for your love we thank you for your patience with us oh Lord and we pray Lord that as we look at these words from the cross that Lord you would stir our hardened hearts give us greater love oh God for you and for your service and for your kingdom and for your son our saviour bless oh God these words to us tonight bless this day to us may it be a sabbath well spent remember us oh Lord bless us in our closing praise in Jesus name Amen