[0:00] Let us now read from the New Testament, from the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 23.
[0:20] And we may read from verse 20 of that chapter. Luke, chapter 23, reading at verse 20, down to verse 34.
[0:54] I will therefore chastise him and let him go. And they were instant with loud voices requiring that he might be crucified.
[1:06] And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. They released unto them him that for sedition and murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired.
[1:24] But he delivered Jesus to their will. And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country.
[1:36] And on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus. And there followed him a great company of people and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.
[1:51] But Jesus, turning unto them, said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
[2:03] For behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bear. And the pups which never give suck.
[2:15] Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fallen us, and to the hills, cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
[2:29] And there were also two other malefactors led with him to be put to death. And when they would come to the place which is called Calvary, There they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right and the other on the left.
[2:47] Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment and cast lots.
[2:59] Amen. And may God bless to us that reading from his truth. Let us again sing to his praise from Psalm 130, 100 verse 5.
[3:13] Psalm 130, 100 verse 5. I wait for God. My soul doth wait.
[3:25] My hope is in his word. More than they that for morning watch. My soul waits for the Lord. I say, More than they that to watch, The morning light to see.
[3:42] Let Israel hope in the Lord. For with him mercies be. And plenteous redemption is ever found with him.
[3:55] From all his iniquities he Israel shall redeem. Let us sing these verses. I wait for God.
[4:06] I wait for God. My soul doth wait.
[4:19] My hope is in his word. More than they that to watch.
[4:36] My soul is hard to watch. I say, More than they that to watch, The morning light to see.
[5:05] Let Israel hope in the Lord.
[5:15] For with his mercy be. And then he is redemption.
[5:34] His love is never found with him. And the Lord is iniquities.
[5:54] He is redemption. His love is never found with him. Let us now turn to the passage that we read.
[6:11] The gospel according to Luke chapter 23. And reading again at verse 34. Then said Jesus, Father, Father, Father, forgive them.
[6:37] For they know not what they do. Father, In this passage, Luke brings us face to face with the crucifixion narrative.
[6:52] And he also tells us about the first words of Jesus from the cross. It is a prayer.
[7:04] In fact, One of three prayers that were spoken by Jesus from the cross. Three times he prayed as he poured out his soul to the Father.
[7:21] Each prayer expresses an ocean of feeling, purpose, and holy desire. And in some ways you could say that these three prayers are like three landmarks, three monuments, if you like, that dot the landscape of the accounts given in the Gospels of Jesus' suffering on the cross.
[7:52] Each of these three prayers calls attention to three critical moments in Christ's suffering and work at the cross.
[8:08] They take us from the very beginning of his ordeal on the cross when, as you remember, the nails were driven into his hands and he was raised up on the cross.
[8:21] And then you find this prayer, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And then, from there on, as he plunges down into the deepest abyss of suffering, when he cried that great cry of dereliction, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[8:51] And then on to the final resolution of his self-giving work when he prays, At last, the end of it all, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.
[9:09] And each of these three prayers has a different character. They are different kinds of prayer. The first is a prayer of intercession.
[9:20] He's praying for others. The second, you might say, is a lamentation, a cry of sorrow and loss. Why have you forsaken me? And the final prayer expresses submission and surrender to the Father as he commits himself to the Father in death.
[9:42] The first prayer teaches us about the purpose of the cross. What it is that Jesus came to accomplish.
[9:53] Second prayer takes us into the magnitude of the pain of the cross. What it is that he endured. And the third prayer tells us about the final price of the cross.
[10:07] What is that? That he ultimately gave himself to save sinners like you and me. So these three prayers set before us the purpose, the pain, and the price of the cross.
[10:24] But what I'd like to do today is to highlight the compassion of Jesus. You could contrast it with the contempt of man.
[10:38] And it's such a glaring comparison that is set before us by the Gospel writers.
[10:49] In fact, there are many comparisons that could be made. Christ on the cross, a beacon of eternal hope, to a biased, prejudiced, unfallen world.
[11:04] A fallen world in which man seeks to be dominant, to be king, aided and abetted by the evil forces of darkness.
[11:14] Sinful man by nature, unwilling to become subservient to the king of kings. So, three thoughts today. The first is this, prayer when.
[11:28] Secondly, prayer for what? And thirdly, prayer answered. Prayer when. Prayer for what?
[11:38] Prayer answered. Prayer when. Here is a person who has been subjected to the most hideous abuse.
[11:51] Who has experienced painful flogging. Beaten. Exposed to the most contemptuous, vitriolic mockery and ridicule.
[12:06] As the soldiers sported with him. The soldiers, we are told, twisted together a crown of thorns. Put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.
[12:18] They came up to him saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And struck him with their hands. And now, when he prays this prayer, he is suffering the ultimate humiliation.
[12:32] A naked victim, raised up under the sun to be the object of mockery by every passerby. Human nakedness, a sign of humiliation and degradation.
[12:47] A sneering crowd. A sneering crowd. A scornful crowd. And so here you find fulfillment of the words spoken prophetically by the psalmist.
[12:59] For dogs encompass me. A company of evildoers encircle me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones.
[13:10] They stare and gloat over me. And these words were written by David hundreds of years before this took place.
[13:21] And then this person speaks. Now, apparently, it was not unusual for crucified victims to speak before they were incapable of speech.
[13:39] And usually, it was to protest their innocence. Or berate those who had passed that kind of sentence on them.
[13:51] Or to berate those who had gathered to mock. And, you know, people did gather. You might have thought that people would find it repugnant to see people being crucified on a cross.
[14:11] And yet, there's some kind of macabre fascination that draws people to a scene like that. And so, it wasn't unusual for people to speak.
[14:28] But this person, he doesn't berate those who have passed sentence. He doesn't protest his innocence. He doesn't berate those who have gathered to mock.
[14:40] Listen again to what he says. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He is praying to the Father. He engages in intercession for those who, in effect, are demonstrating their sheer unbelief and naked animosity.
[14:58] To the one, to the person who is no less than the eternally beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased. And here is the beloved Son.
[15:13] Preoccupied with the crowds that have gathered around his cross. Not preoccupied with his pain and his suffering. Crowds that had, hours before, screamed at Pilate, the Roman governor, for his execution.
[15:31] And these crowds, now staring in macabre fascination at his naked, torn and disfigured form. Crowds that jeer and mock him in his agony.
[15:46] And he prays for them. He intercedes for them. It's extraordinary. He's suffering terribly. And here he is praying for forgiveness.
[16:00] For the forgiveness of his tormentors. Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. And to my mind, this is a stunning picture of the sacrificial Saviour.
[16:14] And it ought to make us marvel at the long suffering of God with sinners.
[16:26] In allowing sinners to go so far in their merciless assault on the perfect, holy Son of God.
[16:38] And what comes across here is not just the long suffering of God. But the love of Christ radiating from the cross.
[16:53] Because rather than slay with a word. His tongue is involved in praying for mercy for the rebellious crowd around him.
[17:09] You know, on the one hand, you might have expected that the Lord of glory would have poured out the judgment of God, which is in his hands.
[17:20] But no, he pleads with the Father that he might not enter into acts of judgment. And you know, that is what we are asked to do to love your enemies.
[17:39] Pray for those who persecute you. And yet, extraordinary as this scene unfolds, is there not another side to this marvelous intercession?
[17:54] Because if you are here today and you have experience of the power of that intercession in your own life, you would be disappointed if that were not the case.
[18:12] You see, it is fulfillment of prophecy, isn't it? Do you remember the words that are written in that great servant passage in Isaiah 53, where you find these words, Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
[18:37] He bore the sins of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. He makes intercession for the transgressors.
[18:52] It is not just to be thought of as merely engaging in prayer. It means that he is placing himself between the transgressors, the rebels if you like, on the punishment that they deserved.
[19:09] And that is ongoing. That intercession is still ongoing. It is part of his continuous priestly activity around the throne.
[19:25] The intercession is open-ended and continuing. And I think it is very obvious that this intervention from the cross makes it very clear that his plea is not based on any merit that they possess.
[19:45] No, they don't have merit. The very petition by its nature makes it plain that the act of intercession accepts their demerit.
[19:56] And are you here today? Do you consider that your sin is too great and your guilt is too deep to allow you to come to Christ with any hope?
[20:13] But if this Christ intercedes for those who are so actively engaged in the act of crucifixion, can he not intercede for you too?
[20:28] That's why he's on the cross, to satisfy divine justice, so that undeserving sinners receive eternal life.
[20:38] Prayer when? In the hour of acute agony and suffering, when surrounded by naked animosity and hatred, assisted and incited by the forces of darkness, that's when this prayer was offered up, this powerful, all-embrasive prayer, Father, forgive them.
[21:02] And that brings me to my second point, prayer for what? He is praying for forgiveness. It is a great forgiveness.
[21:16] It is forgiveness at enormous cost. Forgiveness that involves their spiritual well-being.
[21:27] That's what he desires, so that their relationship with God as judge comes to be altered. They and we by nature are under the sentence of condemnation.
[21:41] And forgiveness implies the lifting off of the heavy burden of the guilt of sin and placing it on another.
[21:53] That's what forgiveness involves. And this is where God placed the heavy burden of every person who trusts in Christ alone for salvation.
[22:10] It is placed on Jesus. Again, the fulfillment of prophecy. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
[22:23] And then the prophet goes on to write, He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought, that brought our peace.
[22:36] You see, Jesus is not excusing their actions as he prays, as though their ignorance might somehow justify their crime.
[22:49] Not at all. But he is saying that the full enormity of the sin that they were guilty of committing is something that they had missed entirely.
[23:01] They know not what they are doing, he says. They could not. They would not see it. But they were in fact crucified, the king of the Jews. You see, Pilate's mocking inscription placed above the cross proclaimed more than they believed.
[23:21] Here is God's Messiah. Not just a mere innocent man, but the Lord of life himself. It was culpable ignorance on their part.
[23:35] But it was ignorance, nevertheless. And that elicited the compassion of the heart of the very person that they had brutalized and tormented.
[23:52] They ought to have known his identity. Their ignorance was inexcusable. And yet what Jesus sees in the ignorance of a people, lost and locked in spiritual blindness, as they were, is a motive for the exercise of mercy.
[24:14] And so he prays, Father, forgive them. Stunning, isn't it? You know, too often our impression of Jesus Christ is, it's shaped not by the biblical narrative, but often by our experience of those who claim to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
[24:44] Isn't that so? Perhaps your idea today of Jesus is of a judgmental tyrant. Or maybe you dismiss him as weak and ineffective.
[25:00] Perhaps that's been your experience of church people or at any rate how you view them. And so now that's how you think of Jesus, either judgmental or a weakling.
[25:11] But here at the cross, gazing up at the man of Calvary, surely these distortions are dissolved.
[25:27] Why? Because here is one into whose flesh nails have been pounded, who refuses, despite the agony of it all, to take his eyes from his singular objective.
[25:46] His mind is set on securing forgiveness for others, even at the expense of his own life.
[25:58] You see, forgiveness does not come cheap. And the reason for that is that God is God.
[26:08] He is holy, righteous, and pure. A just God must act justly and be seen to be acting justly.
[26:20] Sin must be punished. The very nature of God demands it. Evil must be judged. But here Jesus is taking the place of sinners.
[26:34] And so he prays, Father, forgive them. He loves them. Note the contrast. They hate him.
[26:47] He loves them. They torment him. He prays for them. They mock and deride him.
[26:58] And you know, that ought to make every one of us bow in shame before the throne of God.
[27:13] And I don't know if you notice, but there's an indistinctness to this prayer. Father. How?
[27:25] Well, from this standpoint, it doesn't specify who exactly the them are.
[27:39] Father, forgive them. And it doesn't spell out exactly and precisely who the them are. and if I remember rightly, I think it was Charles Spurgeon who used to say, I feel, he said, I can crawl into that pronoun them.
[28:08] And that was a very astute observation to my mind. He could crawl into the pronoun them. In other words, he felt he could find himself amongst them.
[28:23] And you know, there is still one in that pronoun them for other sinners. You know, it happened that very day with the coming to faith of one of those crucified with Jesus.
[28:43] Jesus, didn't it? The thief who believed. You see, the cross demands that we reassess our ideas of Jesus.
[28:58] We really cannot dismiss a person like this. you see, what makes the prayer so powerful is that it is prayed by the chosen one, Jesus the Son, the Christ of God.
[29:16] And what is true of Jesus the Son, the Christ of God? The Father always hears him. The Father always hears him.
[29:26] And when he was praying, he was providing the very basis of forgiveness as he suffered the just in the room of the unjust. And you may be here today and you may be wondering if God is willing to forgive you, if you might dare to hope that there will be a welcome for you in Jesus Christ.
[29:49] You may be saying in the secrecy of your own heart, he never receives someone like me, surely, with my past and with my guilt and with my burdens. others. But as this Jesus looked down on the hateful mob surrounding the cross, as he looked into their faces and saw the derision and the mockery in their eyes and heard the contempt in their voices, you remember he pleaded for their forgiveness.
[30:19] He bore the sins of his enemies. don't you think, if he could look and speak and pray and pour out his life with such love for those who deserved in fact only his rejection, do you think that he will respond any differently to you in your sin and rebellion?
[30:48] Let me assure you that his stamps is always, whilst the day of grace remains, Father, forgive them.
[31:00] That's how he stands towards every sinner that looks to him. You may feel deeply the shamefulness of your sin. You may have an acute sense that your place is more amongst the guilty crowds of men and women rejecting Christ than anywhere else.
[31:18] You may be even cataloging all your misdeeds. You relive perhaps your stumbling and your strain. You feel yourself perhaps worthy only of the rejection and the condemnation of God, not the welcome and the pardon of Jesus Christ.
[31:36] But doesn't this prayer teach us that the welcome and the pardon of Jesus Christ is precisely what he offers us? We may not think ourselves worthy.
[31:47] We may believe we are disqualified, but it's not the worthy or the qualified for whom Jesus prays here, is it?
[31:59] It's for the guilty that he prays. It's for the disqualified that he prays. It is precisely for them that he intercedes.
[32:11] He welcomes you to come to him at his cross and receives the forgiveness that he alone offers. His prayer, it seems to me, reveals his heart.
[32:25] He wants nothing so much as the pardon of his killers. He longs for the salvation of sinners, of hateful, twisted, shameful people, and he longs for it still in his great purpose of going to the cross in the first place.
[32:46] And that means that there is a welcome for you today in Jesus Christ. He bids you come and welcome. There's pardon for you in him.
[32:59] Prayer for what? Prayer for forgiveness. Prayer when? The hour of agony. Thirdly and lastly prayer answered.
[33:14] The psalmist states, you have not withheld the request of his lips. The father always healed.
[33:24] Can we know if the prayer was answered? Well, I'm going to suggest that a sinful, condemned, dying man, crucified beside Christ, he became an advocate of Christ among the jeers and the mockery and the disdain.
[33:47] It's an amazing moment. This man hanging from the cross of his own. He had mocked and derided Christ.
[34:04] But his perception had been changed. And from him we learn how to respond to Jesus.
[34:17] Who can ever forget his prayer on the very precipice of eternity, moments before death? Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.
[34:32] On the equal, equally memorable reply, Jesus said to him, truly I say, today you will be with me in paradise.
[34:42] what a deliverance, what forgiveness, what deliverance and what forgiveness.
[35:03] It reminds me of I never met the gentleman. He stayed in the back district long before my time.
[35:15] And his house was regularly frequented in the community by those who, and those were pre- television days and so on, where people went for a kerry.
[35:33] It was a regular meeting place. But the Lord came into the life of this man. and he had a fearful dilemma.
[35:45] How could he tell all those who gathered to his house what had transpired? And he discussed it with a new Christian friend.
[35:57] And the friend told him, you take out the Bible and read the Bible and many of them will just leave.
[36:08] and that's what he did. But when he came to his deathbed, he said to a Christian friend, oh, the Lord said to me, today that I would be with him in glory.
[36:30] And the Christian friend, an elderly woman, said to him, oh, she said, what the Bible says is today you will be with me in paradise.
[36:46] Oh, well, he said, it's glory, he said to me. And that day, he passed out of life into the eternal realm. And so you see the memorable reply, what a deliverance, what forgiveness.
[37:03] But that's only one, what about the admission of the officer in charge of the execution squad. He was a hardened soldier, and Luke tells, he praised God, said, certainly this man was innocent.
[37:22] In Matthew and Mark, they both speak about truly this was the son of God. So there's another whose life was changed, whose perception of the crucified, one on the cross was changed.
[37:37] And about fifty days after his crucifixion, Acts chapter six, the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.
[37:53] And listen to this, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Christ. What's the significance of that? The priests were foremost in demanding the execution of Christ and the crucifixion of Christ.
[38:14] Note how the prayer was answered. Many of the priests became obedient. What about the thousands who came into the kingdom on the day of Pentecost?
[38:26] Oh, listen to the powerful prayer from the cross again. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And you know that prayer has still been answered and will continue to be answered until all whom he has purposed from eternity are brought into the embrace of divine forgiveness.
[38:54] Oh, are you in receipt of the royal pardon that he offers? Have you found yourself within the circumference of this glorious divine forgiveness?
[39:10] If you have, you will not be a stranger to the peace that comes with it. And if you haven't, will you not consider asking him to forgive you that you too might be in receipt of the blessedness of this marvelous forgiveness purchased by Christ with his own blood so that you come to value not just the purchase price, the blood that was shed and the death that he died, but that you come to value more highly the person who shed his blood and who laid his life down that a sinner like you and me might inherit eternal life.
[40:12] Prayer when in the hour of agony? Prayer for forgiveness. Prayer answered, yes, powerfully, mightily, gloriously.
[40:27] There'll be throughout all eternity who can testify to this prayer being answered in their lives as they give the glory to the lamb in the midst of the throne.
[40:41] Let us pray.