"Father, Forgive Them...", Part 1

This morning, I thought that we would spend some time look at one verse in the Bible. For many weeks, I've been debating when I would Take a short detour from the book of Genesis to deal with an issue, an issue that was predominant in the life of Joseph. And so I thought that today, because it's Communion Sunday, would be the best time for me to begin that. And I'll tell you why in a moment. But I think that as we study the book of Genesis and see the life of Joseph, we We know that this man was a a lover of God and a lover of man.

That's very easily demonstrated in his life. And if we were to ask people about the one thing about Joseph that we remember the most, it's probably the fact that he forgave his brothers. Of their great sin. And so Joseph being that perfect type of Christ in the Old Testament demonstrates to us what it means to have a forgiving spirit. What it means to exemplify God to people who are undeserving of forgiveness and yet extend it to them. And so we are not really taking a break from Genesis. We are just Looking at Joseph's life in terms of his ability as well as his opportunity to extend forgiveness to his brothers.

And I thought that this would be the best time to do it as we embark on the Lord's table this morning. Because, as one man said so eloquently, if our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, He would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, He'd have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness. So He sent us a Savior.

He sent us a Savior because we needed to be forgiven from our sins. In fact, God the Father named his Son Jesus because in that name would be the description of the one who would come to save his people. From their sins. The whole reason for the inc was forgiveness. Christ came to forgive the sins. Of man. It's important to understand that, isn't it? And so this morning, we want to look at that.

We want to look at one verse with you this morning. And in looking at verse, I want you to examine your life. Because it was eight years ago, this Sunday, I did a series on forgiveness. I began a series on forgiveness. I thought it was important for the people of our church to understand what it means to forgive those who have transgressed the law of God and who have caused others to stumble. And from that series, we received much feedback. And we put it on the radio. We receive a lot of requests for those tapes.

Most of you, 95% of you, were not with us eight years ago. So we thought we'd do it again. Except a little differently than we did it before. To help you understand your responsibility to be a forgiver. How to extend forgiveness to those who have offended you. Everybody in the room needs to be forgiven, and everybody in the room needs to extend forgiveness to others. And where you are today, I do not know. What has happened in your past, for the most part, I do not know. But God ex you to exemplify His life.

Particularly in the area of forgiveness. And so we're going to look at what the Word of the Lord says about forgiveness.

To do that, I want to take you to one verse: the first saying on the cross. Luke chapter 23, the 34th verse. Because that was Christ's prayer of forgiveness. And as we examine this prayer this morning, you have the outline before you. We're going to look at the attitude behind the prayer.

We're going to look at the appeal in the prayer, the application of that prayer, the acknowledgement in the prayer, the answer to the prayer, and the appropriation from the prayer.

And if time permits, the afterm of the prayer. But that's what we're going to look at this morning because it was the reason for the incarnation.

The first thing I want you to notice is the attitude behind the prayer. It reads as follows. You know it. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. You must understand the attitude behind the prayer. To understand that, you need to understand the reason for a Savior. You see, when the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, he came perfectly sinless and lived a sinless life. In fact, the Bible says in 1 Peter 2.

2, he committed no sin. Nor was any deceit found in his mouth. Hebrews 4:15 says, He has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 7, 26 says, He is holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners. That's important because if there was anybody, listen carefully, if there was anybody. Who didn't have to forgive anyone else, it was the Lord Jesus Christ. Because he was sinless, and everyone else was sinful. So, if there was one person who did not have to forgive anybody, it would have been our Lord.

We who are sinners need to be forgivers as well as forgiven. There was no deceit on his mouth. Christ never told a lie, never had an impure thought, never sought revenge. He was one who never was tempted. Where he fell into sin, he was one who was perfect, sinless, and spotless. In fact, it was even the Roman governor Pilate who said, I find no fault, no guilt in this man. This man is innocent, he said. And yet, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was hung on a cross for something he didn't do. In order that he might fulfill the plan of God for the world, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ submitted to the indignity and injustice of the crucifixion.

In order that he might make an atonement for the sins of the people who put him there. That's our Lord. Mercy at its highest. Grace and forgiveness at its greatest. That's our Lord Jesus Christ. Forgiveness was that which filled his heart. He did not seek revenge. He didn't come to condemn men. In fact, the Bible says over in Luke chapter 9, verse number 56: the Son of Man did not come to destroy lives, but to save them.

Over in John 3:17, it says, For God sent not a son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He didn't come to condemn man. There's going to come a day when he returns that he will come with all of his wrath and all of his fury and destroy all of his enemies. But that's not why he came the first time.

He came to extend forgiveness. He came to redeem sinful man. And someone might say, well, I understand that. He was a son of God and he was sinless. And there was a purpose. There was a plan before the foundation of the world. And he came to fulfill that plan. He came to be obedient to his father and to fulfill the plan of God perfectly. And that's what he did. And so it was expected of him to be forgiving. It was expected of him to die. And while all that is true, let me remind you of the words of Peter.

Chapter 2, verse number 21. It says, This: For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps. Christ left us an example that we are to follow exactly in his steps. As he was forgiving, so too we need to be forgiving. He says this, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth, and while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously.

And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. He bore our sin in His body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, that we might live His way, the right way, the holy way. He left us an example to follow. And so when the Lord Jesus Christ says, I want you to be forgiving, he says that because he gave us the classic example of forgiveness.

The one who did no sin, yet extended forgiveness. There's a parable about that in Matthew 18. We who are sinners should be all the more ready. To extend forgiveness to those who sin against us. Christ left us an example. The whole attitude behind the prayer was the very fact that He is a forgiving God. That he c to forgive man his sin. In fact, here was a sovereign ruler of the universe. Here was the omnipotent God hanging on the cross, and instead of calling down angels from heaven to rescue him, instead of coming down off the cross and saying, See, I told you I could do it.

I can do anything I want. He didn't do that. He died for the sins of man because he lived exactly what he preached. Because in Matthew 5, verse number 43, it says, You have heard that it was said that you are to love your neighbor and hate your enemies. But I have said unto you, love your enemies and pray for those. Who persecute you? That's what he did. He prayed for his persecutors. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. Christ goes on to say in Matthew 5, verse number 45, if you do this, if you love your enemies, if you pray for your persecutors, you know what you do?

You prove yourself to be a son of your Father in heaven. You prove your salvation. You prove the fact that you are a son of God. You demonstrate to the world that you truly have the love of God in your heart. You demonstrate to the world that you truly have been forgiven. Because those who have been forgiven freely extend forgiveness to their offenders. That is a cardinal rule for the believer. Those who have been offended forgive because they are sons of their Father in heaven and they demonstrate the child of the believer.

They demonstrate the Christ-likeness of the believer because they humble themselves and are obedient to their Father as Jesus Christ himself was. The second thing I want you to see in the prayer is not only the attitude behind the prayer, but the appeal in the prayer.

Notice what Christ says. Father, forgive them. Isn't it interesting that here is the Son of Man who came to forgive sins? Here was a son of man who said in Matthew chapter 9 to the man who was paralyzed, your sins are forgiven. Remember the man who came and his friends brought him and Christ saw the faith of his friends? He looked at the man who was paralyzed and said, your sins. Are forgiven. And the Pharisees and the religious leaders wondered in their minds: wait a minute, how can this man forgive sin?

Who does he think he is? And Christ, knowing what they were thinking, Said to them, Why do you say amongst yourselves about whether or not I have the power to forgive sins? What is it easy for me to do? To say your sins are forgiven, or to say, take up your bed and walk. Well, the easiest thing to do is to say, your sins are forgiven, right? Because who's going to know whether or not your sins are forgiven? But to prove the man's sins were forgiven, Christ said, ar. Take up your bed and walk. And what happened?

He did. The man arose. He'd been paralyzed his whole life. He arose, he took up his bed and he walked out of there. His sins had been forgiven. His faith had made him whole. The man had been saved. And yet on the cross, Christ didn't forgive sins. He appealed to his Father in heaven to forgive sins. You ever think about that? Why? Why could he easily forgive a man who was paralyzed of his sin? And throughout the whole New Testament, you read about his ability to forgive sin, but yet on the cross.

He would appeal to his Father in heaven. Simply this: 2 Corinthians 5:2, He who knew no sin became sin for us. That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. You see, it was at that very moment that He was identifying with who? Sinful humanity. It was at that very moment that he took upon him the sin of the world, and therefore, while identifying with the sinfulness of humanity. He did not become a sinner. He became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He took upon Himself your sin, my sin.

He took the wrath of God upon your sin. Upon him during those six hours on the cross. And so, therefore, he would appeal to his Father who is Heaven. He hung there before God as a representative of sinful humanity. So therefore, he would appeal to his Father who was in heaven to forgive him. The attitude behind the prayer, the appeal in the prayer. And number three, I want you to notice the application of the prayer.

The application of the prayer. Father, forgive who? Them. Who's them? The Jews? Was it the Jews who conspired against him and who lied in their testimonies about him? Was it the Roman soldiers who took the nails and drove them into his hands and into his feet? Was it the religious leaders who lied about him and came against him? Who is them? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. The them is all of them and more. Any sinful man who ever lived before or after the cross or during the cross.

It's all encompassing. Father, forgive them. The application of the prayer is to those who have sinned against Him. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. The prayer of forgiveness extends beyond those who were there at the cross. Those who lied about him, those who deceived, and those who ran away from him, and those who murdered him. It extends to you and me as well, doesn't it? Why? Because it was for our sin he hung on the cross. It was for our sins that he died. But note.

The prayer, Father, forgive them, was not a prayer of immediate, uncond, indiscriminate forgiveness for everyone who participated in Christ's Crucifixion. It wasn Father forgive them just with a carte blanche forgiveness being handed out. It was forgiveness. For those who would come to recognize the enormity and the atrocity of their sin, and thus repent of their sin and ask forgiveness. From God. That's who the prayer applies to. It doesn't apply to everyone across the board. Father, forgive them so they can all go to heaven.

It's, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. But them is those who repent of their sins and turn from their wicked ways, those who live in rebellion against God. And those who live in their sin will die in their sin. Unless, unless they come to a place of repentance. The Bible says in the book of Ezekiel that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

He doesn't. God is not willing, 2 Peter 3:9, that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Acts 17:3 says that God is declaring everywhere that all men should rep. The application of the prayer is for those who repent of their sins, for forgiveness is freely offered. Revelation 22, 17 says that the Spirit and the bride say, Come, let everyone who is thirsty come and drink of the water of life freely without cost. But unless there's a willingness to turn from their sin toward a Savior, there is no forgiveness.

And so Christ would extend. forgiveness to all those who would come to a place of repentance, that they might experience the forgiveness of God. Think about it. Maybe those people there that day would have thought that their sin would never be forgiven for what they did. And so Christ verbalized, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. The attitude behind the prayer. The appeal in the prayer, the application of the prayer. And fourthly, I want you to see the acknowledgement in the prayer.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. Christ acknowledges they don't know what they are doing. If they knew, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, verse number 8, if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord. Obviously these words don't mean that they were completely ignorant of what they were doing. They knew they were murdering the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. They knew that they put them on the tree, but they did not understand the enormity of their crime.

They did not understand because they had been blinded by Satan. They had been blinded to spiritual truth. And so they did not comprehend the magnitude of their sin. They did not understand all that they were doing. Now, were they without excuse? No, they weren't. They had heard his words. They heard him preach, and over in Matthew chapter 7, verse number 28 and 29, it says that they were amazed at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority and not their scribes. They were amazed at what he taught.

They are amazed at his works and his miracles, for many of them had seen the great acts of God before them, and many of them probably that were there that day had experienced the feeding of the 5,000 or the feeding of the 4,000. Maybe they were the ones who had received some of the bread or some of the fish that God had multiplied that day for them, and they were there. And maybe, just maybe, there were some that were there, and probably so, that just a few days earlier had hailed him as King of the Jews.

Lord of all, Hosanna, salvation now, our Lord come, but this day. This day they turned against him. This day they decided to kill him. This day they conspired against him and the crowd would join in mocking him. Casting insults upon him. And he would say, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. They did not grasp the enormity of their crime. Were they guilty of murder? Yes, they were. Did their ignorance excuse them? No, it did not. They had the king of kings before them. They had seen his marvelous work.

They had seen it all. They were without excuse, every man. Every woman ever born is without ex. That's what Romans 1 says. Without excuse. They supp the truth. They refuse to acknowledge the truth. And these people refuse to acknowledge that he was exactly who he said he was. And Christ would acknowledge that, but they don't understand what they're doing. If they did, I wouldn't be here today. Was there an answer to the prayer? Sure, there was. That's the next thing. I want you to see the answer to the prayer.

And there was an immediate answer, and there is an ultimate answer. There was an answer to the prayer. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. It's a prayer by our Lord to his Father who is in heaven. He prayed to his Father who is in heaven from the cross. So amazing that the one who would suffer injustice, the one who would suffer such shame, would think. First of all, for the very first words out of his mouth were, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.

His very first thing to do was to pray to his Father in heaven. S, it fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 53, where he would make intercession for his transgressors. He did that exactly as it was prophesied in the book of Isaiah. And yet, there would be a dramatic answer to the prayer of Christ with one of the two thieves, one of the two criminals that hung not too far from him. He would extend forgiveness to his persecutors. How about you? How about you today? Do you have a forgiving heart? Are you willing to forgive those who have persecuted you, who have offended you, who have mocked you, who have abused you, who have mistreated you?

No matter how badly you have been mistreated and abused, it doesn't come close to the abuse that Christ him faced. And yet he extended forgiveness. We need to follow his example because he left us an example. An example that we commit ourselves to him who judges righteously. We want vengeance. We want retribution. We want the upper hand. And yet we need to be like Christ and extend forgiveness. It's God's job. To bring about revenge. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Let me share this with you: the aftermath of the prayer.

That's the seventh point. What was the aftermath? There was an earthquake. The whole planet became dark. The veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And the Bible says in Matthew 27 that the dead were raised.

A great supernatural phenomenon occurred. Know what that tells me? That as a believer, if you extend forgiveness to those who have abused you, persecuted you, Treated you in an injust, there will be a supernatural effect demonstrated through your life that only God Himself can do. Only God can do it. And God wants to use you in a miraculous way. It could be that those around us don't experience forgiveness because they haven't seen us extend forgiveness. Because the Christian is most like Christ when?

When forgiveness is at stake. You see, if you really want to be Christ-like, then the way to do that is to exemplify the Christ-like life. And Christ came not to destroy man's lives, but to forgive man's sins. And so, if you want to demonstrate Christ to a lost world, you need to be a forgiver of man. You need to be able to extend forgiveness to those who have abused you, mistreated you, mocked you, made fun of you, done all they could to destroy your life. Because that's what they did to Christ.

And yet he kept committing himself to him who judges righteously, leaving us an example that we would follow in his footsteps. This morning, our ushers are going to come down and they're going to distribute to you the elements of the bread and the cup. And as they do, I want you to remember that as you partake of the bread and the cup, you are following the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you're a believer today, this is an opportunity for you to get excited about what God has done in your life and to be excited about the opportunities He's going to place before you that you could model to the world His life.

If you're an unbeliever today, this table is not for you unless you repent of your sin and believe the gospel. Believe that what Jesus Christ did on the cross some 2,000 years ago, he did for you, that he might save you from your sin. That you might live his life. You see, Peter said it well. That's why Christ came. He came that you might no longer live the sinful life, but live the righteous life. And what's the righteous life? Following the example of Christ to be able to extend forgiveness to those who have mistreated you and abused you.

And Peter says, for this purpose. You have been called. You've been called for that purpose to demonstrate to the world a forgiving spirit. Let's pray together.