Today You Will be With Me in Paradise (Luke 23:29-43)

Hello, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning in to USun Churches Podcast.

We're a gospel center church in Portugal, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

And when they came to the place that is called the Skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

And they cast lots to divide his garments.

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us.

But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.

But this man has done nothing wrong.

And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And he said to him, Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Today you will be with me in paradise.

Let's pray.

Father, we come to hear you speak directly to our hearts and our minds as we reflect on the cross.

As we reflect on the Easter season of the Lord's Supper that you instituted, on you hanging on the cross and you rising from the dead on Easter morning.

Father, help us to draw close to you, because we cannot do it on our own.

Help us, Lord, to have the cross always in our mind.

And praise in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I was in a coffee shop the other day as I was preparing my sermon.

And as we all, if you've been sat in the coffee shop before, you know that you always you always hear other people's people's conversations.

It's impossible not to hear other people talk.

And you always listen in.

It's impossible not to.

And if you deny it, you're you're lying.

But the thing that's interesting about this one, um, it was two um Baristas talking, and they were commenting about how many Christians come to this coffee shop.

How many of them come and have social gatherings?

And actually went quite on, uh they talked a lot about it, how surprised they were.

And they continue to talk about it, and they're like, Yeah, I know, I understand how churches are a good thing in the sense that they're good for a meeting place, a good for people to come and feel like they're a part of something, they almost feel like they have a family.

But they also were quickly to say to each other, to reassure each other, that they can never do it, and they don't need that God stuff.

They like the they like the social element of it, but they can never do the God stuff.

This conversation shows us something that's very common.

It's a very common misunderstanding on what the Christian, what Christianity is, and what exactly the Christian message is.

That the common misunderstanding is that if you do something good or try to be a good person, you'll go to a better place.

I've talked often about it here on Sunday mornings.

Um, before I got into ministry, before I became a pastor, I was a photojournalist.

I was a photographer in Ottawa for over 10 years.

And the thing with being a photojournalist in a political city is that you'd cover national funerals, or you'd cover people of well, well-known people's funerals, and you'd always go to them and take photos of them.

It's just a part of the job.

And the thing that's always struck me about it, and as I reflect on it now, you'd always hear that this person has gone to a better place.

You'd always hear it, you'd always hear that line.

It's normally from family members, and the intention is good.

But where is that better place?

Where is it?

And if you press them on it, obviously you can't, but if you did, you would never get a straight answer about it, because no one really knows.

The text that we're gonna look at briefly, that was read, shows us two things.

It shows us the gospel and it shows us the Christian hope.

The text we're looking at is on page eight of your bulletins.

It's the it's the account of the two criminals hanging on each side of Jesus as they um as they talk, they have a conversation with one another through it.

And it's important that we have it fresh in our minds.

I know it's just read, but I'm gonna read it again because it's so important to have it right away in our minds.

It says this one of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, Jesus, saying, Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us.

But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward for our deeds.

But this man has done nothing wrong.

And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Then he said, Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Now we just have gone over the account of what of Jesus' last moments.

We just had we just heard the text of Jesus dying.

Jesus has been abandoned from his disciples.

He's been betrayed by one of his disciples, he's been mocked, he's been beat, he's had his hands and feet nailed to a piece of wood, and now he has died.

But this is one of the most intimate moments of Jesus' death upon the cross, of him interacting with this criminal hanging beside him.

And the thing that's interesting, when you read the other gospel messages of this moment, you might be thinking, doesn't it say that the two criminals were both railing and mocking Jesus?

Well, that's very true, and it says that in the other text.

But what this is showing is that they both criminals at the beginning were mocking Jesus, but then one has a change of heart juring while he's hanging on the cross beside him.

So the first point, what is the gospel?

Now, gospel means good news, and there's lots of good news stories in this world.

But the thing that's with the Christian message, the gospel is not follow the rules and you'll be saved.

That'll only get you so far.

It's not be a good person and you'll be saved.

It's not just manifest your energy for positivity and you'll be saved.

It's not just go to church, be baptized, partake in the Lord's Supper, partake in church life, and you'll be saved.

The Christian message, and it blatantly says it in the New Testament, is that humanity is so utterly hopeless to be made right before God that they needed someone to come and save them.

And God in his divine love sends his son into the world.

Genuine faith is what saves you.

Christianity is not a social club, it's a matter of life and death.

So when we look at the two criminals, we see one who is mocking Jesus, and then we see another who's defending Jesus.

The one who mocks Jesus knows Jesus' message because he says, Can't you just save us?

Can't you just save us right now?

This man would have heard, both of these men, both criminals, would have heard Jesus' message.

It's impossible that they didn't hear him talk within Jerusalem.

They both would know it.

And then we see the second criminal.

He started in the other accounts to mock Jesus, but then you see clearly he has a change of heart, he has a heart change moment.

And he begins to defend Jesus, and he acknowledges his hopelessness before Jesus, and then goes to Jesus and asks him to save him.

Both were close to Jesus, but only one truly was close to him.

Only one put his faith in Jesus to save him, the other one just mocked him.

See, the Christian hope, the Christian hope is that when you put your faith and trust in Jesus, you instantly, in that moment, become right with God.

And we see it in verses 42 and 43.

When the criminal turns to turns his head to Jesus and says, Jesus, remember me, such beautiful words.

When you come into your kingdom, and Jesus turns to him and says, Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

Now, this idea of paradise is not something of a feel-good moment.

It's not something that's fluffy up in the sky.

It is something that's grounded in historic facts.

And that is that you when you are entered into paradise with God, you are, you become, you get to walk with Him.

There's this moment that you, as you close your eyes, you open them and you're before Jesus.

But it doesn't end there because the Christian hope is that Jesus will return.

That those who are living will see him come, and that those who are dead will rise.

And this isn't a zombie moment that people will come out of the ground.

This is one of the mysteries of Christianity, that when we, when Jesus returns, he will call those he's called to himself.

Now, this sermon isn't something, to summarize the sermon, it's that the Christian message is one of great hope.

It's one of great assurance.

It's one that someone has come to save us because we couldn't save ourselves.

So why do we remember the cross every year?

Why do we do this every year?

It's that Christianity is that it's not a social club.

Christianity is that you have been saved by a God that loves you so much.

And that you see it in this moment of his son on the cross calling this man to himself.

This man that could do nothing for himself.

He was a criminal.

He's been a horrible person his whole life.

But in this moment, his heart changes and it's not held against him.

God doesn't point a finger at him and says, You are too bad, you are too far gone.

Jesus just calls him to himself.

J.C.

Ryle was a great Anglican pastor back in the day, and he writes this quote about this section.

So that no sinner might despair, but only one, so that no sinner might presume.

When you put your faith and trust in Jesus and in his work on the cross, immediately you become right with God.

And you get to hear, you get the when you read this text, you can hear Jesus speaking directly to you, saying, truly, today, it might not be, it might just be figurative in the moment.

You will be with me in paradise.

And we can hold on to that.

That is the Christian hope, is that Jesus will return and you will be with him in paradise.

And that is the Christian message that Jesus came into the world to save those who cannot save themselves.

That is the cross, and that is why we remember the cross every year.

Because we need to remember that, because it's so easy to forget and get focused on other things.

But it's about Jesus' work on the cross, and that is it.

Amen.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's Word today.

If you live in the Port Perry area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

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Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.