Bible in a Year: Good Friday

Seven Last Words of Jesus

Introduction

After the Last Supper with His disciples on a Thursday night, Jesus was arrested, put on trail by the Pharisees and beaten by the Romans.

On Friday around mid-day, Jesus carried His cross up the hill to Golgotha, or also called Calvary the place where criminals were put to death.

Horror, violence, shame and condemnations. You would think that as Christians, we should call this day Horrible Friday. Not Good Friday.

But there is a reason why we call it Good Friday.

We can find the reason in the last seven words of Jesus.

As Jesus hung on the cross, we are told through the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the last words Jesus spoke.

Each of these words are a fulfillment of prophecy found in the Old Testament. Some from the book of Psalms. Some from the prophets.

Tonight I would like for you to pray that the Holy Spirit will fill your heart and mind as we learn together how God made something so bad, something so good.

Let’s pray.

Gracious Lord. We love you. Our souls hurt, thinking of the suffering that You endured for our sake. Help us to see just what you have done for us. Help us to understand how your plan for salvation was made complete. Help us to live holy lives because of the sacrifice of Jesus. Amen.

The First Word

Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

The First Word of Jesus on the cross fulfills the prophecy found in Isaiah 53:12. “He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”

The first word there are three things you should see.

First and foremost, this is a prayer.

The nails had just been driven into his hands and feet.

The pain of the cross being raised and gravity making Jesus breathing labored had just happened.

Instead of a curse, the first thing Jesus did was pray. “Father” He said.

Prayer had always been the natural language for Jesus.

In contrast to the hate and rejection expressed in crucifixion, Jesus manifested love and forgiveness for those who crucified Him. He prayed for them. While they were stealing his garments, he prayed for God to forgive them.

Jesus prayed

At his baptism

As He withdrew from the crowds

Before and after healing people.

Before walking on water

At the Transfiguration

Before teaching the Lord’s prayer

Before the raising of Lazarus from the grave

In the Garden of Gethsemane

Jesus prayed before meals

Before feeding the 5000

At the last supper

And as the eyes of his disciples were opened on the walk to Emmaus.

Jesus spoke in the language of prayer.

The first three words on the cross are prayers.

Forgive them.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44).

Jesus put into practice exactly what He preached.

When righteousness is trampled underfoot

When wrong is triumphant,

When our faith is tempted

When prosperity is turned suddenly into adversity

when the hopes of life are tumbled into confusion

When we move from tranquility to disaster in our lives

We sometimes ask if there is really a God, loving and wise, seated on the throne of the universe, and why these things have to happen.

But, when the fortunes of Jesus were at the worst, when He was beaten by a raging pack of wolf-like enemies, and when He was sinking into unplumbed abysses of pain and desertion, He still said “Father.”

What a difference there is between preaching and practice!

Know Not

Who was Jesus asking forgiveness for?

Judas who had betrayed Him?

Peter who had denied Him?

Andrew who had run away?

The Pharisees who put him on trial?

Herod for questioning him?

The soldiers for beating him?

The crowds for ridiculing him?

Or you and me for our sinful natures?

The answer is simply all of the above and more so.

We know not what we do.

But here’s the thing.

NOW WE DO!

Jesus was not praying for instant forgiveness of those with hearts of stone.

Forgiveness comes with repentance.

JESUS WAS PRAYING FOR MORE TIME!

More time to come to know the Holy Spirit.

More time for people to repent and turn to God.

More time for everyone to draw together in fellowship so that we can start to learn.

To know what we do.

If Jesus had had any sins of His own to confess, this would have been the time to do so.

He did not, so He prayed for other sinners instead.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Second Word

Luke 23:43: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

The Bible doesn’t tell us why Jesus was hung on a cross between two thieves.

But there was no greater shame. By putting Jesus between two thieves, Pilate made have been making a point. After all, he had a sign placed upon Jesus’ cross which said, “King of the Jews.” Maybe he wanted everyone to know that the King of the Jews was also the king of thieves.

Maybe it was the Pharisees who wanted to ruin Jesus’ reputation. By putting Jesus with thieves, they may have wanted people to find him guilty by association.

Whatever the reason, there was malice and hate involved.

But in the middle of man’s hate and petty wrath, God has a divine and holy hand.

At every hateful word, Jesus prayed for forgiveness.

For every injuring blow, Jesus turned the other cheek.

For every slur, Jesus showed kindness.

Every mean, human emotion bent on dishonoring Jesus, He turned them into something honorable.

EXPIATION

We are all sinners.

Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death”

We are all guilty in God’s eyes.

Because of that guilt, we deserve the second death.

The second part of Romans 6:23 says, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Expiation means Jesus took all of our guilt upon Himself when the nails ran through His hands.

Because of the cross, we are no longer guilty in God’s eyes.

When God looks at us, He doesn’t see the shameful sinfulness which are our lives. Instead, God sees the holiness of Jesus.

The apostle Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:15 “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them.”

Jesus was born among sinners.

Jesus grew up among sinners.

Jesus ate with sinners

Jesus forgave sinners.

Jesus died among sinners.

Even today, Jesus is working among sinners.

Today you will be with me.

The two thieves on the cross set a precedence that has lasted throughout history and into our world today.

One thief chose to believe.

The other denied.

One received paradise.

The other died.

This will be the way until the whole history of this world comes to an end.

In paradise

With expiation, Christ took all of our guilt and set of free.

Propitiation.

Romans 6:23 says the wages of sin.

Wages are something we earned.

Because we are sinners, we have earned judgment because our God is a righteous God.

Propitiation means that all of the wrath God should pour out on us for our sins was poured out on Jesus.

The thief on the cross had observed Jesus since he carried his cross up the hill to Golgotha.

The thief saw Jesus take abuse and punishment and how Jesus responded with kind words, prayer and forgiveness.

He saw the sign Pilate had hung over his head and heard the whispers of the Pharisees.

The thief saw the kind of person Jesus was.

He himself admitted his guilt when he said to the other thief, “we receive our just rewards for what we’ve done.”

This goes to the heart of the Gospel.

Too often preachers turn God’s Word into some kind of moral improvement. Be better. Act better. Be nice.

Jesus' words to the thief are more than that. It is salvation.

All of the disciples except for John had run away. Some of them were miles away.

The only congregation that Jesus had left was this thief on the cross

When the faith of Peter failed, the faith of the thief took its place.

Salvation

Expiation means that on the cross, Jesus took away the guilt of our sins.

Propitiation. Means on the cross, Jesus took the wrath of God for our sins away.

With the words to the thief, Jesus showed one last requirement for salvation.

Reconciliation

Ephesians 2:8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast.

When we believe in Jesus Christ, we receive salvation.

When we believe, our guilt is taken away.

When we believe, our wages become life, not death.

When we believe, we are reconciled to God and given life eternal.

Jesus promised the thief that he would go to paradise simply because of his faith in Jesus. This is one of the clearest examples in Scripture that salvation is not a reward for meritorious works but is a gift of God.

The thief did not have to do anything more to qualify for heaven. Indeed he could have done nothing more.

You will be with me.

Matthew 9:5 5 For which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then he told the paralytic, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”

Jesus can forgive sins in life and in death.

The thief was thinking of some date far off when Christ might intervene on his behalf, but Christ says, “Today.”

This was a prophecy from the Old Testament that Jesus would die that day.

It was also a promise that when the thief died, Christ would be waiting there to receive him.

“Today thou shalt be with Me.” All heaven is in these two last words. What do we really know of heaven, what do we wish to know, except that it is to be “with Christ in Paradise.”

The thief was told, just like the parzlyed man, “Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”

Third Word

John 19:26–27: “Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.”

After the birth of Jesus, Mary carried the baby into the temple for a blessing.

She was a proud young mother.

Imagine her surprise when she met Simeon, an old man who had been waiting, everyday for year, for the Messiah.

Luke 2:33-35 says, “33 Joseph and Mary were amazed at what was being said about Jesus. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother Mary, “Indeed, this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed— 35 and a sword will pierce your own soul.”

I cannot imagine a worse stabbing than Mary looking at Jesus on the cross.

The only disciple left was John. The night before, he had run from the garden, leaving his clothes behind in fear.

At some time during the night, his fear turned into determination and he was at the foot of the cross, listening to the last words of Jesus. Hoping to hear eternal secrets or witness the Holy Spirit rip the sky apart and build a new kingdom.

The disciples had argued before about what their reward for following Jesus might be. Who was the better, who would sit at the right hand of the throne of Jesus?

At the cross, John received a reward beyond his wildest imagination.

His heavenly reward was eternal life.

But his earthly reward was to give to Jesus one last request.

Take care of his mother.

It must have been an unimaginable honor to take care of jesus mother.

Jesus’ father Joseph had passed onto glory and Jesus’ brothers had not yet come to believe, but John did. Jesus wanted his mother to be surrounded by people of faith.

The last words of Jesus can be divided into two categories.

The first are the prayers of forgiveness. The office of the Messiah, if you will. It was what Jesus was born to do. His work in this world to convince sinners to repent.

The second part is the personal words. His worldly life.

In these words, Jesus gave a legally binding contract. They seem too formal to be anything else.

“Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.”

It was simple, yet comprehensive request overflowing with love to both Mary and John.

Jesus had no money to leave her; everything he owned when He was crucified, consisted of the clothes He wore; and these fell to the soldiers.

But it is one of the privileges of those who, though they may be poor themselves, are rich with friends who want to help.

In committing His mother to John Jesus knew that the charge would be accepted not as a burden but a gift.

John says that very hour he took her to his home. He gently withdrew her from the foot of the cross so that she would not have to see the end.

John took care of Mary for twelve years and would not leave her side. It was only after her death that John started his own missionary journeys.

Worldly thing

Too often we speak of worldly things as something bad. But sometimes, they are good.

These words to Jesus' mother showed that God cares about our worldly lives as much as our spiritual lives.

These words prove that God is a Father to the fatherless and a Husband to the widow, a friend to the lost and a savior to sinners. And that no one has been forgotten by Jesus.

Fourth Words

Matthew 27:46: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Jesus took care of the needs of others. The crucifiers. The thief. His mother. Now we see the personal toll the cross took upon Jesus.

From the sixth hour to the ninth Jesus was silent.

During this interval there was darkness over all the land. Three of the Gospels talk about the darkness. It was as if the sun refused to look on such a deed of shame.

These words were a cry out of the lowest depths of despair.

In the entire Bible there is no other sentence so difficult to explain and hard on the soul.

The first thought I had as I read these words was to find some excuse for passing it by. Just skipping it for tonight.

It hurt too much to think of the agony of what was going through the mind of Jesus.

As the nails were hammered into his hands the cross lifted high, all of the sins of mankind from the time of Adam and Eve to the atrocities in today’s world, were placed upon Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus became sin.

Habakkuk 1:13 says this about God, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”

When Jesus became sin, God had to turn away.

My God

Always before, Jesus had addressed God as “Father.”

Jesus even included us as God’s children when He taught us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven.”

But when Jesus became sin for us, it was no longer a father’s love, but God’s judgment.

Romans 6:26. “For the wages of sin is death.

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Jesus had often been forsaken in life.

His own brothers rejected him and tried to get him to stop preaching.

His hometown of Nazareth tried to throw Him off a cliff.

Judas forsook him for a bag of coins.

The disciples fled from him when the Romans came.

The nation he came to save put him on trial.

The multitudes he fed spat upon Him as he carried his cross to Golgotha.

In all of these life disappointments, even though it hurt Jesus, He always had one thing to fall back on to give Him hope.

When He was rejected by men, He drew strength from God His Father.

Even during the Last Supper, before Judas grabbed his bag of cash, Jesus said, “John 16:32 Indeed, an hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

Everyone had forsaken Jesus and now God could not even look upon Him because he had become sin.

Why?

Last Sunday, I spoke about the greatest danger to faith is simply the question, “Why?”

It’s because in the depths of our despair, that is the question we ask.

When everything goes wrong in our world, this is the question we ask.

On that hill far away everything in the world had gone wrong.

Throughout the Bible, we see good, God loving people ask the same question. Why?

In the Book of Job, he asks, “Why was I even born?

The prophet Jeremiah used that question throughout the book. He said, In Jeremiah 20:7 he cries out, “Why did You deceive me, Lord? You seized me and prevailed.I am a laughingstock all the time; everyone ridicules me.”

These words almost seem like blasphemy. But it’s not. It’s the words of someone who has sunk into the whirlpool of despair.

Someone who has been forsaken.

All of the millions of “whys” all throughout the past, present and future found themselves on Calvary that day when darkness ruled the land.

The whys of despair

The whys of people in agony.

The whys of those who have lost.

The whys of the confused.

All of the whys ever uttered were concentrated on that single cross.

The only solace we can find in these words of Jesus is that when we cry out why, our God knows the same kind of hurt and pain and has asked the same thing.

Fifth Words

John 19:28: “I thirst.”

Let me say, if you will, that all of the last words of Jesus on the cross are connected. One phrase leads to another.

You can see the movement of the words almost like a Beethoven symphony.

The fourth words were, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

The next words are simply, “I thirst.”

This was the only cry of physical pain uttered by our Lord on the cross.

But I also believe it is a pattern for our own faith.

When Jesus was talking to the woman at the well, he said in John 4:13-14 “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”

Again, in John 7: 37-38 Jesus says, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.”

In any pattern of real spiritual faith, it almost always starts with the question of why?

Sometimes it is why am I a sinner?

Sometimes it is why can’t I change for the better?

Other times it may be, “why does Jesus love me?

There are a million zillion variations. As many variations as people who have come to know Jesus.

The answer to why is always the same. JESUS.

Dichotomy

A dichotomy is a contrast between two opposite things.

Jesus is the living waters but yet He thirsts.

Jesus’ whole life and ministry was a dichotomy.

Jesus had inward and spiritual wealth. He received a full measure of the Holy Spirit. Yet he suffered from poverty and only owned the clothes on his back.

He gave the world real wisdom, but was called foolish by the learned men of his time.

He was a man with many followers, but Luke 2 tells us it was the women who financially supported his ministry.

Jesus said, in the gospel of John, “I am the bread of life” but often hungered and his disciples had to eat wheat from the side of the road.

Jesus promised the poor mansions in heaven, but also said, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, yet the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.”

Jesus was the fount of living water, but one of his last words were “I thirst.”

Our lives are also a dichotomy.

Often we have friends surrounding us in good times, but in bad, we lie alone in bed wondering when someone will come visit us.

We feel in good health, but have to sit in lonely waiting rooms anxious to hear the results of a test.

We have food a plenty, but there are children going to bed hungry.

We have clean water, but there are millions dying of thirst.

In all of these dichotomies in life, Jesus gives us hope.

All connected.

Jesus models our own spiritual journeys in these last words.

We often ask the question “why?”

And then we thirst.

We thirst for spiritual guidance.

We thirst for love and acceptance and faith and hope and grace and kindness.

But the most important point to remember is that Jesus still thirsts!

Jesus thirsts for your love.

He thirsts for your prayers.

He thirsts for you presence

He thirsts for your gifts.

He thirsts for your service.

And he thirsts for your witness.

Your witness to a world that is thirsty for righteousness.

As Jesus thirsts, we too should thirst.

Matthew 5:6 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness. They will be satisfied.

Sixth Word

John 19:30: “It is finished.”

The Fifth, the Sixth Word from the Cross is, in the Greek, literally a single word; tetelestai.

It literally means, “Paid in full.”

It has been often said to be the greatest single word ever uttered.

It’s meaning is victory.

This dying word carries us back to the very first words we hear from Jesus.

In Luke’s gospel 2:49. We see that Mary and Joseph has temporarily lost Jesus. As a parent I understand the feeling of not knowing where a child might be. You frantically search. Mary and Joseph did just that. They turned their caravan around and went to find the 12 year old Jesus. They found him in the Temple, teaching the old, wise Pharisees.

As with all parents they asked him what he was doing and Jesus answered. “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

My Father’s business.

Even at twelve years of age He already knew that there was a business entrusted to Him by His Father in heaven.

His business was to save the lost.

To establish a Kingdom of God.

To offer forgiveness and to take away the guilt of sin.

To reconcile lost people back to God.

His business was the cross.

It is finished as a cry of victory in Jesus.

His business was to rescue souls from Hell.

As Jesus tells John the Revelator says in Revelations 3:8 “See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it.

It is finished and no one, not even Satan can shut the door to salvation.

Because, “It IS FINISHED!”

Luke 23:46: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

A prayer. Jesus began with a prayer and ends with a prayer.

As we’ve talked about, Jesus spoke the language of prayer.

Prayer is appropriate for every facet in life. It is most appropriate at certain times.

When we go to bed at night.

When we say grace before a meal.

Before we receive communion.

As we give our tithes in the offering plate.

When the airplane hits a pocket of turbulence.

At the end of our lives, that is when prayer is most appopropriate.

The last word of the dying Saviour was a quotation from Scripture.

If prayer is natural to a disciple of Jesus, so too is Scripture.

In the most sacred moments of our lives there is nothing more appropriate than the language of God’s Word.

I said earlier that every last word of Jesus can be found in the Psalms or the Prophets. The final word comes from Psalm 31. I want to read 1-5

1 In you, O Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me. Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me; take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

Jesus knew where to go in the Bible for the language that suited Him; for He had been a diligent student of it all His days. He heard it in the home of His childhood; He listened to it in the synagogue. He knew Scripture through and through.

When He became a preacher, His language was saturated with it.

He could put to shame those who were its professional students. But in His private life likewise He used Scripture.

He fought Satan in the wilderness by quoting Scripture.

Now, at the moment of his death, Jesus spoke the language of Scripture.

Jesus tells us to hide God’s Word in our hearts

That Scripture is an ever present help in every time of need

Jesus died for you and me.

Jesus could have at any time came down off that cross.

Jesus could have healed the nail holes he showed to Thomas like he healed the lame and made new the lepers.

He could have called down fire from heaven and destroyed Rome like Sodom and Gamoorah.

He could have chosen to live and rule the world like Satan had offered in the desert.

He could have turn ruin into majesty

Shame into glory.

Defeat into victory

Poverty into riches.

He could have laid low the mighty and lifted up the lowly.

He could have turned the foolish into the wise.

But that was not the business he was born to do.

No one except Jesus made the choice for him to die.

Not Pilate,

Not Caiaphas.

Not the Romans.

Only Jesus chose to die on that cross. Jesus voluntarily laid His life down; no one took it from Him

Why?

For me and you.

So that we could have time to repent

So that we could hear a message of grace.

So that we could have the blessed assurance of paradise.

Six hours

Jesus was on the cross for six hours.

As God rested after six days of work on the creation (Gen. 2:1-3), so Jesus rested after six hours of work on the cross

In that six hours, Jesus made a new creation.

A kingdom that would last forever.

The world was Born Again!

Today is Good Friday.

It is called Good because on this day, Jesus took away our sins and showed us forgiveness.

But the best is yet to come.

In John 14, Jesus was telling his disciples about His death.

This is what he said, “18-20 “I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.

It is finished. But the best is yet to come.