1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,000 Hello and welcome today to Trinity Sermons. In the sermon today we are continuing our 2 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:16,040 Lenten series, Famous Last Words, and we'll be hearing from Rob about the last conversation 3 00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:20,440 Jesus has, one where he says to a criminal on the cross beside him, 4 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:26,440 Today you will be with me in paradise. Thanks for tuning in everybody and we hope that you enjoy. 5 00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:30,440 God bless. 6 00:00:30,440 --> 00:00:38,440 This is a reading from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 23, verse 32, starting in verse 32. 7 00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:44,440 Two other men, both criminals, were also let out with him to be executed. 8 00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:48,440 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him. 9 00:00:48,440 --> 00:00:53,440 Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us. 10 00:00:53,440 --> 00:01:00,440 The other criminal rebuked him. Don't you fear God, he said, since you are under the same sentence? 11 00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:08,440 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong. 12 00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:13,440 Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. 13 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:20,440 Jesus answered him, Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. 14 00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:22,440 The word of the Lord. 15 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:31,440 The Virgin Elizabeth II died on September 8th, 2022 at 310 p.m. 16 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:37,440 And when word of her imminent death got out to her family members, the members of the royal family, 17 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:41,440 they rushed to be by her side and not everybody could make it. 18 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:47,440 What we know for sure is that Princess Anne was with her when she passed away. 19 00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:56,440 And so presumably Princess Anne was the one who had the very last conversation with Queen Elizabeth. 20 00:01:56,440 --> 00:01:59,440 We don't know what that was. 21 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:06,440 Today, we come to the very last conversation that Jesus ever had with another human being. 22 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:13,440 These aren't necessarily Jesus's last words, but it was Jesus's last conversation. 23 00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:20,440 And as opposed to having members of his family rush to be by his side and hear those last words 24 00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:24,440 or to have royalty come and gather around him. 25 00:02:24,440 --> 00:02:33,440 No, Jesus' last conversation was with a criminal, was with a bandit, a thief on the cross. 26 00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:40,440 And though it is a very brief conversation, the one thing we do know is we do know what they talked about. 27 00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:44,440 Because these words were recorded in the Gospels. 28 00:02:44,440 --> 00:02:49,440 All four Gospels record this incident and these words were passed down to us through the centuries 29 00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:53,440 so that we could open them up and read them today. 30 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:56,440 And as we read them, it becomes clear there's lots to learn here. 31 00:02:56,440 --> 00:03:00,440 And today I want to share with you four particular things that we need to learn. 32 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:05,440 First, we are going to look at the people who were around Jesus. 33 00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:09,440 Secondly, the perspectives about Jesus. 34 00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:13,440 Thirdly, this plea that was made to Jesus. 35 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:18,440 And finally, the promise that was made by Jesus. 36 00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:21,440 So we're going to just dive right into it. 37 00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:32,440 And let's begin by looking at these first words that Jesus spoke, the people that were around Jesus. 38 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:39,440 I'm not sure if my little clicker here is working, I just want to get that going. 39 00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:44,440 The first thing we learn were the people who hung around Jesus. 40 00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:47,440 You know, they say you can tell a lot about a person by the company that they keep. 41 00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:50,440 We can tell a lot about Jesus by the kind of company he kept throughout his life. 42 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:55,440 And it seems that whenever we read about Jesus in his life in the Gospels, 43 00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:58,440 he was always hanging around what we might call the wrong sorts of people, 44 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:02,440 the sinners and the lost sheep of his community. 45 00:04:02,440 --> 00:04:06,440 And this didn't sit so well with the religious people of his world. 46 00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:11,440 They did not like the fact that Jesus hung around with these type of people. 47 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:16,440 So, for example, when the tax collectors and the sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, 48 00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:18,440 look what the religious people were doing. 49 00:04:18,440 --> 00:04:21,440 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law, they muttered and they said, 50 00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:26,440 oh, this man welcomes sinners and he eats with them. 51 00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:30,440 Now, you can understand how they would have felt because Jesus was supposed to be this great teacher. 52 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:32,440 He was supposed to be this holy man. 53 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:40,440 And here he was hanging around with some of the losers and the outcasts and the sinners of his society. 54 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:48,440 I mean, imagine, for example, if I went to downtown Toronto and I started having coffee with the prostitutes. 55 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:52,440 Now, some of you, you know, very graciously would say, oh, isn't that great? 56 00:04:52,440 --> 00:04:56,440 Rob is going down and he's sharing the gospel with the prostitutes. 57 00:04:56,440 --> 00:05:00,440 But I think that more than a few of you would probably say, 58 00:05:00,440 --> 00:05:04,440 I always knew there was something a little off about that guy. 59 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:08,440 And you'd be on the phone with the bishop, I think, by the end of the day. 60 00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:15,440 You see, religious people were really, really upset about the fact that Jesus spent time with these kind of people. 61 00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:20,440 As the saying goes, bad company corrupts good character. 62 00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:23,440 But here is the thing. This is the amazing thing. 63 00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:32,440 Not only did Jesus like being around non-religious people, but non-religious people loved being around Jesus. 64 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:38,440 I mean, those the type of people who hung around Jesus, they didn't like the religious people. 65 00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:44,440 They didn't like the church people very much. Church people, religious people creeped them out. 66 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:48,440 Church people, religious people made them feel bad about who they were. 67 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:51,440 They had to watch their language when they were around religious people. 68 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:56,440 They couldn't be themselves when they were around religious people, but it was different with Jesus. 69 00:05:56,440 --> 00:06:02,440 You know, the other day I was taking an Uber and on the way to our destination, the Uber driver was talking and chatting. 70 00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:04,440 He was hilarious. He was going on and on. 71 00:06:04,440 --> 00:06:08,440 He had very colorful language, mind you, but he was going on and on. 72 00:06:08,440 --> 00:06:10,440 And then he eventually asked me, oh, and what do you do? 73 00:06:10,440 --> 00:06:17,440 And after I told him, you know, he clammed up and he just stopped talking altogether. 74 00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:26,440 And he even apologized. Why? Because I was a religious person and therefore he couldn't be himself around me. 75 00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:32,440 You know, a guy named Dan Kimball, a few years ago, he wrote a book called They Like Jesus, But Not the Church. 76 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:39,440 And it was a book that talked about how the younger generation actually has a great appreciation and admiration for Jesus. 77 00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:43,440 But for religion, for the church, no, no, no, no, no. 78 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:49,440 And why? Because they knew what it felt like to walk into a church and feel the eyes of everyone staring at you. 79 00:06:49,440 --> 00:06:53,440 They knew what it felt like to walk into church and be ignored, perhaps. 80 00:06:53,440 --> 00:06:58,440 They knew what it felt like to come into church and hear the preacher's voice, right? 81 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:02,440 Speaking down at you. They knew what it felt like. 82 00:07:02,440 --> 00:07:08,440 They knew what that felt like. And it made them feel small. 83 00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:13,440 But when Jesus was around non-religious people, they didn't feel small. 84 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:17,440 They felt loved. They they didn't feel condemned. 85 00:07:17,440 --> 00:07:24,440 They felt invited and they wanted to hear more of what Jesus had to say. 86 00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:26,440 I'm just going to tell you a story. But do you remember this story? 87 00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:32,440 Shortly before before Jesus was executed, he was traveling through a town called Jericho. 88 00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:35,440 And in Jericho, there was a fairly notorious criminal, a crook. 89 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:38,440 Nobody really liked him. His name was Zacchaeus. 90 00:07:38,440 --> 00:07:43,440 And everyone ignored him and hated him. But when Jesus walked through that town, when Jesus walked by that town, 91 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:49,440 he looked straight at Zacchaeus and he said, Hey, Zacchaeus, I want to have dinner with you tonight. 92 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:53,440 And and dinner was a big deal as it is now in the Middle East. 93 00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:57,440 It was even more so back then when you had dinner with someone, you were saying, I want to I want to have fellowship with you. 94 00:07:57,440 --> 00:07:59,440 I want to connect with you. 95 00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:04,440 And of course, the religious leaders of that town were like saying, you have got to be kidding me. 96 00:08:04,440 --> 00:08:08,440 Jesus is going to go hang out with Zacchaeus of all people. 97 00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:10,440 And on top of that, you know what Zacchaeus did? 98 00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:14,440 He went and invited all his non-religious friends and all his, you know, 99 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:21,440 sinner friends, the prostitutes, other tax collectors and other kind of ne'er do wells in the community. 100 00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:27,440 And there was Jesus. He was sitting down with all these forgotten, lost and left out, outcast people. 101 00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:29,440 He's talking to them about the kingdom of God. 102 00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:36,440 And all the religious guys were out there wagging their finger at him saying, this guy, what is he doing? 103 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:37,440 Why is he doing this? 104 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:41,440 And so actually, Jesus had to go out and he had to go out and tell them why he was doing this. 105 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:48,440 And when he comes out and he speaks to him, he kind of lays out what you might call his like personal life mission statement, which was this. 106 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:54,440 He said, the son of man came to seek and save those who are lost. 107 00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:57,440 That's why I'm here. 108 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:02,440 That's why Jesus came to seek and save the lost. 109 00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:11,440 And don't you think it's interesting that even in death, Jesus is still seeking and saving the lost. 110 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:13,440 In his life, he hung around with all the wrong people. 111 00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:19,440 And now quite literally in death, he is hanging around the wrong kinds of people. 112 00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:26,440 All four gospel writers tell us that there were two other people that were crucified when Jesus died. 113 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:31,440 And then different gospel writers use different words to describe who they were. 114 00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:39,440 For example, Luke's gospel, which we just read, he uses this Greek word, Kakourgos or Kakourgoi in plural to describe. 115 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:40,440 Now, that is a word. 116 00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:47,440 It's made up of two words, Kaka, which means bad and Ergon or Ergos, which means work. 117 00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:51,440 So if you were a Kakourgos, you were someone who did bad works. 118 00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:54,440 And so these guys were criminals. 119 00:09:54,440 --> 00:10:02,440 Now, in Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel, they use a different word, and that is the Greek word, Lestace or Lestai. 120 00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:08,440 And that, well, if you want to know what that means, all you got to do is you got to read the parable of the Good Samaritan. 121 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:17,440 Because in the parable of Good Samaritan, we read about a guy who was riding from one city to another and he was attacked by robbers. 122 00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:27,440 And these robbers beat him up badly, stripped all his clothes off of him, stole everything that he had and left him bleeding and dying on the side of the road. 123 00:10:27,440 --> 00:10:35,440 And the word used to describe who those people were in the parable of the Good Samaritan was the word Lestai. 124 00:10:35,440 --> 00:10:48,440 So I want you to know that Jesus was being crucified with two criminals, two violent men who would not hesitate to leave you bleeding and dying on the side of the road. 125 00:10:48,440 --> 00:10:58,440 And yet somehow it is just so fitting that Jesus final conversation is with a Lestace, is with a Kakourgos. 126 00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:08,440 Even as he's dying, even as he can hardly breathe, Jesus is still reaching out to non-religious people. 127 00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:17,440 It's really important for us to understand this, because in Canada, one of the fastest growing groups are what the statisticians call the nuns and the duns. 128 00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:24,440 The nuns are those people who have no religious affinity whatsoever, no religious identification. 129 00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:28,440 So when they're doing the census, when they're doing surveys and it says, are you a Muslim? 130 00:11:28,440 --> 00:11:30,440 Are you a Buddhist? Are you a Christian? Are you Jewish? 131 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:35,440 They go, no, no, no. And they circle the very last one, which says none, none of the above. 132 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:40,440 That's why they're called nuns, whole lot more non-religious people than there ever, ever were. 133 00:11:40,440 --> 00:11:47,440 The duns are those people who maybe at one point did go to church or they did go to synagogue or they did go to mosque. 134 00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:50,440 But not any longer. They are done with it. 135 00:11:50,440 --> 00:11:54,440 They have given up on church attendance. 136 00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:58,440 They still may have an affection for Jesus, but they are done with church. 137 00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:11,440 And so therefore, one of the things we have to get right here at Trinity, we have to get right, is we have to be a place where non-religious people can encounter Jesus still. 138 00:12:11,440 --> 00:12:15,440 A place where people don't feel judged, but they feel welcomed. 139 00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:21,440 A place where they don't feel small, but they feel loved. 140 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:29,440 Because when we stop reaching out with love and compassion to people, especially those who feel like the outsiders or the lost sheep, 141 00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:42,440 when we stop doing that and we stop reflecting Jesus, we stop being the body of Christ, we stop being the church when we stop doing the things that Jesus did. 142 00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:56,440 So just as a question here, you know, to people who know you, or put it this way, do the people who don't know Jesus feel comfortable talking to you? 143 00:12:56,440 --> 00:13:02,440 Or do they always feel a little icky and a little weird by the time they're done with you? 144 00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:10,440 There's probably going to be between 300 or 400 people come through here today, plus a couple hundred people maybe online that will join us throughout today and the week. 145 00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:23,440 I just want to say, can you imagine what it would be like if all of us, all of us left this place committed to finding those people who were lost and then loving them and showing compassion to them? 146 00:13:23,440 --> 00:13:34,440 Man, oh man, how our world would change, how our community would become a different place, because that's what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ today. 147 00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:46,440 So anyways, that my rest of my points aren't going to be that long. But the first point I wanted to make was simply this, that this story talks to us about the people who were around Jesus. 148 00:13:46,440 --> 00:14:00,440 But then it also tells us a bit about the different kind of perspectives that people have about Jesus, because you see every criminal or each of those two criminals had a different view, a different perspective on who this Jesus was. 149 00:14:00,440 --> 00:14:14,440 And I think that the reason that Luke presents it this way is we're meant to compare and contrast these two perspectives and maybe even put ourselves there and say, which of these perspectives do I hold? 150 00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:22,440 So, for example, one of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Jesus and said, aren't you the Messiah? 151 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:35,440 Save yourself, save us. This criminal's perspective was that Jesus was a joke, that Jesus obviously was a weakling and a failure. 152 00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:42,440 This is the guy after all who said to go and love your enemies. This is the guy who said to turn the other cheek. Are you serious? You really want me to do that? 153 00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:51,440 You know, it's a total joke. And even today, there's lots of people who look at Jesus and they say, you got to be kidding, right? You can't be serious, right? 154 00:14:51,440 --> 00:15:00,440 In fact, a lot of times people who watch our services online, they make comments and sometimes the comments are good and other times the comments aren't so good. 155 00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:09,440 And, you know, this was a comment from a few weeks ago where someone just wrote fake. And I don't know if they were talking about me or they're talking about Jesus. 156 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:19,440 I don't know. But this next comment was clearly about Jesus. They're talking about what we were saying that he said that this whole story of Jesus, especially the resurrection, which we were talking about, 157 00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:27,440 was a weak claim based on nothing. So I just want you to know that that is one perspective that people can have. This is weak. 158 00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:37,440 This is fake. That Jesus was a failure and maybe so are we for believing in him. But there's another perspective and the other criminals see something different in Jesus. 159 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:46,440 Now, maybe he thinks, you know what? He thinks this. He thinks, you know, my life is hopeless at this point, right? I am going to die in a matter of hours. 160 00:15:46,440 --> 00:16:00,440 I have been completely disgraced. I am completely defeated. But maybe I think he probably said this maybe word. Maybe there is a God who loves me. 161 00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:14,440 Maybe there is a God out there who does care for the hopeless. Maybe there's a God who believes in giving a second chance or or or maybe there really is hope beyond this life. 162 00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:30,440 And so he turns to Jesus and he calls out for hope. And I think that what Luke was doing when he wrote this all down, whether it was Christians or other people, that eventually anyone who ended up reading his gospel, they were supposed to ask themselves, you know, which of these two are you? 163 00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:43,440 Which of these two perspectives do you hold? And actually, we're not that different from these folks on the cross. In some ways, for many of us, life did not go the way that we thought it was going to go. 164 00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:52,440 And for many of us, there's been things we've done in life that we're truly embarrassed about and we truly regret and wish we could have a do over. 165 00:16:52,440 --> 00:17:01,440 So in some ways, all of us have this choice, these two perspectives. Will you turn your back on him, ignore him and laugh him off as ridiculous? 166 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:08,440 Or will you turn to him and say, you know, he could be my only hope? 167 00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:17,440 That brings us to the third thing we can learn from this. We learn about the people around Jesus and we learn about these perspectives on Jesus. 168 00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:23,440 But thirdly, we hear this plea, this plea that was made to Jesus, this petition, if you will, to Jesus. 169 00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:30,440 What was that dying criminals plea to Jesus? It was simply this. 170 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:41,440 He said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. It's so interesting. He didn't say, Jesus, I invite you into my heart. 171 00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:48,440 Or he didn't say, Jesus, I confess that you are my personal Lord and Savior. 172 00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:52,440 He said, no, Jesus, remember me. Jesus, remember me. 173 00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:58,440 What does that mean to say Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom? 174 00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:10,440 Well, I can tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean Jesus, when I am burning in hell and you are in heaven just from time to time, would you think of me? 175 00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:19,440 That's not what this means. No, actually, the biblical idea of God remembering people is very powerful and very prevalent. 176 00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:27,440 When God remembers someone, God is saving someone. To say, remember me is to say, God, help me. 177 00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:31,440 It's to say, Jesus, rescue me. It's to say, Jesus, deliver me. 178 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:39,440 Let me give you some examples just in case you don't believe me. So when Noah's ark was floating on the floodwaters for days and days and days, 179 00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:47,440 eventually we read that God remembered Noah and the wild animals and all the creatures that were on there. 180 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:56,440 And he sent a wind to start drying up the water. In other words, remembering meant saving here. 181 00:18:56,440 --> 00:19:03,440 Or in Genesis chapter 30, Rachel, poor Rachel has been barren and she wants to have a child, but she can't have a baby. 182 00:19:03,440 --> 00:19:06,440 So she's calling out to God, please, God, let me have a baby. 183 00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:13,440 And then we read that God remembered Rachel and listened to her and enabled her to conceive. 184 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:16,440 Remembering means saving. Remembering means delivering. 185 00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:28,440 Or in Exodus chapter two, Israel had been slaves in Egypt for like 400 years, but then we read that God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. 186 00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:36,440 And he sends Moses to be the deliverer. So that was this man's simple dying plea. 187 00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:43,440 Jesus, remember me. Jesus, rescue me. Jesus, help me. Jesus, save me. 188 00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:47,440 Jesus, set me free. 189 00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:53,440 Do you think this guy understood the doctrine of the Trinity? 190 00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:58,440 Do you think he had memorized the Nicene Creed? 191 00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:06,440 Do you think he could explain to you the doctrine of justification by grace and faith alone? 192 00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:10,440 Do you think he held a certain view of the Bible that Jesus agreed with? 193 00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:15,440 Do you think he had even been baptized? No, none of these things. None of these things. 194 00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:24,440 All this man had was faith the size of a mustard seed, faith enough to say Jesus, remember me. 195 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:27,440 And I would say, I don't know what it is you're in the middle of today. 196 00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:31,440 What you're going through, some of us here are probably feeling lost in our own way. 197 00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:34,440 We're going through some difficult times right now. 198 00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:36,440 And we actually don't know how to pray. 199 00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:40,440 We don't know what to say to God about what we're facing and what we're dealing with. 200 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:43,440 Well, I would encourage you, if you don't know what to pray, just pray this. 201 00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:49,440 Say, Jesus, remember me. Jesus, save me. Jesus, help me. 202 00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:56,440 That was this criminal's plea to Jesus. It can be our plea as well. 203 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:02,440 And that, of course, brings us fourthly and finally to the promise that Jesus made. 204 00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:09,440 I think I probably need to prepare you because this is one of the most shocking things you'll probably hear today or this week or maybe even this year. 205 00:21:09,440 --> 00:21:13,440 Because you see, we religious people, we think we've got it all figured out, right? 206 00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:26,440 We know who's in and who's out and who's right and who's wrong and who's got the right doctrine, who's got the wrong doctrine, who's got the right interpretation and who's got the wrong interpretation, who is a Christian, who's not a Christian and all that stuff. 207 00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:35,440 I got to tell you, this man had nothing. He had no doctrinal or no theological information or formation. 208 00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:42,440 All that stuff that we have been fighting about for the last 2000 years, he had none of it, knew nothing of it. 209 00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:47,440 And yet, do you know what Jesus says in response to his plea for help? 210 00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:53,440 He says, today, you will be with me in paradise. 211 00:21:53,440 --> 00:22:01,440 This is a man who has been a violent criminal his whole life and done nothing particularly good up to that point, at least nothing that we are aware of. 212 00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:11,440 He's a criminal. He's a lacedace. He's a cacuragas. And he prays one prayer, Jesus, remember me. And Jesus responds by promising him paradise. 213 00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:16,440 Paradise. Paradise is another way of talking about heaven. 214 00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:23,440 Actually, paradise is a Persian word which refers to a garden, especially a beautiful walled off garden. 215 00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:32,440 Often kings would have these great gardens that were just filled with all these wonderful creatures and water fountains and plants and flowers. 216 00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:42,440 And they were just beautiful, beautiful place. According to this guy, Adam Hamilton, sometimes what a king would do to show appreciation for someone who had done something particularly heroic or particularly noble, 217 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:48,440 they would invite them to come and hang out in the king's garden in the king's paradise. 218 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:55,440 That's what paradise was. Jesus was giving us this picture of heaven. 219 00:22:55,440 --> 00:23:02,440 Just quickly, according to the biblical story, we believe that God one day will make all things new. 220 00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:07,440 Right. He's going to restore the earth. He's going to restore and resurrect all people. 221 00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:17,440 And he's going to make every wrong right. That is our hope. And one day we will live on a new earth and we will have new bodies. 222 00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:25,440 But until that day comes, until that day comes, those who die, enjoy what we call heaven. 223 00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:30,440 Paradise. Paradise is not the final destination. 224 00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:38,440 It's this beautiful garden resting place on the way to the new heaven and the new earth. 225 00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:43,440 You know, you may have heard this too, but I've heard lots of stories of people who are dying. 226 00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:51,440 They're on their death beds. And just as they're dying, they see these visions and whatever they're seeing and whatever they they're hearing, it causes them to light up. 227 00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:56,440 It causes their faces to smile. It's almost like they see people or recognize people just as they're dying. 228 00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:03,440 And their final moments, they have this joy and this happiness. I don't know. But maybe are they getting a glimpse of paradise? 229 00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:09,440 Are we through them getting a little glimpse of paradise in the Old Testament? 230 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:15,440 Paradise was often associated with the Garden of Eden. Of course, that's the big famous garden in the Bible. 231 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:21,440 But unfortunately, we lost that garden. Human sin caused us to be kicked out of that garden. 232 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:28,440 Maybe even now we've lost the memory of that garden. But here is a very interesting thing. 233 00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:34,440 Before Jesus was arrested, we're told he goes to pray in a garden. 234 00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:42,440 It was the Garden of Gethsemane. And so there was a garden right there as Jesus is arrested. 235 00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:53,440 But then we are told that when Jesus was crucified, he was crucified near a garden. 236 00:24:53,440 --> 00:25:03,440 And then we are told that when Jesus was buried, he was buried in a tomb that was located in a garden. 237 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:13,440 And then when Jesus is raised from the dead, he comes forth from the tomb and Mary Magdalene mistakes him for the gardener. 238 00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:20,440 I think we can see what's going on here. Jesus is removing that curse, which banished humankind from the garden. 239 00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:27,440 He's inviting us to return to paradise with him. And as he's hanging there on the cross, as he's dying, he's removing that curse. 240 00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:36,440 And you know who the first person is that he invites to join him in paradise? A hardened criminal, a thief on a cross. 241 00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:44,440 And if Jesus would invite someone like him into paradise, what does that mean for you? And what does that mean for me? 242 00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:51,440 So do you see why these are such famous last words? First, they show us the people around Jesus, right? 243 00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:56,440 Those whom the world ignores, Jesus loved and welcomed, and we must do the same. 244 00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:02,440 Secondly, it shows us these two different perspectives on Jesus. You can either laugh at him or you can reach out to him. 245 00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:11,440 That choice is yours today, as it always has been. And thirdly, it shows us these words, the simple plea that was made to Jesus. 246 00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:16,440 Jesus, remember me. That is a prayer you can make today. 247 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:33,440 And fourthly, these words show us an amazing, amazing promise that we, when our lives come to an end, we too can experience the joy of walking in the king's garden. 248 00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:39,440 And who doesn't want that? Thanks be to God. Amen. 249 00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:46,440 Thank you so much for joining us today, and we hope that you are able to carry the message from the sermon with you all week long. 250 00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:52,440 And if you enjoyed the show today, please take a minute to rate and review our podcast, and we'll see you again next week. 251 00:26:52,440 --> 00:27:10,440 Today's sermon was taken from the February 25, 2024 service at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario.