"Father, Forgive Them…” | Luke 23:26–34

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys who we are excited to be here. Today's a big party, Chris, it is a big party. Today is our seven hundred and fiftieth episode of The Bible Guys. Wow, what that is a lot? It is a lot considering it's only what twenty episodes a month? Yeah, something like that. I don't know, it's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. I think when we hit like the five hundred episode, we were like, we never thought we'd do five hundred anythings together. Yeah, so here we are seven fifty seven. That's incredible. So here's what I did is I asked chat GPT, help us celebrate today as our seven hundred fiftieth episode. Let's make a big deal about the significance of seven fifty What other important seven fifties are out there? Oh? Nice? Yeah, and it said seven to fifty BC is roughly the time that the prophet. Isaiah was active. Yeah, it's kind of neat Austin Isaiah right, kind of a big deal. This is also when Homer composed the iliot in the ody No nice Yeah yeah, after he was chasing Barton. Yeah, go around? Is that I don't know anyways. Also, it says seven hundred fifty dollars is the fine for parking your donkey in a fire lane in some ancient Mesopotamia. Down that is hilarious. This is okay, we made that one up, but you bleed it for second. Oh no, oh no, just played a joke on us. I actually thought to myself, seven fifties a little steep a donkey. Somewhere it says seven hundred and fifty mili leaders is the standard size of a wine bottle. So apparently every episode could have been a toast if we planned better. Yeah, scoops. Seven hundred fifty degrees is how hot my grill gets when I forget. That turn I turned it on. Wow, this let me see. The word God appears more than seven hundred and fifty times in the NIV Bible. Oh, come on, said more than Okay, listen to this one. It rained for seven days before the flood came. Okay, and Noah's our had fifty cubits of width seven and fifty the coincidence. Wow, do you think not, Chuck, If you did that math, there are exactly zero verses about seven to fifty in the Bible. But if we're honest, some of our early episodes probably shouldn't count either. That's it, isn't that funny? Yeah, that's really Yeah. So seven hundred and fifty episodes means thousands of minutes in God's word countless dad jokes. Eighteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty. Actually what minute minutes? If you if you counted a twenty five minutes an episode? Yeah, well I worked that out. It actually works out to ninety thousand, seven hundred and one hours of listening because we've had over one million, seven thousand views. Oh for the people viewing. Yeah yeah, views and listens. So when you take our our all the people listening on podcasts, yeah yeah, yeah, you know, so the people that are down listening download or listening and downloading on like Apple podcasts and yeah yeah and Spotify and all those, if you take all of those plus our YouTube views, we're at one million, seven one hundred and three. Wow. So some people get one million views on you know, just one thing. Right it tafty episodes And that translates to ninety thousand, seven hundred and one hours and twenty minutes of spending time listening to us horse around. And talk about the Bible. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, so it's been an honor. Here's here's how it ended. Seven hundred and fifty isn't just a number. It's a monument, a milestone, a testament to two guys, a couple of microphones in the word of God doing what it does best, changing lives. Thanks for riding with us this far, and hang on because. We're just getting started. There it is there, You going that nice? Now, I'm gonna have to abbreviate the segment because we celebrated seven fifty. Well, but there is a segment. We don't have to abbreviate it because this is everybody's favorite episode seven to fifty. It is Friday, and it's Friday, it's everybody's favorite day. And then this is everybody's favorite segment. What better way to celebrate seven fifty without you trying to imply that I was wasting your time? No, not long, you take all the time. I don't want I don't want to waste everybody else's time. No, you're not wasting everyod else's time. Okay, they love They tuned in for the seven and fifty the episode It's a party, Chris. Okay, it's a party. So what make Chris mad this week? Yeah? So it happened on Sunday. And when I was here, I was in the I was I was speaking on Sunday id Heritage Church and I was in the back with all the staff. Right, so these are like the people that are closer to you, These are your leaders, right, these are the people that are you know, with you all the time. And I had something hanging out of my nose, and I was talking to several people, and it was very obvious that this thing was hanging out of my nose, and no nobody said a word to me. A booker, like a candy bar, a booger, a bat. No it was. It was well symbolically a gold nugget. Symbolically the bats were in the cave because one was peeking out. So anyway, so I had something hanging on my nose, and then I went over to the mirror, thank goodness, and I went ahead and checked and I thought to myself, Okay, that was there just a minute ago, And thank godness. I checked before I went out to the crowd and went out to the lobby. But I thought to myself, they were going to let you you're not a good friend. Yeah. So I mean I only talked to a handful of people, like like seven or eight of them. They know who they are, your lady, and you know who you are. Maybe you do. You could have if you saw it Sunday. This is on you. Yes, and now when they listen to this, this is a couple of weeks ago. So here's a couple of Sundays ago. Go back in your mind. So I told you I'm mad for the world. Yes, So I'm saying this. I'm saying if if you're a person who sees that happen where somebody has something hanging out their nose and you don't say, hey, you have something hanging out us, then you are not a good friend. You're not a good friend, period. There's no offens or bout. There's no debate. Man, Chris is throwing it down today. You are not a good friend. Hot take Now. You may be a friend, yes, but you're not a good friend. No. I am going to be in agreement with you on now. Yes, Yeah, good for you man. Yes, so thank you. So it made me about half of all those for whom you are offended. Yes, thank you, We thank you Chris for standing in the gap for us. Now listen to this. Here go I'll go a step further. Even if they're not my good friends, if they care about the mission of Heritage Church, they should care that the pastor is about to walk into public right and in an embarrassing way. Yeah. Yeah, which means even if they're not my friend, you should be a friend to somebody who In other words, here, here's what I'm saying. I'm saying I would say that to somebody who even wasn't a good friend. I'll even go further than that and say I would care. About just for humanity in general. Well, like a server, Yes. Like a server. Let's just say a server walks up to you, Hey, can I help you today? What would you say something to that server if they had a bookerhanging other? Yes, yes, yes, I almost every time I see it, I'll mention it. I think I don't want people to be embarrassed, right right? Yeah? Wow, Well, Chris, thank you for standing for truth and justice for. All in the American way. And the American thank you so much. Hey, you are welcome. That's everybody's favorite segment. And if you if this is your first segment with us, there's seven hundred and fifty more just riveting episodes. And so ultimately, Jeff, I'm going to forgive those people who didn't mention that to me. And uh, and it's because Jesus. You know who else forgave. It's because Jesus forgave the worst of people in the worst of moments. Yeah, you and Jesus. Right, Well, I didn't say that. It's just the same I just said in your moment, in jesus moment, almost almost as difficult, right, we were. Going through some of the same things, Jeff. Very similar. Oh my gosh, this is terrible. That is not what I say is he's equated his potentially embarrassing moment. No, No, what I said was I'm forgiving because Jesus forgave. Oh okay, and he commands us to forgive. I see, that's what Jesus commanded us to forgive because he forgave. Well yeah, yeah, well so yeah. I just was reading in devotions the other day about where Paul says you should forgive because you've been forgiven. Right or Pheasans for thirty two, the kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ has. Forgiven you think. Booop Ephesians for two. Yeah, you never cease to amaze me, Chris never boo. Yeah, that's it, okay. So Luke chapter twenty three is where we're at. Yes, And this is while we've laughed a little bit. We're a couple of guys who like to talk about the Bible. And fun of practice. Laugh, We laugh a lot. But you know, we take our faith very seriously. We just don't take ourselves too seriously. That's right, right, So I think that's the best way to explain us. That should be our tagline. We take our faith serious and we just don't take ourselves or almost anything else fixing right else. That's great. And so we're in Luke chapter twenty three, and we're going to read from thirty two down through forty nine or so. And this is the Crucifixion, the most important moment in Christian history apart from the Resurrection. Yeah, for sure. And here's what Jesus says, or here's what the Bible says. In Luke chapter twenty three, Verse thirty two says two others, both criminals were led out to be executed with him, and when they came to a place called the Skull, they nailed him to the cross, and the criminals were also crucified, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. And the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice. The crowd watched, and the leaders scoffed. He saved others. They said, let him save himself if he really is God's Messiah, the chosen one. And the soldiers mocked him too by offering him a drink of sour wine. They called out to him, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. A sign was fastened above him with these words, this is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, So you're the Messiah? Are you prove it by saving yourself and us two while you're at it? But the other criminal protested, don't you fear God even when you've been sentenced to die. He deserved to die, We deserve to die. For our crimes. But this man hasn't done anything wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replied, I assure you today you'll be with me in paradise. Wow, there you go. Oh. I thought you're gonna go through forty nine. I am I'm just gonna keep going. I just want to pause and say, there you go. Yeah. By this time, it was about noon, and darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock the light from the sun was gone, and suddenly the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn down the middle. Then Jesus shouted, Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands, and with those words he breathed his last. When the Roman officer, seeing execution, saw what had happened, he worshiped God and said, surely this man was innocent. And when all the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw what had happened, they went home in deep sorrow. But Jesus' friends, including the women who'd followed them from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching, Yeah, well, there you go. There you go. There it is. So we started off by talking about one of the seven sayings on the Cross. Do you remember two years ago we did a series called It's Not Over. Yeah, remember that, and we ended with Easter, and we actually looked at every saying on the Cross. Jesus has seven sayings, right, and one of them as Father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. And perhaps one of the well the I was gonna say one of thee but it's really the greatest example of forgiveness in in all of history. Right. So, here Jesus is coming down to you know, he knows he's offering his life, but that Romans don't know that. They don't know that they're uh you know, uh, it's God's plan all along for Jesus to willingly lay down his life. Uh. They Romans think that they're just you know, executing somebody that that stirred up the Jews and the Jews didn't like him, and and and they're just you know, just sort of helping the Jews get rid of somebody. That's all they think. But here they are, they're they're they're torturing Jesus. He's he's suffering. The Bible says he's barely recognizable as a man. They they they put thorns in his scalp, they ripped out his beard, they punched him, they mocked him, all all that. They whipped him right and and and then they crucify him. And then the measure of cruse, the tortuous method of crucifixion. Oh, all of that, it's just awful. And then in this moment he says to the people doing this to him, father, forgive them. It is the greatest example of forgiveness in the history of humanity. Yeah. Right, well, so it starts off you have the two criminals. Yeah, the passage. Yep, he's been nailed to the cross. Yep. He's on this this hill called the Place of the Skull. Did you go see that spot? Yes, Yeah, there's the bus terminal underneath it, a Muslim grave or cemetery above it. But I mean when you sit there and look at it, you can see the two eyes, you can see the broken nose and the it's it's really phenomenal. That very likely I think is the place. I do too. Yeah. You know, when you ever, whenever you have a massive mountain or a hilltop or something that just resembles something, right like then the counter money Crystal my favorite movie. There's there's a there's a piece of rock that's so big it's and it looks like an elephant, and it's like, oh my goodness, it's almost like God created an elephant out of the mountain, right, and it's like and it's like, that's the way this looks. It looks like the wonder Ribs called the place. It looks like a skull. Yeah, And they were known to have crucified and this place before the Romans, it was like a sport to them almost so, so this place is a very definitive place. It's a shameful place. So the shame of it, the crucifixion, the brutality of the flogging that he had taken, the you know with the cat of nine tails, the shame of walking through the streets. Naked with just a cross on his back. It just would have been horrible. And then when you he forgives them, And then I think the Bible, then remember how the we're not the Bible's not linear like we were Westerners. We think in a linear way, this this, this, this, then this. So when we read Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. We look back and the only thing that's happened is he's been spit upon, beaten, you know, and crucified. But it goes beyond that. He's not forgiving those events. He's forgiving people. And so you've got there's a crowd, there's leaders. The leaders are scoffing. He saved others. He can't say, this is what he's forgiving them for is the people who did all these horrible things to him are still mocking him. He's forgiving these these leaders. The soldiers mocked him too. They offer him a drink of sour wine, so like vinegar is what they're offering. I did that to my brother one time. I got my brother to drink a whole bunch of vinegar as a joke. It made him sick. Right, So, and then they're mocking him. If you're the king of the Jews. So now you've got you've got the religious leaders mocking him. You say you're the promised one, and you you don't even have the power to come off the cross. Right, You've got the Romans, the most powerful empire of the world that ever seen up to that point, saying, if you're really the King of the Jews, do something about it. Ha ha ha. So now he's being mocked as a king, yeah, not just a Messiah's being mocked as a king. And then there's this sign fastened above him, these these this is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals, one of the sinners. Next to him goes, if you're really just prove it, right, prove it. All you have to do is make all of our wildest dreams come true. Right literally, that's the temptation, is just make all of our little, wildest dreams come true. And I believe that Jesus is forgiving him forgiving them. Of course the torture is bad, but that's temporary. Well, I mean, it's the hearts of the people that are so wicked that he's forgiving. Now that you're now that you're opening all of our minds to this idea. Uh, We'll think about how many people were just standing around observing, you know, we we we learned that that just a week before they were yelling Hosanna. And then that same crowd was persuaded and bullied by the Pharisees and threatened. Uh. And then some of them probably even willingly changed their mind. And then they shout and crucify him. So even the people in the crowd that just betrayed and turned their backs on Jesus on a moment's notice, Jesus was probably able to look out and see, you're right beyond just the people who tortured him, and to everybody who was observing. He knew the hearts of everybody and was able to forgive all of them for everything in this moment. So we would focus on the torture and the ending of his life is what he's forgiving, and that's not it. What he's forgiving is the animosity and the hatred and the overt sin rate, literally literally spitting in the face of God, mocking God that he's forgiving the hearts of people, the heart that drove these people to do these things, not just the behaviors themselves. Death was going to come quickly for him, right physical the physical side of this is horrible to you and me. But I think what God's trying to highlight is the hostility that humanity naturally has against God, or the passivity, because it mentions twice that people just stood and watched, So there's tons of people that are passive, just passively, ah whatever. And then you have some actively mocking God, and then a bunch of people, I think the huge majority of people, even maybe a bunch of our listeners are prove it. If you really are who you say, I prove it right. And all of that is what Jesus is forgiving. That's the assault on God. Jesus knew what heaven was like. He wasn't afraid to go back right right right. And then your body can only handle so much pain. And then finally, pain is just pain. It doesn't you know, So hit your thumb with a hammer, get shot by a bullet, have a baby. Even women will say there was a moment when it was just pain. I don't know that it got any worse. It was just pain. Right there is this your body begins to release things, the chemicals in your body, where it just kind of the shock. That's what shock is. Is at a point you can't process any more than that. And so to you and me, that's the horrible part of it. But for Jesus, there was a limit to it. There's a limit and then Heaven is coming. So that wasn't what he was so mad about. It was the fact that humanity. He's not even mad, He's forgiving. What he's forgiving is that humanity has since the fall treated God this way, the mocking, the spitting that if you're really what, if you really are God, why don't you answer more of my prayers? If you really are God, why don't you do more miracles for me? If you really are rather than focusing on the benefits of who God is and the greatness of who God is, and he deserves our worship. It's what am I getting out of this? And if I don't get anything out of it, well, I'm just going. To do my own thing. That's what Jesus is forgiving. Yeah, yeah, And the scripture says that Jesus was sinless. He was not deserving of any of this and all of that, but he was, if you think about it, he was deserving of the opposite reaction, right right. All he did was love and todd how to love. All he did was you know, you know, they couldn't believe that his claims of being God were real, but he proved it. He backed it up. You know, he fulfilled all the scriptures. He never once was, you know, arrogant or sarcastic. He had no sin in him and so not only did he not deserve everything he got, but he also deserved everything he didn't get. Right, So then if you pivot very quickly, you have from all this that they need to be forgiven from. Then you have one of the one of the criminals say, Jesus, take me to paradise with you. I believe in you. And then the temple veil terrors from the top to the bottom. God solves this sin problem that uprates us from him. So the priests and all the religious leaders now know what just happened. So it doesn't say that they repented, but they knew. Right. Then you've got the Roman soldier, the officer who was in charge of the execution, said this must be the son of God and he's innocent. And then the whole crowd who saw the crucifixion happen, they went home with deep sorrow, regretting what they just participated in. And then even as friends and women, they're still standing at a distance. Right, So there's this shift from all that they need to be forgiven for. When he extends forgiveness, then you begin to see repentance. Everybody begins to turn and change, they realize. So forgiveness changes people. When you choose to forgive the people who've offended you, it begins to change them. It's not I'll forgive when they change. It's amazing. When you forgive, they begin to change. That's what happens with Jesus and now here, you and I and so many other billions of people who repented of their sins. It's only because Jesus forgave us. That's great. Yeah, well, hey, that's a great lesson for us. And that's our time. So hey, we will see you next time. For the seven hundred and fifty first episode of the Bible Guys