What Do You Want From Jesus?
Proverbs 9:10-12 Luke 23:32-43
Have you ever tried to use deception to get what you wanted. You told someone something good about themselves, because you had plans for later.
It could have been a statement, “Mommy I Love You, You’re the best Mom in the whole wide world.” It’s one thing to say it out of the blue. It’s another thing to say it the week before Christmas, or the day before your birthday. Has anyone complimented you and you asked, “Okay, what is it that you really want now?”
Have you ever had the experience of thinking somebody really cared about you, only to discover later, they had been using you all along? How did you feel when you discovered they had played you?
What if Jesus was to turn and look at you in the face and ask the question, “what do you want from me?” Some of us might say, absolutely nothing. I just want you to leave me alone so that I can live my life as I please. Some of us might say, I want a promise from you, that when I get in trouble, I can call on you to come and get me out.
Some of us might say, I want to know that if I follow you, everything in my life will work out according to my plan. Some of us might even say, I want salvation and eternal life. But, may I suggest that none of these responses are what Jesus hopes to hear from us.
I want us to look at two guys today who had very different reasons for wanting to follow Jesus. I want you to meet Sam and Ray. They are not given names in the bible, so I choose to call them Sam and Ray. Sam and Ray had both learned the stories from the Bible, but to them they were just stories. They were not really the word of God.
The whole idea of being nice and kind to everybody just wasn’t their cup of tea. These were tough rough guys that you didn’t want to get caught on the streets alone with.
They wanted to live and enjoy life. They didn’t mind taking the easy way out. They discovered it was a lot easier to steal from others, than to work hard and to save money for something you wanted. They didn’t care who they stole from, as long as what they got was worth stealing.
The Greek word for thieves lets us know they were not your usual burglars, these guys used violence to take what they wanted. They were armed robbers. They’d beat you nearly to death to take what they wanted.
They were so good at what they did, they were convinced, that they would never get caught. They may have killed people to keep from being identified. But one day, they stole from the wrong person, and as smart as they were, they couldn’t keep the truth from coming out. They were identified as the thieves, taken before a judge and found guilty. The judge wanted to send a strong message to other thieves , so he ordered that Ray and Sam be crucified.
Before a crucifixion a person would be beaten with a whip with several endings tied with bits of nails and pieces of bone, so that the person’s flesh would be ripped open in order to increase the pain. This was sometimes enough to kill the person. In Jesus’s case, Pilate was thinking if the Jewish leaders looked at Jesus after the beating, they would have pity on him and let him go. But he was surprised to hear them yelling for Jesus to be crucified.
After the beating, the criminal carried his own cross, or a part of it, in which case another person was compelled to share the burden The place of execution was outside the city arriving there, the condemned was stripped of his clothes, which became the property of the soldiers. Victims would either be nailed to the cross, or tied up to the cross. The limbs of the victim were generally three or four feet from the earth so the cross was not that high off the ground..
If the nailing was the most painful mode in the first instance, the other was more so in the end, for the sufferer was left to die of sheer exhaustion. Fracture of the legs was resorted to by the Jews to hasten death.
It just so happened on the same day that Sam and Ray were being crucified. Another guy had been led out to be crucified. But unlike them, this guy had read the same bible stories and always believed them. This guy had never stolen anything in his entire life. This guy had never done anything wrong since the moment he came out of his mother’s womb.
This guy was not only perfect, He had a perfect relationship with God. It was because he had claimed that God was his Father and that he had come from God that he had received the same kind of beating that Sam and Ray had received.
So on that day, on a hill called Calvary, three crosses were lifted up with one man hanging on each of the three crosses. Sam hung on the left, Ray on the right and Jesus in the middle.
There were people down shouting all kinds of things at Jesus with very little being directed at Sam or Ray. I guess if you had asked the crowd what did they want from Jesus, some might have said, we just want him dead and out of our lives once and for all.
Some might have said they wanted him to die quickly to end his pain and suffering. Some would have said, we want him to do one more big miracle so that we can make up our mind whether He is who He claimed to be.
It wasn’t their fault, they didn’t believe, it was Jesus’ fault because he had not done enough. That’s where some of us are today. If Jesus had of done more, then I might believe.
Luke’s gospel centers in on the two thieves who are crucified with Jesus. Both men have been condemned to die. Both men have been crucified. Both men are in pain and agony. Both men know that short of some kind of a miracle, this will be their last day on earth. The amazing thing is that each man wants something different from Jesus, and they are willing to voice what it is.
Sam looks at Jesus, and he reads the sign over his head, “Jesus of Nazareth, King Of The Jews.” Now with all that Jesus had done, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, feeding five thousand people with two loaves and two fish and walking on water, it would have been impossible for Sam not to have heard anything about Jesus.
That sign lets him know, this is the guy he’s heard so much about. Sam’s thinking, this might not be the end after all.
Luke 23:39 (NIV) 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" What did this guy want from Jesus? He wanted a change in his circumstances. If you are who you claim to be, you have the power to save yourself and us along with you. He wanted Jesus to basically set him free and leave him alone.
If Sam had really believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, he would have recognized he was not in a position to tell Jesus what he should and should not be doing.
How often are we like Sam in our walk with the Lord. We have a knowledge of God, but not a recognition of his authority over our lives. As long as Jesus follows our instructions, we are cool. As long as he gets me out of this jam I’m in, that I caused, we are tight. As long as I am controlling what happens next, I’m okay with God.
Someone has said, “Any God that we can boss around and tell what to do is not a god big enough to serve. If your god can’t challenge you on what’s right and wrong, you are still the god in your life. Can he instruct you to forgive the person? Can he instruct you to apologize? Can he instruct you to be more generous? Can he demand more of your time for His work or your spiritual growth? Can he tell you to let go of that thing, that person, that schedule. Or will you be content, just asking him to get you out of the next jam so that you can go on with your life.
Ray was in the same position as Sam. He had heard the same bible stories. He had watched Jesus suffer on the cross. Mark and Matthew tell us that in the beginning, Ray joined in with Sam and the others who were mocking Jesus and making fun of him. But something happened to Ray as he watched Jesus’ response to all the insults and the mockings.
Maybe it was when he heard Jesus say, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Ray realized, that Jesus had included him in his prayer. I believe Jesus included all of us here today in that prayer as he was hanging on the cross.
Jesus was not just dying for the sins of those present at the cross, he was dying for our sins as well. Sometimes when we sin, we think we know what we are doing, but not really. We don’t immediately see all the pain and heartache our sin causes others to feel.
Have you ever said, “I never intended to hurt you like that.” Most of the time when it comes to sin, we see only the pleasure of the moment or we’re only thinking about what we think is best for us. The person who goes looking for a one night stand has no idea of the years of misery that can follow. We end up blaming God for our lives, but if we trace our steps backwards, we can see that some things are the result of our past decisions catching up to our present day life.
Ray took a moment and looked back over his life. He was willing to own up to his failures and his mistakes. When he looked at Jesus, he no longer saw a man with a few hours left to live. He saw the Son of God who still had control of this situation. Ray, this violent wicked man with just a few hours of life left, became the last one to witness to who Christ was, before Christ died on the cross.
He breaks away from what the crowd was doing and begins to take a stand for this Jesus of Nazereth that everybody else was laughing and making fun of. He looked over at Sam, and actually had pity on him.
Luke 23:40-41 (NIV)
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
It took courage for Ray to make this statement. Would the crowd turn against him for siding with Jesus? Would they begin to hurl insults at him for what was obviously a foolish decision on his part? What will you do when you have to stand alone for Christ in your situation?
How many of us actually recognize that what our actions and lives demand in the face of a Holy God is death and that a judgment is waiting for us.
I have a cousin who honestly believe that he does not need the church because when he stands before God, he intends to let his works speak for him. How many of us realize, the Scriptures state that all the so-called good we have done is as filthy rags. When we say, I don’t need Jesus, I have my works. Our works are full of pride. Look at what I have done. See God you were wrong, I don’t need a Savior. You are in essence saying, my life is equal to the life of the Son of God, pure and sinless.
Jesus did not die for our sins just for us to say that was a nice thing to do. Jesus wanted a transaction to take place. He was dying for us, so that He might live through us so that when we died, we would have his righteousness in the presence of God at the judgment. The whole purpose of his death was for us to be able to live transformed lives.
What did Ray want from Jesus? He wanted the opportunity to spend eternity in the presence of Jesus that He might worship and serve Him. What should we want from Jesus? We should want the opportunity to serve Him because we have come to recognize that He is the Son of God and worthy of our praise, worthy of our hope, worthy of our confidence and worthy of our service.
Ray took one look at Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you when come into your kingdom.” Everybody else there that day saw Jesus’ crucifixion as the end of a movement. God’s love reached out to Ray, and offered Ray both hope and insight into who Jesus was.
He found Jesus during the most painful period in his life. Ray knows it is by grace and grace alone that He will be saved. What did he want from Jesus. He wanted to be with Him for all eternity.
Jesus looked at him and said, “Truly, I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus came not just to die for our sins, but to offer us hope in both this life and the life to come. Shortly after Jesus gave him this promise, the sky turned black for the next three hours from noon to 3pm.
But Ray was one of the few who was not afraid because he knew this was bringing him closer to Jesus’ promise. Jesus would be the first of the three to die. Sam and Ray both had some painful moments still ahead of them. For the soldiers would come and break their legs so that they could no longer support themselves up on the nails. This meant their lungs could not take in much oxygen so they suffocated more quickly.
Sam and Ray came to the cross both wanting the same thing, for somebody to set them free. But one found a freedom that he wasn’t even looking for. He found it because God had a plan for his life and Ray was willing to go against the crowd to receive it. Are we following Jesus in order for us to tell him what we want? Or our we following Jesus to serve and to worship Him because He Is The Son of God and our only hope for salvation.
Sam came to the cross and died in his sins. Ray came to the cross and died to sin. Jesus came to the cross and died for our sins. Will you follow Ray or Sam into eternity?
