Sunday, October 9, 2022 PM

Let's go ahead and open our Bibles and turn over to Luke chapter 23. We'll continue reading through the Gospel of Luke. We turn our attention to our Lord Jesus Christ, His ministry for us and for our salvation.

Let me pray for us. Father, we thank you again for the night and the many blessings that you have afforded to us. We thank you for your grace and your patience, your compassion, your long-suffering, your.

Goodness.

We thank you for giving us to your Son, giving your Son to us, for blessing us with your Holy Spirit that we may live in fellowship with you, with our sins forgiven and knowing that you are our Heavenly Father.

And we pray tonight as we read your Word together, that you would give us a clear view of your Son in the Word, that we may look like Him in the world. And we pray these things for His sake.

Amen.

Okay, Luke chapter 23, begin reading in verse 26. Now, as they led Him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming from the country. And on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus.

And a great multitude of the people followed him, and women who also mourned and lamented.

Him.

But Jesus turning to them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed.

And they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills cover us. For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry? There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death.

When they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

And they divided His garments and cast lots. And the people stood looking on, but even the rulers with them sneered, saying, He saved others, let Him save Himself, if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.

The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine and saying, If you are King of the Jews, save yourself. And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

This is the King of the Jews. Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other, answering, rebuked Him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we perceive the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

We consider Christ in the world, Christ and His relationship to the world, the place in which God the Father put God the Son for us and for our salvation. And in verses 26 -34, we are led to consider responsibility before God, the responsibility of various different actors, of different types of men and women, and the responsibility before God, which is made clear, emphasized by the person and work of Jesus Christ.

In verses 35 -43, you see not simply responsibility before God, but the response to God's Son. How did the soldiers respond? How did the Jews respond? How did the criminals respond in light of their responsibility before God?

We begin in verse 26, and there we find a Cyrenian. Verse 26 again, Now as they led him away, they laid hold of a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian, who was coming from a country. And on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.

So we consider what is happening here. Remember that Pilate has caved to the raging mob. They've tried to bring their charges. They haven't stuck. They were unconvincing to Pilate, and Herod didn't want anything to do with Jesus either.

But finally, Pilate gives in to the raging mob, and he says, fine, fine, you can just go crucify him. We'll have him crucified. He simply wants to keep the peace. He doesn't want an insurrection on his hands.

They lead Christ away. Where are they leading him? They're leading him to Calvary, they're leading him to Golgotha, they're leading him outside the city. Jesus, of course, already told the parable about the tenants of the vineyard, how they were wicked and they were rebellious.

And even though the owner of the vineyard sent his servants time and again, they would see the servants coming, and they would not give the fruit of the labor of the vineyard to the owner of the vineyard.

The servants would come, and they would speak harshly to them, and they would abuse them, and they would beat them, and they would even kill some of them. And Jesus likened this to the prophets of old, and old covenant Israel, who were unfaithful in their repentance and in their life toward God.

And finally, God, the owner of the vineyard, sends his son. And the steward of the vineyard say, ah, here's the heir. If we kill him, then we will possess the vineyard. And they killed him, and they killed him outside the vineyard.

Well, Christ has suffered, and he is now suffering in this text outside the gate, as Hebrews puts it. There, he is led outside to one of the places that the Romans tended to crucify criminals. Rome was known for the peace of Rome, but it was a crushing peace.

It was an oppressive peace. It was a peace in which if anybody caused trouble, then they would respond with such force and such brutality that no one would dare rise up again. And they found Judea a very onerous province to govern.

They had difficulty time and time again, because it seemed like they couldn't keep these Jews down. But one thing they tried to do is that they would take the criminals, and they would crucify them outside the city in the comings and goings, on a little bit of an elevated place, so that as all the economy functioned and the trade functioned in the city, people would come out and come in, and they would see the carcasses of condemned men hanging there, a warning, do not disobey the laws of Rome.

Do not cause an insurrection. Do not cause a problem. Well, there was one by the name of Barabbas, who obviously was in league with another two, and they had committed criminal acts against the state.

Murder, in fact. It was well known in this time that there were assassins called the Sicarii, and they would as soon stab a Roman in the back with a knife as they would drink some water. And Barabbas was condemned to death, along with his two compatriots, and yet the raging mob preferred to have Barabbas released rather than Jesus.

And so now Jesus is being led away to Golgotha, led away to Calvary, where he is going to be executed. And the condemned were required to carry part of their cross. The posts that were stationed upon Calvary were permanent.

They were there and established, but the cross beams were portable, and they would be carried by the condemned from their prison to their place of execution. And in this case, Jesus was far too weakened by the beatings that he had received by the hand of Pilate to carry that cross beam.

And obviously at some point he collapses, it's obvious he cannot carry the cross beam. The soldiers want to get on with this, they don't want any delays. And as was the law of the land, they could call a subject, not a citizen, but they could call a subject in the area to come and help carry whatever load they required.

Remember Jesus saying to his followers, as he was expressing the way his kingdom worked, he said, if someone compels you to carry his pack for a mile, carry it too. And in this case, they compel Simon, a Cyrenian, to carry the cross beam of the cross that Jesus himself was required to bury, but Simon is pressed into service.

Now, who is Simon? Simon is a Jew from the province of Cyrene, just to the west of Egypt, North Africa. Very heavy Jewish presence there, as well as in Egypt and in Ethiopia, several synagogues, a very thriving Jewish community there.

And it makes sense that Simon has made a pilgrimage, and he has come up, don't think of a long way, and he has come up to Jerusalem for the Passover feast, as many Jews were prone to.

Do.

And he is coming in from the country, not because he was out in the fields, this is a feast day, but he is coming in, and in the providence of God, here he is at this moment, at this time, and he is pressed into the service of carrying the cross beam of Jesus.

As we reflect upon this event in Simon's life, all indications are that God used it for his salvation. For we read in Peter's account of this very moment, that this is Simon who is the father of Rufus and Alexander.

And later on, we even hear in the letter to Romans, talk about Rufus again, and we glean from this that at least Simon's sons came to know Christ, were a part of the community known to the church, and perhaps also Simon as well, and we reflect upon that.

And I think that we should recognize that Simon was pressed into this, following Christ, bearing a cross that was Christ's, but is that fair?

Right?

That doesn't seem very sporting of God, right? Shouldn't he have arranged matters for Simon to have a less traumatic, less compulsory consideration of Jesus of Nazareth? To be able to examine the situation from a more objective and Irenic position, and think of the virtues, the pros and cons of accepting Jesus' call.

Not this way. He's pressed into it. The Romans force him to carry the cross of Jesus. But in this, in this of course, Simon is called to consider bearing his own cross. Christ's call, of course, in Mark chapter 8, gives us pause to reflect.

How did Jesus talk about following him prior, prior to his suffering, prior to his unjust condemnation, prior to his crucifixion? Well, after Peter confesses that indeed Jesus is the Christ, Mark 8, 31, he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, he doesn't say how, but he says he must be killed and after three days rise again.

He speaks this word openly, he tells it to his disciples, and Peter does not like it.

One bit.

He says, no, no, no, no, that's not the agenda, that's not the plan. And he begins to rebuke him, and he says to Peter, get behind me Satan.

Why?

Because it was the same temptation Satan employed in the wilderness. Skip the cross, go straight to glory, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the earth, you just skip the suffering part, straight to glory, and this is the same temptation that Peter is saying, it's a satanic word.

He says, no, no, no, no, but down that road, get behind me Satan. He says, you're not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men, and then he begins to make things clear. This is what the Son of Man must do, and if you're going to follow me, this is what it's.

Like.

Verse 34, when he had called the people to himself, with his disciples also, he said to them, whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. He speaks of the most heinous execution instrument of their oppressors, invented by the Romans, to talk about following him, the Messiah.

Now that's strong, that gets the attention, and it turns out, as of course in the Lord's plan, that Christ himself would be bearing his cross and dying upon the cross, and he's calling his followers to imitate him, to do the same, to lay themselves down, to die in his dying, to identify with him.

He says, for whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul, or what will the man give in exchange for his soul?

For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with.

The holy angels.

So we think about Simon, he is forced to carry the crossbeam of Christ, and as the soldiers force Christ along that way of sorrow to Golgotha to suffer and die, Simon has to carry that crossbeam, and in so doing, the very words of Christ are being pressed upon him in a real sense.

Is Simon going to walk away from this bitter at this man, this criminal in the eyes of Rome and the Jews, that he has been forced into this, or is he going to embrace what's happening here? Will he stay at the side of the cross as Jesus of Nazareth dies?

Will he hear the things that Jesus says, will he see the way that Christ interacts with his disciples, speaking of his mother, will he hear what he says about, Father forgive them for they do not what they do?

Will he hear those last words from the cross? Will he hear the confession of the Roman soldier after Jesus dies and says it is finished, and the soldier says, truly this was the Son of God?

I don't know, I don't know.

But I do know that in the providence of God, he puts hardships upon us that we never asked.

For, don't want, did not sign up for.

No thank you. Now, Simon had no choice. He had to carry this or die. Roman soldier would cut him down if he refused. Now, God puts things upon us. God puts things upon us that we don't ask for. Hardships, trials, losses, suffering, confusions.

He puts things on us we did not ask for. And yet, he does that as part of our following Christ. How are we to think of those things? James says, when we're in the trial, we pray for wisdom. And God is generous and he gives us that wisdom.

Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. And included amongst those good things are the trials and the suffering and the difficulties that the Lord has packaged with his grace and handed to us that we don't fully understand and we're not really meant to.

Because as children, what we're called to do is trust in the Father. Look at the providence of God in the life of Simon the Cyrenian. That he would orchestrate a moment in which Simon was forced to consider Christ.

And how often are we forced to consider the worthiness of our Savior, the effectiveness of his reign, the worthiness of his name, when we're in the midst of suffering and difficulty and trials? That's where we really begin to think about it.

And we have to deny ourselves and say, it's not about me. Take up our crosses and follow him, it's about him. And trusting in him. And that's our responsibility before God, is to look to the one he sent to us, Christ.

You know, a lot of people make a big deal about Simon the Cyrenian being from Africa. That's not really the point, right? The point is that here is a man, even though he came from far away, one of those far-off places listed in Acts 2, that he was brought to Christ in the providence of God, even through suffering and difficulty, to be brought to Christ.

And we can praise God for that. Following Christ is not all volunteerism, right? Following Christ is not a syllabus of all elective classes, right? There are things that God brings us through that we don't want to have to go through,.

But we do.

And in the process, we have to take up our crosses and follow him, denying ourselves. And that's the path for joy, even in the suffering. The more we affirm ourselves, the more miserable we are. The more we deny ourselves and affirm Christ, the more joy we have.

I hope that's a blessing to you. Let's close, as we do, singing the doxology together.