I'll give everybody a chance
to find their seats. I want to read from Psalm 31. Psalm 31. In thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust, my hope, my trust, my faith, is in thee." Paul said,
I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Let me never be ashamed. What a shameful thing it would
be to depart from this world as we discussed in the first
hour and not trust Christ. Deliver me. Deliver me in thy
righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
righteousness. He alone is our righteousness.
And we're going to see if we read some more from this psalm
that these are the words of Christ from the cross as well. And he
trusted the Father to deliver him in his dying moment when
he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. We'll read
some more from that in a moment. Let's stand together. Tom's going
to come lead us in the hymn on the back of your bulletin. Still have your Bibles open to
Psalm 31. We'll continue reading at verse 2. Bow down thine ear
to me. Deliver me speedily. Be thou
my strong rock for a house of defense to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for thy name's sake,
lead me, guide me. Pull me out of the net that they
have laid privily for me, for thou art my strength. Into thine hand I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord
God of truth. Have you committed your spirit
to the hand of God? trusting Him for the salvation
of your soul. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that
You would give to us this morning the grace and the faith to commit
our souls to Christ, to deposit all our hope in his
accomplished work on Calvary's cross, to believe that he alone is able to save, able to put away our sin, Able,
Father, to satisfy Thy righteousness. Able to drink of the bitter dregs of
Thy wrath and satisfy Your justice once
and for all. We thank You for His faithfulness.
We thank you for his dying declaration of faith, Father into thy hand,
I commend my spirit. We ask now that you would enable
us to look to him, to glory in him, to anticipate seeing him
in the fullness of his glory. We pray again for Daryl and for
Terry and we ask Lord that you would be merciful toward them.
Care for all their needs physically and spiritually. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together. Last words. If you knew that your earthly
tabernacle was about to be dissolved and you had but just a few words
to speak to those gathered around your bedside, what would you
say? You wouldn't choose those words
casually. You would try to focus into that
last parting statement the most important thing that you wanted
your loved ones to know. Would you not? We have before us this morning
the dying words of the Lord Jesus Christ. The very last thing that
he said before he gave his spirit permission to depart from his
body. Turn with me in your Bibles to
Luke chapter 23. All of his words are infinitely important. All of his words are true and
faithful. His words are the words of life,
for he himself is the word of life. And yet I can't help but
to think that in his last words, he was consolidating, if you
will, the full purpose and intent of his life. His last words were
not, it is finished. That was his next of the last
words. His last words are found in verse 46 of Luke chapter 23. And when Jesus had cried with
a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands, I commend my
spirit. And having said thus, he gave
up the ghost. What are we to know from these
words? Why would the Lord speak these
words for us to hear? What is the significance of these
words? Well, you know from our last
couple of months that our Lord spoke seven times from the cross. Seven in the Bible is a number
for perfection or completeness. We know that God created all
that there is in the universe in seven days. What did he do
on that seventh day? We could say, well, he really
created it in six days because on the seventh day, what did
he do? What did he do on the seventh day? He rested, didn't
he? for his work was finished." We're
to see in these words the complete trust that the Lord Jesus Christ
had in resting his soul in the hands of the Father. He had finished
the work. Even as in creation, the Lord
had finished the work on the sixth day. He created man on
the sixth day, and He looked at what He had made, and He was
very satisfied, for He said, it's very good, very good. And when our Lord said, it's
finished, He was saying exactly what God declares in the first
chapter of Genesis on that sixth day of creation. It's finished. It's done. I got to thinking,
well, the seventh day is rest and the sixth day is completeness. What about the fifth day? Well,
what was the fifth saying of Christ from the cross? It was,
I thirst. And if we look to Genesis chapter
one, we find that the Lord created on the fifth day, all the creatures
of the sea. On the fourth, saying of Christ
from the cross, this is not just a matter of being clever. This
is showing that our God is a God of purpose. He's a God of purpose. He's never done anything haphazardly,
he's never started anything he didn't finish. He is a God of
purpose. He created with a purpose and
he recreates sinners in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ with
a purpose. Everything he does is purposed. He's not trying to do something. You might say or hear someone
say, well God was trying to do... No, don't put God trying in the
same sentence. Just don't do it. He never tried
to do anything. He's not like us. He has a purpose,
and he always accomplishes what he sets out to do. On the fourth day of creation,
God created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, the illuminaries
of the heavens. And the fourth saying of the
Lord Jesus Christ was, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? declaring to us that the light
of the gospel is seen in what happened with the Lord Jesus
Christ as the sinner's substitute on Calvary's cross suffering
the wrath of God's judgment. Cursed is everyone who hangeth
upon a tree. And so in the fourth day of creation
we have the light that comes into the world and the fourth
saying of Christ giving us the light of the gospel. Substitution
and satisfaction is seen in my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? The third saying of our Lord from the cross, woman behold
thy son and to John behold thy mother. And on the third day
of creation, what do we have? God separating the land from
the sea and creating all vegetation, providing for us a place to live. Where is the believer's place
to live? Where do we live? We live in
the fellowship of the saints as a part of the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ. In the second day of creation,
God separated the firmaments above from the firmaments below
and made the heavens as we know them. What was the second saying
of the Lord Jesus Christ? He made a distinction. He made
a distinction between those two thieves. He separated the firmaments,
didn't he? And he said to the one, this
day thou shalt be with me. in the heavens, in paradise. The first day of creation God
created light. He created light. He made the
light to shine out of darkness. What was the very first words
that our Lord spoke from the cross that we have recorded?
Father forgive them for they know not what they do. You know
the light of the gospel can only be seen when you believe that
God forgave you even before you knew what you had done. Election Sovereign grace, the
lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world, the
forgiveness of God for sin even before the sinner knew that he
had sinned. Father forgive them for they
know not what they do. That's the light of the gospel. The
first cause of the gospel is those whom God foreknew He did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. Just
as God perfectly created the universe as we know it, everything
He does is with purpose and with perfection. And so it's by no
mistake that the Lord would speak seven times from the cross and
show His perfect work of redemption. The second thing we see in these
words from the Lord Jesus Christ is who his faith is in. Don't have faith in faith. Lots of folks do that. Every
time we're tempted to look at the quantity and quality of our
faith in order to gain assurance of our salvation, we're putting
faith in faith. Don't do it. The quality of your
faith is not as it ought to be. The quantity of your faith is
not as it ought to be. The Lord Jesus Christ said, Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit. Don't put your faith in your
faith, and don't put your faith in facts. There's lots of folks
that have factually discerned some doctrinal truths and they
think because they believe in election, they believe in limited
atonement, they say they believe in total depravity, that their
ability to recite some doctrinal truths gives them hope of their
salvation. It doesn't. It doesn't. Calvinism is logical. Plenty
of Calvinists in this world. They're going to die without
Christ and spend eternity separated from God. Don't put your faith in what
you know. Put your faith in who the Lord Jesus Christ put his
faith in. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Paul said,
I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. You see, it's not the quality
of our faith, it's not the quantity of our faith, it's the object
of our faith. Father, how often the Lord Jesus
Christ spoke of his father. His first words recorded in the
scriptures went to his mother, wish ye not that I must be about
my father's business? In his first recorded public
discourse, Matthew chapter 5 through Matthew chapter 7, we call it
the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of the
Father 17 times in that message. paschal discourse where our Lord
is speaking to the disciples in John chapter 14 through John
chapter 16 he speaks to his disciples of his father 45 times and then
in the next chapter in chapter 17 on the when the Lord speaks
the high priestly prayer interceding for us he refers to the father
seven more times how oftentimes the Lord Jesus Christ speaks
of his Father. That's where his faith was. When
he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, he was expressing
the object of his faith was his heavenly Father. And what a glorious
truth it is to know that the same God creation, the same sovereign
God that the Lord Jesus Christ called His Father, He says to
us, when you pray, pray like this, Our Father. Same Father. We've got the same
God He had. A father who provides perfectly
for all the needs of his children, both physically and spiritually. A father who protects his children
from all harm. A father whose purpose is always
accomplished in the life of his children. A father who pities
his children. Oh, do you need a father to pity
you? I remember one time someone saying
to me, you can't talk about God as your father because there's
people who have had horrible experiences with the father.
And they may associate God with that. You know, I'm not too worried. I'm sorry for anybody who's had
a horrible experience with a father. But you know, I'm not so sure
that those people don't have a better understanding of what
a perfect father might be. In their hopeful imagination,
maybe they've learned by contrast, our father is a perfect father.
In every way, he's a perfect father. He's the father that
knew the prodigal was coming home. He wasn't waiting out at
the end of the driveway on the road, wringing his hands, hoping
that his son would come home. He knew he would come home. He
had predestined him to come home. He was waiting because he knew
his son was coming home. That's the kind of father we
have. And John puts it like this, behold, behold, take notice of
this, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we, we, I mean I can understand how God would make somebody else
one of his children, but that we would be called the children
of God? What higher place is there for
a son of Adam to have? You know, the world is so consumed
with titles and power and possessions and all those sort of things,
and here God has made us to be his children? Prince and princess
in the family of God? What greater place is there to
be? Father, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. We see the perfection of our
Lord's faith. He said, my meat is to do the
will of him that sent me. He's called in the scriptures
the one who is faithful and true. Paul tells us in Ephesians that
we're saved by this faith. For by grace are you saved through
faith. It's not of yourselves, it's
a gift of God, not of works. The Lord Jesus Christ faith is
what we're saved by. When tempted in the wilderness,
he said, I live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of God. When refused by his detractors, he said, father, I thank thee
that thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent
and revealed them unto babes. When his disciples asked him
to see the father, he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the
father, for I and the father are one. When drinking from the
bitter cup of God's wrath, He said, in faith, not my will,
but thine be done. When threatened by Pilate, he
was confident that the only power Pilate had was that which was
given to him from heaven. When showing forth the glory
of God at Lazarus' tomb, he said, Father, I thank thee that thou
hearest me always. He just believed God in everything
and every way. When praying for his church in
John chapter 17, he trusted the Father to keep all that the Father
had given unto him. True faith is not affected by
the circumstances that we're in. The Lord Jesus Christ had
perfect faith while hanging on a Roman cross, surrounded by
his enemies, the demons of hell thinking that they had gotten
the victory. His perfect faith linked him
to God. How our faith falters in our
circumstances, his never did. His never did. The Hebrew children in the fiery
furnace knew that Nebuchadnezzar had no power over them. Our father
will deliver us from you and he's able to deliver us from
this fire which he did. Daniel went into the lion's den
believing in faith that God would deliver him. Paul and Silas in
the Philippian jail rejoiced to know that they were suffering
for Christ's sake. Elisha, surrounded by that Syrian
army, said to his servant, they that are with us are more than
they that be with him. And Elijah, when on Mount Carmel,
faced with all those prophets of Baal, in faith, called down
fire from heaven and proved God to be faithful. Our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrates
that kind of perfect faith. We see in these last words of
Christ the end of his suffering. He had suffered the contradiction
of sinful men He had been delivered by the purpose of God into the
hands of sinful men to be crucified. He went as a lamb to the slaughter. He opened not his mouth. With
wicked hands, they proved their hatred for God. They handled
the Son of God as if he was a common criminal. Never again will he
be subject to the hands of men. Now, he had committed himself
into the hand of God. Never again will he be at the
mercy of the wicked. Never again will he suffer shame.
Once he was in men's hands. Now they are all in his. Once they said away with him. Now he has the authority. to say
to whomever he wills, depart from me, for I never knew you. Once they sat in Moses' seat
and judged him guilty. Now he sits on the great white
throne and judges all men, either free in him or bound to their
sins. Now this is the end. This is the end. The cup of wrath
has been drained. The fury of God's wrath is over. The sacrifice of sin has been
made and God is satisfied and Christ is confident that God
is satisfied. Nothing more to be done. Time
now to give up the ghost. He made himself subject to the
hands of men. They did what they would and
now he is in the hands of God. Believing that he's accomplished
everything the Father sent him to do. The salvation of God's
elect. His faith resulted in a perfect
death. Christ died like no other man
has ever died. His life was not taken from him.
You and I will hang on to death till the last breath. He was
in control of death. He had to give it permission
in order for it to act. He had power over it. It could only do what he allowed
it to do. He said, therefore, does my father
love me? Because I lay down my life, I
have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.
He yielded up the ghost, as Matthew said. Translated literally means
he dismissed his spirit. He gave his spirit permission.
And the idea here is that of a king giving a servant directions
to be dismissed. John says he bowed his head and
gave up the ghost. He delivered up his spirit. He
breathed out his spirit. Two things were necessary in
order for death to be allowed. The first was that a complete
satisfaction must be offered to God's offended justice. And that had been done. It was
finished. God was satisfied, the wrath
of God for all the sins of God's people had been suffered and God was
pleased. There's one thing left, the Lord
Jesus Christ himself must taste of death. The soul that sins
must surely die. It is appointed unto man once
to die and then the judgment. You got that? But for Christ,
it was just reversed. The judgment was met first and
then death was allowed. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
and his dying words expressing his perfect faith in God was
a representative act of faith. When the Lord Jesus Christ said,
Father into thy hands I commend my spirit, you cannot separate
the spirit of Christ from the spirit of those for whom he died.
And so when he commended his spirit to the father, he was
commending the spirit of all of his people. Did the father receive Christ
in his death? If he did, he received all those
for whom he died. His spirit cannot be separated
from his people any more than the head can be separated from
the body, the bridegroom can be separated from the bride,
or the sanctifier can be separated from them who are sanctified. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
my Father's hand. This declaration of faith is
representative for all of us. You see the truth is the only
way you and I are going to be saved is by the faith of Jesus
Christ. The flood could not harm Noah
when God's hand shut the door. When the hand of God covered
Moses in the cleft of the rock, none of the terrors of the law
could harm him. When the angel of the Lord took
Lot by the hand, even though he tarried in Sodom, he was successfully
delivered from destruction. When the Lord Jesus Christ bowed
his mighty head on Calvary's cross and said, it is finished. Father into thy hands, I commend
my spirit. The church of the Lord Jesus
Christ was placed into the hand of God. Paul puts it like this in Ephesians
chapter 3, we have boldness. What is our confidence? What
is our boldness? We have boldness and access with
confidence by the faith of Him. God requires perfect faith. Our faith is in a perfect person.
The Lord Jesus Christ faith was perfect, was perfect. Philippians chapter 3 says, and
being found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is
of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. The righteousness which is of
God. The righteousness which is of
God. It's not our righteousness, it's
his righteousness. Turn with me to Galatians chapter
2. Look at verse 16. Knowing, here's
what we know. I hope you know this, I hope
you believe it. Knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law. He's not justified by the works
of the law. You're not going to give God
an argument based on anything you've ever done or anything
you've ever believed. Nothing that's in your hands. Nothing that will justify you
in the presence of God. Our justification is only in
the faith of Jesus Christ. Read this verse with me. Knowing
that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by
the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. God requires perfect faith. And
the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one that has that faith. And he summarized, he summarized
his whole life for us in those dying words. Father, into thy
hands I commend my spirit. And he says to me and you, take
my yoke upon you and learn of me. Learn of me, for I am meek
and lowly in heart. Have you commended your spirit
to the hands of God? There's no safer place to be.
In other words, have you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ alone for
your righteousness before God? Is he and his faith the hope
of your salvation? Are you resting? Are you resting
in Christ? The seventh word of the Lord
Jesus Christ from the cross is a declaration of rest. Of rest. Father, into thy hands
I commend my spirit. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we're so very thankful that we have an advocate. Jesus Christ,
the righteous one, the one who himself is faithful and true. We thank you that there is perfect
faith in him. We ask now that your
Holy Spirit would cause us to find all our rest, all our salvation,
all our hope, all our satisfaction, all we seek after in what He
accomplished. We ask it in His name. Amen. All right, we'll stand together
Number 114 in the Sopek Tymna. Let's stand.