I did choose thee, Lord, for,
Lord, that Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Neidert. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 1030 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
945 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Todd Nybert. I want to speak to you this morning
on the subject of the faith of the dying thief. I'm going to
read Luke's account of this in Luke chapter 23, beginning in
verse 39. And one of the malefactors, which
were hanged, railed on him, saying, if thou be Christ, save thyself
and us. But the other answering, rebuked
him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. But this man hath done
nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord,
remember me when ye come into your kingdom. And Jesus said
unto him, Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in
paradise." We have so many instances in
the scripture of great faith. I think of Noah spending 120
years building an ark when a drop of water had
not touched the ground in obedience to God's command. I think of
Abraham offering up Isaac in obedience to God's command, believing
that God would raise him from the dead even after he offered
him up. I think of Moses standing before
Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world, and saying, thus
saith the Lord, let my people go. And Pharaoh answered, who
is the Lord that I should obey him? I feel quite sure Moses
was thinking, you're getting ready to find out. I think of
David coming at the giant with a sling and a stone knowing that
God was going to deliver that giant into his hand. There's
so many examples that we could use of great faith. But I believe
the passage of scripture we just read is the greatest faith this
world has ever seen. The faith of the thief. Now, the disciples had seen the
Lord do only what God can do. They saw Him heal the sick, give
sight to the blind. They saw Him raise the dead.
They saw Him control the weather. Do you remember when He said,
Peace be still to the raging storm? The disciples said, What
manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey Him? They had seen The Lord bring
matter into existence into the universe that wasn't there before
when he fed 5,000 with two small fishes and five barley loaves.
That's something that all the science of the world cannot duplicate,
bringing matter into existence. And the Lord did it several times
when he miraculously fed the multitudes. He did things that
only God could do. And the disciples also had the
advantage of sitting at his feet for three years, hearing his
preaching and teaching, and becoming intimate with him. What blessing
the disciples had, but where were they when this thief was
boldly confessing Christ? Where no one else was. Why, they
were in hiding. They were afraid. Now let me
say something about this thief. This is why I say he had such
great faith. He saw no miracles. He saw no miracles. He went up
onto that cross, dead in trespasses and sins. The other accounts
say that they were both hurling insults at the Lord Jesus, casting
the same as teeth. He went up to the cross, dead
in trespasses and sins. And that one that he looked upon,
so seemingly weak and emaciated and dying, forsaken by his friends,
forsaken by God, he heard him say, my God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? He heard those words. He looked
at this one who seemingly seemed so defeated and looked at him
and said, Lord, you're the Lord. He believed in the absolute Lordship
of Christ. He believed that he's gonna come
back as a mighty victor. He said, remember me when you
come in your kingdom, when you come back as a mighty reigning
king. He didn't see anything, yet what
a high view he had of the Lord Jesus Christ. He recognized what
no one else recognized, that that one hanging beside him was
the Son of God, the Lord of glory. Now, this man was never baptized. He never gave a dime to the cause
of Christ. He didn't have any good works
to commend him. He didn't have any experience to recommend him.
And yet the Lord gives this man more assurance than he ever gave
any other human being. He said, verily I say to thee,
today thou shalt be with me in paradise. And my dear friend,
if you and I are saved, or if you and I are to be saved, we're
going to have to have the exact same faith that this thief possessed. Now, I'm not talking about the
same for the strength of it. Like I said, I think this man
had the strongest faith anyone has ever had. What he believed
in spite of what he saw, what a God-given gift of faith this
man had to see Christ so clearly when by what you could see, he
was nothing but a defeated man dying on a cross. But if you
and I are going to be saved, we're going to believe the same
things this thief believed. Some have used the thief to flatter
themselves that they can put off the things of God until a
later date. The thief died in the last hour
and I can get things taken care of some other time. Somebody once said the road to
hell is paved with good intentions. And if you think you can put
it off to some other time, if you even think that you have
the ability and power to believe and repent at some other time,
you're sadly mistaken. You're sadly mistaken. You're
thinking that the power's in you, and it's not there. So you
don't know what's going to happen right before you die. And some
have used this thief's deathbed salvation to give them hope that
their relatives are saved with some kind of flimsy deathbed
repentance, deathbed experience. Now, let me remind you of something.
God gave us one thief, lest any should despair, but only one,
lest any should presume. Don't forget the other thief.
He died the same way he lived, hating God, hating Christ under
the wrath and curse of God, and he died in his sins and went
to hell afterwards. Now, that's a sobering thought. You know these two men remind
us of how close death is and after that we're going to spend
eternity either in heaven or hell. Now I've also heard people
use this thief to illustrate how little you need to know to
be saved. And the argument is something
like this. Well, there are certain doctrines that he never heard.
The thief never heard about God electing a people or Christ dying
for the elect. The thief never heard of the
great proof of justification or redemption or being born again. He didn't hear any of these things
and he was saved. That's true. He didn't hear any
of those things. And I guarantee you, if he would
have heard them, He would have believed them. And here's why.
Faith is in a person. Faith is not in a proposition.
It's not in a system of doctrine. Faith is in a person. And what
you believe is determined by who you believe. You see, if
you believe Him, you believe He's sovereign. You believe He
can't be a failure. You believe He must succeed in
whatever He does. You believe His will must be
done. Why, if you believe Him, you can't believe He could die
for somebody and they wind up in hell anyway. Now, you might
not know the terms of the doctrine, But you know the person of the
doctrine. And once the person is known,
all the doctrines fall in line and come into place. Because
see, you see, faith is not faith in a doctrine. It's not knowledge
of a doctrine. It's not giving assent to some
facts. It's seeing a person. It's believing a person. He knew
who Jesus Christ really was, as we're going to see in a moment. Now, most would agree that this
man had the minimal amount of knowledge to be saved, and I'm
not sure I deny that. I suppose he did have the minimal
amount, but he had the greatest faith that this world has ever
seen. Now, it's pointed out in both
Luke and Mark's account that both of these men were reviling,
blaspheming Christ, insulting him. They both were, but all
of a sudden, One stops. He sees something that he'd never
seen before. And while the other thief continues
to rail, all of a sudden this thief rebukes him. Does thou
not fear God, seeing you're in the same condemnation? What happened? Why is it that this thief is
now altogether different than he was when he first went up
on the cross? Now these two thieves, really are the two representative
men. Me and you are represented by
one of these thieves or the other, dependent upon whether we believe
or not. Like sheep, like goats, these
are two representative men. Now in that middle cross, we
see one dying for sin. He died as a substitute for sinners. On his left is one dying in his
sin. As he lived, he died. And on
his right is one who's dying unto sin, who that very day,
when he dies, will go to be the very presence of Christ in a
state of sinlessness. Now, what was the difference
between these two men? They were equally wicked. They
were both criminals being executed for the crimes that they'd committed.
They were very wicked men. They both, as they were nailed
to the cross, were railing on Christ, hurling insults at him. One continues to do that, and
the other becomes a disciple, a bold confessor of the Lord
Jesus Christ. What is the difference? Perhaps a better way to say that
would be, who is the difference? Because in 1 Corinthians 4, verse
7, Paul said to the church of Corinth, who maketh thee to differ
from another? And what do you have that you
don't receive? And Paul quoted this from the
verse in Exodus 11, verse 7, where Paul or where Moses said concerning
the children of Israel compared to the Egyptians, he said against
when the Passover, right before the Passover, when God was going
to destroy, he said, against the children of Israel shall
not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast, so that you may
know how the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Now why is this one man now a
disciple of Christ while the other continues to rail on him
and curse him? Because God made a difference. God the Father made the difference
in eternal election when He chose that man in Christ before the
foundation of the world to be His. God the Son made the difference
in redemption when He paid for this man's sins. The other man's
sins, they were not paid for, but Christ paid this man's debt,
gave him his righteousness. God the Holy Spirit made the
difference when he gave this man life. He regenerated this
man. This man was born from above,
birthed by God the Holy Spirit, given a new nature to believe
the gospel and to understand who Jesus Christ is. That's the
difference. God made the difference between
these two men. Now, I want us to consider, first
of all, what the first thief said, the one who continued in
his blasphemy. Verse 39, and one of the malefactors,
which were hanged, railed on him, saying, if thou be Christ,
save thyself and us. Now, I see two horrible things that the man
says in this statement. First is the word, if. if you're
the Christ, as if maybe he wasn't. And here's my point. If you're
a believer, there's no if he's Christ. There's no if he's the
Son of God. He is God the Son. He is God's Christ. Now that's
what you're sure of. He is the Christ. He is the Son of God. You might
not be sure if you're saved, but you're sure he's the Savior.
You might not be sure of anything about yourself, but you're not
doubting him. When Peter, after he fell, if you would have said,
Peter, you're a Christian, he may have said, I don't think
so. But if you would have said at that very same time, do you
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? He
would have said, yes, with all my heart. And this man was putting
that in question. If you be the Son of God, save
thyself and us. Now here he demonstrates the
sense of entitlement. If you're Christ, save yourself
and save us too. As if that's what his job is
to do. He had a sense of entitlement that that's what should be done
for him. You see, when God saves you, you don't have that sense
of entitlement. You know you're a sinner deserving
nothing but God's wrath. And that sense of entitlement
goes away. You know if God passes you by
and doesn't save you, just, holy, and righteous is his name. You
really believe that. So this man, was putting a question
mark on who Christ is, and he had a strong sense of entitlement,
which is no humility, no knowledge of his own sinfulness. But now
let's look at what the thief said. Verse 40, but the other
answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God? seeing
thou art in the same condemnation. Now, for one thing, we see he
doesn't have the sense of entitlement. He repuked him for saying that.
Don't you fear God, seeing you're in the same condemnation? We're
getting exactly what we deserve, not this man. But what I want
you to think about is when he said, don't you fear God, he
was saying this man hanging beside me on a cross is God. He believed that Jesus Christ
was God the Son. Somebody says, how could he believe
that? How would he know that? Well, if you know it the same
way you knew it, you know it. God revealed this to you. He
made himself known to you. That's the only way you know
that is if God makes himself known. And this man had revealed
to him that Jesus Christ is God, and everything he said after
that was predicated on his belief that Jesus Christ is God. Don't
you fear God? He knew that this man, hanging
on a tree was God Almighty, who was going to come back in a glorious
kingdom. And he knew salvation was utterly
in his sovereign will. Lord, remember me when you come
back as a reigning king into your kingdom. Dost thou not fear
God? This man believed in the absolute
justice of God. Don't you fear God, seeing you're
in the same condemnation? For we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds. He believed in the absolute
justice and righteousness of God. Now, if you ever see who
God is, you're gonna know he's utterly just and cannot just
pass over sin. What would you think of a human
judge who, when someone was tried, who had committed terrible crimes,
what would you think of the human judge who said, well, you're
forgiven, you're forgiven, and lets them back out into society,
and then they commit the same crimes over and over again? What
would we do with a judge like that? Well, we'd get rid of him.
He would lose his ability to be judge. He's not doing his
job. Shall not the judge of the earth
do right? God is absolutely just. And a believing man or woman
can never be satisfied with a salvation that is not absolutely just. It's what the Bible calls justification. being justified by faith we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen, justification
is in accordance with God's absolute justice and righteousness. If
I'm saved, if I'm brought into heaven, it'll be because I fully
deserve to be brought into heaven. If I'm sent to hell, it'll be
because I fully deserve to be sent to hell. But here's the
glory of the gospel. It's like this. That Republican
in the temple, beating on his breast, saying, God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. Christ said of this one, I say
unto you that that man went down to his house justified. You are, if you're justified,
you're sinless. You have no guilt. You didn't
do anything wrong. You've always done that which
is right. You're justified. Now, the gospel of God, the gospel
of this book is a gospel of absolute justice. God has made a way to
be just and the justifier of the one that Christ died for
and the evidence that Christ died for them is that they believe
on him as everything in salvation. That's the evidence. absolute
justice. This man believed in the absolute
justice of God. He said, we indeed justly, God
is giving us just exactly what we deserve. And this man believed
himself to be a sinner. We're getting exactly what we
deserve. He believed himself to be a sinner.
Now, most people, if you say, are you a sinner? They'll say,
yeah, but they don't mean it. They think, well, I do some wrong
things. Yeah, I guess I'm a sinner. I
mean, everybody sins, don't they? I mean, nobody's perfect. But
let me tell you what the Bible means by a sinner. In Genesis
6, verse 5, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart was only evil continually. Now, that's what the Bible says
about a sinner. Every imagination of the thoughts of their heart
is only evil continually. And if someone says, well, I
just can't see myself that way. Well, if you saw who God is,
you would see yourself that way. The thing that prevents someone
from seeing themselves that way is they don't know who God is.
They don't see him in his holiness and his righteousness. They have
no understanding of his law. If you ever see yourself as God
sees you, you'll see yourself that way. Wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. Your righteousness, you'll see,
is filthy rags. And that's what this man thought
about himself. He was nothing but a sinner, and he was getting
exactly what he deserved. And look what he says next. He
says, we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our
deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss. He believed in
the absolute sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew no
sin. Christ lived for 33 years upon
this earth without having a sinful thought and never performing
a sinful action. He said, I do always those things
that please the Father. When Satan came, he said, the
prince of this world hath come and hath found nothing in me.
Now, if he came to me, oh, he would find so much. If he came
to you, he'd find so much. But he couldn't find anything
in the Son of God. This man hath done nothing amiss.
You see, if he sinned, he wouldn't be God. And he couldn't pay for
anybody's sins. For him to pay for someone's
sin, he himself had to be sinless. And his perfect life is given
to the believer. And this thief on the cross understood
that Jesus Christ was sinless. And look what it says next. And
he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He believed that that one nailed
to a cross, seemingly so helpless and hopeless, was Lord. Now that means dictator. That
means the one who's in control. He knew it was the will of Christ
that was keeping him nailed to the cross. He could have come
down if he wanted. He could have destroyed everybody. He's the Lord. That means He's
the Lord of creation. He's the one that created the
universe. All things were made by Him and without Him was not
anything made that was made. He's the Lord of Providence.
He's controlling everything that happens right now. The thieves
that are railing on Him, He's in control of them. The people
who nailed Him to the cross, He gave them the strength to
drive the nails in His hands and feet, and He willed for it
to happen. You remember when they came to
arrest Him, and He said, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus
of Nazareth. And He said, I am. And they went backwards. The
Lord was letting them know He's no victim. He's in control of
all this, and He's the Lord of salvation. That means your salvation,
your eternal destiny is in His hands. It's not in yours. Now,
the thief understood this. He knew that this one beside
him was Lord, and he knew that he would be successful in whatever
it was he was doing, because he said, you're coming back as
a mighty reigning king in a kingdom. You know, most people actually
believe Jesus Christ is a failure. They never say that. But if you
think that he intended to save everybody, and some people he
intended to save end up not being saved, that means he failed.
That's exactly what that means. You can't look at it in any other
light. That means his will is not always done. But that's not
the case concerning this one, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
Lord of salvation, and salvation is in his hands. And the thief
understood this. Because he said, Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. If you remember me, nothing else
will need to be said. He knew that his salvation was
in the will of Christ. This is the same thing the leper
said when the leper said, Lord, if you will, you can make me
clean. They said, Lord, remember me. If you remember me, nothing
else will need to be said. I'm saved. Remember me when you
come in your kingdom. That's my only hope. Now, what did this thief believe?
Well, first of all, he had no sense of entitlement. And he
believed that Jesus was God. And he believed that God was
absolutely just. And he believed that he was a
sinner. And he believed that Christ was sinless. And he believed
Christ is the Lord. And he believed his work must
be successful. And he believed he would return
as a mighty reigning king. And he believed that if all the
Lord did was remember him, he would be saved. And listen to
what the Lord says to this man. He gives this man more assurance
than he ever gave Abraham, than he ever gave Moses, than he ever
gave David. The Lord didn't speak this way
to anybody but this thief. He said, verily I say to thee,
today thou shalt be with me in paradise. Now the Lord died before
the thief and I have no doubt that the first one to rise into
heaven to see the Lord in his glory was this thief on the cross
The dying thief rejoiced to see the fountain in his day, and
there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. This is Todd Nyberg, praying
that God will be pleased to give both me and you the same faith
that this dying thief had. May God richly bless you. Amen.
To request a copy of the sermon you have just heard, send your
request to messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.