We have been in a... looking at lessons in the life that Jesus taught from the cross. There was seven cross sayings while he was hanging there and today's lesson from a pastor's perspective and many of many preachers in the room and they'll understand what I'm getting ready to say. It is the most important lesson anyone can learn in their Christian walk to help you live a productive Christian life. Most people that struggle in their Christianity struggle because they don't have assurance of their salvation. They don't have assurance. They don't know for sure that heaven's their home, and there's no security in the fact that I'm saved, I know it, and I'm sure heaven's my home when I die. The reason being, if you are constantly struggling with I'm saved today, I'm not saved today, I'm going to heaven today, I'm not going to heaven today, I didn't do something to merit salvation today so I don't have salvation. You cannot be focused on the purpose of life that Christ has for you as a follower if you do not have assurance of your salvation. Because you're not supposed to be focused on whether or not you have assurance or security. You should be focused on worshiping and honoring the God that created and saved you. And you should be focused on being a light to a dark and sadistic world and a witness of the goodness and the grace of God. And so if your focus is always on, Oh, I hope I'm good enough. Oh, I hope I make it. Then you're not focused on your purpose of life that God left you here for. Um, so. If this morning, our goal is to help when you leave here, after you stay and eat, you're welcome. If our goal was simply, we want you to know you're saved and secure in it. That's our goal of this morning's message. We're going to read from Luke chapter 23, verses 39 through 43. If you don't have a Bible, she'll put the words up for you so that you can read along with us and make sure that what I'm saying is God's word, not my word. Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, and I want you to get the picture. Christ is hanging on a cross. He's being crucified. There's two criminals on either side. And one of them is just blaspheming. He's crying out. You know, you've got to realize he's not talking like I'm talking this morning. He's got nails drove through his hands, he's got nails drove through his feet, and he's hanging just like Christ is. And he cries out and he says, if you are the Christ, save yourself and us. But the other thief on the other side, answered and rebuked him saying, do you not even fear God seeing you are under the same condemnation? Hey, knucklehead, you're dying here. Why is that the last thing you're going to say? That's pretty much what he's saying to him. We're, we're under condemnation. And if we indeed justly, for we received the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And then he said to Jesus, first, he's speaking one criminal speaking to the other. And now he turns to Christ who is between them. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And I want you to notice what Jesus said. And Jesus said to him, assuredly, for sure, take this to the bank. Here's my word. I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. I'm going to give you five simple things you must understand from this or the lesson from this passage of scripture in order that you can have assurance and that you can have security and know for sure that heaven is your home when you die. First, we must know we will all face God when we die. We have an appointment. It is appointed unto man once to die. After this, the judgment. Our appointment is going to happen after death and I want you to notice what he said in that passage. Do you not even fear God? If you're in this room and you don't fear God, you don't have any reverence for God Almighty about the sin that you've committed in your life, you've got a problem. And he, you know, this guy said, we deserve to die. He was confessing, in fact, is what he was doing. He was, you know, he understood that death is not the end. And anybody that teaches that only has, I have one thing to say to them, you don't understand your Bible. You know, it's just that simple. And so with that understood, we have to understand that death is imminent and for all of us. And the fact of the matter is, it's not the end, it's the beginning. Because eternity follows after death. And if you're not ready, or the fact of the matter is, you're not ready to live until you're ready to die. And we have got to get it in our heads that assurance removes this doubt that Bonnie talked about. It removes what she's saying about, I had these doubts and fears. And assurance gives you the peace of mind of knowing that heaven is your home. Paradise is a real place. And this guy was minutes away From eternity, from that appointment of standing, woo! Got an alarm going off. I don't know what that is. I want my stopwatch back. You're just 10 minutes away from eternity. This guy was minutes. away from eternity. And the fact of the matter is, Christ was giving him assurance there before death that he had a home in heaven. We all must understand that we're going to face God someday. The second thing we must learn from this, or we must know, is that we all have sinned against God. There's not anyone in this room, if we was to judge, and I understand some of you may be a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, and you think you're close to perfect, and others like me may only be a 2 on that scale because of the things we've done, but we all have sinned. And he was acknowledging, he said, we receive the due reward for our deeds. He was acknowledging that I deserve to die. He was under the condemnation of death. He realized that death was not the end. And he realized that death was the beginning. And here he's saying, he's confessing, my cheating, my lying, my stealing is wrong. What I've done in life is what got me to this place. Yes, ma'am. He was simply saying, I deserve to die. You say, oh, but preacher, I don't deserve. I haven't been that bad. Well, I'm a good person. Have you ever told a little white lie? Did you ever cheat in school? Did you ever have a bad thought about your husband's girlfriend before he was your husband? Did you ever have a, you say, okay, okay, okay, I get your point. How many laws do you have to break before you're a law breaker? One. And that's scriptural, by the way. James 2.10 says, for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. So whether you're that nine that you think you are because you're almost perfect. Or you're a two because you've done some really, really, really bad stuff. We've all come short. of what God's threshold is in order for what to be called, I'm a good. And Romans 6.23 says then that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. And if you have, let me just, if you have eternal life today, what do you have tomorrow? Oh, I hope I'm good enough to make it. I'm going to endure to the end? That isn't what it says. It says God's word, not my word, not my interpretation. God says if you have eternal life, a gift, and you have it today, that you have eternal life tomorrow. You say, well, I don't believe that. Okay, once again, you don't believe your Bible. Because the Bible calls it eternal life. And it just simply teaches that the wages of your sin is death. And in the book of Revelation it says in death and hell we're cast into the lake of fire. And if we stopped right there, we're in a pretty bad shape. But, in that same passage, the gift of God is eternal life. And so if you have eternal life and there's a big difference between wages and a gift. Now, most of you in this room work because, and why do you work? For a wage, something you earn. But I'll promise you if your boss come in this Friday and went to give you your check and said, here's a gift for you. You're going to say, well, wait a minute there, bud. I earned that. I worked for it. I deserve it. That's mine. You're not giving me nothing. You earned hell with your sin, your wages. That's what you earn because we're all sinners in some form or fashion. We have all sinned at some point in time and done things that is unbecoming. But The gift. It's a gift. God gives you eternal life. And so, you say, well how do I get that? We must know, or the third part of this lesson is, we must realize that Jesus was more than just a man hanging there that day on the cross. And he, it was even taught there. He looked at him, he said, this man has done nothing wrong. Nothing. And when you look at it, I can't say that about anybody else. I don't know any other man that I can say he's done nothing wrong, especially some of you in this room. I know your past. I know my past. And yet he said he's done nothing wrong. The criminal understood that, that he was God's son. And the criminal understood that, that, you know, he did, he didn't say, he did not say he's not as bad as we are. He said he's done zero, nothing wrong. He doesn't deserve what he's getting. And this is the great exchange program that God offers you. You pay for your sin, your wages, or you accept the gift that Jesus paid for your sin. I paid for your sin, not me, Jesus. On the cross, the zero wrong, the perfect sacrifice, the lamb of God that was accepted by God. As a payment for your sin was the death of his son on the cross. And so at that point in time, he's giving this guy assurance in the fact I've got this. It is said of Norman Borlaug, I don't know many people that know who, anybody know who Norman Borlaug is? Ever heard of him? Norman Borlaug, it is said that he saved billions and billions of people. Not one, billions. And the way he did that was Norman Borlaug invented high yield, disease resistant crop seed. high-yield, disease-resistant crop seed. He was a microbiologist. But he was also an evangelical Lutheran. And he was the founder of Bread for the Hungry. And in his invention of this high-yield Obviously, it was spread around the world through a foundation that he was part of the founding group that started it, this Bread for the Hungry. And even though this microbiologist had saved billions of people, you reap the benefit every day from his invention, as do we. He still needed a savior. Saved billions, but he couldn't save himself. And you think about that. The fourth thing we must understand is that no matter what we are in life, no matter what we've done in life, no matter how good or how bad we are, we must know that God's grace can save us. God does it. Jesus, in this passage, said to him, and you think about the jest of this short conversation, and here's this thief, and he looks to Christ and he utters, remember me. Remember me. He was not relying on his own effort. He was not saying that I can save myself and get down. He was not even asking, because he knew he couldn't come down from the cross, for Christ to get me down from the cross. He was not asking, take into consideration, Lord, my charity work. He was not saying that, well, I do this ministry at Big Branch Church, so save me. He was not saying that, that, uh, I raised my hands this morning and worshiped. He was not take that into consideration. It was not about a praise. It was not about a testimony. It, there was no forms of work. There was no form of self atonement. It was all. And, and, and let me say something else. It was not, there was no excuses. Well, I'm better than so-and-so. Maybe you are. Yeah. But the fact of the matter is, this guy knew he had no hope. He knew, and let me stop right there and tell you, you don't have any hope this morning either, if you're sitting here and have never trusted Christ. In anything or anybody that's sitting in this room, your hope is only that God accepted Christ's payment for your sin while on the cross, just like everybody else, and we're all going to get there one way. Remember me. Two words. Boy, that throws a monkey wrench in a lot of doctrinal thought processes of other churches and religions. Shortest salvation prayer in history. Remember me. Remember me, he says. And it is not about the words. It's not about the deeds. There's no 10 steps to the throne, as some people have promoted through the years. It's not about communion, and communion's a good thing in remembrance. It's not about baptism, even though there's a group that will tell you, you gotta be baptized. And it's a good thing to be baptized, and if you haven't been baptized, we would encourage you to. But this guy didn't get baptized, and it wasn't, no, just an exception. It was, remember me. There was no changed life. Some of y'all be happy about that? He didn't have a changed life, and a changed life is part of knowing you're saved. Two ways you can know you're saved. If you doubt this morning, you wonder, did I get it? Do you have a changed life? If you don't have a changed life, I'll tell you what you're going to have is a spanking about every other day because God chastens His own. The Bible says without chastening, you're bastards and not sons. So you're going to have a changed life or you're going to have conviction and chastening. And with that said, here he is, this thief hanging there. Uh, I deserve punishment and, and I know you can save me. That's what he was crying out that day on the cross. He was simply saying, remember me. Now there's some well-meaning Christians that believe that you have to use certain words. And if not certain words, and if not a certain prayer, then it doesn't count. Well, that's not in the Bible. It's not there. Jesus simply told us. Or taught us this lesson that remember me was good enough. It was good enough and Jesus response to him was I got this when he said remember me you're in. Now some of us would say now when you get up from here and you said all this elaborate prayer that someone showed you. And you walk out those doors, you better quit all that you're doing tomorrow. That's a good thing. But that ain't what Christ told him. He said, I got this. Today, shalt thou be with me in paradise. You will be in paradise today with remembering me. The great evangelist who was a missionary had been eight years in Guadalajara, I believe is where he was located. And during this eight years, he hadn't seen very few converts. It was believed because of this one gentleman that was kind of like the slave master, the property owner for this community of people that he was ministering to, was their leader and didn't want them to come to trust Christ. And so this one gentleman got very sick, and as the missionary was leaving to go home on furlough, and was in fact not going back because he was discouraged over the fact that he hadn't seen any converts, and he knew it was the responsibility of the suppression of one man. And so this one man got very sick, and as he was leaving town, he thought, I'm gonna go see him. and confront him. In fact, he was afraid of him because of the power that the individual had. And he went to him and he was so weak that he couldn't talk. And the missionary, not understanding Spanish very well, and just, he said, I presented him the gospel in English. And told him, Christ died for you. He loves you. And he said, Do you hear me? And he said he very he said he couldn't even raise his hands or hardly open his eye. And he said all he could hear from him as he said that was see. He said, Do you do you understand what I'm saying? See. Do you believe that Christ died for you? See. He said he just got faint, more faint, more faint. He said, Will you trust Christ? And he said, See. He said, I left that day not very encouraged, not knowing what had really happened there. And he said, I came home and he said, I. Years later, four or five years later, he said, I got encouraging news that there was a thriving church there with 60 or 80 people attending. He said, and I went back just for curiosity's sake. And he said, when I got there. He said, here was this little church that had been built, one of the nicest ones we'd ever seen. And he said, I asked, how did all this come about? And he said, some gentleman who I really didn't recognize very well said, see. He said, well, I don't understand. He said, the man that was on his deathbed survived. And his C is who built this. And his C who is now the leader of this congregation. And he said, all we could think about and all I could comprehend when I left that day was doubt. And yet he trusted Christ with simple C. You see, we've got to understand that it's not about the words. It's not about everything that religion and Christianity wants to make it out. We, in fact, cannot complicate the gospel of Jesus Christ because, just remember me, was His response and Jesus' response was, today thou shalt you'll be with me in paradise. And we have to understand, Titus 3, 5 says, not by works of righteousness that I have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Our good works is a good thing to change our life, but it's the mercy and the grace of God and what Christ did on the cross that saves us. And we can't complicate it with some complicated prayer. And we can't complicate it with all these works of righteousness. And we can't complicate it with what religion and ritual teaches. And I know this is counter to what some of you may have been taught and to what you've heard. But what I'm telling you this morning is a lesson that Christ taught from the cross. Grace. God's remedy for our sins at Christ's expense. That's what grace is. Someone asked a gentleman one time, he said, what is grace? He said, something for nothing. Pretty good explanation, something for nothing. It's free, but it's not cheap. It costs Christ everything. And we have to understand that it was his life and perfect life and his death that was the payment for our sin that God accepted. The last thing is. You must learn from this passage that Jesus will save you if you ask him. He will save you if you ask him. When you come into your kingdom was his asking. That's all he said. When you come into your kingdom, will you remember me? And he believes Jesus is God in that because he knew that there was a future kingdom. He knew that he understood from his upbringing that there was a kingdom and God will and could save him and he did that day. He doesn't ask Jesus to heal his pain, which that's probably what most of us would have done. Will you take care of this? You know, I got a situation going on here, Lord. That's what most of us we it takes a crisis of belief. He was in a crisis. But that wasn't his prayer. It wasn't his prayer to take care of my crisis. It wasn't his prayer to remove the pain. It wasn't his prayer. To get me down from the cross. It wasn't his prayer. to deal with my problems. It wasn't his prayer to not don't let me die. He had a deeper need and he realized it. And and he needed to be saved from his sin, and he could be. How could he be sure that was going to happen? Because he had the promise of the words of the son of God. You want to know how you can have assurance because you have the promise of the words of the son of God. Same way he did. And first, John 513. Says these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God. Have you believed that you may know it doesn't say hope so. It doesn't say hang on to the end. It doesn't say I wish I make it. I hope Peter's at the gate. Peter might not be at the gate, he probably all fishing if he's like me. Says these things have I written unto you that believe it's the believing in the name, the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. If this is a car title. Just let's pretend a little bit. And you buy a car, how do you know? That you own that car. You get a title. How do you know? That you own your home, what do you get? I can't hear you. A deed. How do you know that you get eternal life? A piece of paper. Here's your deed, folks. Here's your car title. These things have I written unto you. That believe. Did you believe? Did you trust Christ? These things have I written unto you. Here's your deed. Here's your title. That you can know, not hope so, wish, think, maybe. Oh, hang on. That you can know assurance. That you have eternal life. Not eternal life today and lost tomorrow. Not run from me. There is a place for that. It's called professing and not possessing because you didn't. Mama took me to the altar. It's your heart. Did you believe? Did you trust in the finished work of Christ? If you did, then you have a deed. These things have I written. There's it is in black and white, plain and simple finish. You say, well, where does it say that in that passage we read early? Jesus said, assuredly, I say unto you or assurance I give you. I'm telling you today, it's not soul sleep. There's not purgatory. I don't find that anywhere in my Bible. Today, to be absent from the body, the Bible says, is to be present with the Lord. That's assurance. And he told this dying thief who deserved hell, hanging on a cross beside him, today, I give you the assurance in his own words, assuredly, I tell you today, you're going to be in heaven, paradise. It's not soul sleep. And the certainty is you will, not you might be. I hope you get there. I hope the train runs by your house when you die. He says you will be with me in paradise, not you might. And here's another little thing that we skip over a whole lot. It's relationship. He didn't say just today you will be in paradise. He says today you will be with me in paradise. Relationship. We're going to spend eternity with the Lord. And that's what He was telling him. It's relational. I'm going to be there. We're going to get a stand before the throne of God. This is going to be a great time. So today you will be with me. It's a relationship that you have with Him. And it is a place. Michael preached that two or three weeks ago. It's a place that you're going to spend eternity. Not a spirit floating around in the atmosphere as some would have you to believe. Not your dust that is going to be sprinkled all over the sea. He can put that back together again. If He can make you from a little bit of clay, He can put your ashes back together again someday. You're not just a spirit in space. So, this morning if I were to ask, what is the assurance of your salvation? And don't answer. Because if your answer is anything other than Christ died for my sins and I trust Him to get me to heaven, then I'm guessing you don't have assurance. If yours is, I hope I can live good enough. You don't have assurance because I'm going to tell you a little secret. You can't. If yours is, well, I haven't been baptized yet. You don't have assurance. Because you're trusting in baptism. If yours is, I haven't joined the church. There's some you wouldn't be, got there if you did join. You don't have assurance. If you struggle with laying your head down at night and worrying about your security, You don't have assurance. Maybe your faith is in something else. And if your faith is in something other than the finished work of Christ on the cross, which He taught in this lesson of this one cross saying, then maybe you need to get saved. Because my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And I can lay down at night Somebody gets mad at me for going to sleep that easy. I'm at peace. And I wish everyone in this room was at peace. I wish everyone in this room had the assurance and the security in knowing that Christ died and paid for your sins. God accepted that as a sign check and boom, it's over once you believe and trust in him. Remember me. Remember me. See. I'm going to tell you something else, if you struggle with your Christian walk, chances are you don't have assurance of your salvation. Your productivity in your Christian walk, in this saying, I hope so, or I hope I make it, I. You've got the focus on I. You're not the focus of this assurance. The focus of the assurance is Jesus Christ. He can and will save you. The focus of your assurance is not, I hope I'm good enough. You're not. Your focus of, I hope I endure to the end. You're not going to. You're going to die sometime. And if your focus is on anything other than Christ. It's not that. It's remember me. 99 times in the book of John. You find the word believe, and if you go to look at it and it's in the original Hebrew. It's a word that means trust. I haven't done this for a long, long time. But I'm going to show you what trust is. How many of you know what that is? It's a chair. I believe that's a chair. You say, well, I believe in Jesus. OK. I believe that's a chair. When do I trust that chair? Only when I sit down on it. And if you're here this morning and you're just believing. That that's a chair. You're not trusting it. And if you're here this morning, just believing that Jesus died on the cross and he was a good person and he was the son of God, but you've never put your trust. in him instead of yourself and your good works and your water baptism and all the other things that religion teaches. Then you've never trusted him. Why don't you take your feet off the floor today and sit down in Christ and say, I trust you as my savior. Remember me. See. Because that's the answer to assurance and security in knowing that heaven's your home. If when we talk about. If your word for assurance or it comes up or security comes up and all you want to do is argue about once in grace, always in grace. Or all you want to do is argue about. I just don't know about security. And that's all you can focus on. Then you you're being sidetracked. Because God wants you to know that you have eternal life. God wants you to be secure. In the fact that Christ died for you, take your feet off of the floor, quit arguing and worrying about security and assurance and just believe what Christ taught the thief. Today, you're going to be with me in paradise. Assuredly, take my word for it. Take my word for it. It's going to happen. The enemy has squelched your relationship. If all you can do is worry about it. Will you pray this morning, remember me? And then tell somebody. See, it's an attitude of trust. It's not about the words. It's about believing and trusting. The Bible says. Even the devil believes Jesus is who he says he is. You can believe without trusting. You can do a whole lot of things without having the trust in Christ. He died for you. And the reason that we pray the prayers and the reason that we want you to come forward is so that you have assurance that we can show you it's not our words, it's God's words. And give you what God said about your assurance. so that you know securely. Heaven's my home. It's why I don't believe funerals ought to be anything other than a celebration, because I'm assured that that person left and went to be with God at the time of parting out of the body that they lived in. Will you as a believer? Let's let's take the focus off of those here that have never trusted. Will you as a believer who does not have assurance ask God this morning, illuminate his word? Just just help me to see this. And give you a belief in assurance and security. Quit believing everything you've heard and believe what Jesus said assuredly. I tell you, you will be with me in heaven today. Let's stand. Father God, it's a wonderful thing to have assurance of one's salvation and know that eternal life is in our future.