sunday sermon snippet 11 january
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.” — Luke 23:42
This week’s posting of the Sunday Sermon Snippet comes from this past Sunday’s sermon which is kicked off a short, three-week mini-series for the month of January at Grace Church.
See below for my explanation that the question above isn’t a silly one, and why it’s important we know the answer why.
And if you’d like to check out the whole sermon, just click here.
Does The Good News of Jesus Matter?
One of the things that vacation offers, like the Christmas break Susan and I just had with some family visiting, is spare time. We usually enjoy spending some of that on getting lost in a good show, if we can find one, which we recently did. It is a powerful drama set in the ER of a hospital in a major city, each episode immersing us in the stories of doctors and nurses as they compassionately bring care to people in extreme physical crisis.
At one point in the show, this ER is overrun with victims of a mass shooting at a music festival. And in a very powerful scene, the attending, Dr. Robby, fights valiantly to save a 16-year-old girl from a gunshot wound that has torn apart her heart. But all of us watching, and all those surrounding him as he labors, know there’s no hope — but this is his son’s girlfriend, and he just can’t face losing her as he battles for her life surrounded by death.
And he’s fighting so hard, doing blood infusions and having actually crawled on top of her on the gurney she’s laid out upon, doing CPR, surrounded by those helping him trying to save her…exhausted…covered in her blood…and then, he stops. Defeated. Head and shoulders slumping, he quietly says, with tears running down his face, “It’s over. She’s gone.”
Brothers and sisters, we have faced many crisis in 2025 (and we’ll do so again in 2026), many problems, challenges, difficulties, and trials; but none more final and life-altering than death.
You are going to die.
Maybe not this year, but you will, eventually. And death will come for our friends, our families, for 3.09 million people in the United States this year, for 8,500 people in the U.S. today, and, also just today, for 125 people in Colorado.
Friends, until Jesus comes, death will come for us all, as Sam just reminded us through the Scriptures he read. And it is at the moment of our death (if we have time to reflect in that moment), or maybe if we’re with someone in the moment of their death — it is in that moment that we will likely have a remarkable amount of clarity. It is just such a moment that I want us to enter into this morning, another scene where someone is battling for life in surrounded by a world of death, covered in blood, acutely aware of what’s about to happen, and surrounded by onlookers.
And I want to do this because I think that too often we are, as a culture, unwilling to ponder death — to consider our mortality, and the mortality of those around us. We don’t like to think about it (understandably), maybe because we think it will fill our living with a cloud of melancholy. But I’ve come to realize that such pondering on death ironically infuses our living with meaning and joy, and robs death of the fear most of us probably have of it in those rare moments we consider it.
So turn with me to Luke 23 (p. 938 in the Grace Bibles), to the familiar scene of three men bloodied, hanging on crosses, and dying. And hear the word of God.
Crucified Between Two Criminals
Luke 23:32-43 Two others—criminals—were also led away to be executed with him. 33 When they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. 34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.”And they divided his clothes and cast lots.
35 The people stood watching, and even the leaders were scoffing: “He saved others; let him save himself if this is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him. They came offering him sour wine 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!”
38 An inscription was above him: This Is the King of the Jews.
39 Then one of the criminals hanging there began to yell insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
40 But the other answered, rebuking him: “Don’t you even fear God, since you are undergoing the same punishment? 41 We are punished justly, because we’re getting back what we deserve for the things we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”
43 And he said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
This is the Word of God.
Thanks be to God.
You know, when I watched that scene play out in the ER, life being fought for in the midst of death, something that struck me was in the finality of the death scene, people stood silent in response, one of those moments when you know words seem so inadequate. And as this text transports us to the middle of a crowd gathered at the Place of the Skull, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we may feel similarly, mouths agape at the shocking nature of not only what is happening to the dying, but what they are saying in the midst of it — the scoffing of onlookers, the prayers of sinners, and the promises of a savior.
And as I pondered the Good News of the coming of Jesus over the Christmas break, as I prayed about the extravagant grace we talk about in our statement of aspiration for our culture here at Grace — the Good News + Safety + Time — I felt God pressing on me personally, and then pastorally.
You see, family, we have to know and immerse ourselves in the Good News, because it is the message of rescue and life for bad people through the finished work of the Messiah on the cross and the endless power of the Holy Spirit. We need multiple exposures and constant immersion and wave upon wave of grace and truth, according to the Bible, if we are going to be ready for death when it comes — for us, for those we love, for the lost all around us. Because we do not know when it will come. And we may not — like the thieves on the cross — have time to respond to Jesus. Such a moment is not guaranteed.
And I kept thinking about this throughout vacation, in whatever context I was in: with family, playing games, watching them, thinking of their lives; with friends, laughing and sharing good conversations; as we visited another church and had the rare opportunity to just be congregants. And the question that percolated up from my soul was, “Do I believe this matters? Does this church thing we are doing matter? The things we say we believe, matter? To life, and facing death? I mean, really? Are we living this way, like it matters? Like the Good News of Jesus matters in every part of life, and at death?”
Maybe you think this an obvious question, maybe you’re surprised to hear a pastor ask it, and your resounding answer is,“Of course it does.” But friend, do you know why it matters? And are you experiencing it matter-ing in your daily living? So that you will be ready for your dying?
I remember years ago when a hero of mine, brilliant scholar, pastor, international speaker, old dude, he said this of the Good News: “When the Good News is assumed rather than clearly and regularly proclaimed, and passionately centered, it is then generally sidelined in one’s life and eventually lost — especially in the next generation.”
And as one of your pastors, and as a fellow disciple of Jesus, I’ve been freshly convinced and convicted of this grave danger. I do not want that to happen to you, to us, to the next generation whose lives depend on us understanding that the Good News matters, and why it does. So we’re going to immerse ourselves in this as a way to prepare for 2026, to prepare for death, to be ready. We’ll see from the Scriptures that the Good News matters, over the next 3 weeks, (1) because it saves, (2) because it changes everything; and, (3) therefore, for our lives to matter we must proclaim the Good News that saves and changes everything. Before we see how the Good News saves, as we stand and watch at the place of the Skull, let’s pray.
If you’d like to check out the whole sermon, just click here.
