Summary and transcript generated by AI—comment if you notice any errors.
Detailed Outline of the Sermon
Opening Question & Hook
Repeated phrase “What have you done?” evokes memories of an angry parent, spouse, or boss – but first spoken by God in Genesis 3:13.
Universal Human Guilt
We cringe because we are guilty “by nature and by choice”; Romans 6:23 pronounces death as sin’s wage.
Text Read — Luke 23:32-43
Two criminals crucified with Jesus; the crowd, rulers, and soldiers mock; the inscription declares Him “King of the Jews.”
Fulfilment of Prophecy
Isaiah 53:12 – Messiah “numbered with the transgressors.” Jesus’ placement between criminals is deliberate, proving Scripture true.
First Criminal: The Demanding Sinner
Recognition-without-Repentance – “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!”
Consumer Religion – sees Jesus only as a fixer of immediate problems (illustrated by the coach who “saves prayer for emergencies”).
Blaming God for Suffering – anger at God’s sovereignty; cuts himself off from the grace being purchased beside him.
Why God Allows Suffering
“Hogwash” to say God is powerless; Ruth 1 (Naomi/Mara) and Ephesians 1 show He permits pain while planning redemption.
Second Criminal: The Repentant Sinner
Fear of God & Confession – admits the justice of his sentence: “We are receiving the due reward of our deeds.”
Recognition of Jesus’ Innocence & Kingship – asks, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”
Humble Plea for Mercy – no demands, just trust in the crucified King.
Jesus’ Second Word from the Cross
Immediate Assurance – “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”
Presence-with-Christ Theology
Paradise = being with Christ now (cf. John 14; Phil 1:23).
Refutes purgatory: the thief had no time for works, rites, or prayers, yet receives full salvation.
Illustration of Unpayable Debt
Parable of the unforgiving servant: our $15 billion debt vs. others’ $30 k; highlights magnitude of grace.
Application & Invitations
Two possible responses to guilt:
Demand/Blame – remain condemned.
Repent/Believe – receive immediate, eternal fellowship with Christ.
Assurance: death has “lost its fangs” (1 Cor 15); believers never truly die.
Conclusion & Pastoral Prayer
Plea for faith to grasp the inconceivable promise of free eternal life in Christ.
Concise Summary
The sermon centers on Jesus’ second saying from the cross, “Today you will be with Me in paradise,” recorded in Luke 23:43. Beginning with the haunting question “What have you done?”, the preacher exposes universal human guilt (Rom 6:23) and contrasts two criminal responses to that guilt.
The first thief personifies self-centered religion: he acknowledges Jesus’ power yet demands rescue, blaming God for his predicament. The second thief models repentant faith: he owns his just condemnation, recognizes Jesus as the innocent Messianic King, and humbly asks to be remembered.
Jesus’ reply grants more than remembrance—He promises the man immediate presence in paradise. This statement fulfills Isaiah 53:12, dismantles any notion of post-mortem purgatory, and establishes the Christian hope that death ushers believers directly into Christ’s presence (John 14; Phil 1).
Through illustrations from Ruth, a modern anecdote, and the parable of the unforgiving servant, the sermon affirms God’s sovereignty in suffering, the enormity of humanity’s debt, and the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work. The closing exhortation urges listeners to choose repentance over blame, securing the same assurance: eternal life with Jesus, beginning the moment earthly life ends.
Transcript
We're going to be again in Luke chapter 23. Luke chapter 23.
What have you done? When you hear those words, I wonder where you would automatically place them in your mind. What kind of a mouth are they coming out of? Are they coming out of the mouth of an angry parent? What have you done? Or an irrational spouse? What have you done? Or an unfair boss—what have you done?
How do you hear those words? Oftentimes those words are said to us in an unfair way or from an unfair person. But the true sting when we hear words like that—“What have you done?”—is the same sting that has come into our hearts ever since Genesis chapter 3 and verse 13. The first person to speak those words in the Bible—“What have you done?”—is God himself, as he speaks to the woman after she had handed the fruit to her husband and he ate. God says to her, “What have you done?”
Whether the person saying those words to us is being fair or unfair, just or unjust, the reason we cringe when we hear those words is because we know that, whether this is what they're talking about or not, we have done things, we have said things, we have thought things, which, if others knew… At best, we would be mortified. We would be humiliated. There are things that you have done that you don't want anybody to know about.
We cringe when we hear those words because we know deep down, whether it's the case in this particular circumstance or not, we are guilty. We are guilty people. We are guilty by nature. And by choice, we choose to do things which are dishonoring to God, which hurt others, which, if known, would bring shame upon ourselves and our families. What have you done? You probably don't want me to know. What have I done? I certainly don't want you to know. But God knows. God knows. He sees all that has been done and he knows that we are guilty.
Romans 6:23 says that the wages of our sin, the wages that our guilt earns, is death—separation from him forever. And none of us wants to face death in the face of our guilt. None of us wants to do that. And yet we all must. We're all going to die. And we're going to die as those who have made ourselves guilty. So what can we do?
In our text this morning, in Luke 23, we're going to meet two men hanging on a cross who face their guilt in different ways. And they do so by the way we see it is through their different interactions with the man who's hanging between them.
So we're going to read Luke chapter 23. We'll start in verse 32. We'll read all the way down through verse 43.
Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One.” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Two guilty men. Two men hanging from a cross. Two different ways to respond to the man who hung between them.
It’s interesting theologically to note that Jesus here is hung between two criminals, fulfilling a prophecy. You're going to hear me say this sort of thing over and over again as we go through these words of Jesus from the cross. But he's fulfilling Scripture, even in being hung with criminals. Isaiah 53:12 tells us that the Messiah, the suffering servant of the Lord, would be numbered with the transgressors. Jesus, in being hung with those who were genuinely criminals, was fulfilling prophecy.
But these two criminals respond to Jesus and try to deal with their guilt in different ways. The first man, the first one who speaks, tries to, in a sense, blame Jesus that they continue to remain there. He says, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” It’s interesting that this man doesn't deny the claim of Jesus. He's watched Jesus. These two men, very likely they've been arrested for insurrection, for robbery, and for murder. It's entirely possible that they're actually friends with Simon the Zealot, who was one of the followers of Jesus, one of the twelve apostles. These men are wanting to overthrow the Roman government. And so when they see a powerful teacher traveling through Judea and then Galilee and gathering massive crowds, they know what's going on. They know who he is.
This man does not deny, as he hangs on the cross, that Jesus is the Christ. He's not denying who Jesus is, but he's saying, if that's who you are, why aren't you helping me out? Like, right now—save yourself and save us! He has no humility in how he approaches Jesus. All he wants is for Jesus to solve his problems. And that is how many of us respond to God. It's how we think through Jesus. It's how we think through religion in general. What does it provide for me in this moment?
When I was in high school playing football, one of our coaches—who I guess would have called himself agnostic, maybe sometimes an atheist—would talk about prayer. He’d say, “I don't pray about normal stuff. I save it up for really important times when I want God to listen to me.” What he meant by that really was, “I want to ignore that God exists the vast majority of the time and live however I want. But if something's really hard going on, I'd really like God to help me out.” That’s this man right here. He’s lived a life of robbery and insurrection, of crime. But here, hanging on the cross—“You say you're the King of the Jews. You say you're the Messiah. You say you're the Christ. Help me out.”
This is the prayer that someone prays when nothing else is working. “I couldn't get away from the Romans. They’ve nailed me to the cross. Why don’t you help me out? Can’t you do something? You're so powerful. I saw you raise the dead. I saw you heal the blind. Help me out now.”
In one sense, this man is right to recognize that Jesus is choosing to allow him to remain on the cross. Jesus does, in fact, have the power to not only remove himself, to call down ten thousand legions of angels, but to have these men removed from the cross as well. And our suffering is in our lives because God has chosen to allow it to be in our lives.
Some people will teach a version of God that is different from what the Bible says. They'll say suffering and pain are in this world and God can’t do anything about it. Once he gave us freedom of will, once he let some of the angels choose to rebel, there was nothing God could do about it. And that’s hogwash. You can't believe the good parts of the Bible—the end of the Bible, where God makes all things new—if God can't do anything about it now. He won’t be able to do anything about it in the future.
God allows pain and suffering in this life, including the pain and suffering in your life. Those things that are trying to you, those things that are causing you to suffer, are here because God has intentionally either brought them or allowed them to be there. This is the consistent teaching of Scripture. I referenced Ephesians 1 earlier, which says that he is working all things according to the counsel of his will.
In Ruth chapter 1—For those of you who aren't familiar with the story of Ruth, it's a short four-chapter book in the Old Testament, right after Judges. It takes place during the time of the Judges. There’s a famine in the land of Israel, and a woman, Naomi, and her husband go to the land of Moab—where the Israelites were not supposed to go. They were supposed to stay in the land, in Israel. They were not supposed to intermingle with the Moabites.
But Naomi and her husband don’t listen to this. They go to Moab, and their sons take Moabite wives. They live there for ten years. But then, her husband dies, and then her sons, Mahlon and Chilion, they die. So Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-law, who are Moabites, and she decides she's going to return home to Israel. The daughters-in-law say, “We'll go with you,” and she says, “There's nothing for you there. You go back to your families.” One daughter-in-law listens and returns, but Ruth says, “No, I'm going to go with you. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God. Where you go, I will go.”
So they come back into Israel, into the city of Bethlehem. The people say, “Is that Naomi? I think that’s who that is.” She says, “Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara,” which means “bitter.” The reason she gives for being called “bitter” is that the Almighty has dealt bitterly with her. God has dealt her a bitter hand. He’s given her really a hard life. The narrator of the story never corrects her perspective there. It gives depth to it, because we see as the story progresses that God actually provides for her in an abundant and amazing way—gives her a new son-in-law and a grandson who is in the line of David and then in the line of the Messiah.
Her story is not over with this bitterness. But the Lord really did bring that into her life. So the man hanging on the cross is not wrong to see that if he remains on the cross, Jesus is choosing to allow that to be the case.
The question we have to ask when we are suffering, when we are thinking about our guilt is: Does God know more than me? Does Jesus know in this circumstance more than I do? Should I criticize how he's handling my life? Should I try to take my anger out on him and blame him for everything that’s gone wrong?
I’ve often heard it quipped that an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God and is mad at him for not being there. We know we need a God to save us. We know we need a God who is there. And if he doesn't behave in the way we expect him to, it makes us angry because we want to judge him based on ourselves.
The problem in Luke 23 is that this attitude actually cuts the man off from receiving from Jesus—the man in the middle—the very salvation that he needs. Because he has specific demands of what he wants from Jesus rather than submitting to him and receiving the grace that he is there purchasing on the cross, he cuts himself off from that by making demands rather than by making a request—receiving mercy.
That’s one way to respond to Jesus. You can blame him for your guilt. You can say, “Well, you made my life this way. I made these choices because of the hand you dealt me, because of the parents you gave me, because of the bad things that happened to me. This is your fault, God.” You can blame him—and cut yourself off from mercy.
Or you can respond like the man on the other side of Jesus: Or you can respond like the man on the other side of Jesus. It's interesting—here in the other gospels, they point out that it's actually both criminals initially who are mocking Jesus. Luke doesn't record that for us. He's emphasizing the contrast here between the two. But at least initially, both of the criminals are mocking and scorning and blaspheming Jesus.
But at some point during his time on the cross, the man on the other side, he watches how Jesus is responding. He hears Jesus say to the Father about those around, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And probably as he’s hanging there, he’s thinking back to what he has seen of Jesus—the miracles he performed, the words he spoke. He even sees the inscription hanging there above him that says, “The King of the Jews.” And he comes to a realization that these things are right.
He looks at the other criminal in verse 40 and he rebukes him and says, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?” What this man does, first of all, is he acknowledges his own real guilt. He comes to a point of realizing that I’m getting exactly what I deserve. That is a crucial moment of realization for any of us—when we recognize our own sinfulness such that we come to a point of saying, “Whatever suffering I'm going through, in a real sense, is actually better than I objectively deserve.”
In any particular circumstance, you might be being wronged. You might not deserve that particular thing at that particular moment from other people. But before God, you are guilty and deserve his punishment—his wrath—which is far worse than whatever you're going through right now. That’s a hard place to get to mentally, to go, “This is horrible—and it’s better than I deserve.” But this man got there, hanging on a cross. He recognizes that he is under a just sentence of condemnation. He says in verse 41, “We are receiving the due reward for our deeds.” He recognizes his own guilt.
One of the great errors of our day—maybe of all humanity throughout time and space, but I’m more familiar with today than 400 years ago—is that we take sin very, very lightly. We treat it as just mere mistakes, foibles, personality quirks. I've many times had conversations with people where I've confronted them over something and they wanted to make an excuse—“Well, this is how I was treated when I was younger,” or, “This is how I just naturally respond and I can't help it. It just is what it is.”
That is never God's perspective toward sin. The book of James tells us that he who sins against one part of the law violates the whole thing. So for us to do one thing that is violating God’s standard brings upon us the just condemnation of having broken the entire law of God.
That’s a lot of weight. It’s a weight that we are not capable of bearing. In the Gospels, Jesus tells a parable illustrating the importance of forgiveness. He says there was once a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. He called before him a man who owed—in our terms, based on back-of-the-envelope math—about $15 billion. And he says, “Okay, I know I’m not going to get $15 billion from this servant, so I’m going to sell him and his wife and his children and hopefully I’ll get something out of it.” It was a reasonable thing to do in that society.
The man begs him, “Just give me more time and I’ll pay it off.” But the master knows he can’t pay it off, so he forgives the debt. Then this forgiven man is heading home—and you’d think he’d be overflowing with joy—but instead, he runs into a guy who owes him about $30,000. And he grabs him by the throat, slams him against the wall, and says, “You are going to pay me.” The guy says, “I can’t right now, but give me some time and I’ll pay you.” He says no, and throws him in jail.
The king’s other servants see this happen and report it. And the king says, “You wicked servant! I forgave you more than you could ever recognize, and this is how you’re acting?” And he says, “You're going to jail until you've paid the last penny.” Obviously, he’s not going to be earning anything in jail—he’s there to rot forever.
Jesus says, that’s what it’s like. If you won’t forgive your brother who’s sinned $30,000 against you, so God—to whom you owe $15 billion—is not going to forgive you. The force of that story is lost on us because we don’t believe that we owe God $15 billion, right? We don’t believe we actually have that kind of debt before God. The kind of debt we could never, ever hope to repay.
But this man, hanging there, gasping onto life as his lungs fill with water and blood—he’s pulling himself up just to speak to Jesus. He’s finally at a point of clarity where he realizes he can’t fix this on his own. He is going to meet his Maker soon, and he is not in any shape to do it. Because he has unpaid debt.
He recognizes where he stands before God. The second thing he recognizes is who Jesus really is. Again, this man is probably familiar with Jesus’ ministry and teachings, and he knows Jesus did absolutely nothing to deserve this situation. He’s just. He is innocent. Pilate had said that over and over—“I find nothing deserving punishment in this man, nothing deserving death.” And yet he gave in to the crowds.
This man sees it—watches Jesus praying that God would forgive his murderers—and he looks at him and says, “When you come into your kingdom, would you remember me?” He recognizes that Jesus really is the Messiah and that he is going to come into a kingdom. That he is going to come again with power and authority. And he says, “When that happens, will you remember me?”
He recognizes who Jesus is—the true God and true man—and he makes a humble request. He doesn’t demand, “Get me down off this cross if you are who you say you are.” He says, “I know you are who you say you are. Would you remember me?” He pleads for the mercy of Jesus.
And what I want us to see for the rest of our time together is how Jesus responds to that sinner’s plea. He asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. And Jesus says, “I'll do you one better. Today you will be with me in paradise.” I'm not going to have to remember you—because you will be with me.
The core of what Jesus is promising there is: “You will be with me.” The exact same promise that Jesus had made to his disciples in John chapter 14—“I am going to prepare a place for you, and there I will bring you to be with me where I am, there you may be also.” What Jesus had promised to those who had faithfully followed him for three years, Jesus now promises to a man who has just been condemned to death for murder.
Jesus is promising that this man—this wicked, unworthy man who has trusted in him, who has placed his faith in Christ—will now spend the rest of eternity with him.
Two aspects of this are important. First: where will he spend this eternity with Jesus? It says, “in paradise.” He's not going to wait until a future kingdom. He's not going to wait until the end of the book—the paradise described in Revelation 21 and 22. He says, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
The Jewish concept of life after death at this time is largely that you went to Sheol, the place of the dead. And it was divided in the Hebrew understanding between the place of torment—Hades—and the place of blessing—Abraham’s side. But as Jesus is here on the cross, he’s not saying, “You’ll go be with Abraham.” He’s saying, “You’ll be with me.”
The Christian understanding is, in a sense, replacing that Jewish understanding. You’re not waiting to be with Father Abraham. Now the King is there. And this is exactly what the rest of the New Testament picks up. Philippians chapter 1—Paul says, “To die is to depart and be with Christ,” which is better by far. Better by far than this life.
So what Paul is looking forward to, and what Jesus had promised the disciples, he promises to this man. If you die, you will be with me in paradise. It’s not as good as it’s going to be yet, because there’s still a resurrection of the body to come, a new heavens and new earth to come. But between now and then, there is still paradise with Jesus for those who trust in him.
The other aspect is the time. He says, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Today.
And that is so important.
I try not to be too polemical in my sermons, for the most part. But I think one of the most dangerous doctrines in the Roman Catholic understanding of Christianity is purgatory. This idea that you have to have your sins cleansed off of you after you've died disregards what Jesus has said here to the man on the cross.
This guy didn’t have time for any good works, didn’t have time for any last rites. He didn’t have time for anybody to pray for him. But he had faith in Christ. And Christ is going to say, just within an hour or two of this, “It is finished.” As in, he has paid the full debt of everyone’s sin who would ever trust in him—forever.
And on the basis of that finished work, Jesus says, “You can know that today, thief on the cross, you will be with me in paradise.” You can have assurance of that. You can know that if you trust in Jesus, immediately upon death you go into his presence. There’s nothing more to be done because Jesus has done it all. There is nothing more that we could do. There’s nothing we can add to his work. There’s nothing we can do to earn it. We just receive it gratefully, by faith.
And he promises in return—all of eternity with him.
It’s so precious. To know that for yourself, to know that for your loved ones—if they’ve trusted in Christ—when they die, death is still an enemy. 1 Corinthians 15 is clear about that. Death is an enemy. But it is an enemy that has lost its fangs. “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?”
Jesus says in John 11 that those who believe in him never really die. Because the separation that death causes—it’s still felt here, on this side, this side of eternity. But for the person who died—if they're in Christ—they’re going directly into his presence. They don’t experience the sting of death in that way.
There is no more precious promise in all Scripture than what Jesus says to the thief on the cross right here: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
Do you know what will happen to you when you breathe your last breath? Do you know where you will go? One of the most precious promises in Jesus' gospel is that you can know. If you look to King Jesus—the King who loved, who lived, and who died, and who rose, and who now reigns at the right hand of God the Father on high—for you. He has gone to prepare the way for you. He is preparing for you an eternal city—an eternal city for his people.
But he also promises that right away, the moment you breathe your last in this world, if you are his, you will enter into the paradise of his presence.
Those who believe in Jesus will never truly die.
Father God, give us faith to believe the words of Jesus. It's inconceivable to us. When we think of how unworthy we really are—and the more we know that, the harder it is to believe that you would freely give the gift of eternal life to all who trust in Christ.
That kind of faith is a gift that comes only from you, and so we ask for it. We ask that your Holy Spirit would pour out such faith into our hearts. Shed abroad in our hearts the love of Christ—Christ who died for us.
It's in his precious name we pray.
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