Series: “When Love Speaks: Words from the Cross”
Part 4 – Easter
“Into Your Hands”
Pastor Jerry
————————————- Message Synopsis ————————————-
I want to begin today’s message by looking at our hands. Look at your hands. Perhaps there are skin marks, or a scar, or a callous caused by hard work. You may see ridges of skin called fingerprints. Every hand and fingerprint is different.
The human hand is a marvelous creation. We use our hands to pick up and hold objects, to eat, to touch, to feel, to communicate, to greet, or can use it as a weapon. How we use our hands are very important.
“Hands” are mentioned in the Bible over 1,800 times. The phrase “the Hand of the Lord” is used over 200 times in Scripture.
One of those times is in our scripture lesson today. In Luke 23 it says: “By this time it was noon, and darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. The light from the sun was gone. And suddenly, the thick veil hanging in the Temple was torn apart. Then Jesus shouted ‘Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!’ And with those words he breathed his last”.
We are concluding today the series of messages called “When Love Speaks: Words from the Cross.” We have been looking at Jesus’ last words while hanging on the cross before He died. A lot of people as they take their last breath say words that are very important. When Jesus is hanging on the cross His very last words were: “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” These final words are not about death but about life. And that is precisely what Easter is about. It is about entrusting our lives to God.
Please note that Jesus is quoting Scripture, Psalm 31, as He dies on the cross. This verse was a prayer. It’s the very first prayer taught to a Jewish child. Without a doubt, Mary taught it to Jesus when he was a little boy.
We very much need to spend time in God’s Word as we live each day. Planting God’s Word in our hearts is valuable and can be very helpful, protective and useful at a time we least expect to need it. Jesus often quoted scripture and He did so when He was dying on the cross.
Psalm 31:5 says “Into thy hands, I entrust my spirit,” I put my soul, into your care. I pray you will take it, you will keep it. As Jesus dies on the cross, He commits his spirit to God. He turns it over into his care.. Jesus was always fully committed to God and his will. Even in His death!
The empty tomb changed everything. Jesus did not remain dead. Jesus was resurrected. And what did Jesus do after he rose from the dead? He assured the disciples and everyone else who would listen to Him that God is reaching out His Hand for them! That’s what we need and what we want. We want God’s hand on our life. We want to be in his hand..
What does God’s hand show us about Easter? Three Things:
- Easter shows us that God’s Hands are reaching out to bless us.
Jesus often touched people in order to bless them. He would reach out his hands to heal them. Remember the blind man Jesus put mud on the man’s eyes and he was healed. The man with leprosy Jesus touched him with his hands and healed him. Jesus used his hands on the Sea of Galilee with Peter when he began to sink and Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. And with children, Jesus placed his hands on them & blessed them.
How often, must Jesus have raised his hands in a gesture of prayer, broke bread and shared it with others who were hungry. Then when Jesus knelt washed the disciples feet in a gesture of service and love.
The Bible says in Psalm 103, “As a Father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who honor him.” We know that God, our Father in heaven loves us more than anyone will ever love us. Once you’ve trusted your father, you want to do it again – it’s fun. It’s fun taking risks and saying, “God, I’m going to jump into your hands again.” Your Father is waiting for you to jump this morning.
We know that God has the power to help us with everything in our lives. And he will help us if we will trust him. God is a loving, compassionate Father. Jesus never questions why he is dying on the cross – he knows that it is for the sins of the world. He never questions what comes after death for he knows that he’ll be safe in the hands of God.
God is in control. Jesus knew that God was in control of His life and thus He had confidence that whatever took place, He was in God’s good hands.
- Easter shows us that God’s hands are scarred to never forget us.
The nail prints that are in Jesus’ hands: they’re permanent. The sin that separates us from God leaves scars. Horrific scars that leave us ugly in sin and would cause a holy God to turn away from us in utter revulsion. Yet God loved us so that he did not turn away in revulsion but instead took on human flesh – took on our sin – literally became our sin – so that we might become His righteousness. Or as Isaiah describes it: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
Jesus’ scars were the evidence that God is with us – He’s not way out there but here in our world. Those scars are evidence that He knows us through and through and STILL He loves us.
Do you know that in heaven, the only scars, the only wounds in heaven will be on Jesus. Why? To remind us, “This is how much I love you. Do you think I could forget you? I’ve got a daily reminder. I look at the holes in my hands where those nails were. That’s how much I love you. I have the scars in my hands so that I can’t forget you.”
The Bible says, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion for the child she has born? But though she may forget, I will not forget you! I have engraved you on the palms of my hands!” If you want to know how much you matter to Jesus, look at His hands.
Jesus suffered and died for us. He came for us – to seek and to save the lost – and it scarred him for life. The scars on His hands and side means that our sins have been paid in full. They remind us that there is no length He will not go to save us. He would continue to carry the scars, the reminders of the pain and humiliation he went through. They are constant reminders of His unfathomable love for us.
- Easter shows us that God’s Hands are strong enough to keep us eternally secure.
Once you put your life in God’s hands, nothing can snatch you out. He’s saying “Trust me. I can be trusted. I love you. I have the scars to prove it. I will never let you go.”
Jesus said it like this in John 10: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish… My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hands.”
We put it in the hands of God. That’s what Easter is all about. “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands” in Psalm 31 is a perfect picture of what it means for a Christian to die. One day you just go to sleep and your heavenly Father is going to come and in his loving arms pick you up and take you to where you belong for eternity.
Friends, this statement, “I entrust my spirit Into Your Hands” is not a statement just to say when you’re dying: It is a statement to say every day the rest of your life. When you are afraid, worried, when you have a big decision to make and when you’re angry, when you’re confused, lonely, ashamed, and when you are filled with regret… Father, I place my life in your hands. It is the prayer you need to pray every day for the rest of your life.
Trust the hands of God to hold you, to help you, and harness your best possibilities. He has a purpose in your life and in your death. Dear friend, it is not your body but your spirit that is most important. Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul.” How handsome or beautiful you are will not matter when your body is wasting away. How much money you have, how many people know your name is not going to be of significance when God calls your name. What will matter in that moment is whether you can say through faith and with confidence, “Father, into you hands I commit and commend my spirit.”
I remember when I was a boy, walking among some big rocks on a long path leading up to a hugh rock in the mountain behind my grandfather’s house: The rocks on the path were rather large for a kid’s little feet, and I kept falling down and hurting myself.
So I did what any kid does—I said to my Dad, “Daddy… help me? I keep falling down and it hurts.” Dad held out his hand and took my hand and he helped me. When I would start to stumble, he would pull on me, keeping me aright.
That’s just the picture we have of God here this Easter! We keep fumbling and falling down and messing things up, when all God wants us to do is call out to Him for help. And when we do, He reaches down and holds out His hand and takes our hand in His Hand, we are forever safe!