Good Friday

Sermon Transcript

Good Friday is all about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and what he endured. I wanted you to have a visual while I'm preaching tonight, just to see what he endured. Now, for some of you may say, this is way too graphic to show in church, but Isaiah 52 says that Jesus was beat beyond all human recognition. And in reality, what you're seeing behind me probably looks a heck of a lot more pleasant than what actually took place on that day. Jesus was nailed to a cross at 9:00 in the morning, and he died and breathed his last at 3:00 in the afternoon.

And everybody has an opinion about why that took place. And for most of us, we would say, has nothing to do with me. Most of the world would say, well, big deal, so Jesus died. Most of us would say, I had nothing to do with it. I'm not guilty. It's not my problem. It's not my fault. Pontius Pilate, who was the leader of the day was saying that about Jesus as he thought about what he had the opportunity to do to free him, but he chose not to. He tried to keep the political peace. And he literally washed his hands and said, I wash my hands of this guy, y'all decide. That's what they did.

They chose Barabbas, the criminal, instead of Jesus. And Barabbas didn't think it was his fault either. And Barabbas just thought he was doing his job, just usurping some of the political problems that were going on in the day, just making sure that things went his way. And when he got released, he didn't think about Jesus, I had nothing to do with him, that was Jesus' problem. And the crowd from the time that Jesus was being beat, they were taunting him. Even Herod that day, as he gathered all of his soldiers, they gave him a scepter.

They blindfolded him. They put a crown of thorns on his head and a robe on him, and they started smacking him in the face saying, prophesy, prophesy. If you're really the Son of God, I bet you can tell which one of us is hitting you, as they hit him. Then as he was being led out to crucifixion after being whipped so badly that he almost died, people were spitting on him and mocking him, telling him, hey, if you're really the Son of God, you said you could save others, how come you can't even save yourself? Why don't you come down off that cross?

Have you ever seen somebody get beat up? It's a brutal thing to watch. And yet while this was all going on in Jesus's life, people were taunting him, saying, you're really not who you say that you are. The question becomes, why is this such a big deal for us? The big deal for us is most of us think this has nothing to do with us. All of us are born thinking this has nothing to do with us. It's not my fault. I'm not a real religious person, good that Jesus came, I'm sure he was a nice person. But what does that have to do with me? The Bible says it has everything to do with you.

And in the book of Romans, God spells out the entire story of what took place on that day on Good Friday. And I just want to read to you a couple of verses from that that would paint a picture or a pathway to what Jesus wanted you to know about his crucifixion. In Romans 3:10, here's what he says about humanity, he goes, as it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understand, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside together and have become useless. There is none who does good, there is not even one.

Now when we hear those passages, that offends us. Because we think in our heart, we're not that bad. We think in our heart compared to other people that we know, we're actually pretty good. I mean, give me a break. There's good people in the world. The Bible makes clear that there's no one good no, not one. And here's why the Bible makes that claim. Because the Bible is not making a comparison between you and other people. The Bible is making a comparison between you and a perfect, holy God. And that comparison changes everything.

I mean, you might think that you're a decent golfer, until you play in the masters. And then you realize, maybe I'm not so good after all. You might think you're a pretty good football player. But if it was compared to those that played in the Super Bowl this last year, you might say, I don't really compare to that. You might think you're pretty good, but when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, you don't compare at all. There's no one good, no not one. And here's what the Bible says, there's no one who seeks after God. No, not one.

Now, I know what some of you are going to say, that's not true of me. I've been spiritual my whole life. I've been seeking who God is. I'm very interested in that. But here's what the Bible says, there's only one true God. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. That's why in order to have a cure, there needs to be a problem. A good doctor won't just tell you, when there's something wrong, hey, you're looking pretty good, your health is great.

A good doctor will tell you, there's some significant problems here that we're going to need to treat. And what the Bible makes clear to all of us is we have a significant problem, and here's the problem, we have sin in our life. And we don't think it's a big deal. We don't realize what a big deal it is. Here's the problem, Romans 3:20 goes on to say, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Here's what happens. Sin separates you from God. It's the reason why many of you sitting here tonight have never had a truly authentic relationship with God.

You're still seeking after him. And we, as a culture, we like to come up with all our ways to get to God, we like to come up with our manmade religions, we like to come up with our things that we believe that if we practice and do we'll be successful. And we tend to think that when we get to heaven someday, we'll stand before God and we'll say, I was a pretty good person. Here's the problem, Romans 6:23, as we walk through this book, says, that the wages of sin is death. Do you realize that you're going to earn something for your sin?

All the way back in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth and he created everything and he placed two humans in the Garden of Eden and created Adam first and then Eve and he asked Adam to till the ground and take care of it. And then there was no suitable helper, so he created Eve. He had given Adam the command that they could do whatever they want and they just couldn't eat off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We don't know how long that lasted, but it didn't last very long. In our Bible, we have like a half of a chapter.

And then what happens is Adam and Eve both eat the fruit. God told them if they ate that fruit on that day, they would certainly die. The reason none of you have ever met Adam and Eve, it's because they're dead. And when they had children, that DNA was passed on to their children. It's been passed all the way down to the line of each person sitting here, which means this, that the wages of sin is death. Which means here's your biggest problem, you're going to die. 200 years from now, none of you will be here. You will die. It's a fact.

From the time you were conceived, you are terminal. We realize that sometimes we lose babies in utero, sometimes we lose children at a young age that are tragic. Even people, when they're 110 years old and we lose people that we love, we say, that was too quick and that was tragic. But we know this in our gut, we know that even when we go to a funeral, someday we realize that's going to be us in the casket or that's going to be us in the interim. We sense it. And here's the problem, the wages of sin is death.

Here's what the Bible says, what you're going to earn for all your sin and every sin that you've ever sinned is death. Here's the problem. It's not just that you're going to die. Here's what happens when you die. It's appointed onto man to die once and after that, face judgment. I want to let you know what's going to happen when you die and what happens when everybody dies. They stand before the Lord Jesus Christ in all of his glory, and they will give an account for their life. And here will be a question, he'll ask, why should I let you in my kingdom?

If your answer is, I was pretty religious, I'm good, I gave a lot of money, I went to church. I mean, compared to a lot of people, I did good. That's not good enough. And here's what Jesus will say, depart from me you worker of iniquity, depart from me because all you spent your life doing is living for you in your sin, I never knew you. Then the Bible says that you'll be cast into a place of outer darkness where they'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. You say, well, Pastor Jeff, that's just a fire and brimstone thing to try to scare me.

No, that's the reality of the Word of God for every single person that dies. That's where everybody goes. And what the Bible makes clear that we need to understand, is from the time that we're conceived, we're on a mission to get to hell as fast as we can. It's why we spend our lives focused on us. I mean, from the time that we come out of the womb, what are we thinking about? When we're hungry, when we need our diaper change, everything is about us and it continues on our whole life. The wages of sin is death. What you're going to earn for your sin is death.

But praise God, if you're aware of that sin, there's hope. Because when Jesus came along, I mean, there's one group of people that he hung out with all the time. He honestly didn't have any other choice, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Here's who he hung out with, he hung out with sinners. I mean, he had no other choice. There were only sinners in the world. As a matter of fact, he had this pejorative term from the religious leaders of the day called friend of sinners, meaning Jesus loved hanging out with sinners. Why?

Because God the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world. Well, Romans 6:23 goes on to say, is that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. That while you're dead in your sins, well, you don't even realize that the Bible says you're dead and you don't even know it. You're a walking corpse and you don't even know it. And you're blind to your own sin and you don't even know it. And you make up things in your head that says, well, still, I'm not that bad, and why can't God just accept me for who I am? Here's why.

Because God's perfect and holy, and God can only take that which is perfect and holy. And if you're a sinner and God embraces sin, then God is connected with sin and he can't do that because he hates sin. And yet what do God do? Because he loved you, he sent his Son to do something for you that you couldn't do for yourself. Now some of you here tonight are saying, well, that's just the Jesus' story. What about some of the other religions in the world?

Here's what Jesus said, the one that you see behind me that hung on the cross 2000 years ago, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. Here's what that means. Doesn't matter what religion you are, it doesn't matter how you grew up. It doesn't matter how you think you're going to get to heaven. Here's what Jesus says, there's only one way to get to God and it's through me, because I am God in flesh. Make no mistake about it. Jesus Christ has always existed. 2000 years ago, he was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

He was born of the Virgin Mary, and then he came to this world. And why did he do it? He came on purpose to do one thing. He told his disciples over and over, I'm going to go to Jerusalem and die. Why did he die? Because he died for the sins of the world. Which means all those habits and things that you can't change in your life, all those things that you can't make right, all that stuff that's happened that you can't go back, any race, all of that, that's still a part of you. That's what Christ did. Christ died for the ungodly once and for all to bring you to God.

Now we hear about stories where people will give their life for someone else. I mean, Romans 5:5 says it like this, for one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man, some would even dare to die. But here's what God does, but God demonstrates his own love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You know why that's good news, it means this, God loves you so much. He didn't ask you to change anything because he knows you can't change it.

You can't change who you are, you can't change your DNA, you can't change your heredity. You're a sinner, you're going to die and you're going to face judgment. That's the truth. But God sent his Son Jesus, who's fully God and fully man who could take care of what you couldn't do for yourself. In that on that Good Friday, he laid down his life on the cross. That's why it's called good. Because what he was doing in that moment is he was satisfying the holiness of the father and he was demonstrating his love for you.

Meaning that Jesus loved you so much, he didn't want to leave you in your sin. Jesus loved you so much, he didn't want to say, well, you're just a sinner, you're going to go to hell. Jesus came on purpose on a rescue mission to get you out of hell. Jesus came on purpose with a mission so that the very eternal life that he had could be manifested in you. That's why he came. Do you know that God wants all to know him that Jesus Christ died for the world? That if you're here tonight, he wants you to know that he came for you and you alone.

And he's not asking your religious background and he's not asking what your gender is or your skin color or where you come from. And we got lots of different kinds of people here tonight. Some of you are here tonight and say, well, how in the world could I know that God loves me? I mean, if I got up on that platform tonight and told the world my sins, told this whole congregation my sins, man, they'd flood the church. I'm not even welcome here. See that picture on the cross of Christ? That was his way of saying, I paid for it all.

When Jesus said before he died, it is finished, what he was saying was this, it's paid in full. I came to pay for your sin fully because you could never pay for it yourself. And then there's some of you here tonight that are like, eh, no big deal. I mean, I still don't know that I agree, I'm a pretty good person, my life's going pretty well. Here would be my question that Jesus would ask you, what would have profit you to gain the entire world and yet forfeit your soul? I mean, we're talking about the fact that when you stand before the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, hey, why should I let you in?

If your answer is because I've been good, because I went to church, it's not good enough. Here's the only answer, because I trusted in you alone for the forgiveness of my sins. I couldn't get there fast enough. I mean, if you were diagnosed with a deadly disease and you know you only had five weeks to live and yet I was holding the cure for your disease right here in my hands and I said, I'll give it to you for free. All you got to do is take this pill. You take the pill, you'll walk out of here free.

If you knew you were going to die in five weeks, you would run here as fast as you could to grab that pill and swallow it and be healed. Here's the truth, you got something way worse than the disease that's going to kill you in five weeks. You have a guaranteed disease that's going to kill you and send you to hell for all eternity. And through the word of God, what you're hearing tonight is that through Jesus Christ, you can have life and you can have life in his name. You might say, well, then how do I do that? The Bible makes crystal clear how you do that.

And the same book in Romans Chapter 10, starting in Verse 9, he says this, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with his mouth he confesses resulting in salvation. How do I become a Christian? I mean, how do I get this gift? How do I receive it? How do I take it? It means you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. And that may not sound like a big deal, but here's what it means.

Do you know that your whole life you've been the lord of your life? I mean, from the time that you were born, you're the lord of your life. You think about you and your needs and what you want and what you want to be when you grew up and where you're going to attend school and what grades you want to have and who you want to marry and how many kids you want to have and where you want to live and what you want to do. It's all about you. Confessing that Jesus is Lord is saying this, I'm dead and I'm dying, and my biggest need is having a relationship with you.

I'm not going to be the lord of my life. I want you to be the Lord of my life. And I'm believing in my heart that God raised from the dead. That's what salvation is. Which means there's a lot of religious people in the world, there's a lot of people who go to church every single Sunday, there's a lot of people that read their Bible, there's a lot of people that pray that still have never confess Jesus Christ alone as Lord. See, Jesus can't be one of the Lord's in your life. He needs to exclusively be the Lord of your life.

It can't be like, this sounds good and I'm in this Christian thing for a while and I'll add some Buddhism to it and some spiritual ... No. Here's what Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. I want all of you or nothing. Bring it all to me or nothing. Here's the question. It's a real easy question. Do you have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? If you answer yes, let me ask you this question, how do you know? When did you give your life to him? Because if you were born dead on your way to hell and that's where you were going, when did all that stuff change?

When did you turn from that? How clear is it in your life? Because you don't ooze into a Christian any more than you ooze into something else. I mean, I'm married. I can tell you the day that I met my wife, I can tell you that day I got engaged with my wife, I can tell you the day that we got married and I put a ring on my finger. I know the moment. I didn't just wake up one day and say like, you know what? I'm married, I didn't know. I mean, there was a decision on my part. That was that big of a deal. I can tell you the same about my Christian walk. I grew up in church.

I knew who God was. I heard the story about Jesus dying on the cross. I never rejected it per se. I wasn't one of those that thought, no, that can't be true. But here's what I didn't know, what I didn't know at the time, and I was actually offended when somebody was telling me this when I was 18. I didn't know at the time that because I was born dead and because I was on my way to hell, I thought I was going to heaven because I went to church a lot, I was a pretty good kid.

And I remember being in a meeting much like we're in tonight, where there was an invitation given to respond to Jesus Christ and to know for sure that I had salvation. I couldn't get to my feet fast enough to proclaim I want Jesus Christ to be the Lord of my life. And I can tell you, my life's changed. Have I been perfect? No. I've never had been, I never will be until I meet Jesus. Have I had struggles? 100%. But here's what I know from the depth of my heart, I know that I know that I know when I stand before Jesus Christ in all of his glory someday and he ask me, why should I let you in my kingdom?

Here's what I'm going to say, Lord, because when I was 18 years old, I confessed with my mouth that you are Lord and I believed in my heart that God raised you from the dead and your word promises me that I'll be saved. And then he's going to say these words to me, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into my rest. And here's the truth, there's a gift that God wants to give everybody. You're not here by accident tonight, just so you know. You may think you got dragged by a friend, you may just stumbled in here.

You may have been coming to Brave Church for a long, long time. Here's my question. When did you give your life to Jesus Christ? Says, he who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. When did you do that? It's not a difficult question. You either haven't or you have. Well, Pastor Jeff, you don't understand, I got baptized as a kid. That counts for something? No, it doesn't count for nothing. Nobody gets into heaven because they were baptized. Nobody gets into heaven because they attended religious services. Nobody gets into heaven because they were good.

Nobody experiences the God of the universe because you do things. Here's how you experience the God of the universe, because of everything he's already done. When he said it is finished, it means that it's done. I've paid it all. And we know what we're going to celebrate on Sundays that he rose from the dead, he's alive as he's ever been. And right now tonight, he's offering life to many of you. I know in my heart, there are several of you that got speaking tonight. Perhaps in your gut, you're like, man, that's me. I don't know that I've ever trusted him.

And I don't know that I'm 100% sure tonight that if I stood before the throne of grace, that he would let me in and it terrifies me to think that he would cast me out and I need the cure. And the cure is not only getting to heaven someday, the cure is that the eternal life of Jesus Christ will come and dwell you right now. It's what he wants to do. And he offers the gifts. Here's the question, are you going to take it? Will you take it? Well, think about it, you wouldn't think about it if you had a terminal disease. You would spring to your feet.

You would get up here as quick as you possibly could. And that's why when I preach a message, this is a short devotional. And I realized the gruesomeness of the picture you're watching, and you've been watching it for about 20 minutes. Jesus Christ hung on a cross for six hours after being beaten nearly to death because of one reason and one reason only, to restore glory to his Father and to let you know that's how much I love you. I'm willing to forgive all your sin. I'm willing to take all your sin. I'm willing to take it as far as the east is from the west.

I'm willing to bury it in the bottom of the sea. Those of you who don't feel like you're good enough for church, that's who Jesus died for. Those of you who are prideful and say, I don't need Jesus, that's who he died for. Every single one of you, that's why he died. And when he was on the cross, he was thinking about you. And so, I want to give you an opportunity to respond because I don't think that this would be an appropriate message, if I didn't give you an opportunity to respond to the gospel. Now, listen, here's what goes off in somebody's heart sometimes.

Well, if I were to stand on my feet tonight and say, yeah, I'm a Christian, then my spouse already thought I was one. My dad already thought I was one. My kids already thought I was one. I mean, that'd be embarrassing. Here's the truth. God is giving you an invitation from heaven tonight, saying, I brought you here to tell you what my son did on your behalf, would you please give your life to me and have life in my name? And so, in a minute, I'm just going to ask, those of you that want to respond and say, that's me, I want a relationship with Jesus Christ, to just stand to your feet where you are.

And here's what we're going to do. For those of you who have done this before, you're going to be praying hard right now. And when you see the first person stand, you're going to cheer because what the Bible says is there's more rejoicing in heaven over one person who repents than over 99 that don't need to. And there's several of you here tonight. You will not be the only person that stands, I promise you. Because God is working on several of your hearts, to let you know from eternity past that he chose you before the foundation of the world and he wants you to have life in his name.

And he brought you to this very moment knowing tonight would be the night that you know that you know that you know that you have life in his name. Amen? And so, if that's you that God's speaking to your heart right now, can I just encourage you right where you are, just stand to your feet. And we're going to celebrate God's work in your life. Amen. Amen. Please stay standing. Amen. Amen. Please stay standing. What we'd like to do, and this may feel a little uncomfortable for you, but we're cool that we love you because God loves you.

And we're excited because what just took place in this room is eternity. Means 50 billion years from now, what took place here has significance. We'd love to ask you to do is to just make your way. If you're standing, just make your way to the aisle and come down. We would love to give you something. We'd love to pray with you. We'd love to tell you a little bit more about that decision. Don't be embarrassed. We cheered for God's work in your life. Now we're going to cheer for your courage to walk down the aisle, please come down. Amen.

What I'd like to do is just lead us in a prayer. You can stay seated where you are. Like to lead us in a prayer of salvation. And then also, as I pray this prayer, our ushers are going to be handing out the elements, the body and blood of Christ. I'm going to ask you to hold on to all of those, and then we will come back together and celebrate communion together. Would you guys pray with me? You can pray out loud as I pray, just repeat after me. Dear Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner. But I believe you died on the cross for my sin. I believe in my heart you were raised from the dead.

Right now, I confess you as my Lord and Savior. Lord, as we get ready to take these elements as they're passed out, Lord, let us hear the song, let us hear the truth of this message. And, God, I give you all the praise for what you did here in this room and what you're doing here tonight. We glorify you. We give you all the praise, in Jesus' name. Amen.