God, tonight we just rest in your presence and remembrance of
what you did for us. Jesus, it is to honor you.
I just have a brief message for you tonight, but there are notes
you can take home with you tonight or if you want to grab
those, you of course can maybe take them home and it will ready
you even the more for Sunday morning.
Kids, anybody under the age of 10, if you're under the age of
10, wave at me. Any other ten?
OK, wait, there's little. OK.
So I always love nights like this or services like this where
we have kids with us because I love the challenge and the honor
of explaining biblical truths in a way that hopefully is profound
enough for adults to go, oh, that's inspiring.
But also kids, I want to I want to also explain things in a way
where you get it. OK, so tonight I want to talk to
you briefly about I'm going to call this message.
It's not what it looks like because when you look at the
cross, it looks like if you just if, if you just think about it
at face value, you might think it was a tragedy.
What does that mean? A tragedy?
It's when something really bad happens.
So you might look at the cross and, and tonight we're we're
somber in a way, but we're not somber because it was a defeated
Jesus at the cross. We're somber and we're
reflective because we want to just be aware of what he went
through for us. But it wasn't a tragedy.
It wasn't a bad occasion. OK, Now I want to tell you a sad
story. Years ago, this would have been
like 1998. And that year I happened to be
training to run a race, OK? It was a marathon that year.
And I, I ran the slowest marathon that ever has been run,
but I finished it OK. And so that year I had to, and
this is a sad story that this year that I had to run like a 20
mile run. And back then, this was before
GPS and before Apple watches. And I'm, I think I had AI don't
even I'm, I'm, I guess maybe I had a cell phone, but I wasn't
running with it. And it's, but I charted out with
my car this like 20 mile run along this country Rd.
And as I was running a couple miles into it, sadly, this dog
started running with me. And it was a Labrador.
It was like a big golden maybe. It was a, maybe like a, what do
you say, a Labrador, But it's kind of a blondish color, right?
And so the dog's running along with me for miles.
And sadly, the thing kept right, like, it's running with me, but
it's kind of running out on the road.
And as it's running out on the road, people are honking at me
and screaming at me. Some of them were, you know,
colorful words. And they were like, you know,
get your dog out of the road, get your dog out of the road.
What are you doing with your dog in the road?
I tried to shoo the dog away, but it, it, it wouldn't go home.
It just kept running with me. And sadly, very sadly and
tragically, at one point, the dog was enough in the road where
it got hit by a truck like a big semi truck.
And the truck driver got out of the truck and he was so sorry.
He's like, I am so sorry, I'm sorry I hit your dog.
And I had to say to him, it's not what it looks like.
It's it's not my dog. I had tried earlier to get like
the number of a number, but I couldn't, you know, see it.
So it had A tag and, and so we called the owner and the owner
very sadly came to find his dog. I think of that occasion because
everybody who saw me with that dog, they had a they had, they
had a thought of what was going on, but it was not what was
going on. It was not sadly, my dog with
someone else's. And I tell you this story and
kids is that's a sad story, right?
Very sad story. But so when we think about
Jesus, she might look and go, you know, you might go, well,
what a sad story it is it, but it's not what it looks like.
What Jesus did at the cross. It wasn't a tragedy.
It wasn't defeat. Instead, it was victory.
What he did bought our salvation.
Now Good Friday is the day we remember and we honor the death
of Jesus on the cross. And it's it's good.
What's interesting is we call Good Friday good for that
reason. It's not, we don't call it
tragic Friday. We don't call it Death Friday.
We call it Good Friday because what Jesus did for us changed
everything. It's not what it might look like
to some. He wasn't defeated.
Instead, He was victorious. Now, why is Good Friday good?
I want to just point out a couple things.
We were separated from God by our sin, but God came up with a
plan, and His plan was to put on human skin and to be born in
Bethlehem for us and to live a perfect life, and then to
present himself as a sacrifice for our sin.
He took the penalty for all the wrong things that we've ever
done. He took it upon himself, and
this was God's plan. Acts 2 verses 22 and 23
reference this. It says this is the apostle
Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost.
And he says, men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth,
a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders
and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you
yourselves know. They had seen him do miracles.
He said this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan
and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the
hands of lawless men. Peter calls what happened to
Jesus God's definite plan. It wasn't just God's plan.
It was his definite plan. And there's a difference, not
just a plan, but his definite plan.
So the cross appeared as if Jesus was defeated, but again,
it was God's definite plan. And then in Colossians 213
through 14, we see this. This is the apostle Paul writing
to the church at Colossae. And he says, And you who were
dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our
trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood
against us with its legal demands that He set aside,
nailing it to the cross. Jesus again nailed all of our
punishment, all of our penalties to the cross when we receive
Him. This is what happens at the
cross. Now it's then Romans says this
and Romans 623 says for the wages of sin is death, but the
free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So what did Jesus earned? He earned us eternal life with
him, eternity with him that we will spend.
That's what Jesus earned. And then Romans 5 verses 6 to 8
says this about the cross. For while we were still weak at
the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps
for a good person one would dare even to die.
But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us. He didn't wait to clean us up.
He died for us not because we were good enough, but instead he
gave his life for us, for our salvation.
So it looked like Jesus died maybe because of jealous and
corrupt people, but he died for us.
He died for us to win us again. And Isaiah prophesied this.
I think Pastor Bob read part of this earlier.
It says, surely he has borne our griefs and he carried our
sorrows, Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and
afflicted. But he was pierced for our
transgressions. He was crushed for our
iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement
that brought us peace. And with His wounds we are
healed. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. We've turned everyone to His own
way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all our
grief, our sorrows, our transgressions, our iniquities.
And He gave us peace for them, eternal healing.
John talks about the crucifixion of Jesus.
He says, but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we
have fellowship with one another.
In the blood of Jesus. The Son cleanses us from all
sin. We did a series some time ago
about Conania. In other words, fellowship,
relationship. We get fellowship, relationship
with each other and with God because of what happened at the
cross. And This is why tonight we can
gather together and feel like a family.
Why? Because in the cross we have
been made one body, we have Conania.
So it's not what it looks like you might think when you look at
the cross. Then Peter mentions this in
first Peter 118 and 19. He says knowing that you were
ransomed from feudal ways, inherited from your forefathers,
not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the
precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamp without blemish
or spot. It's interesting to hear that
that's hear Peter saying that silver and gold, it perishes.
Kids like, and when you go to the grocery store, you'll find a
place that's, that has perishables and imperishables,
right? Like a can of soup or something
in the can. That's, you know, that's going
to last a long time. But if you get maybe some meat
or some fruit, it perishes, It's perishing.
Well, we, we put away our perishable for imperishable
because of the cross and we were ransomed.
And what does ransom mean? Kids?
Think about your favorite toy. What if someone took your
favorite toy and they said we'll only give it back to you if you
pay me a $50 or whatever the price might be?
We were ransomed by God. We were once His, but our sin
enabled the devil, if you will, to steal us away.
But Jesus, through the cross, ransomed.
He bought us back so that we could have eternity with Him.
The cross might have looked like a place of defeat, but it
wasn't. It was a place of victory.
Now, tonight, we're going to celebrate communion.
Jesus would have introduced his disciples to communion on the
Thursday night. It would have been last night
before he was arrested. And he gave us this gift.
Communion is a gift to us. Why?
Because it reminds us, enables us to remember the cross and the
crucifixion of Jesus. And remembering is good.
When we remember what Jesus did for us, it shapes and changes
our lives. So you don't have to be a member
of our church to receive communion.
All that we ask is that you're a person who is, that has accepted
the salvation and the lordship of Jesus, and that you would say
you're a Christian, right? If you're not a Christian, then
communion is not for you. But if you have confessed your
faith in Christ and if you're living for him, then communion
is certainly for you. So tonight what we're going to
do is just got kind of stay to the right if you're coming
forward. And then when you're going back,
stay to the other right. And Bob and Laura will be here
to assist you if you need help with communion.
And what we want to encourage you to do is come pick up the
elements and then work your way back to your seat and maybe just
for a while, hold on to the elements, reflect, pray, give
thanks. And maybe there's some sin in
your life that you want to repent of.
Maybe you want to say, Jesus, I need your forgiveness in this
area of my life. And we encourage you to do that
in the moment of communion and then we will sing our way out.
You can work your way now forward when you're ready to
pick up the elements.