It's probably the most horrific Friday that you would ever read about. It's the Friday when the Lord Jesus Christ was taken outside of the city of Jerusalem and crucified on a cross. The Thursday night was horrific enough. What he went through on Thursday night was absolutely horrible.
But the Friday, good Friday, and here's our text for today. One verse. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, or maybe your version says the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. The first thing, it's a day of suffering.
Good Friday is a day of suffering. Not our good Friday today, but the day the Friday when the Lord Jesus went to the cross was a day of great suffering. In fact, a third of the gospel record is dedicated to the last week of Jesus' life. Jesus entered Jerusalem.
We remember that on what is known as Palm Sunday. He came in on the donkey, rode into Jerusalem. They said, Hosanna, and they cried out. They said, and at one point in time he said, if these people don't cry out, the rocks themselves will cry out to me.
So then Jesus comes in and he's presented as Messiah. But then something very dramatic changed. Here he is on a Sunday going into Jerusalem. And people are saying, Hosanna, Hosanna to God, Hosanna in the highest.
And he has been praised as the king coming in to Jerusalem. By Thursday night, a deal has been made to turn him over for death. Thursday night, he has his last seder meal for the Passover with his disciples. Thursday night, he goes to a garden alone with other disciples and said, just stay here and pray.
And I'm going to just go over there. The scripture says he fell to the ground. In one place, it says he swept great drops of blood. He was in an agony, it says.
Even greater than just he was an agony. He was in an agony. It was it was undescribable, the agony that he was going through of soul. He cried out to God.
He said, if it is your will, take this cup away from me. But nevertheless, not my will. I want to do your will. A little bit later, one of his disciples led a large band of men up into the garden.
And they came up to him and that disciple who had spent three years every day with the Lord Jesus. In fact, looked after the lunch money. He did all of this stuff. He even had his feet washed by the Lord Jesus himself.
And this one had made a deal for 30 pieces of silver and he comes up and he places a kiss on his friend. Jesus looks at him and said, you're betraying me with a kiss? Well, then the band of men come along and they're going to now arrest the Lord Jesus. He says, who are you looking for?
Jesus of Nazareth. I am. And they fall over on the ground. Just at his name.
They get back up, compose themselves and said, I'm looking for Jesus of Nazareth. And they take him. And they lead him away and he goes through six trials. You may have talked about those trials some time ago.
Six trials. He was mocked. He was punched in the face. He was spit upon.
He had a crown of thorns placed upon his head. He had a purple robe. He was whipped and then they put a purple robe on him. And they put the robe on him and they mocked him.
They kneeled down before him. They took a stick that was supposed to be a scepter and they hit him on the head. Drove those thorns deeper into his head. They put a hood over him at one point and they punch him in the face.
The suffering was beyond anything you could ever imagine. Good Friday was a day of great suffering. They whipped him with a strip of flijelem, which is a whip with leather strips that have bone and metal in it. The suffering was beyond what we could imagine.
And then they said, you carry your own cross. They made him carry his cross to a place called Golgotha. He was so weak that he couldn't finish the journey to Golgotha with his own cross that they made somebody else do it. A guy named Simon and he carried the cross.
They took him to Golgotha. They nailed his wrists and his feet to a cross. They mocked him. They made fun of him.
They taunted him with things like, if you're Christ, come down and save us. Save yourself first and then save us. He suffered the most torturous death that was available at the time. Even though Peter wasn't at the crucifixion, if you remember the story, Peter denied knowing the Lord, and he ran away.
But later he wrote these words Christ also suffered when he's writing to believers who were suffering. There is no doubt that Good Friday was a day of great suffering. Good Friday was a day of singularity, a single purpose. There's only one reason for that day.
It says in the same verse, verse Peter 3, verse 18 says, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. Jesus was there for one purpose and one purpose only, as a just man to die for those who are not just. As a man without sin to die for sinners. It says in Hebrews chapter 9 verse 26 and 28 it says, And he appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
And just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment, so Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. You see he came for one reason and one reason only, for that one day, for that one day. That day had a single purpose. On God's calendar, God I don't think has calendars, but if he did, he would have that day mark on his calendar as the one day and the one thing that was going to happen on that day.
You see that day is so important that our calendars are divided from B.C. to A.D. based on the cross of Jesus Christ. It's before Christ.
Even if you want to call it before common era, as some do these days, which makes Warren, she ever makes me, she ever as well. And I think what are you doing? So what is the common era? The common era is the year of our Lord.
The Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth for that one day, the whole purpose was for this one day for good Friday to die once for our sins. On that cross at the end of his suffering, he cried out to God, it is finished. Tell us die. It is finished.
It is done. What's done? The work of that one day. The whole purpose of that one day.
4,000 years pointing to that one day of all human history. Everything that was written before that. I'll give you a little project. Take your Bible and go through the book of the Gospels and read the account of the Lord Jesus suffering and dying on the cross.
Do it this weekend. It's a good weekend to do it. And look at how many times it says so the scriptures might be fulfilled. So the scriptures might be fulfilled.
It is written. Look that up. 4,000 years of writing pointing to one day to good Friday. It's a day of substitution.
Again, our same verse for Christ also suffered once for sins. The righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. The righteous for the unrighteous are substituted. He died in your place.
He died in my place. He died for you. He died for me. Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 says, I have been crucified with Christ that is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He gave himself for me. He died in my place. He took my place.
I deserved the death. I deserve to die for my sins. I deserve the punishment for my sins. I deserve hell forever for rejecting God.
But Jesus died in my place that I don't have to go through that. Isaiah 53 was read tonight. It says, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.
Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity, the sin of us all. He came for that day to be our substitute. Romans chapter 5 verse 6 to 8. For when we were still without strength in due time, Christ died for who the ungodly Christ died for the ungodly.
The godly one died for the ungodly one. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, but perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we're yet sinners, Christ died for us. It was a day of substitution.
He died for you. He died for me. Finally, in our same verse, 1 Peter 3 verse 18, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. It was a day of salvation.
It's the day the salvation was procured for you and for me. Without good Friday, there was no hope. We were lost without God in this world, condemned. But Jesus came and he died on that day.
Colossians chapter 1 verses 21 and 22, and you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present to you holy and blameless and above reproached before him. A man in desperation one time came to two other men, fell on his knees and he said, what can I do to be safe? And they said, simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your house. It's a day of salvation.
That's why it's good Friday. That's why we say it's good Friday. If it wasn't a day of salvation, it was not good Friday, it's a horrible Friday. It's the worst Friday, but it's a day in which we've been given salvation as a free gift from God.
It's a good Friday. Now, maybe you haven't come to know the Lord Jesus. Maybe you've never been born again. Maybe you've heard the story before and think, well, that's great.
It's a great historical fact. You see, each person here who calls themselves a believer has come to a point where they've realized that, yes, that was for me. I was the one that he substituted for. I was the one who was guilty.
I was the one who had the greatest need. I need the greatest Savior. You can have life in him today. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 2, while we speak of good Friday, back in that day as being a day of salvation, it says this, for he says, in favorable time, I have listened to you.
And in the day of salvation, I have helped you. Behold now is the favorable time. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation.
If you have never come to Jesus Christ, if you have never experienced the salvation of the Lord, right now the offer is there for you. You can be saved today. It was done for you on Good Friday. The deal's been done.
You just accept it. You don't work for it. You don't crawl up the steps of a church somewhere. You don't offer different prayers every day.
You don't offer money to a church. You don't do good deeds or good works to get it. You just believe. You believe that that was for you.
When he went to that cross on that Friday, he went there for David. He went there for Levi. He went there for Sam. He went there for Erika.
He went there for Janice. He went there for each one of us. And what I believe it was for me. And I accept that.
That it was for me. I am saved. You can be saved tonight. The invitation is given here in Revelation 22 verse 17.
What I love about the Bible is the very last paragraph closes with the invitation. At the end of the Bible it says, the spirit of the bride say, come and let the one who hears say, come and let the one who is thirsty come and let the one who desires take of the water of life with no price. The one who hears. Are you hearing this?
Have you heard the word of God? Have you heard the voice of God in your life? Have you ever thought maybe I need to listen to that? Are you thirsty?
And I mean thirsty for life. My life is dry. My life is empty. I need something more than this.
Do I desire something and I'm not fulfilling that desire? Come to Jesus Christ. He will fulfill all of those things. And this good Friday will be your greatest Friday.
Let us pray. Thank you Father for bringing us here today. We thank you for the Lord Jesus our Savior. Lord we come here and we thank today on this good Friday.
You sent your son to take our sins, to take our sorrows, to make them as very own. We sang that a little while ago. He bore the burden to Calvory and suffered and died alone. How marvelous, how wonderful.
My song shall ever be. How marvelous. How wonderful is my Savior's love for me. Lord if there's anybody here tonight who has never come to know the Lord Jesus.
May their thirst and their desire and their longing be filled as they come to know the one who died for them by simply believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and being saved. We ask in His name, amen.