 Well, good evening again. I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to begin sort of our Easter celebration with a Good Friday service. My name's John, I'm the campus pastor here in Richland and I'm honored and humbled to be able to share this evening. Pastor Stefan and Portage is speaking there as well. So it's kind of a campus pastor night. And so we're just super honored and excited to start the Easter weekend with you reflecting on the power of the cross and the sacrifice of Jesus. So I was just trying to think through this message and I remembered, and maybe I'm the only one, but I have sometimes the weirdest memories and really the clearest memories from childhood and the random things, like you shouldn't possibly remember, but they're just so clear. And so I was thinking about, I remember the first sort of real memory I have of Good Friday. So I went to Seymour Christian School in Grand Rapids in the corner of Elger in Eastern, shout out to the sailors, Mrs. Bartelsen, my first grade teacher. And I remember hearing, sitting in class and hearing, well, we won't have school this Friday because it's Good Friday. And I was like, that sounds good to me. I mean, I was the youngest of five. And so like I had older siblings who ingrained in me that anytime there's not school, you're supposed to be happy, even though I like school. But I was like, wow, I got to look cool for my brother. So, you know, I was like, yeah, no school on Good Friday. Perfect, sounds good. And I remember Nate Deswannick who lived down the street. He went to a different school and they had school. And so obviously I rubbed that in his face as much as possible. And I was like, well, that isn't a Good Friday for you, bro, but I don't have school. And so I remember that, I vividly remember that, but then I remember asking my dad, like, what is Good Friday? Because we ended up having to go to church. And then I was like, wow, it's not as good. We were looking good. And then, no, I'm just kidding. Well, not really. I went to church as a young boy. So he's like, well, we're going to church tonight. It's Good Friday. And I was like, really, why? And I literally am probably seven, eight years old. And he's like, well, it's the day that Jesus died for our sins. And I was like, so why is that good? You know, and why would we call it good if he died? Well, he died. So, you know, and my dad explained it. And I'm not saying he didn't explain it well, but I had a hard time reconciling why we would call it good. And really why that, I mean, couldn't he have a timeout or like maybe a spanking or something like it had to be that and it had to be good. And so I just remember wrestling with that as a young person. But then also remember being pretty, I don't obsess, isn't the word, but I, for whatever reason, really loved Good Friday. I remember singing the songs. I grew up in a Christian reform church. We sang like, oh, sacred head now wounded. And were you there when they crucified my Lord? And just as I am, and I just remember singing these songs and anyone who works with me will tell you that I sing a lot and I sing usually like maybe to mostly one phrase of a song for, I don't know how long Kendra, months. Anyway, so I can remember singing those songs too and just being drawn to the Good Friday experience. And then obviously Easter on the tail end of that. And so I was just reflecting on that this week and thinking through like obviously as I grew up and as I matured and as time went by, I was able to reconcile why it's a Good Friday. Why in fact it is good and why it was so crucial that Jesus did what he did. And yet, and so I think that can be even a, and I won't go this direction, but a life lesson for us. Like sometimes we're so quick to label seasons in our lives or situations that we're going through or maybe even people as bad, as unredeem, as this is, this can't be a good thing. But how many of you know sometimes on the other side, sometimes as Romans 828 works its way through your search situation. And God says, look, when you love me and you're called according to my purpose, I work all things together for good. It doesn't mean everything that happens is good, but I'm working it for good and we can get on the other side of those situations and see differently, see more clearly what God is doing and where his plan came to fruition. And obviously 2,000 years removed, that's what we can do with Good Friday. But I just remember as a young person, really not understanding that, and I wanna submit to you, I have 20 minutes to talk about the cross of Christ, which is not gonna be enough time. And so I only wanna highlight a few things, but I wanna start by saying, but I don't believe this was necessarily a Good Friday, the day that it happened for the people involved. I'm not sure, again, that in that moment, they were thinking, you know what, when this is all done today, I'm calling it Good Friday. You guys think, I bet that conversation didn't happen. Again, you have in Matthew 26, it really begins by telling us that the scribes and the chief priests, they were with Caiaphas, the high priests, and they were looking for a way to accuse Jesus, to secretly arrest him, and ultimately to have him killed. So that's all happening in this moment. And then we have this incredible encounter with a sinful woman at Bethany, who anoints Jesus with a costly alabaster jar of perfume, and she pours it all out on him, and just this insane act of worship, and the disciples are indignant, they're like, you know, Judas especially was probably like, why would we waste that? That could have been sold, given to poor, there was a better way to spend that. And Jesus rebukes Judas and says, the poor you'll always have, she's done this to prepare me for my burial. And what she's done will be communicated for generations to come. It's gonna be captured. And so there's this intense moment. And then maybe not surprisingly, after that Judas agrees to betray Jesus. He's offended maybe, maybe he didn't like being rebuked, maybe he took it personally. But anyways, he went to the religious leaders and offered to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. And then in the midst of all this, Passover is happening. And Passover is the biggest holiday for a Jewish person. It's supposed to be like fun and vibrant and fellowship and just this amazing time. But in the midst of that, Jesus begins to talk about the fact that he's going to be turned over to the authorities. That he's going to not only be turned over, he's going to be betrayed. That somebody who's with them is going to be the one who's the catalyst for his death, for his arrest. And he says, one of you is going to betray me. So there's a lot of, I mean, you can read about that. What, who, not me, what, who? And there's a lot of unrest and angst in this moment leading up to the cross. And before we, and so my hope tonight is this, that we can look at the sacrifice of Jesus and what he has done through just maybe not a new lens, but through a renewed lens. I said in my prayer, sometimes it's easy to sort of gloss over what we're reading or sort of get familiar with Good Friday or Easter, and it just kind of becomes a thing. And I'm really praying that God just again, illuminates the beauty, the passion, and the wisdom of his plan of redemption and what it meant for Jesus to do what he did. And so we're going to look at three aspects of the cross, of Good Friday. We're going to look at the weight of the cross, the obedience of the cross and the victory of the cross. But before we do that, I want you to turn to Matthew 26. And my boy, Caden Martinson read this already, which is amazing. We'll read it again. This is, before we get to the cross, we have to begin in the garden. The garden of Gethsemane is really just olive groves. It wasn't, you know, it was an area they had been familiar with. And Jesus goes there to have this intense encounter prayer moment with the Father. That's the extent of why he wants to go. He brings the disciples with him. He wants to have community. He wants to have people close to him. And in Matthew 26, we're going to read from 36 to 46 again. So after everything that I just talked about happened, it says that Jesus went with him, his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. He said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful even to death. Remain here and watch with me. And going a little further, he fell on his face. And he prayed saying, Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And he came to the disciples and he found them sleeping. And he said, so you could not watch with me one hour. Watch, pray that you would not enter into temptation. Your spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, my father, if this cannot pass, unless I drink it, your will be done. And again, he came and found them sleeping for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples. And he said to them, sleep and take your rest later. See the hours at hand and the son of man is betrayed. Into the hand of sinners rise and let us go, my betrayers at hand. This is the precursor to Jesus's moment of scourging, beating and ultimately crucifixion. This is leading up to it. And the first thing I want to just highlight as we talk about the cross is the weight of the cross. And when I say that, I think you can go to like movies, the passion, you know, we hear accounts and it's in the Bible of them getting Joseph, a different Joseph, obviously than his father to carry the cross for him. And you can think it's because it was too heavy or he was too weak, but before he ever has to actually carry the cross, he feels the weight of what is about to happen in this garden moment. And I want to highlight it because I feel like this is so easy to overlook and it's so easy for us to concentrate on the physical beatings, whipping, scourgings, the things that really happen to Jesus that are terrible, but I will submit to you are pailing in comparison to the weight that Jesus ultimately had to carry, which was the cup, which was the wrath of God. And so look at this story. It says that he went to a place called Gethsemane and he took his disciples and he says, you sit here and I'm going to go pray. And he says, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. So when you study that and you see the scholars, it literally was something that almost hit him out of nowhere. Like all of a sudden he's walking, I'm going to go pray. And he has this like intense pain. He has this sorrow to the point where he literally is saying to the disciples, I feel like this is going to kill me. Like I'm sorrowful unto death. Something is happening to me that I've never experienced before and I don't know what to do. And there's this humanity part of Jesus that comes out. The Bible says in Luke and Luke's account that he begins to sweat so profusely that there's drops of blood, which is obviously not common, but medically can happen to people who are in shock or in a stressful enough situation. And there's this weight of the cross that begins to be a reality in Jesus's life that I want us to remember as we reflect on Good Friday. Before he ever carried a cross, before a whip ever was on his back, something literally brought him to a point where he thought he was going to die under the weight of this. And what it was, wasn't a cross, wasn't a whip, wasn't people spitting on him. It was literally the cup that the father was gonna ask him to drink in this moment. The cup of God's wrath towards sin. Jesus wasn't afraid of death. He said many times to his disciples, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna end up being turned over. My life is going to end. It wasn't that, oh no, I'm actually gonna die. No, this is something so much heavier, so much more unbearable in his life. And look what he says. He says it's a cup that he has to drink. And you can read in Ezekiel and in Isaiah in Ezekiel, it says he's prophesying to the nations. And he said, you'll drink the cup of wrath and you'll tear your chest. There's something almost like it's this formula or this poison that once you drink, it literally is, it destroys you from the inside out. And in that moment, Jesus is feeling and carrying the weight of the wrath of God. Maybe not in its entirety, but certainly in a way they had not felt up until that point. And he's in the garden and he says, I don't know what to do. I'm sorrowful unto death. And so he goes and he lays this before the Lord, but before we even look at the actual cross, I just want you to remember that it was the price Jesus paid where the Father said, I need you to willingly drink this cup. I need you to willingly take this pain, this wrath, this payment for sin so that other people aren't going to have to and Jesus made a decision to do that. And in his heart, he may have been thinking, who am I doing this for? I'm doing it for these guys and they're sleeping. They can't even stay awake. And I'm supposed to believe that God's gonna use these guys to launch, to be the launch pad for the church. And I have to, you know, again, I want you to hear just the human side of Jesus going, this is so brutal. I've never experienced anything like this. I knew what was gonna happen, but now I'm feeling the weight of it. And I'm stepping into the destiny that God has for my life. And so there's the weight of the cross. The second thing that I wanna highlight before we look at the cross is the obedience of the cross. Look what it says. It says he goes to the Father and he says, if there's any way, my Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Notice he didn't say, if it's possible, I don't really wanna be whipped. I'd rather not be scourged. I don't wanna have to face the Romans. No, he wasn't worried about that. He wasn't feeling that in the moment. It was the cup of the wrath of God towards sin. And he said, look, if there's another way that we can do this, I'm off for it. Is there any other thing? And he prays this, he doesn't hear anything. He goes back to the disciples, they're sleeping. He goes a second time and prays more fervently. God, if you can remove this cup, please remove it from me. And then he comes back, again, the disciples, the people that are supposed to be there for him, his friends, they're sleeping. And he goes to the Bible, says out a third time and he prays the same thing. And it's at that moment that Jesus has to come to a conclusion. Again, let's not forget that Jesus is fully man and fully God. And so he's not hearing the Father say, you don't have to do this. He's not hearing a release. His friends are sleeping. It's dark, he's in a garden. There may have been a part of him that was like, can I Uber out of here and we can figure something else out tomorrow? He had to make a decision. Like, am I gonna really do this? And it was in that moment that we see the radical obedience of Jesus Christ on display. It's a simple sentence, but it is so radically said, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. I don't wanna do this. I don't understand. This is harder than I thought it was gonna be. Maybe that's part of the reason Jesus, God revealed some of it to him in that moment. So he would have a taste of it before he was actually on the cross. And he'd have an opportunity to be like, I don't know. Maybe I don't wanna do this. And some of this might have done that with kids or something, you know. If I knew raising kids would be this hard. I don't act, you know, but he has this moment where he can say, do I wanna keep doing this? Is there another way out? And it's the radical obedience. And here's why I use the word radical and not just obedience. Because every time, other time in scripture, God asks someone to do something. What is his promise? I'll be with you. Don't worry, I'll strengthen you through it. Don't worry, if you make the right decision, it is going to be good for you in the end. You might not understand, but I promise I'll be with you. I won't leave you, I won't forsake you. That's the promise every time somebody steps in obedience, but not for Jesus. God said, if you do this, you'll be crushed. You'll be broken. You'll be forsaken. You'll carry the weight of the whole sin of the world. I can't promise I'll be with you. I can't promise that I can carry you through it. You're gonna have to do it alone. And Jesus says, nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done radical obedience of the cross. And I think this is an incredible formula for how we should pray. As believers, 2,000 years from now, notice Jesus isn't trying to put on a good face. He's not masking what's going on. He's not trying to get a stiff upper lip. Okay, God, I'm ready. Whatever you got, I'm good. Let's do it. No, he's pouring his heart out before God. He doesn't understand. Psalm 62 says this, pour your heart out before the Lord for he can be trusted. There's a vulnerability and a transparency that we see in Jesus that I think is so beautiful. And it's such an example for us in the place of prayer. When you pray, when you seek God, you don't have to put on a happy face all the time. You don't have to just go through the motions. You don't have to become all super religious, be open and vulnerable with God. That's what Jesus did. If you can take this cup from me, do it. If there's another way, do it. I don't understand. This is hard. I'm sorrowful unto death. But at the moment where you have to make a decision, am I gonna trust God or am I gonna trust my feelings? Am I gonna trust the Father or am I gonna trust my circumstances? Jesus paid the way and said, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And the place of prayer is not so that we can bend God's will to match ours. It's the place where we surrender our will to match God's. That's what happens in the place of prayer. And that's how Jesus modeled it in that moment. When everything was on the line, none of us will face a situation even remotely close to what Jesus had to do. But he said, not my will, but yours be done. And that's where Paul in Philippians 3-10 said, I want to know you, speaking of Jesus, and the power of your resurrection. And everybody in the church is like, yes, up from the grave, resurrection power. And he says, and I want to fellowship with you in your suffering. And we're all like, wait, what? No, no, not the rest of the verse. It's just kind of, suffering is part of the Christian's life. It's not something we avoid because we're Christians. Jesus didn't suffer so that we would never have to. Jesus suffered and overcame so that when we suffer, we also can overcome because he is our overcomer. That's what it looks like. Jesus said, in this world, yeah, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, take heart. Why? Because I've overcome the world. The Christian is not someone who's stronger in and of themselves, who has enough inner fortitude and enough willpower to make it through. No, Jesus set the example and he suffered in a way where he surrendered to God so that when we suffer, we know God will never leave us. He was forsaken so that we'll never have to be. He carried the weight of our sin, so we wouldn't have to. And he went to the Father for us so that when God sees you and sees me, it's through the lens of the shed blood of Jesus. There is the weight of the cross. There is the obedience of the cross. It's how we pray. God, not my will but yours, be done. If I have to suffer, if it's hard, if it's not easy, it's okay because you're with me and you'll never leave me. And finally, and gloriously, we see the victory of the cross. So I don't have time to go through, again, all of the physical ramifications of crucifixion. You can read that, I would encourage you to. But we know that he was brought before Pilate. He was sentenced to 40 lashes. He had a crown of thorns pushed on to his head. He had a purple robe that was put on him as he was beaten, mocked, spit on. People saying, prophesy, who hit you? If you're really a king, if you're really God, why don't you save yourself? Why don't you do something about it? And as a lamb is silent before the shear, it's the son of God who's silent before his accusers. And it was brutal in the natural as well. But we get to the moment where he's put on the cross in Matthew 27, verse 45. And it's the final, the culmination. And it says, now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. The minor prophets speak of that. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli lemma sabachtina. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I mean, just the most powerful words. Listen, all the scholars believe that this really did take place. Like he really said that because if he didn't, you would never include it. If you were trying to market a religion, if you were trying to promote a movement, you wouldn't have the leader of it in a vulnerable position like this, saying, I've been forsaken, I have no hope. This is too terrible for me. You just wouldn't do that. And notice Jesus didn't say, my head, my head from the crowns or my hands, my hands, that they hurt from these nails. No, the whole time his heart was fixed on the fact that he had had eternal relationship with God the Father, eternal intimacy. And he knows it's about to be broken. He knows it's about to be severed. And he's praying Psalm 22. And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a read and gave it to him to drink. But he wouldn't. And I think it's important to just realize. Somebody I read a commentary mentioned that many of the people who were martyred for their Christian faith seem to have handled it better than Jesus. You look at Polycarp, he was the Bishop of Smyrna. He was a disciple of John. He was put in a den of lions and eaten and killed publicly. And he said, I would never renounce Christ. I've served him for this long. And then William Tyndale who translated the Bible was burned at the stake. And the people burning him could hear him say, I believe we're lighting a fire so bright it shall never be dim for Christ. And there's just this like peace and power and security in these moments. And Stephen in Acts chapter six as he stoned is looking up and seeing why would it seemingly be harder for Jesus because nobody had to bear the weight that Jesus had to bear. Nobody had to drink the cup that Jesus had to drink. Nobody had to pay the price that Jesus had to pay. And so in this moment he realizes I'm the God, the Father that I've known for eternity is gonna have to turn his back on me. And he says, why have you forsaken me? And it says, Jesus cried out again. Again, we can read cried out and we think, oh, like literally it means to shriek or to scream in this moment. And it says with a loud voice, it is finished. He yielded up his spirit. And so Jesus died and instantly listened. Behold, the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom. The victory of the cross is yes, Jesus paid the price for our sins. Yes, Jesus took the cup and drank it for us. But the result is this, that the veil, the veil was a literally separated the holy place from the holy of holies in the temple. And the priest could only go in there once a year. It's where the Ark of the Covenant, the presence of God was and it separated God's people Israel from the presence of God. Like they couldn't see it, they would die. It was inaccessible. And at that moment, the one time Jesus said, it is finished and yield to the spirit. It's tore from top to bottom. And when I say a veil, it's not like a cheap curtain. It was like four inches thick and it was 50 feet high and it was torn only the way God could tear it from top to bottom. And it signified that in that moment, the new covenant had begun the sins and the things that had kept us from accessing the presence of God were removed because of the price Jesus paid. And now we can have intimacy with the Father. That's why it's a good Friday. It's because we can know Jesus. We can know God. Our sins are forgiven. We're not defined by our past anymore. God doesn't look at us and see our insecurities, our failure, our sins. The veil's been torn and now we have access to the righteousness of God. And so was it a good Friday? I'd say this, on that day it wasn't good for the disciples. They lost their teacher and they lost their friend. It wasn't a good Friday for Jesus. He was beaten and scourged, nailed to a cross. It wasn't even a good day for Jesus as accusers. They put to death an innocent man. You know who it was a good day for? Barabbas, a guilty, convicted lawbreaker who was released and set free because Jesus took his place. That's what good Fridays are about. I'm a Barabbas. You're a Barabbas. Our sins put Jesus on that cross and his love kept him there. His love for you, his love for me, his love for Barabbas, his love for the lost, his love for the Muslim, the pagan, the homosexual. Whoever it is, Jesus said, I will pay the price. And now we look back 2,000 years and we say there's never been a better Friday. When you stand with me, I want us to take communion together and I want us to just be able to reflect on the price Jesus paid for you. Not just in general, not just really bad people, not just the Adolf Hitler's and the people who deserve, but for your sins. Sometimes it's so easy to forget that we were saved from darkness. We were saved from being eternally separated from the God who loves us. That Jesus paid the price for your sins. And just as 2,000 years ago, Jesus instituted communion, the Lord's Supper with his disciples. He said, I want you to do this every time that you remember the sacrifice that I made, that you remember the price that was paid. So we're gonna do that together as a church family. And we're gonna reflect on who Jesus is and what he has done. And so I would invite you to take the bread first. The Bible reminds us that on the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it after giving thanks. And he told his disciples, this is my body and it's broken for you. They didn't probably understand, they didn't know what was going to take place, but we know now, looking back, that the broken body of Jesus was so that we could walk in wholeness, so that we could be redeemed and that we could have relationship with him. And so as we take the bread together, reflect on the price that Jesus paid. The same way it says Jesus took a cup and he poured wine into it. And he said, this signifies my blood, which was shed for the complete redemption of all of your sins. And I wanna remind us that there is no chain that the blood of Jesus can't break. There is no sin that's greater than the blood of Jesus Christ. There's no amount of time that can go by. There's no amount of mistakes you can make that is greater than the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And maybe you're here and you need to recommit, you need to re-remember who you are and why Jesus did what he did. And today is the time to do that. The voice of the enemy will say, it's been too long, you've gone too far, it won't work for you. I'm telling you, your savior Jesus spilled his blood and said, it speaks a better word. It speaks a stronger word. It speaks the truth over you, your family, and for generations to come. The blood of Jesus is the reason we have relationship with our Father and our sins are no more as far as the East is from the West. Let's take the cup together. And Father, as we prepare to worship, as we prepare to seal this time and this moment, as we prepare our hearts to look to resurrection, we do it with gratitude, God. Regardless of what we're facing, regardless of what might be happening, we have reason to be thankful and it is the blood of Jesus Christ, the broken body of our Savior, King. And so we celebrate you, we sing to you, we worship you, and as we do, we thank you that your spirit feels not just this place, not just the rooms where we're joining, but God, it fills our hearts. And so we invite you, Holy Spirit of God, fill us right now in Jesus' name.