Good Friday on Purpose
Notes
Transcript
It was no accident- that Good Friday. No coincidence, no happenstance, no fumbling sequence of events- no that Good Friday was completely on purpose.
I have heard sermons that say Jesus was killed by the Roman government, I have heard sermons say he was killed by the crowd; I have even heard people say that Jesus didn’t have to die in the first place. Well, I hate to be argumentative, but all of those things are just false.
The truth of the matter is that the events of that Good Friday had been set into motion thousands of years before- just outside a Garden named Eden, when 2 people committed the sin that changed the course of human history. It was in that moment that God declared that the head of the serpent would be crushed- in that moment this Good Friday had been set into motion.
It would be easy to step back and wonder how God let it get to this level. What kind of God would sit back and allow his son to be crucified? What kind of God is this that does not intervene as his innocent son gets nailed to a tree?
Well, one thing we must remember tonight is that God is not passive in the story of Good Friday. God is not sitting idly by or laying powerless in the corner. No, God is very much active on Good Friday, because God willed Jesus to die.
In his sermon in Acts 2 Peter tells the crowd all about the death of Christ, and in the midst of it 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— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
You see, friends, God did not ALLOW this to happen to Jesus; God WILLED for this to happen to Jesus. In the most memorized and recited verse of the Bible, John 3:16 we are told for God so LOVED the world that he GAVE his one and only Son.
Love and Gave are action words- they are not passive, they are on purpose words. How many times do we tell one another that love is not something we say, but something that we do; and gift giving implies a willingness to bless the recipient. God was very much active on that Good Friday.
Isaiah 53:5 prophetically states, “[Jesus] was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.”
So, what kind of God would be a part of such a thing? The Bible tells us the kind of God that loves us that much. The kind of God that places such value on our lives that he would willingly put himself on a tree to get us back.
John Piper once wrote “This is why Jesus came to die,God meant to show the world that there is no sin and no evil too great that God cannot bring from it everlasting righteousness and joy. The very suffering that we caused became the hope of our salvation.”
I’ve done some cool things by accident. I have even accidentally made a project go better, or smoother because of my mistakes. But do not be fooled, friends, no person can save humanity by accident.
So, tonight I invite you to worship on purpose. In the same way that God is active in this story, I ask you to be active tonight too. Active in confessing your sin; active in receiving the gift of salvation; active in worshipping the God who has called you from the grave.