Good News on Good Friday

Hey, my name is David Platt. I want to welcome you to Facebook Live. Glad that you have a few minutes outside of the busyness of everything else that’s going on in your day to spend some time thinking about, so here’s the question I want us to think about for a few minutes. Why is Good Friday, good? So we call today Good Friday. I was tucking my kids into bed last night and I said, “Hey guys, tomorrow’s Good Friday.” And immediately my nine-year-old son said in response to me, he said, “Dad, isn’t it kind of not Good Friday? I mean, this is the day when we remember Jesus died on the cross. Isn’t that a bad day or at the very least, a sad day?” And I thought that it was a good question. Why do we call this day Good Friday? Why would we at all call the death of a good man, a good thing?

Why Do We Call Good Friday “Good”?

And think about it, almost all people, even the most secular of scholars who know anything about Jesus would say that he was a good man in history, he was loving and kind. He championed the cause of the needy. He made friends with the neglected and the poor and the weak. He hung out with the despised and rejected. He loved his enemies.

He taught others to do the same. So why would anyone find any delight in seeing a good man like that die. And not just die, but die a horrible death, excruciating, painful death. Jesus’ body physically nailed to a piece of wood and hung there until he couldn’t breathe anymore. Why would anyone call the day when we commemorate that day in history, good? And the answer to that question goes all the way back to the beginning of history. And it’s not just a historical question, it’s a personal question.

Why would you or me, why would we call this day, good? Well, think back to the very beginning, when everything was good, literally everything. There was a day when there was no evil in the world. There was no suffering in the world. There was no death in the world. This is the way God created everything in the beginning as good, including mankind whom God called very good. Until one day when mankind decided that God’s way was not best and mankind turned away from God, mankind separated ourselves from God. And on that day, something called sin was introduced into the world. And with it evil and suffering and eventually death, in a way that we know and experience and feel today. It doesn’t take long to look around us in the world and realize, things are not the way they’re supposed to be.

The World Is Full Of Suffering

When we see pictures of children being poisoned in Syria, for example, and the whole picture there in Syria, a country where out of a population of over 22 million people, over half of them have been displaced or killed in recent years. I was in Greece not long ago and was working in a refugee camp, and I heard story after story after story. A Yazidi woman who had seen seven of her family members beheaded by Isis.

One woman from Syria, the only member of her family left after her entire house was bombed and the rest of her family was killed. Everywhere I went, I talked with normal people with normal lives, professors, engineers, doctors, lawyers, students, and their kids, forced to flee across Turkey where they were exploited every step of the way, then giving lots of money to load their family on a raft, a little raft built for about 20 people, now filled with 60 people crossing over the Aegean Sea to make their way to a camp.

The camp that I was in was built for 2000 people. There were about 15,000 people in the camp living in makeshift tents. One night I walked through that camp and heard babies crying and children coughing, it’s freezing rain was falling on those tents in the mud that was now drowning those tents around them. And it was like walking through a semblance of hell on earth.

This is not the way it’s supposed to be. And that’s the picture we see all around us in a world of sin and suffering and pain and violence and injustice and oppression. And this is not just far off from us either. This is near to us. We all know, have felt the effects of sin and strife and sickness, disability, disease, death in our lives around our lives. Every one of us knows if we’re honest, this is not the way it’s supposed to be.

And the other thing we all know, but we don’t like to talk about or even think about is that the problem is not just outside of us. The problem’s inside of us. We’re quick to see sin and evil around us and even to point it out, but we’re a lot slower to see sin and evil inside of us, and we’re eager to pretend it’s not there. But it’s inescapable, isn’t it? I mean, it looks different in each of our lives. Some of us are prone to anger, others of us are prone to greed or prone to be jealous and envious of others. We’re prone to selfish ambition at the expense of others. When we don’t have power, we’re prone to covet it. When we do have power, we’re prone to abuse it. Pretty much all of us struggle with pride. And if we don’t think we struggle with pride, that’s probably a sure sign that we’re proud.

The Problem Is Inside Of Us

We’re prone to prioritize ourselves. Our dictionary contains hundreds of words that revolve around self. Start with self, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-absorbent, self- advertisement, self-gratification, self-glorification, self-motivation, self-pity, self-righteousness, self-centeredness, self-indulgence, on and on and on. We have created quite a dictionary of terms that describe our preoccupation with ourselves. And pride is indeed a struggle. C.S. Lewis used to say that, “You can work and work and work to be humble, but once you finally get there, you’ll be proud of it and you’ll have to start all over again.”

So we know that the problem is not just outside of us, it’s inside of us. We have all turned aside from God. We know we have because the effects of sin are in our hearts and in our lives. Some of us deny God, others of us disregard God. All of us disobey God. And in this way, all of us find ourselves separated from God now and if nothing changes, separated from God forever.

So, this is the problem, not just outside of us, inside of us. So what do we do? And the answer to that question has led to the formation of a multiplicity of religions in the world, all aiming to answer the key question, how do we make things right? How do we make things right with God or whatever Gods? How do we make things right in the world around us and even inside of us?

And the answers were given and world religions all revolve around what we can do. So in Islam, it’s five pillars to follow. In Buddhism, it’s a eightfold path to walk. In Hinduism, its God’s to worship. In Animism, it’s spirits to appease. Even in atheism or agnosticism, it’s itself to fulfill. But in the end, even if we do all of those things, the problem still remains. Our hearts are still prone to sin. As hard as we try to be good, do good, we’re still prone to turn away from God. We can’t escape this tendency toward evil.

And as hard as we work towards self-fulfillment, there’s a subtle emptiness that feels inevitable. Ultimately, no matter what we do, we simply can’t overcome the separation that sin has brought between us and God. And this is why Good Friday is so good because god has not left us alone in our sin. God has not left us alone in our separation from him. And ultimately, God has not left us alone in a world of evil and suffering and death, God has come to us.

I remember sitting with two men in Southeast Asia, both from different religions, and they were basically trying to convince me that all religions are fundamentally the same, just superficially different. We all believe basically the same things. So as they were talking, I was just listening and at one point I just said, “Well, it almost sounds like you all picture us kind of at the bottom of a mountain and God or whatever you want to call him at the top of a mountain.

And you may take this path at the mountain and I may take this path, but in the end we’ll find ourselves in the same place.” And they smiled and they said, “Exactly, you understand?” I said, “Well, let me ask you a question. What would you think if I told you the God at the top of the mountain, didn’t wait for us to make our way up to him, but he actually came down the mountain to where we are.” They smiled and said, “That would be great.” And I said, “Let me tell you then about Jesus and what makes him totally unique when it comes to world religions.”

Good Friday Is Good Because God Came To Us

It’s what makes Good Friday so uniquely good, the fact that in Jesus, God came to us. When we think about Christmas, we think about all the circumstances that we celebrate or just remember regarding Jesus’ birth, a picture of manger, a stable, Joseph, Mary. But what’s most important about that story is not the circumstances of his birth, but the identity of this baby in Jesus. This was God coming to us, to live among us, to show us in flesh and blood, his love for us. Jesus came and he lived a perfect life, never sinning once, what no one else has ever done and no one else will ever do. And then on that Friday, about 2000 years ago, though he did not deserve to die because he had no sin. Though he didn’t deserve to die, Jesus chose to die.

And the question is why? And the answer is, he chose to die on the cross for our sin, to pay the price for our sin, that we men and women who have sinned against God or separated from God, that we deserve to pay. He paid that price so that we can be saved from our sin and we can be reconciled to God. And we know this is true and possible because Jesus didn’t stay dead for long. So this is kind of a spoiler alert. If you’ve never been to church on a Easter Sunday, I’ll go ahead and let you know what happens ahead of time. Jesus rose from the dead, three days after he died, Jesus conquered death. And in his conquering death, he made eternal life possible for everyone who believes in him.

God says in his word, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus’ Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved from all of your sin.” So see what is utterly unique about this good news, think about it in your life, you right where you are sitting right now, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done, right now today, you can be reconciled, restored to a relationship with God, not based on anything you can or must do for him, but based solely on what he has done for you, and that is good news.

The Good News

In a world of sin and evil and suffering outside of us and inside of us. It’s good news now and it’s good news forever. I think about a guy named Casey in the church who was in his early thirties, very physically fit, kind of a bodybuilder type, and one day started having some pains in his stomach and didn’t go away for a few days. So we went to the doctor.

Well, a couple of weeks later, he’d been through a couple of doctors and they diagnosed him with cancer in his stomach. They said, “We need to do surgery as soon as we can.” So they did surgery. So this is about a month after he first had his stomach pain. They do surgery, they go in and when they open him up, they see cancer all throughout his body in a way that they realize there’s nothing they can do.

They close him back up without doing anything. When he wakes up, they tell Casey, his wife and their precious little girl that cancer had invaded his entire body. There’s nothing they could do and he likely had weeks to live. They said, “There’s nothing we can do to stop it.” So I got a call one night saying that Casey was at the hospital and he probably didn’t have much longer. And so I was driving to the hospital and on the way, I’m just thinking, “What do I say to Casey? I’m sorry this happened.

I wish this wasn’t the case.” But I didn’t need to worry because people who visited Casey in the hospital on that day were in for a surprise. Whenever anybody walked into Casey’s hospital room that day, they saw a man sitting on that hospital bed with a smile on his face. He would greet people who walked into his room and the first thing he would say, he’d smile, he’d point up and he would say, with as much sincerity as was in his heart, “Today, I’m going to be with Jesus.”

And all of a sudden everything I thought I might’ve said like, “I’m sorry this has happened to you,” or, “I wish this wasn’t the case,” suddenly didn’t make sense. In fact, I kind of left that hospital room that night a bit envious of Casey. Why? Because I saw what it looks like to face death with faith in the one who has conquered death at the cross. So let me ask you a question, if I could, just kind of bring this all to a head. I think an eternally important question, I can’t think of a much more important question. What if you were on that hospital bed right now?

We know not one of us is guaranteed tomorrow. Not one of us is even guaranteed to make it through this day, Good Friday. We’re not guaranteed to make it through the day. So let me ask you the question. Do you know, if you were to die today, do you know for sure that you would go to heaven and be with God? I was in Southern California a couple of weeks ago and I was talking with an Uber driver as we were crossing Los Angeles one day, and I asked him that question, “Do you know for sure you would go to heaven if you were to die today?” And he said, “Well, I hope so. I think I’ve been good enough.” And in his response, I think he said what most people think, “I think I’ve done enough, so I hope so.” I shared with that Uber driver that his good enough, like my good enough would never be good enough before a holy God.

God Has Made A Way

But the good news is God had made a way, has made a way for him to be forgiven of all his sin. And when we got to the place where he was dropping me off, he just stopped. And we sat there in the car and he prayed. He placed his faith in Jesus and asked God to forgive him of his sin and reconcile him to himself. So the good news of Good Friday is that your entrance into heaven, my entrance into heaven, your restoration to God, the forgiveness of your sins, the fulfillment of your life is not based on anything you can do.

 It’s based on trusting in what God has done for you to reconcile you to himself. And so I want to invite you today on this Good Friday. If you have never put your faith in Jesus and what he did on a cross for your sin. If you’ve never trusted in his death to give you life, then I want to invite you to do that right now.

And I know this may seem a little bit strange if you’re in an office or a neighbor’s house or maybe some other public place, but if you feel comfortable enough to do this, I just want to invite you to bow your heads and close your eyes. And if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, that’s fine. What’s most important is what’s in your heart. Regardless, I just want to invite you to say in your heart right now to God, “Yes,” to confess to God that you know have sinned against him, to confess to God that you know that you’re separated from him.

God Grants Forgiveness Of Your Sin

And then to ask God right now, to forgive you of your sin against him, to confess your trust in what Jesus did on Good Friday for you, what Jesus did on the cross for your sin. And ask God even right now to reconcile you to himself. Remember that Bible verse, “To confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” You can know that you are saved from your sin and restored in relationship with God when you put your faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord.

And after you’ve prayed, if you did, bow your head, close your eyes, I invite you to look up. If you have put your faith, if you are today, even right now, putting your faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord for the first time, then I want to encourage you to share that with somebody else, maybe even somebody else that you watched this with. I want to invite you to spend a couple of minutes if you have an opportunity to, just to talk about what we’ve just talked about. What makes Good Friday, good? Do I believe Good Friday is good? Have I trusted in Jesus to save me from my sin?

And if you have done that today, or maybe even if you have still some more questions about what that means, I want to invite you specifically to church. So if you are in the metro DC area, I want to invite you to McLean Bible Church. If you’re not in metro DC to some church where this good news is preached. Again, if you’re in DC especially this weekend, we’d love to have you at McLean on Easter. Saturday night, we have service at 6:30 and then Sunday morning at 7:30, 9:00, 10:45, and 12:30 at our Tyson’s campus. And we have campuses in Prince William and Loudoun and Montgomery County and Arlington. So you can find out more on the page here at mcleanbible.org

We want to help you grow in your faith in Christ. So why do we call it Good Friday? My nine-year-old son asked me last night, here’s how I responded. I said, “Son, what if you were sentenced to die tomorrow and someone else at the last minute stepped in and died in your place, for you? How would that make you feel?” And my son paused for a minute and he said, “Good.” And I said, “Exactly.” And so my hope, my prayer for you today is that through faith in Jesus, you might have a Good Friday.