Good Friday 2026

You know, when we think about good days and bad days, we often think about them in a category of our circumstances and our surroundings, right? So rainy days are bad days. Sunny days are good days. Vacation days are good days. Work days are bad days. But there's another category for measuring how good or bad a day was.

That's the measurement of morality. Was justice performed today? Was this day marked by moral uprightness and integrity? Or was it marked by evil and wrongdoing? Well, tonight we join with Christians across the world and all throughout history to recognize and remember Jesus' death on the cross.

Now, this is not just an arbitrary day that some church council decided to dedicate to Jesus' death. No, the gospel accounts record that Jesus' death took place on this exact Friday in the Jewish calendar. And some scholars have even concluded that Jesus died on Friday, April 3rd, 33 AD.

So exactly 1,993 years ago to this date. We gather tonight to commemorate history. what could be described as history's darkest day. Jesus died young. He was 33 years old. And if you look at the circumstances surrounding his death, it was not a good Friday at all. But as somber as this day is, we are not supposed to mourn and grieve today.

Because when you read about Jesus's death from a biblical perspective, we see that on this day in history, the greatest act of good was performed. On Good Friday, God's perfect goodness was put on full display for the world to see. In one sense, today we see God's good and perfect righteousness and justice being executed. But also, Good Friday is good because God's perfectly good mercy and grace, his steadfast love and faithfulness, his forgiveness, his good and perfect plan of redemption, well, this was also executed on this day. Jesus' death was an execution. but it wasn't just an execution of an innocent man. No, it was the perfect execution of God's goodness to save sinners like us for eternity.

So as we look at 1 Peter 2, 22 to 24 tonight, I want us to leave here with just one key idea, just one simple sentence for us to grasp and chew on. Now on the cross, Jesus received what we deserved so that we could receive what Jesus deserved. Let me say that again, on the cross, Jesus received what we deserved so that we could receive what Jesus deserved. 1 Peter 2, 22 to 24 says this, follow along as I read.

He committed no sin, Neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sin in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed.

What did Jesus deserve?

As we walk through this passage, we're going to ask four questions. What did Jesus deserve? What did Jesus receive? What do we deserve? And what do we receive? So in verse 22, we get the answer to our first question. What did Jesus deserve? That's a good question. The man who committed no sin and had no deceit found in his mouth. What did this man deserve? He deserved life. Abundant life. A blessed life. A life full of all good things.

Sin, if you're unfamiliar with that term, sin is the Bible's term for law breaking. So God created the world and in his sovereign authority, he created a law to govern his creation. That law, expressed in places like the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, it teaches us how we must live under God's sovereign and good rule and reign. And to put God's law into simplest terms, Jesus himself tells us in Matthew 22 that the entire law can be summed up as this.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.

That's all the law. in a nutshell,

love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.

And verse 22 tells us that Jesus committed no sin. Jesus never broke this law. Jesus was the perfect man. He was completely upright. His actions, his words, his thoughts, his desires, Everything about him was above reproach. He didn't have any skeletons in his closet. He didn't have any dirty little secrets. His public life, his private life, his external life, his internal life, everything about him was absolutely and completely perfect. Now Jesus was human, don't get me wrong. Jesus got tired. He got hungry. I'd imagine he got sore from the amount of walking he did between towns. He had emotions. He experienced hardship.

But no matter what happened, Jesus never sinned. He perfectly kept and perfectly fulfilled God's law. Now, God's law, it doesn't just come with commandments. It also comes with promises. Specifically, the promise that if you obey God's command, you will be blessed. You will live. But the law also comes with curses and punishment for disobedience, for sin. The punishment for sin is death. Sin is a capital offense in God's kingdom. And yet because Jesus committed no sin, Jesus was not condemned to death in God's kingdom.

He earned eternal life. Not only that, but he also earned our utmost respect and our reverence. He earned glory and honor and praise. He earned our loyalty and he earned our worship. I mean, think about it, like really think about it. Jesus was perfect. By his virtue alone, he should receive our absolute devotion and discipleship, right? That's the kind of guy you'd want to follow. Like the guy who led a perfect life in every respect, that is a man worth following.

What did Jesus receive?

And yet our passage tells us that Jesus did not receive this. from his fellow man. Jesus didn't receive love from his neighbor. Our second question we ask, what did Jesus receive? And verse 23 tells us that Jesus received revulsion. He received suffering. Before the crucifixion that we just read about in Matthew 27, if you go back and look through that passage, Jesus was wrongfully arrested. He was put through a sham trial. He was beaten and scourged. He had the flesh ripped off his back. He was mocked. He was ridiculed. He was presented to the Roman governor by the Jewish leaders as an enemy of the state.

And Jesus was executed by crucifixion. From an earthly perspective, Good Friday marks the anniversary of the greatest injustice to ever occur. The one and only truly good man was assassinated. I mean, at face value, today marks the greatest tragedy in all of human history.

And yet, we also read in verse 23 that Jesus did not pursue his own justice during his execution. He didn't defend his case. He certainly could have. I mean, if you read throughout the Gospels, you see there are countless stories and accounts of Jesus silencing his opponents and proving himself to be right. But here, In verse 23, it tells us that Jesus didn't revile in return. He didn't threaten. He simply remained silent and let his accusers do their worst to him. Even more than that, verse 23 ends by telling us that

he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

Jesus' response to everything that led to his death was to simply entrust himself to the just judge. To perfectly obey and to let God avenge him. The one who never sinned. The one who earned eternal life. The one who deserved all blessing and honor and praise. He entrusted himself to God. And then he died by crucifixion.

I mean, at this moment, you just have to ask yourself, where's the justice in that? How did the just judge allow the perfect man to receive such horrific injustice? Verse 24 gives us the answer. It changes our vantage point as we look at the cross. We see here in verse 24 the crucifixion from a biblical perspective, from the perspective of God's point of view.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.

Jesus's death, it wasn't just a case of when bad things happen to good people. Now, what did Jesus receive? On the cross, Jesus received the punishment that we deserved for our sins. The Roman cross, it was a punishment reserved particularly for those who committed crimes against the Roman Empire. It was for political rebels. It was for those who incited seditions. It was for those who committed treason and stirred up violence.

And I mean, it was a uniquely brutal way to die. The cross, it didn't just inflict physical pain and suffering. No, it punished your entire being. So socially, on the cross, you were completely exposed. You were stripped down, you were hung high in the air on a hilltop, and you were put up on full display for everyone to watch you die. There was absolutely nothing honorable about crucifixion. Mentally, it was slow. Like, it lasted several hours to sometimes several days. It wasn't just something you got over quickly. You hung there and hung there and hung there, processing the entire thing.

And ultimately, the physical agony that you did experience, the nails in your hands and into your feet, the raw flesh against the splintered wood, that's not what killed you. No, technically, you kill yourself. And here's what I mean by that. You die by suffocation. You stop pulling up on the nails to get your breath. You don't just lose the physical capacity to pull yourself up. You lose the will to keep fighting. Crucifixion, it punishes you down to the very level of your soul. your very heart, what you want and desire. And I recognize that these details are gory and gruesome, and I'm not just saying this for dramatic effect. I bring this up because the punishment that Jesus received, well, it was a fitting and just punishment, but not for Jesus. It's fitting for us.

What do we deserve?

Our sin against God is nothing less than an all-out treason against Him and His kingdom. In sin, we rebel against God's sovereign lordship, against His rule, against His reign, against His throne. And when we sin, it's not just something we do out there. It's not just something we perform. Sin is something that we commit with our entire being. Our actions, our words, our thoughts, our hearts, our very desires, we rebel against God.

What Jesus suffered on the cross, that complete punishment, that complete death, that is a just judgment for our sin, executed by the perfectly just judge. This is what we deserve for our sin. Question three, what do we deserve? We deserve the death that Jesus suffered.

When we die, we are all going to be judged. And places like Genesis 6-5 and Romans 3-10 and Romans 3-23, it makes it clear that we will be found guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. We have all sinned against God, and we all stand before him completely exposed in our sin and rebellion. We have nothing to hide. And we're sentenced to an eternity of condemnation in hell. But on this day, nearly 2,000 years ago, God made a way for us to not have to bear the punishment for our sin.

When Jesus died on the cross, it wasn't just some symbolic act. It was a real punishment for real sin. Jesus was entrusting God to fully pour out His wrath for sin, to fully condemn and fully execute judgment for sin. Jesus didn't revile, he didn't threaten, he didn't overturn his sentence because Jesus wasn't ultimately suffering man's injustice. He was suffering God's perfect justice. And he was doing it as a substitute. He was doing it in the place of sinners. Sinners like you and like me.

What do we receive?

This brings us to our fourth and final question tonight. Well, then what do we receive? If Jesus took the punishment for our sin, what do we receive? This last sentence in verse 24, you know, Peter didn't come up with this phrase on his own. This is a quotation from Isaiah 53, an Old Testament prophecy where God promises to send a servant, who will be despised and rejected by men, who will be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. This Isaiah 53 suffering servant, he will bear our griefs and he will carry our sorrows. We will esteem him as stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But Isaiah 53 also says that

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.

When Jesus was pierced on the cross, it was for our sin. when Jesus was crushed by the weight of suffering. It was for our sin. Jesus served and he served us. And he served us by serving the sentence that we were meant to suffer under eternity. He exchanged the blessing and the glory of his righteousness for the curse and the shame of sin.

He suffered the wounds so that we would be healed. And if Jesus bore your sin in his body on the tree, well, then that means that for you, just judgment has already happened. And the punishment that you deserve for your sin, it has been fully satisfied. Jesus died. It is finished. God's wrath, it has been totally poured out, and there is no more condemnation. The debt has been paid in full. Justice has been totally satisfied.

And even more than that, The suffering servant doesn't just bear iniquity. No, Isaiah 53 11 tells us that

he makes many to be accounted righteous.

So Jesus doesn't just bear your sin. He makes you to be counted as righteous before God. The great exchange that took place on the cross is not just that Jesus took our place in our sin, but that he also gave us his place before God in his righteousness. Your sin regarded as dead, and your life is regarded as righteous in God's judgment. Jesus bears your sin, you bear Jesus' righteousness.

This is the good news about Good Friday. And this, not just Good Friday, but this is the good news about the entire Christian faith. This is what we call the gospel. It's the message of the Bible that all of the Bible summed up into this one message that if you entrust Jesus to pay the penalty for your sin on the cross, you will receive the eternal life that Jesus earned on your behalf. That's the good news.

Who is bearing your sin?

That's what makes today a good day. And that good news is offered to you, it's offered to me, it's offered to anyone who would place their faith and believe in Jesus for their salvation. Well, in light of all this, I believe it's necessary that we ask one final question tonight. Who is bearing your sin? Is it Jesus or is it you? Who is bearing your sin?

In a moment, we're gonna sing our final couple songs for this evening. But before we do, we're gonna do something a little unique for a worship service here at JPBC. We don't normally do this, we won't normally do this, but we're just gonna have a short moment of silence before I close this out in prayer. And during that time, I would encourage each of you to just sit and reflect and think about this question that I just posed.

Who is bearing your sin? Maybe tonight you have sin that you need to confess and bring to the cross. Maybe you just need to remind yourself of this good news gospel message for you. Maybe you just need to use this time to thank God for your salvation and praise Jesus for bearing your sins on the cross and being your Savior and Lord. Or maybe you're here tonight and you've never professed Jesus and placed your faith in him for your salvation. Maybe Jesus is not bearing your sin tonight.

Maybe you're still bearing the weight of your own guilt and condemnation. Well, if that's you, we're not gonna ask you to stand up or raise your hand or walk down an aisle or anything like that. But we would ask you to seriously consider the weight of the burden that you carry.

And we would plead with you tonight to believe in Jesus for your salvation. I sincerely hope that after hearing this, that you would turn away from your sin and that you would trust in Jesus as your Savior and Lord. If you would like to do that tonight, and I would encourage you just right now to pray that prayer to the Lord and then come find me or come find Pastor Keith or come even talk, just talk to the person that you came with. Any of us here would love to talk to you about what it would look like for Jesus to bear your sin and to save you for eternity. Wherever you find yourself tonight, let's silently now go to the Lord, and then I'll close this out in a word of prayer.

Father God, we come to you tonight and we worship you. King Jesus, Lord Jesus, we worship you, we praise you, we honor you, and we glorify you as the one who came to be slain for us. Jesus, you are worthy as the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. Lord, we pray that we would know the love of God that is for us in Christ Jesus. Lord, that anybody here who has been holding on to sin tonight would turn away from their sin and turn to Jesus for their salvation. We pray that many would profess faith and that you would save many by your blood tonight.

And Lord Jesus, we thank you that you did not remain dead. We thank you that your power was not just found on the cross, but it was ultimately displayed three days later when you rose from the grave and defeated the power of sin and death once and for all. Lord, we glorify you and praise you because it is finished. And for us and for our salvation, it is finished for us. We love you, Lord, and we praise you, and we pray that our worship would be honoring and glorifying to you now. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.