"Good Friday's Great Exchanges"

Do you know Good Friday's great exchanges where Jesus took our worst and gave us His best?

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, Cedar Street, it's so good to be with you here on a Good Friday evening as we pause and we reflect. And that's my heartbeat for us tonight as we we're gonna look at the word here together, and then we're gonna enter into a time of communion. And this is a time to slow down to a screeching halt and enter into the fullness of this moment together. That's why we're the gathered here on a good Friday. And I want to share the word to help us to meditate and enter into the to the just the fullness of this day and what it means. And in fact, the title of our message for a Good Friday is Good Friday's Great Exchanges. Good Friday's Great Exchanges. Now, you know, when the year first started, I said the Lord gave me two words for 2026. And the words that God has given me are trust and prayer. And they go together. You can't separate the two of those. If you trust Him, you're gonna pray, and if you pray, you're gonna grow in your trust. But one of the things that you and I, if we're growing in grace, we're growing deeper and deeper and deeper in an understanding that our identity is the identity of Christ. Our righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. We are made right by him. We are redeemed by him. We are sustained by him. And what we're gonna look at here these next few minutes as we think of Good Friday, even starting the night before in the Garden of Gethsemane and finishing the next day on the cross at Calvary, I want you to be thinking with me about four ways that Jesus took our very worst and he gave us his very best. In fact, that's our big idea to get our mind ready for Good Friday here. In one sentence, Good Friday's events reveal four great exchanges where Jesus took our very worst to offer us his very best. And I want to jump right in and go right after number one. We're gonna look at some scripture together. But the first exchange, again, starting in Gethsemane and ending at Calvary, is this number one, separation from God for union with God. That's the first thing that Jesus exchanged for us. Why is it that Jesus even came down to earth to begin with? Why did he become human? And the answer is because we had a separation from God because of sin, and he's the only answer to the problem. And so he took on flesh and blood to become one of us. And in 33 years, again, human in every way that we are, yet without sin. He never spoke a sinful word, he never had a sinful thought, he never committed a sinful deed, he never even had a sinful attitude in his heart at all. And he did that to earn our righteousness so that he would be the rightful, righteous sacrifice, the blood pure enough to be shed for us to be forgiven and reunited with God. But for that to happen, Jesus not only had to be perfect for 33 years, but leading up to Thursday night in the Garden of Gethsemane into Friday on Calvary, he had to do something that he never did from eternity past. And this is something we rarely think about throughout the year, and we need to think about this right now. In eternity past, before the world was created, there always was one God, three persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, one God, three persons from eternity past. We call it the Trinity, that's the triunity of one God. So the Father always enjoyed intimacy with the Son, and the Son always enjoyed intimacy with the Spirit, and together there was always intimacy within the Trinity. And yet when they created human beings made in their image, they knew that we would sin and we would need a Savior. So the Father commissioned the Son to come and earn our salvation for us, and the Son came willingly, knowing there would come a day, there would come a day where he experienced separation from the Father for the first time in the history of time. And I believe this really began not on the cross on Good Friday, but it began the night before in Gethsemane, in Mark chapter 14, verses 33 through 44. Here's what it says. And he took with him Peter and James and John, that's his inner circle. And it says right here, and began to be greatly distressed and troubled, and he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful even to death. Remain here and watch. Now scholars believe, and I do too, that when Jesus was entering into the garden to pray in preparation for the soldiers to take him away, in that moment the Father began to separate himself from the Son in a way that transcends human understanding to prepare the Son to be an object of wrath for us. This is why it says in other parts of the Gospels that he sweat drops of blood. Now I want to say, I'm sure Jesus was well aware of the physical pain of a crucifixion. He was well aware of the nails in his wrist and in his feet. He was well aware of the suffocation that would take place on a Roman cross. But I am willing to say, in this passage, when it says he began to be greatly troubled, for the first time he recognized the intimacy that he always had with the Father. He was experiencing a separation for the first time, and his soul was troubled to the point of death. And we also know it carries on into Calvary when he is on the cross one chapter later. In Mark 15, 34, it says, at the ninth hour, this is at the end of him taking the wrath of God hour after hour from the sixth to the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice. Now it says this in the Aramaic, Eloy, aloe, lama sabactine, which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, yes, he's reciting the words of Psalm 22 in fulfillment of prophecy, but he's doing a lot more than that. He's crying out on the cross, acknowledging that he was experiencing something that he never experienced before, and that was separation from the Father. And why was he experiencing separation so that you would not have to have separation from the Father anymore? He took our separation and he offers us union with God. That's the first exchange. But here's the second. The second exchange. He exchanged a crown of thorns for a crown of glory. Now, John chapter 19, verses 1 through 3 says this. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. Now, I'll be honest with you, this is something God has been teaching me. I've seen this passage many, many times. I've read it, I've seen the Christian movies, and the visual of the crown of thorns being put upon his head, and thought that was just a way of humiliating Jesus. And that's certainly what the Roman soldiers thought. They were mocking him. They knew nothing more about what God was doing. But in the sovereignty of God, God allowed his son to be humiliated to the point of receiving a crown of thorns because of what the thorns represent. And if you don't know what the thorns represent, let me take you back to the very beginning in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis chapter 3, verses 17 through 19. All right, when sin entered into the garden, and Adam and Eve experienced that separation from God, and God began to hand down the punishment to Satan and to Adam and Eve. It says, And to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. You know what those thorns represent? They represent the curse. The curse that mankind has been under since sin first took place. He is taking the curse upon himself, that the curse would be broken by the shedding of the blood. And those thorns represent the curse. They were one of the first things that God mentioned in the garden as he was handing down the punishment for mankind's sin. And he took the crown of thorns. Now, what kind of crown did Jesus wear from eternity past? It's a crown of glory. What kind of crown is he going to have in eternity? It's a crown of glory. What crown is he gonna share with us? For those of us that have placed our faith in him. It is a crown of glory. But on Good Friday, he traded that in for a crown of thorns. And he became an object of wrath, and he took the curse upon himself. That's the second exchange. What about the third? The third exchange, and don't let us miss this one. The third exchange, he exchanged a criminal record for a righteous record. All right, let me look point you to Matthew chapter 27. I'm going to read the extended story of Barabbas. Alright, Matthew 27, verses 15 through 26 says this. Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, Who do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ? For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream. Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas. Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They all said, Let him be crucified. And he said, Why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, Let him be crucified. So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I am innocent of this man's blood, see to it yourselves. And all the people answered, His blood be on us and our children. Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified. Now, for those of you that have been in church a long time, you've heard this story over and over and over, year after year, but maybe you never stop to think who you are in this story. We are not an innocent observer. We're not uh we are part of this story, and in this story, you and I are Barabbas. All right, two men standing there. One, a perfect record. Pilate himself said, I see no sin in this man. And then you have Barabbas. All right, he is a Jewish zealot who was incriminated for murder. And the two of them are together. And Barabbas, who was sentenced to death, is the one who is set free, and the righteous one who's done nothing wrong is the one who is sentenced to death. That's the exchange that Jesus made for you and I. If we do not have a Savior, if we do not place our faith in Jesus, that for everyone who has never placed their faith in Jesus, they too will stand before a judge. And they will be judged by their own record. And guess what? For every single person apart from Jesus, that is a criminal record. Because we sin against God all the time with our thoughts, our words, our actions, and our attitudes. And so without a Savior, we will be judged by our record. And yet, when we place our faith in King Jesus, when we've repented of our sins and placed our faith in him and have received the Holy Spirit, we are standing before God and we will be judged by his righteous and perfect record and not by our criminal record, because he already made the exchange. Why is that important? Over the years, when I've asked people, are you saved? It sends chills up my spine when their answer starts with I instead of he. Well, I've been in church all my life. Oh man, I prayed to receive Jesus at vacation Bible school when I was a kid. Oh, I've been in Sunday school for 50 years. You know what happens when that's your first response? You're still trusting your record. And it's the equivalent of bragging about being Barabbas. A record that will not stand in the presence of a holy judge. Oh no, but because of this exchange took place, because a criminal was set free and a perfect righteous man was declared sentenced to death, because of that, our response should always be He. I'm going to heaven because He lived perfectly. I'm a Christian because He drew me unto Himself. I can be with the Father because He took the punishment for my sins. He took our very worst and He exchanged it for His very best. That's our third exchange. The fourth and final exchange. This is at the end of Good Friday, a sacrificial death for eternal life. In John 19, 28 through 30, it says, After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. A jar full of sour wine stood there, and they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. He took a sacrificial death as the final stage of our salvation to give us eternal life. Everything had to be set in motion. He had to be born of a virgin. He had to be born in Bethlehem. He had to live perfectly from his infancy to toddler, to preteen, to teen, to young adult, to full adult. He had to be perfect in every way that we could not be because of our sin, and he did it. And then he had to go through everything on Thursday night and Good Friday morning in preparation of taking the cross, and he did. And then he had to take the cross an hour after hour in a way that transcends human understanding. There is no pastor, there is no preacher who can explain exactly what took place hour after hour from the sixth to the ninth hour on the cross. You can't explain it. All we can say in our feeble human minds is this: hour after hour on the cross, he was taking the punishment that you and I deserve for every sin, past, present, and future. He was drinking every drop of the cup of the wrath of God, so that when he drank the final drop, when the last sin had been atoned for, he recognized it. He took a sip of the sour wine as a symbol that it was now complete, and he says these three words it is finished. In Aramaic, it is tetelistae. You know what that is? That's a legal document. It's financial terms. So for our financial people here, it is a loan payment that is stamped paid in full. There is nothing more that you and I can do to earn our salvation, and there is nothing that you and I can do to lose our salvation. It is paid in full. The papers were signed in drops of blood. It is a gift of grace. It is something that we must receive by grace through faith. And as you and I receive it, every day that we walk with him, we should be growing and growing in our trust in what he has done. When you begin to doubt and struggle in your faith, remember those three words and the exchange that he made. It is finished. I cannot climb my way to the top. I cannot do anything to earn his love. I cannot do anything to add or take away to my salvation. I can only receive it because he did it all. He did it all. And it's finished. It's finished. It's the exchange. He took a sacrificial death to offer us eternal life. Romans 6.23 says, For the wages of sin is death. Why did he have to die on a cross? Because all sin, all sin, must be dealt with by a holy God. And either he's going to deal with it himself on the cross, or for those that reject Jesus, they will have to deal with it themselves at the end of their own lives. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So let me sum this up as we prepare to take the elements here of communion on a Good Friday. As we take communion, let Jesus' body and blood lead us to worship Him for Good Fridays, great exchanges. As we take communion, let Jesus' body and blood lead us to worship him for Good Fridays' great exchanges.