Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Welcome, and thanks for being a part of our Good Friday worship service today.

Lunch will be available immediately following the service in the FLC (Gym), or if you need to head back to work quickly today, we have some lunches prepared and bagged and on the cart in the foyer with bottles of water for your to grab on your way out.

But if you can stay, please do, and plan to be a part of the dessert auction supporting our High School Evangelism Training and Missions Trip to Denver this summer.

And if we could all agree that if someone has a hard time standing for a long period of time, they can go to the front of the line for lunch, that would be fabulous.

We will be done by 12:45.

Pray

Opening

Have any of you ever had an “enemy?”

I don’t mean someone you just didn’t like, or someone who just didn’t like you… I mean an enemy: someone who actively stood against you in some way, someone who desired do you harm somehow, or to take away your rights or property?

Have any of you ever had an “enemy?”

I don’t mean someone you just didn’t like, or someone who just didn’t like you… I mean an enemy: someone who actively stood against you in some way, someone who desired do you harm somehow, or to take away your rights or property?

I haven’t had many enemies in my life, but I’ve had a few.

In junior high and high school especially, there were people who enjoyed picking on me because I was smaller and kind of a nerd.

Maybe we liked the same girl, or one time I made an enemy by sitting in the guy’s desk on my first day in a class.

But perhaps a better question is this: when have I been someone’s enemy?

When have I been out to do harm to someone else?

When have you?

We’re here this afternoon to take a few moments to reflect on Good Friday: the commemoration of the death of Jesus on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago.

We’re here this afternoon to take a few moments to reflect on Good Friday: the commemoration of the death of Jesus on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago.

It turns out that each of us has been an enemy to Someone else.

And that Someone is the Lord God, according to Scripture.

We have stood opposed to God.

We have sought to do Him harm by trying to take away His right to be in charge of His creation.

Make special note of how we are described in our focal passage today:

romans 5:

Did you notice how we are described in this passage: “helpless,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” “enemies?”

We need to realize that an enemy isn’t just someone who falls a little short of being a friend.

He is in the other camp.

He is altogether opposed.

This is how Paul describes us apart from Christ in Romans.

There are many incredible aspects of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross.

Certainly not the least of these is that in Jesus’ death, He provided a means of reconciliation to God.

There are many incredible aspects of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross.

Certainly not the least of these is that in Jesus’ death, He provided a means of reconciliation to God.

Did you notice how we are described in this passage: “helpless,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” “enemies?”

There are many incredible aspects of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross.

Not the least of these is that in Jesus’ death, He provided a means of reconciliation to God.

What does “reconciliation” to God actually mean?

DON’T READ THE POINT, JUST GO ON TO THE SENTENCE AFTER IT.

Meaning of Reconciliation

Reconciliation is the removal of enmity

“Reconciliation properly applies not to good relations in general, but to the doing away of an enmity, the bridging over of a quarrel.”

(Nelson’s Bible Dictionary) Throughout the New Testament, this idea of reconciliation appears.

But the interesting thing about it is that the image of the reconciliation in Scripture is never that God must be reconciled to us, but always that we need to be reconciled to Him.

So for us to have reconciliation, what has to be taken away is the source of our enmity—the thing that is keeping us at odds with the Lord.

It is our rebellion, our sin, our desire to go our own way that has brought about our enmity with God.

It’s not Him, it’s us.

But the problem is that we are broken.

All we have to do to see that is to watch the news for 5 minutes.

But Scripture affirms what we see: we are broken.

And since we’re broken, we’re not even good enough to resolve our enmity with God, even if we wanted to.

And in our natural state, we don’t want to:

romans 7:

And how did we see that God has moved to resolve our enmity?

tells us in several places: “Christ died for the ungodly,” “Christ died for us,” “through His blood,” “saved through Him,” “through the death of His Son,” “saved by His life,” “our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.”

Paul goes on here to ask the question that we might ask as we see our inability to resolve our enmity:

romans 7:

Then he gives his answer in verse 25:

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Reconciliation is available through Christ

We saw this over and over in : that God has moved to resolve our enmity!

“Christ died for the ungodly,” “Christ died for us,” “through His blood,” “saved through Him,” “through the death of His Son,” “saved by His life,” “our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.”

And how did we see that God has moved to resolve our enmity?

tells us in several places: “Christ died for the ungodly,” “Christ died for us,” “through His blood,” “saved through Him,” “through the death of His Son,” “saved by His life,” “our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.”

The work of the reconciliation of mankind to God through the death of Christ on the cross is clear.

When Jesus was on the cross, the Scriptures record that He made seven “final statements.”

We’re just going to consider one of those today:

John 19:30

“It is finished,” is only a single word in Greek: tetelestai.

Jesus didn’t say this because He was about to die, as if it were a statement of surrender or defeat.

No, He said, “It is finished,” as a declaration of completion, of victory, of triumph.

When Jesus was on the cross, the Scriptures record that He made seven “final statements.”

The sixth of these statements was a single word in Greek: tetelestai, literally, “It is finished.”

But what has He completed victoriously?

He has completed the means of our reconciliation to God!

Immediately following Christ’s death, several things happened.

We’re just going to consider one of them as well:

Mark

The thick curtain in the Temple separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place.

The Holy Place was open to the priests every day.

They went in and out performing their duties.

But the Most Holy Place was set apart: only the high priest was allowed to go into the Most Holy Place, and then only once a year.

Going into the Most Holy Place represented going into the very presence of God.

There had been a curtain between the two—a barrier, a separation.

What kept us from being reconciled to God? Our sin.

Our rebellion.

But in Christ’s death on the cross, He took away the source of our enmity: He took away our sin, and made the way to come into His presence once again.

Our reconciliation is pictured by the tearing of the curtain!

We have been given access to the Father through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, if we will surrender to going God’s way through believing in Jesus for our reconciliation.

The cross proves that God loves us

For my last point, we go back to :

Reconciliation pictured by the curtain - access to the Father through the death of Christ.

Points back to Romans 5

Romans 5:8-

Ex

The fact that God is the One who moved to take away our enmity and reconcile us to Himself proves that He loves us.

The only way for us to be made right was for our sins to be taken away from us, and Jesus, as the Son of God, was the only One who lived a life without sin, so He had to take our sins away if we were going to be saved.

And notice what Paul wrote here in : Since God loved us, He’s not just going to stop at the first step: “How much more then, since He’s declared us righteous, will we be rescued from wrath?” “How much more then, since He did the work of reconciling us, will we be saved?”

Jesus didn’t just die for us.