Easter is this coming Sunday, and I want to invite you to join us to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus at Collinsville First Baptist Church. This Sunday we’ll have two identical Easter services, one at 8:30 AM and one at 10:30 AM. I would just thrill us to have you and your whole family come worship with us.

Today, we are continuing our journey with Jesus during the intense week of His life and ministry that led up to His crucifixion and resurrection. We call this week Holy Week, and today is Good Friday.

Today is the day that we remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. On this day, Jesus was unjustly convicted of a capital offense and sentenced to a gruesome death on a cross. But before He would die on that wooden contraption, he would be abused, mocked, and almost whipped to death. So, Good Friday was, in one sense, a very bad Friday. Perhaps you could even say the worst Friday.

But it is Good Friday because on that cross, Jesus paid the penalty for our sins. In that moment, the Father accounted our sin to Him, and then poured out all His wrath on Jesus. It should have been us on that cross, but in our place, condemned He stood. And when it was over, as Jesus was breathing His final breath, He proclaimed, “It is finished.”

It is finished? What was finished? The answer is the redemption of mankind was finished. In Jesus’s death that Friday, the sins of the world were paid for, and all who will trust in His life, death, and resurrection, will be forgiven of their sins and saved.

So, Good Friday leads to the Good News of Jesus Christ. We are all sinners, but we can all be forgiven of our sins and saved if we’ll only turn from our sins and trust in Jesus. Thank God for the Good News that’s made possible by Good Friday. May you receive it and rejoice forever.

Oh, and don’t forget:  Jesus died on Friday, but Sunday’s coming, when He blew the grave wide open and walked out alive. Praise the risen Savior!

Change begins in you!