1. What’s so good
about
‘Good Friday?’

2. Have you ever asked
yourself, “Why is it
called ‘Good’ Friday?”

3. Reading what happened on ‘Good Friday’ it
seems far from good. An innocent man has just
been declared guilty in front of a baying mob,
he is dragged before two further courts who
insult him, and beat him up in a really violent
manner. He is abandoned by all of his friends
who he has lived in community with for the last
3 years and one of his closest friends even
denies him vehemently with an expletive ridden
denial. He is then tortured further and made to
carry the cross he will be nailed to, naked, in full
public view.

4. But despite all the horror of
that day, for us, this is really
good news.

5. If you spend any time reading the newspapers, there
is very little good news. They are full of conflict, wars
and people generally being really nasty to each other.
Our lives can be like these newspapers with a few
stories about good things we have done, but even
though we appear fairly good on the surface,
underneath we can be full of bad news; hurtful and
lustful thoughts, pride envy and greed. The bible calls
this ‘sin’.

6. We have been separated from God because he really
can’t bear to read our ‘newspaper’ He is Holy, pure and
good and we are far from that.
The bible says that
“All have sinned and fall short of God’s standard”
(Romans 3 v 23)
but also tragically, further on it says that
“The wages of sin is death”
(Romans 6 v 23).

7. As you are probably aware, God has revealed Himself in
the bible as One, but in 3 persons (The trinity).
The Father sent the son ‘Jesus’ on a rescue mission and
that is why ‘Good Friday’ is so good. Jesus took our
place; he died the death we should have died. The bible
again says
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
(2 Corinthians 5 v 21)
This is often called ‘The great exchange’ our ‘sin’ for his
‘goodness’. He took All our sin on that first Good Friday.

8. All we need to do is repent (say sorry) and
believe.
We can now become followers of Jesus,
because if we truly understand what
happened we will never be the same
again and we will be accepted by God
forever and not just that, but in
relationship with Him.
Now I call that really