SPEAKER_00: Good morning, First Baptist Wimberly.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Friday.
SPEAKER_00: And it is Good Friday.
SPEAKER_00: This is a solemn day, a day where we fix our eyes on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: This is the day of Christ's suffering, crucifixion, and death.
SPEAKER_00: Today I want to open with prayer and then read an Old Testament passage from Isaiah 53, verses 3 through 6, and then a New Testament passage from Luke 23, verses 44 through 49.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'll close in prayer as we devote ourselves to deep reflection and worship of our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: As we begin, let's quiet our hearts and minds before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Search me, O God, and know my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Test me and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and is one from whom men hide their faces.
SPEAKER_00: He was despised, and we esteemed him not.
SPEAKER_00: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
SPEAKER_00: Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
SPEAKER_00: But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
SPEAKER_00: All we like sheep have gone astray.
SPEAKER_00: We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
SPEAKER_00: It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land, until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And having said this, he breathed his last.
SPEAKER_00: Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, Certainly, this man was innocent.
SPEAKER_00: And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home, beating their breasts.
SPEAKER_00: And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.
SPEAKER_00: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
SPEAKER_00: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_00: May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
SPEAKER_00: This is Mike Gibbons, and I love being your pastor.