SPEAKER_00: I'll be reading from Luke chapter 22, verses 39 to 53.
SPEAKER_00: And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him.
SPEAKER_00: And when he came to the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him.
SPEAKER_00: And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And when he arose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, Why are you sleeping?
SPEAKER_00: Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them.
SPEAKER_00: He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?
SPEAKER_00: And when those who were around him saw what would follow, they said, Lord, shall we strike with the sword?
SPEAKER_00: And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus said, No more of this.
SPEAKER_00: And he touched his ear and healed him.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come out against him, Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs?
SPEAKER_00: When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me.
SPEAKER_00: But this is your hour and the power of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_04: Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, This man also is with him.
SPEAKER_04: But he denied it, saying, Woman, I do not know him.
SPEAKER_04: And a little later someone else saw him and said, You also are one of them.
SPEAKER_04: But Peter said, Man, I am not.
SPEAKER_04: And after an interval of about an hour, still another insisted, saying, Certainly, this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.
SPEAKER_04: But Peter said, Man, I do not know what you are talking about.
SPEAKER_04: And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.
SPEAKER_04: And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.
SPEAKER_04: And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.
SPEAKER_04: And he went out and wept bitterly.
SPEAKER_04: Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him as they beat him.
SPEAKER_04: They also blindfolded him and kept asking him, Prophet, prophesy, who is it that struck you?
SPEAKER_04: And they said many other things against him, blaspheming him.
SPEAKER_04: When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes, and they led him away to their council, and they said, If you are the Christ, tell us.
SPEAKER_04: But he said to them, If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I ask you, you will not answer.
SPEAKER_04: But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.
SPEAKER_04: So they all said, Are you the Son of God then?
SPEAKER_04: And he said to them, You say that I am.
SPEAKER_04: Then they said, What further testimony do we need?
SPEAKER_04: We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.
SPEAKER_04: And so reads the word of God.
SPEAKER_08: Luke 23, 1 to 16.
SPEAKER_08: Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate, and they began to accuse him, saying, We found this man misleading our nation, and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.
SPEAKER_08: And Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?
SPEAKER_08: And he answered him, You have said so.
SPEAKER_08: Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, I find no guilt in this man.
SPEAKER_08: But they were urgent, saying, He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.
SPEAKER_08: When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean.
SPEAKER_08: And when he learned that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time.
SPEAKER_08: When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him.
SPEAKER_08: So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer.
SPEAKER_08: The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him, and Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him.
SPEAKER_08: Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate, and Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other.
SPEAKER_08: Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people, and after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him, neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us.
SPEAKER_08: Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him.
SPEAKER_08: I will therefore punish and release him.
SPEAKER_08: So reads God's word.
SPEAKER_03: So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate said to them, Behold the man.
SPEAKER_03: When the chief priest and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.
SPEAKER_03: The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.
SPEAKER_03: When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.
SPEAKER_03: He enters his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from?
SPEAKER_03: But Jesus gave him no answer.
SPEAKER_03: So Pilate said to him, You will not speak to me?
SPEAKER_03: Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all, unless it had been given to you from above.
SPEAKER_03: Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.
SPEAKER_03: From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not a Caesar's friend.
SPEAKER_03: Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.
SPEAKER_03: So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down in the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, in an Aramaic Gabitha.
SPEAKER_03: Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover.
SPEAKER_03: It was about the sixth hour.
SPEAKER_03: He said to the Jews, Behold your king.
SPEAKER_03: They cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?
SPEAKER_03: The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar.
SPEAKER_03: So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
SPEAKER_03: So they took Jesus and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of the skull, which an Aramaic has called Gogatha, and so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_06: A reading from John 19, 18 to 27.
SPEAKER_06: There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.
SPEAKER_06: Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross.
SPEAKER_06: It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
SPEAKER_06: Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin and in Greek.
SPEAKER_06: So the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the King of the Jews, but rather, this man said, I am the King of the Jews.
SPEAKER_06: Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.
SPEAKER_06: When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also his tunic.
SPEAKER_06: But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
SPEAKER_06: So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.
SPEAKER_06: This was to fulfill the scriptures which said, They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.
SPEAKER_06: So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
SPEAKER_06: When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Woman, behold, your son.
SPEAKER_06: Then he said to the disciple, Behold, your mother.
SPEAKER_06: And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
SPEAKER_06: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_01: After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, To fulfill the scripture, I test.
SPEAKER_01: A jarful of soil wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the soil wine on a hipso branch and held it to his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus had received the soil wine, he said, It is finished.
SPEAKER_01: And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Since it was the day of preparation and saw that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day.
SPEAKER_01: The Jews asked Pilates that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
SPEAKER_01: So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.
SPEAKER_01: But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
SPEAKER_01: But one of the soldiers pierced his side with his spear, and at once there came out blood and water.
SPEAKER_01: He who was it has borne witness.
SPEAKER_01: His testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, that you also may believe.
SPEAKER_01: For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: Not one of his bones will be broken.
SPEAKER_01: And again, another scripture says, This will look on him whom they have pierced.
SPEAKER_01: And so with God's word.
SPEAKER_07: So he came and took away his body.
SPEAKER_07: Nicodemus also, who earlier had to had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of mirror and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight.
SPEAKER_07: So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the b burial custom of the Jews.
SPEAKER_07: Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
SPEAKER_07: So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there, and so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_05: It's always strange to me that we call today good.
SPEAKER_05: If we'd been there two thousand years ago, we wouldn't have called it good.
SPEAKER_05: It feels reading uh both from Luke's Gospel and from John, as we've done over the last little while, that there's so little good about it.
SPEAKER_05: There's so much injustice and corruption, to say nothing of the violence and the shame and the horror and the death and yet Christians all around the world gather today, this evening, to remember this Friday that we call good.
SPEAKER_05: Why?
SPEAKER_05: Why do we call it good?
SPEAKER_05: Good Friday will make no sense to you if you do not know what it's for.
SPEAKER_05: That it was designed, that it was purposeful.
SPEAKER_05: We're not gonna have time this evening.
SPEAKER_05: Uh you might be relieved to know uh to go through in detail all of the things from John 19, where we'll be looking at in just a moment.
SPEAKER_05: But one of the things all the way through uh the crucifixion narrative is John either explicitly says this was in order to fulfill, or there are allusions to Old Testament passages, like the burial with Joseph of Arimathea, where Isaiah, 700 years before the birth of Jesus, uh, says that the suffering servant, the Messiah, would be buried with the rich with a rich man in his death.
SPEAKER_05: And Joseph of Aramathea was a wealthy man, part of that Jewish ruling council.
SPEAKER_05: And so there's lots of intent behind this day that we call good.
SPEAKER_05: It was achieving a purpose, it was necessary for something.
SPEAKER_05: It was necessary because of a need that we have, a need for redemption, a need for forgiveness, a need for grace, and to feel like we've been brought back home.
SPEAKER_05: The significance of the cross does not reside in the physical torment.
SPEAKER_05: Do you notice how quickly in the reading John actually moves on.
SPEAKER_05: He says, And so they crucified him.
SPEAKER_05: He doesn't go into all of the gory details because the purpose of Good Friday does not reside in the physical side of things, but in the divine intent behind it.
SPEAKER_05: People talk often about the the cross of the Lord Jesus being a display of God's love, and it is, but it's a display of God's love because, and here's what we're gonna look at tonight, because Jesus sees our need, he feels our need, and he meets our need.
SPEAKER_05: He sees our need, he feels our need, and he meets it.
SPEAKER_05: First of all, Jesus sees our need.
SPEAKER_05: It's a sad reality in our world that relationships fracture and break down.
SPEAKER_05: All of us, I imagine, sitting here have experienced something of what it is to grieve and to know the loss of a loved one, or to feel that fracturing of relationship and to feel uh estranged from people.
SPEAKER_05: It is part of what it is like to live in a world that has been ravaged by what the Bible calls sin.
SPEAKER_05: Sin disintegrates, it rips things apart, and relationships are no exception.
SPEAKER_05: But on the cross, John 19, Jesus does something remarkable.
SPEAKER_05: He's doing lots of remarkable things, right?
SPEAKER_05: But he does one particular remarkable, beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_05: He looks down from the cross and he sees his mother.
SPEAKER_05: He was the elder son, it was his job to care and to provide for her, and now he is now she would be left alone.
SPEAKER_05: He looks at her and he sees her and he sees her need.
SPEAKER_05: And then he looks and he sees who John calls the disciple whom Jesus loved.
SPEAKER_05: That is uh John's not quite shorthand, more longhand for describing himself.
SPEAKER_05: He is the disciple whom Jesus loved.
SPEAKER_05: And so Jesus looks and he sees John.
SPEAKER_05: And in speaking to them both, he speaks to them in turn and says, Behold your son.
SPEAKER_05: Behold your mother.
SPEAKER_05: He's saying to uh to John, look after my mum.
SPEAKER_05: Take care of her.
SPEAKER_05: And he's saying to his mother, he will be your son now.
SPEAKER_05: He will care for you.
SPEAKER_05: He forges this new community, he forges this new relationship, uh, not of not of blood, but of something more.
SPEAKER_05: Bought by blood, certainly.
SPEAKER_05: Stop and think uh how amazing that is.
SPEAKER_05: And if you've been in that city for the last few weeks, we've been interacting with this for for some time.
SPEAKER_05: Now you think right back to John chapter 13, where the disciples are are feeling quite anxious, quite stressed about what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_05: And Jesus keeps on reassuring them.
SPEAKER_05: He keeps on saying, Don't let your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_05: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he's the one who's going to go and to suffer this sort of death.
SPEAKER_05: He is the one who is going to die.
SPEAKER_05: But he keeps on meeting their need, he keeps on reassuring them.
SPEAKER_05: What an amazing thing.
SPEAKER_05: That even as Jesus dies, a horrific death, crucifixion was essentially a death by uh asphyxiation.
SPEAKER_05: You didn't die from the wounds from being nailed to the cross, you died ultimately from exhaustion and not being able to breathe, because you were constantly having to push yourself up on that cross.
SPEAKER_05: It's a horrible way to die.
SPEAKER_05: And yet, even in those dying moments, with those labor dying breaths, he thinks not about himself but about others.
SPEAKER_05: If that's not the purpose of the cross and microcosm, I don't know what is.
SPEAKER_05: He sees the need of his mother, and in his love, he uses those last moments to meet his needs.
SPEAKER_05: Now here's the point.
SPEAKER_05: Imagine, just imagine.
SPEAKER_05: If you really believe that Jesus saw you, really saw you, saw you like nobody else saw you.
SPEAKER_05: Imagine if you believed that Jesus really saw your need and loved you in it.
SPEAKER_05: He is more powerful now in his resurrected and ascended glory, not to give away spoilers before Sunday.
SPEAKER_05: Keep on reading.
SPEAKER_05: He is more powerful now in his resurrected glory than he was on that cross.
SPEAKER_05: Which means that he is more able to see you, to see your need for forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, cleansing, renewal, and able, because of his great love and his great power, to meet those needs.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus saw his mother on that cruel cross and met her need.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus sees our need, but no more than that.
SPEAKER_05: He feels our need.
SPEAKER_05: Another remarkable thing about the crucifixion account from Jesus' arrest and trial before Pilate and the and the Jewish ruling council is just how little Jesus speaks.
SPEAKER_05: Isaiah again in that uh Isaiah 53 passage says that the suffering servant, the Messiah, will be uh like a lamb before his shears.
SPEAKER_05: He'll be silent, he will open not his mouth.
SPEAKER_05: And we see that borne out in the account.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus speaks very little.
SPEAKER_05: And so isn't it strange, perhaps, that John then records the second uh form of speech from the cross where Jesus says, I thirst.
SPEAKER_05: Why would John record that Jesus got thirsty?
SPEAKER_05: Perhaps it was to impress upon us the nature of crucifixion, but as we've already noted, John is quite scant in those details.
SPEAKER_05: Why does he say, why does he record for us that Jesus says, I thirst?
SPEAKER_05: To thirst in the Bible is a metaphor.
SPEAKER_05: It is a metaphor for longing for God, for needing to experience him and to have an encounter with him.
SPEAKER_05: It is a yearning to be in his presence.
SPEAKER_05: And so the psalmist says in Psalm 42 as the deer pants for streams of Of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
SPEAKER_05: My soul thirsts for God, the living God.
SPEAKER_05: When can I go to meet with God?
SPEAKER_05: Or David writing in Psalm 63 says, O God, you are my God.
SPEAKER_05: Earnestly I seek you.
SPEAKER_05: My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
SPEAKER_05: I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld you in your power and glory.
SPEAKER_05: Thirsting in the Bible is about longing and yearning to be back in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_05: Human beings are thirsty creatures.
SPEAKER_05: We are thirsty creatures and we are longing for something to satisfy our soul.
SPEAKER_05: We don't call them thirsts.
SPEAKER_05: Do you know what we call them?
SPEAKER_05: We call them desires.
SPEAKER_05: But those desires are soul thirsts.
SPEAKER_05: Soul thirsts that we're trying to quench.
SPEAKER_05: We try to quench them every day.
SPEAKER_05: We try to quench them with the things that we do and the relationships that we're in.
SPEAKER_05: We try to quench them with acceptance and affirmation or power or control or comfort or sex or money or career or a loved one.
SPEAKER_05: We try to quench those thirsts, those desires, those soul yearnings.
SPEAKER_05: We're all thirsty creatures.
SPEAKER_05: Back in John chapter 4, if you remember all the way back, maybe you weren't even that city when we did John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_05: Welcome.
SPEAKER_05: But there's a there's an encounter that Jesus has there with a woman at a well, and there's a whole conversation about water and how Jesus is going to offer water to this woman, and if she drinks of it, she'll never be thirsty again.
SPEAKER_05: And she thinks, brilliant, let's let's have this permanent thirst-quenching water.
SPEAKER_05: I'd love to have it.
SPEAKER_05: And Jesus responds to her and says, Go and call your husband.
SPEAKER_05: Why has a nice conversation about where to get a drink suddenly taken a left turn to asking about her private life?
SPEAKER_05: Because Jesus, uh, does he not does he not know how to conduct a polite and civil conversation that doesn't seem to be the kind of question that you'd ask?
SPEAKER_05: And yet actually what he's doing is he's drawing out just how thirsty she is.
SPEAKER_05: Because she responds and says, Well, I don't have a husband.
SPEAKER_05: And Jesus says, Well, you're right to say you have no husband.
SPEAKER_05: You've had four husbands.
SPEAKER_05: The man who you're now with is not your husband.
SPEAKER_05: You see, she's got a thirsty soul, and she's been looking for it in the acceptance and intimacy that it comes from these men.
SPEAKER_05: But Jesus is saying, Come to me, drink from me.
SPEAKER_05: I'll satisfy those deep longings that your heart has.
SPEAKER_05: You're longing for love and for acceptance.
SPEAKER_05: You're longing to be truly, completely known, and truly and completely loved.
SPEAKER_05: All the things that we run after to quench the thirsts in our soul, they never truly satisfy, like the uh like the water that comes from a well, we get thirsty again.
SPEAKER_05: And we feel their limitedness and we wonder, is there going to be, is there something that really will satisfy me deep down?
SPEAKER_05: So I see S.
SPEAKER_05: Lewis says, if I feel in my heart a desire and a longing that nothing in this world can satisfy, I must therefore conclude that I am made for a different world.
SPEAKER_05: The yearnings and longings and desires that you have in your soul are an internal indicator and a witness that you're made for something more.
SPEAKER_05: That you're designed and made to have your thirst quenched by someone else.
SPEAKER_05: Why does Jesus say, I thirst on the cross?
SPEAKER_05: Well, because on the cross he felt that estrangement.
SPEAKER_05: He felt what it was like to be cut off from God, from his father for the first time.
SPEAKER_05: He felt our need.
SPEAKER_05: He took it into himself.
SPEAKER_05: We have all run from the God who made us, the only one who can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts.
SPEAKER_05: We have all forsaken him and found ourselves as a result thirsty and alone.
SPEAKER_05: But on the cross, Jesus said, I thirst, so that we might be brought back to the God who quenches the thirsts, desires, longings, and yearnings of our weary soul.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus feels sort of Jesus feels our need.
SPEAKER_05: Thirdly, finally, Jesus meets our need.
SPEAKER_05: Final words tend to be recorded, they tend to matter, they get passed down for posterity.
SPEAKER_05: Do you know what the final words of uh the Prophet Muhammad are?
SPEAKER_05: Final words of the Prophet Muhammad are, you will answer to Allah for your deeds, do not stray from the righteous path.
SPEAKER_05: Gautama the Buddha, his final words were strive and gain your salvation.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus' final words stand as a stark contrast to those two, don't they?
SPEAKER_05: People think all of all world religions are the same.
SPEAKER_05: They're really not.
SPEAKER_05: Because one of the things that both Muhammad and Buddha were saying is, do.
SPEAKER_05: Keep on doing, keep on striving.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus' final words.
SPEAKER_05: It is finished.
SPEAKER_05: It's actually one word.
SPEAKER_05: Teta lestae.
SPEAKER_05: It is finished.
SPEAKER_05: It's the uh same word that would be written over a um a bill of debt.
SPEAKER_05: So you had a say you had a debt and you paid it off, the uh creditor or the accountant would write on the word uh write on it teta lesti, meaning paid in full.
SPEAKER_05: Isn't that an interesting way to think about the cross?
SPEAKER_05: Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe.
SPEAKER_05: Our sins had left a crimson stain, he washed them white as snow.
SPEAKER_05: These final words are the difference between a follower of Jesus and the follower of any other worldview.
SPEAKER_05: Every other worldview, whether it's an established religion like Islam or Buddhism, says do, work harder, be better, do more.
SPEAKER_05: And even if you're not particularly religious, isn't that kind of what secular humanism, radical individualism has at its heart?
SPEAKER_05: It's saying forge your own path, make your own way, create your own self.
SPEAKER_05: It's all do, do, do.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus says, done.
SPEAKER_05: Sin paid for, pain in full, relationship with God restored.
SPEAKER_05: All of our striving, all of our striving will lead us to one of two places.
SPEAKER_05: It will lead us either to pride or to despair.
SPEAKER_05: Pride, I did it.
SPEAKER_05: It's the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_05: I think that they were pleasing God by their external religious observance.
SPEAKER_05: You'll look down at others, but you'll also be riddled with anxiety because you'll think, well, who's coming up behind me?
SPEAKER_05: Or it will lead you to despair and you say, I can't do it.
SPEAKER_05: I keep on falling back into those into those destructive, thirsty paths.
SPEAKER_05: I'm still isolated, I'm still alone, I'm still failing.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus says, It is finished, I've done it all.
SPEAKER_05: No one can take it away.
SPEAKER_05: It is yours as a gift of faith.
SPEAKER_05: Rest in me.
SPEAKER_05: I've paid it all, all of your sin is dealt with, all of your brokenness.
SPEAKER_05: I have taken it, I have absorbed it into myself, and by my resurrection I will give you new life.
SPEAKER_05: Rests in me.
SPEAKER_05: None of us can please God on our own.
SPEAKER_05: We cannot live for God in our own strength.
SPEAKER_05: We cannot live even up to our own standards.
SPEAKER_05: The invitation of Good Friday, the thing that makes Good Friday good is that the man of sorrows on that cruel cross says, it is finished.
SPEAKER_05: Paid in full.
SPEAKER_05: On that cross, he felt your need.
SPEAKER_05: But more wonderfully than that, on that cross, he met your need and offers you forgiveness in life.
SPEAKER_05: That's what makes Good Friday good.
SPEAKER_02: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, please visit our website found in the link below.