Good Friday

Sermon

What’s So Good about Good Friday?

Good Friday, April 3, 2026

 

Most every year during this season, some ask me why Good Friday is called ‘good,’ when what happened to Jesus was so horrific. It’s a reasonable and an important question, but not so difficult to answer if you know the WHY of what happened to Christ on that day.

 

I don’t want to be unnecessarily graphic in these next few moments, but if we are to understand what’s so good about Good Friday, then we ought to first look more deeply into what made that Friday so monstrous. There are many articles written about the Lord’s crucifixion from a medical perspective, and here is part of one written by Dr. C. Truman Davis.

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“Preparations for the scourging were carried out when the Prisoner was stripped of His clothing and His hands tied [above His head] to a post . . . The Roman legionnaire steps forward with the flagrum (or flagellum) in his hand. This is a short whip consisting of several heavy, leather thongs with two small balls of lead attached near the ends of each. The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across Jesus’ shoulders, back, and legs.

 

“At first the thongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they cut deeper into the subcutaneous tissues, producing first an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles.  The small balls of lead first produce large, deep bruises which are broken open by subsequent blows. Finally the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. When it is determined by the centurion in charge that the prisoner is near death, the beating is finally stopped.  The half-fainting Jesus is then untied and allowed to slump to the stone pavement, wet with His own blood.”

 

The essay goes on to talk about the crown of thorns pushed into His forehead and the robe they placed around Him. I continue now to quote the essay: In deference to Jewish custom, the Romans return His garments. The heavy [crossbeam] of the cross is tied across His shoulders, and the procession of the condemned Christ, two thieves, and the execution detail of Roman soldiers headed by a centurion begins its slow journey along the Via Dolorosa.

 

“In spite of His efforts to walk erect, the weight of the heavy wooden beam, together with the shock produced by copious blood loss, is too much. He stumbles and falls. The rough wood of the beam gouges into the lacerated skin and muscles of the shoulders. He tries to rise, but human muscles have been pushed beyond their endurance.  The centurion, anxious to get on with the crucifixion, selects a stalwart North African onlooker, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the cross. Jesus follows, still bleeding and sweating the cold, clammy sweat of shock, until the 650-yard journey from the fortress Antonia to Golgotha is finally completed.  

 

“Jesus is offered wine mixed with myrrh, a mild analgesic mixture. He refuses to drink. Simon is ordered to place the patibulum on the ground and Jesus quickly thrown backward with His shoulders against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square, wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly, he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to allow some flexion and movement . . .

 

“The left foot is now pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees moderately flexed. The Victim is now crucified. As He slowly sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain — the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves.

 

“As He pushes Himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, He places His full weight on the nail through His feet. Again, there is the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of the feet.  At this point, as the arms fatigue, great waves of cramps sweep over the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push Himself upward. Hanging by his arms, the pectoral muscles are paralyzed, and the intercostal muscles are unable to act. Air can be drawn into the lungs but cannot be exhaled. Jesus fights to raise Himself in order to get even one short breath . . ..”

 

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I now end the lengthy – but necessary quote. It was during those agonizing hours that Jesus uttered His last seven statements. I’ve talked about them in past sermons: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” “Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.”  Looking at His mother and at John, He said, “Behold thy mother.” Then, looking to His mother Mary, “Woman behold thy son.” “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?”  “I thirst.”  “Father! Into thy hands I commit my spirit.”  And finally, “It is finished.”  His mission of atonement was complete. He could allow his body to die. 

 

To anyone with eyes to see, the cross demonstrates how deadly serious is God’s hatred of sin. At the same time, the cross demonstrates how passionate is God’s love for the sinner. So, let’s now see how God’s wrath and His mercy married together at Calvary’s cross as we uncover the answer to the question: What’s So Good about Good Friday?

 

That Friday proved God’s love for us. Theologian and author N. T. Wright put it this way: “The cross is where the love of God and the justice of God meet and embrace.”

 

All our sins, each of our sins, the big ones and the so-called little ones – all our sins are ultimately against God and His laws. And God’s perfect justice demands the death of the sinner. That may seem harsh – especially to our 21^st century Western sensibilities, but that is how God set it up from the beginning.

 

The wages of sin has always been death. Either you and I must pay that irrevocable penalty of death for our sins or – because of God’s love and mercy – His sinless Son must die in our place for our sins as an atoning substitutionary sacrifice.

 

And please hear this: What we do with that Biblical truth will determine our eternal destiny.

 

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to quickly read John 3:16 without pausing to reflect on the heart-searing emotions the Father suffered as He watched His Son agonize on that cross. But we should stop at least once in a while and meditate on the Roman scourging, the spikes in Christ’s limbs, the ribbons of His flesh saturated with His blood. If we did reflect once in a while, we’d better understand the personal nature of that verse -- “God so loved me . . that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.”

 

As theologian John Stott put it: “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.”

 

John 3:16 ought to erase any doubt in our minds that the overarching purpose of God is the reconciliation of sinful humanity to Himself. That’s what the ‘whosoever believeth’ means.

 

Nor should we overlook this text in Romans 10:11-13  “For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

 

But a reasonable question about John 3:16 and this passage in Romans 10 – and many others as well – a reasonable question would be HOW can a holy, incomparably righteous God permit sinners into His eternal presence? If sin – any sin, all sin – if sin must be severely judged, how can God’s inflexible JUSTICE marry with His mysterious mercy so that sinners could be reconciled – brought near to Himself – without compromising either His holiness, His Justice, or His mercy?

 

Enter the cross. And that’s why Good Friday is so good. God the Father sacrificed His own sinless Son, laying on Him His full wrath against our individual sins, wrath that you and I so rightly deserved and deserve. As His word tells us through the prophet: “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

 

We need to pause a moment here and clarify an eternally significant point about reconciliation and judgment for sin. The only method God provides for Christ’s atoning sacrifice to be efficacious for anyone is to honestly acknowledge their sins to God, repent of their sins, and strive to repeatedly, as often as necessary, turn from those sins.

 

Our eternal salvation has nothing at all to do with our works – either good or bad. The only method God provides for sinners to avoid His wrath is by their trust in God’s promise of forgiveness because – and only because – of what Jesus did for them on Good Friday’s cross.

 

As St Paul tells us: (Titus 3:4-6)  “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”

 

But escaping God’s wrath is only part of the “Good” of Good Friday.

 

That Friday tore through sin’s otherwise impenetrable barrier between us and God. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).

 

On that Friday, God shattered the barrier. He rescued the prisoners who want to be rescued, laying our sins on Christ who, as Scripture assures us, became “sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Indeed, on that Friday, God clothed us with the SAME righteousness of Christ. That means, the harlot, the thief, the murderer, the adulterer . . . think of it! There is no sin that cannot be cleansed by Christ’s blood. There is no sinner who cannot be made as righteous before God’s eyes as Jesus Himself. Listen to this promise again: “[A]s though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)

And that’s not all that is good about Good Friday. Because of what happened on that day, AND because God the Son could not be held in death’s grip, Christ’s bodily resurrection three days later infallibly guarantees the obedient and penitent Christian – and ONLY them – their own resurrection to eternal life. Listen to this promise of the Lord: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” (John 11:25)

 

Christian, you will never die. Yes, after you take your last breath, people will bury you in the ground, but the REAL you, your spirit, will immediately enter the presence of our Lord. Immediately. Not at some distant date. Listen to this infallible promise of God:

 

(2 Corinthians 5:1, 6-8) “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens . . . Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord — for we walk by faith, not by sight –  we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

 

Absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Immediately. And that’s because of Good Friday and the resurrection of Christ three days later.

 

There is so much more we could say and examine about why Good Friday was so very good, but for now, I’ll bring this message to a conclusion with this final comment about Good Friday:

 

Good Friday challenges us to repentance. When the crowds in Jerusalem learned it was their sins that nailed Jesus to the cross, they cried out, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!”  (Acts 2:37b-40)

 

Yes, be saved from this perverse generation upon whom the wrath of God will be poured out against the rebellious and persistently unrepentant. Listen to Paul’s warning to those in Rome: Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

 

Repentance. A word overflowing with God’s mercy on those humble enough and honest with themselves enough to turn from their sins.

To those who loved Jesus, nothing about that Friday looked good. But no one knew what mercy would flow from the forehead, the hands, the feet and the side of the crucified Son of God. No one knew those bloody strips of flesh hanging from His back would bring reconciliation and redemption to the penitent.

 

And no one knew on that Friday Resurrection Sunday was coming . . . and with it, God’s redemptive plan conceived before the foundation of the world.

 

Good Friday? It could not have been any better. 

Sixth Sunday of Lent - Palm Sunday

On this the sixth Sunday of Lent we celebrate Palm Sunday – the day we remember the Lord's entry into Jerusalem to the boisterous cheers of the crowds. St Matthew describes the tumultuous scene this way: “Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” (Mathew 21:8-9)

 

But we know the rest of the story, don’t we? It’s only days before who-knows-how-many in that same crowd will clamor for His crucifixion. And despite the crowd’s boisterous acclamation on Palm Sunday, Jesus knew He was headed toward a gruesome death before the end of the week. He knew this was the time set by the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the time to bring salvation’s plan to its culmination. Jesus knew all this as He rode into the city.

 

The question many of us have often considered – and which I want to spend some time in this message considering again, is “What happened to the crowd between Palm Sunday and Good Friday?” And I want to add one more question to that first one: Why does it what happened to the crowd between those two dates matter?

 

We will come back to those questions in a few minutes

Palm Sunday and Good Friday did not happen in a vacuum. The sin-drenched history of humanity poured out on the Altars of Self since the Garden of Eden brought Jesus to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Those sins would shortly lead Him from the donkey to the cross where He would engage in a battle of inconceivable proportions – a battle to determine the eternal destinies of every man and woman in Jerusalem on that fateful day – and every man and woman in this building today.

 

Most of us have heard this story of Jesus entry into Jerusalem dozens and dozens of times. Many of you grew up with the story told and retold in children’s picture books, Sunday School lessons and from pulpits year after year.

 

There’s a danger in all that, by the way. The danger being that the all-so-familiar story becomes a ho-hum tale of long, long ago. There’s a danger that the story on which salvation history hangs becomes diluted of its power to transform us from a “been there-heard it already” attitude to one of life-altering revelation, even if we’ve been walking with Christ for half a century or longer.

 

Many of you remember the old spiritual, “Where You There?”

 

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?/Oh, were you there when they crucified my Lord?/Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?/Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?/Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble/Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?

 

Does the story of our redemption at the cost of the Son of God's life cause us to tremble? At the very least, does it cause us to pause and reflect on such love, such wondrous loves as this, that God would love a sinner such as I – and you?

 

Actually, and in a very real sense, ‘Yes,’ You and I WERE there when they crucified our Lord. I believe God saw you and me through the lens of eternity when Jesus took His last breath and shouted, “It is finished!”

 

Make no mistake. What was finished was YOUR redemption, and mine. Two thousand years ago. And hear this again, please, if Jesus had NOT permitted Himself to be nailed to that tree, if He had NOT permitted those men – whose very DNA His hand wound together at their conception – if He had not permitted them to murder Him, then you and I would still be dead in our trespasses and sins and on our way inevitably and inexorably to an eternity in the Lake of Fire.

 

What happened to those in the crowds on Palm Sunday who also were part of the crowd on Good Friday? Well, we can’t really know what happened to them because Scripture is silent about that question. But knowing human nature as well as we know it – because we here are all human – I think it’s safe to make some speculative assumptions.

 

In the 53 years I’ve followed Jesus, I’ve seen many followers of Christ turn away from Him. And so have you. And while their reasons for turning back to the world might be varied, I think there is most often only of two fundamental reasons a person leaves Christ: Either they tire of doing what Jesus wants them to do, or they grow angry, or annoyed, or disillusioned when Jesus doesn’t do what they want Him to do.

 

And I think the shorter the time grows before the Lord Jesus’ return the more urgent Satan grows in his seduction of humanity – and especially of churchgoers.

 

Why especially churchgoers? Because if he can seduce you and me away from Christ, we don’t usually go away alone. We bring with us those who looked up to us, who trusted us, who thought we have the answers to questions like, “Are the Scriptures TRUE? Are they TRUE about forgiveness and eternal life? Are they TRUE when they tell me that God loves me, despite all that I have done?” 

 

As I prepared today’s message, the names three modern and well-known Christians came to mind because of what they did. I’ve mentioned them in the past, and I do so again to emphasize the point:

 

The first is Joshua Harris. He was a megachurch pastor and author the then-popular Christian book titled, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”.  Several years ago, Harris told his church that he’d found freedom from Christianity. He divorced his wife and shortly thereafter marched in a Gay Pride parade.

 

Around the same time Harris fell into apostacy, another big-name Christian also turned away from the One he used to call his Lord. Marty Sampson was a worship leader and song writer for the Hillsong megachurch. Like Harris, Sampson also boasted of having escaped from Christ.

 

And only a month or so ago, Philip Yancey, author of many well-known Christian books, admitted to an eight-year-long adulterous betrayal of his wife of fifty years. And during those eight years he continued to write books and play the part of a faithful Christian.

 

Those are only three of many other modern examples of those who at one time shouted like the crowd on Palm Sunday, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ but ended up turning from Him. Such betrayal against the King of kings is nothing short of disastrous for them, their families, and for those who looked up to them. Why disastrous? Because Satan can now seduce those who once trusted them to walk away from Christ as they did.

 

What comes over a person who once proclaimed Christ as their savior and then turn from Him as some in that same crowd did on Good Friday?

 

Scripture gives us some insight – of course. Listen to what Jesus said in that third chapter of John’s gospel: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

 

What happens to some people between Palm Sunday and Good Friday? I think some also walk away from Christ when He says things that, to us at the time, don’t make sense – as if, by the way, God is obligated to speak and to do what we can understand with our finite minds.

 

I think now of the Lord’s comments in that sixth chapter of John’s gospel when the Lord told the crowds: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me . . . .” (John 6:53-57)

 

At that point, many of His followers walked away from Him because they thought: “This is insane talk.” (verse 60). And I suspect many never returned.

 

But the story doesn’t end there. We pick it up at verse 67: “So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.” (John 6:53-68)

 

I asked at the beginning of this message if what happened to those in the crowds between Palm Sunday and Good Friday – does it have any meaning for us today? Was it – IS it – important?

 

The answer to both questions is an unqualified, ‘Yes.’ Those who today want to stay with Jesus – EVEN WHEN THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND everything He says, or does, or does not say, or does not do – those who want to stay with Jesus do so because – well, ‘Where shall we go?’ He alone has the words of eternal life.

 

I’ve said this to you before and I am grateful to say it again: Just look at yourselves. How many heartaches have YOU experienced in your Christian life? How many shattered dreams? How many disappointments? How many unanswered questions – especially the questions beginning with, ‘Why?’

 

How many of you suffer physical or emotional trials, and you know you might not get better in this life? And yet, here you sit. Week after week. Around the calendar. Year after year. And you still intend with God’s help to follow Jesus until you take your last breath.

 

Why? Your answers will all be individualized; And of course, the Holy Spirit continues to hold onto you. But you also have an important role to play in that ‘holding-on.’ What is that role?

 

You DON’T WANT to go. Surely you know that because of your sin nature and under the right circumstances you COULD make that disastrous decision to go your own way, to leave the love of your life. But you ALSO know, after all these years and all your life experiences, you know there’s nowhere else to go. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life, and Jesus alone can take you to eternal life.

 

And so, my point to all that I’ve said this far? Keep at it! The Palm Sunday crowd didn’t know Good Friday was around the corner. And no one on Good Friday knew that Sunday was a’coming.

 

Keep at it. The devil is a most seductive, magnetic, and beguiling liar. And he is not done with us until we are finally with the Lord Jesus in our new bodies after our death.

 

He’s not done with you or me because he hates us with a most malicious hatred – and if he can take us down, as he did with Harris, and Sampson, and Yancey – if he can take us down, he will take others with us.

BUT! – And this is a most important ‘But” – on the other hand – because of your faithfulness to Christ in it all and through it all – because of your faithfulness to Christ, our God uses your faithfulness to bring others also along with you to that Celestial city.

 

You NEED to know that in your heart of hearts. You and I are, as St Paul wrote, ‘co-workers with Christ’ in the building of His Kingdom. You Must believe that because the whole of Scripture tells us that is true.

 

As I bring this message to a close, I want to cite only one example of what I mean about how God WILL use our faithfulness to draw others to Himself. This story comes from the 6^th chapter of the historical book of 2 Maccabees, written a few hundred years before Jesus was born.

 

During this time, the Jews lived under Greek domination. The Athenian king decreed that all Jews were to turn from their faith, make sacrifice to the Greek gods, and eat pork – something God forbade all Jews to eat. To refuse meant a torturous death. We pick up the story at verse 21, after 90-year-old Eleazar refused the non-kosher meat:

“The officials in charge of this sacrilegious meal took [Eleazar] aside privately because of their long acquaintance with him and urged him to bring meat of his own . . . and to pretend that he was eating the sacrificial meat that had been commanded by the king. In this way he would be saved from death.”

But Eleazar answered: “At this stage of my life it would be terribly wrong to be a party to such a pretense,” he said, “for many young people would be led to believe that at the age of ninety Eleazar had conformed to a foreign practice. If I should engage in deceit for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray by me, while I would bring defilement and disgrace on my old age.  For the moment I would avoid the punishment of mortals, but alive or dead I shall never escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore, by bravely forfeiting my life now, I shall prove myself worthy of my old age, and I shall leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for our revered and holy laws.” With these words he went immediately to the torture rack . . [and] in this way he died, and by his death he left an example of courage and a model of virtue not only for the young but for the entire nation. (2 Maccabees 6:21-31)

 

Did you catch that? “I shall prove myself worthy of my old age, and I shall leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for our revered and holy laws.”

 

What happened to Eleazar between his initial commitment to the God of Israel and the threat of death in his old age unless he gave in to such treason to save his life?

 

What happened? He WANTED to be faithful to His God. And the Holy Spirit enabled him to do so, even on the rack of torture.

 

What about us? Do we WANT to remain faithful to our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, we do. But we should never be ignorant of Satan’s tricks and lies and sweet temptations. That is why we every day put on that armor of God St Paul spoke of in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus. You can find it in chapter six of that letter.

 

We WANT to remain faithful because – well – how could we commit such grievous spiritual adultery against the one who loves us so, so very much. How could we devastate Him? How could we break His heart by doing what some in that Palm Sunday crowd did on Good Friday?

 

Please, my brothers and sister, hear this one more time today: It is ONLY, ONLY, ONLY the Holy Spirit’s power that keeps you and me faithful. That is why we seek Him in prayer again and again to keep us humble, penitent, and obedient. Where else can we go? Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.

 

Keep at it. Keep walking with Christ. And know this: Sunday is coming!

Fifth Sunday of Lent - Delivered!

 

Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent. This entire Lenten season, as is true of each season within the Church’s calendar, was designed by the early Church to help people focus attention on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to that focus that we now turn to the primary text for today’s Lenten message. Look with me at this prayer in Psalm 86:11-13

 

“Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever. For Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”

 

For our remaining time this afternoon, I hope to demonstrate how this prayer is applicable to our walk with our Savior – not only as we journey toward Easter Sunday, but also as it applies to our DAILY walk around the calendar with and toward our Lord.

 

When we pray with the psalmist, “Teach me, oh, Lord your way and I will walk in your truth” – our prayer presupposes an important point – that being  we WANT to know God’s truth – even if His truth is inconvenient or unpleasant. Scripture and even our personal histories give ample evidence that God’s truths can be inconvenient or unpleasant. For example, there’s the story in the 42^nd and 43^rd chapters of Jeremiah’s prophecy that illustrates that point.

 

The Babylonians had already ravaged their way through Jerusalem and Judah, and the small surviving remnant wanted to escape to Egypt for safety. They asked Jeremiah to seek guidance from God, saying, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole message with which the Lord your God will send you to us. Whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we will listen to the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, so that it may go well with us when we listen to the voice of the Lord our God.” Jeremiah 42:5-6

 

When Jeremiah received word from the Lord, he told the remnant that God wanted them to stay in Judah and NOT go to Egypt. He told them God would protect them from the Babylonians if they stayed where they were. But as soon as Jeremiah told them what the Lord had said, they responded: “You are telling a lie! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘You are not to enter Egypt to reside there’” (see Jeremiah 43:1-2).

 

The remnant then rushed off to Egypt like they’d wanted to do in the first place. But it didn’t end well for them – as it never does when we disobey God. They all died in Egypt when the Babylonians chased after them. What the remnant thought would be their haven became their graves.

 

The people of Isaiah’s day held similar attitudes, even though God rebuked them through the prophet: “This people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.” (Isaiah 29:13)

 

And human nature didn’t change even to the first century. That’s why Paul wrote to Timothy whom he left to pastor the church at Ephesus: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”

 

In the late 1960s, Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel said it well in his song titled, ‘The Boxer’: A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. I think that’s why so many people – even in churches – love to reinterpret Scripture. They want to make God say what He never said, so they can live in sin and justify to themselves their lifestyles.

 

“Teach me, oh, Lord your way and I will walk in your truth.”

 

Listen, please – We ought not to expect God to speak to us through His Scriptures or through His ministers if we choose to hear only what we want to hear.

 

Again, we each ought to pay very close attention. The Almighty God, the Holy God, the fiery pure God is not one to be trifled with. For good reason Jesus warns: “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

 

So, let’s return to the psalmist as he continued his prayer: Unite my heart to fear Your name.

 

If you’re like me, you find your heart often divided between what you want to do and what He wants you to do; Probably not in what we call ‘big things’ like living a morally pure life, but in a thousand little things such as what to watch on television, or whether to engage in a ‘little’ gossip, or holding on to the money you sensed the Lord directing you to send to some organization to feed the poor or the evangelize the lost.

 

What an important prayer this is: “Lord, unite my heart to YOUR heart.” Who doesn’t need to ask the Lord to make such a thing true increasingly so in their life?

 

Lord “Unite my heart to FEAR Your name.” And yes, it’s a good thing, a necessary thing, to have a healthy fear of God. As Scripture so often reminds us: “By the fear of the Lord one keeps away from evil.” (Proverbs 16:6b)

 

While growing up in my mother’s home, I loved her – but I also I feared her and her discipline, whether it was a swat on my bottom, or losing my television privilege, or whatever else it was, I feared her – and because of that fear I am in large measure the man I am today.

 

When we have a healthy fear of God, knowing that He will discipline us when we disobey Him – sometimes severely, if necessary – it is that healthy fear of God that protects us from ourselves.

 

I think our disintegrating culture is directly linked to the wishy-washy tripe too many pastors have been feeding their congregations for the last two or three generations, teaching, “God is love, God is love, God is love” – without hardly a mention that without JUSTICE, without DISCIPLINE, God’s love is nothing more than a sickeningly sappy and empty phrase.

 

Listen: God is serious when He says He expects from us holiness, obedience, and self-sanctification. Listen to these representative texts: (2 Corinthians 7:1) “Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” And Hebrews 12:14 “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”

 

Let’s go back to today’s text: “Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever.”

 

When God teaches us His way, when we WALK in His way, when He unites our heart to fear Him, we will give thanks to Him with all our heart and glorify Him forever because our lives are rich with His presence.

 

But what might it mean to ‘glorify’ God? Surely it is more than simply singing worship songs or offering Him the words of our mouths. How can you and I, sinners as we are, give our awesome and mighty God glory? Well, Scripture tells us how we give glory to God.

 

For example: “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

 

Listen again to the Lord’s answer to that question in John’s gospel: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” John 15:7-8

 

How can we glorify the almighty God? Live in obedience to Him. And when we do as He tells us to do, we will not only bear fruit for Him, but also shine a light on His magnificence, a light directing everyone around us to look at Him.

 

He tells us through Isaiah: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;  So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

 

Said another way, you don’t need a seminary degree to share with others what you know of God. You only need a heart desirous of bringing honor and glory to our Savior, and our sovereign God will use your words and your life to succeed in what He set it all out to succeed.

 

Let’s return to verse 13 of our text: “For Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”

 

Have you ever thought what your life would be like today – today, March 22, 2026 – have you ever thought what your life would be like today if Jesus hadn’t saved you? I hope you’ve thought about it – long and often. 

 

And if you haven’t, you should start. How can we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory if we don’t remember the horrible darkness that enfolded some of our lives. I don’t care if you were baptized as an infant, if you were raised on the front pew of the church, you and I are STILL sinners. We were all born in sin. And if Jesus hadn’t rescued us from the domain of darkness, it should be easy to extrapolate where we’d would be now. Today.

 

Just look at the culture all around us. Hateful. Angry. Jealous. Bitter. Selfish. Bigoted. Pugnacious. Not knowing the love of their Creator. Not knowing the life-changing change He could make in their life, even if they’ve ignored Him for decades.  

 

If Jesus hadn’t rescued us, we’d today be in danger of helplessly imitating the godless world around us. We would right now, today, be unredeemed sinners without hope and without God in the world.

 

Ah . . . ‘But God.’ If you’re His child through your obedient faith in the Lord Jesus Christ – if you’re a child of God, then your life now and your life after death all HINGE on that phrase: “But God.”

 

Listen to St Paul: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins . . . and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” (Ephesians 2:1,3-5)

 

Listen also to what he wrote to Titus: ^“But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7)

 

Oh, how I need – how WE need – to remember where we were, where we could be, and where we are headed, because and only because of God’s mercy toward us through Jesus Christ. How we need to remember, with the psalmist: Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”

 

But not only did God in His righteousness and mercy saved us from a lifetime of self-destruction and the ruin of others, He ALSO saved us through Christ’s atonement from an eternity – a forever and ever – away from His very presence and in an inconceivably torturous place the Bible calls by a variety of names – Sheol, hades, and hell. But whatever the name, Scripture describes it as a place of suffering, fire, and unending anguish. (see for example, Matthew 13:42; Luke 16:23; Mark 9:48; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; Revelation 20:14).

 

Contrary to the ideas of those who prefer to deny Biblical truth, Hell is not temporary. It is not metaphorical or symbolic. It’s a real place. And also contrary to the ideas of those who prefer to dilute Biblical truth, hell is inhabited by souls even today as we sit here. The place of eternal torment was originally prepared for Satan and his demons (Matthew 25:41), but it is now and forever will be inhabited also by every person who rejected the atoning sacrifice of God’s Son for their sins.

 

If the eternality of hell is only allegorical, then it would be reasonable and logical to believe the eternality of heaven is also only allegorical. And if both heaven and hell are NOT eternal, then what else did Jesus and the apostles say that is not factual?

 

Christian!  Don’t go down that satanic-designed rabbit hole. As the Psalmist wrote: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.” (Psalm 118:8-9); And again, “I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope.” (Psalm 130:5)

 

I close today’s message with the text I opened with at the beginning of our time today. This short prayer is rich with application to everyone calls Jesus their Lord, Master, and Savior. That’s why I urge you to try to memorize those few verses during the last few weeks of Lent. Doing so will serve you well through the remaining years of your lives.

 

“Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and will glorify Your name forever. For Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”