Good Friday Service | Jesus the Passover Lamb | Derik Fuller

Glad to have all of our sights and services present as we

worship this morning. Worship our King.

May I have you turn in your Bibles to John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

Some of you are thinking right now, Derek, did you forget what

holiday we're actually celebrating today?

Because often times we turn to John chapter one at Christmas,

right? It's where we go to think about

and marvel AT and wonder at the incarnation where we hear the

words of John 114 that the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we, we just stop and we saturate ourselves that we sit

in that. But today we're going to move

another 15 verses ahead of verse 14.

We're going to go to verse 29 because John one, I would argue,

doesn't just point us to Christmas, it points us to the

cross. It points us to Good Friday.

In verse 29, John the Baptist sees Jesus.

This is really the first interaction that we have

recorded of Jesus and John the Baptist in John's Gospel.

And he says, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of

the world. And if you just not been

thinking about it, that is a very weird way to introduce

somebody. Look, there's a sheep.

Not just any sheep, a baby sheep.

It's a strange declaration if you don't understand the context

that the audience at the time would have understood, because

this is a declaration that is deeply about who Jesus is and

what he came to do it. It looks back to the Exodus and

how God has saved his people in the past, but it is looking

forward to Good Friday and how God will save his people, all

people, for all times on the cross.

So if you want to understand who Jesus is, you've got to go back

to that Exodus 12 story. You've got to go back and see

what he's talking about when he talks about the Passover lamb.

And so invite you to flip over to Exodus chapter 12 with me

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

now. And let's look at that in the

context here as you flip is that God's people in Exodus chapter

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

12 are in slavery. They've been in Egypt now for

400 years and things have gone from bad to worse.

And it is a time of oppression. It's a time of bondage.

It's a time of waiting, but the waiting is almost over.

God has heard the cries of his people and He is responding and

He is about to deliver them. But before He delivers them He

gives them some instructions and some things that need to take

place for this deliverance to happen.

In Exodus chapter 12, it says starting at verse one, the Lord

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month is to

be the beginning of months for you.

It is the first month of year. This is going to be the starting

point for everything. This is the month of your

salvation. Tell the whole community of

Israel that on the 10th day of this month they must each select

an animal of the flock according to their father's family.

One animal per family. And then if you skip down to

verse 5, we get some realities about this animal.

You must have an unblemished animal, A1 year male.

You must take it from either the sheep or the goats a year to

keep it until the 14th day of the month, and then the whole

assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the

animals at twilight. They must take some of the blood

and put it on the two doorposts and the lentil of the house

where they eat them. And then in verse 12 we see what

will happen that night. I will pass through the land of

Egypt on that night and strike every first born male in the

land of Egypt, both people and animals.

I am the Lord. I will execute judgments against

all the gods of Egypt. And the blood on the houses

where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you.

When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the

land of Egypt. That's the context that the

people have as they hear this declaration.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that

there was a time of deliverance, the time of deliverance, the

time of salvation in Israel's history.

And at that time, each household had to take a lamb, not just any

lamb, spotless, unblemished, perfect, they have to take it

and they have to kill it and slaughter it.

And then they take its blood and they place it on the doorpost

and they place it on the lentil. It's all around the door.

And if they do that, if they take that spotless, perfect,

unblemished Lamb of God, they slaughter it, kill it, put the

blood on the door frame. Then, on the night when God

comes to execute His judgment, that judgement would pass over

those homes. The first born sons in those

houses would live wherever the blood is present, not because

the people in those homes are morally superior or better, not

because those first borns are more deserving of life, but

because a lamb has died in their place.

And John the Baptist sees Jesus and he says that's him.

Behold the Lamb of God, the one who's come for your salvation to

be a sacrifice for you. He's saying this is the one, all

of that that took place. It's actually pointing to him to

a greater salvation that is coming.

And so today, in the rest of our time together, I want us to see

that Jesus is the true and greater Passover Lamb, the one

who is sacrificed on the cross so that judgment could pass over

us and freedom could be ours. Now, why is Jesus the great over

past our lamb? How?

How does he fulfill that? Well, first of all, he's the

greater Passover lamb because he's the Lamb that was without

blemish, right? The Passover lamb had to be

perfect. No spots, no defects, no flaws.

Peter in first Peter 118 to 19 tells us it's exactly who Jesus

was and he had an up close and personal view of Jesus and his

life. He says this.

You were redeemed. You were, you were set free.

You were purchased. Not with perishable things like

silver or gold. There's no money in the world,

no, no stuff, nothing that could be done to purchase you except

the precious blood of Christ like that of an unblemished and

spotless lamb. Now here's the reality that I

know with 100% certainty there is no one in this room, there is

no one watching online who can make the claim that they are

without blemish and spotless, perfect and without flaws.

God lays out the requirements for moral perfection in

Scripture. We often go and look at the 10

commandments as the encapsulation of of the heart of

God's moral will in reality. And I could do a test today and

show that every single one of us fail at the heart of the 10

Commandments. But even if you don't believe

the Bible, even if you think it's dubious or you question its

moral authority, I've never met a person who, in their most

honest state, wouldn't admit that they've failed to even live

up to their own moral compass and standards.

None of us are perfect. We've all got blemishes.

Sin has marked every single one of us.

It's left spots. It's not just what we've done.

It is ultimately who we are. We sin because we're sinners.

They go hand in hand. And yet Jesus comes and he lives

sinless life. He lives a spotless life, a

blemish free life, the life that you and I, we just can't live.

It's not in US, it's impossible for us.

But he lives in perfect obedience to the Father's will.

He lives in perfect righteousness.

Every action, think about this. Every action Jesus ever took,

every word He ever spoke, every motive of His heart was always

the perfect thing. It was always right, it was

always good. None of us can make that claim.

He's the only one who is qualified to stand in and to be

the perfect spotless lamb. You don't need to clean yourself

up to come to God. In fact, you can't.

It is simply impossible for you. There is no amount of scrubbing

in moral goodness and acts of righteousness that you can do

that will erase the flaws on your resume from the past.

But Jesus came clean, perfect, spotless, flawless for us, for

you and for me. The spotless, unblemished lamb

that was required for God's people to be saved.

Jesus is the greater Passover lamb because he alone is the

lamb who is spotless and unblemished, but also because

he's the Lamb that had to die in order for us to live.

See that? That spotless lamb, that

innocent lamb that was selected by the family and brought into

their home, That lamb didn't just get to live with the family

and hang out. No, ultimately that lamb had to

be killed. It had to be slaughtered.

It had to die. If the people, that first born

son in that house was going to live without the death of the

lamb, there was no deliverance. That's because sin's not minor.

Sin is a big deal. It's not a small issue.

The ultimate reality is that sin leads to death always, every

time. In Romans 623, Paul makes a

statement that we rush past a lot of times.

Some of you will be very familiar with Paul's words when

he says the wages of sin is death.

To not pay the wages to a worker is unjust.

A worker deserves his wages, but the wages of sin, the wages of

our work is death. That's the payment that sins,

demands of us. Your sins, my sins, they deserve

that payment. Those wages, They deserve death.

But instead of us receiving the payment that we're due, Jesus

steps in and takes it for us in first.

John 49 and 10, the same John who wrote the Gospel, writes

these words later in his life. He says God's love was revealed

among us in this way. God sent his one and only Son

into the world so that we might live through him.

Love consists in this not that we loved God, but that he loved

us and he sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Don't miss this. In John's words, the cross is

not God reacting to your love. The the cross is not something

God went and did because you had earned it or deserved it.

The cross is God initiating his love towards you in spite of the

state that you're in. Love consists in this, John says

not that we loved God, we didn't.

On our own we don't. It's that he loved us, that he

sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice, to be the

replacement, to take the death that we deserve on himself so

that we don't have to be cut off with him forever spiritually

dead. The sinless, the spotless, the

flawless, the blemishless. Lamb of God dies so that all of

our spots and blemishes and flaws and imperfections can be

forgiven and washed clean. The Lamb died on that first

Passover so that the first born son would live on Good Friday.

Jesus goes to the cross and Jesus died so that you and me

and anyone, anyone, anyone who places their faith in his

goodness and his grace and his mercy and His perfection can

live. I got a question for you.

What are you carrying? What did you bring in this

morning to Good Friday? Would you come here with?

Did you come here with guilt? Did you come here with shame?

Maybe regrets? Good Friday says Jesus paid for

it. Jesus has covered it.

It's all covered fully holy, completely.

The the the the Passover lamb. That first Passover covered.

It covered one household for one time.

But Scripture tells us that the death Christ died on that Good

Friday covers all sins for all people for all time.

The spotless Lamb of God came and died once for all so that we

could fully and completely and forever live.

That's why Jesus is the better, the best, the good, the true

Passover lamb. Why so much better than anything

else? The third reason is this.

It's his blood. Just like the blood of the Lamb,

it's his blood that saves and sets free.

See, on the night of the Passover, the people of God

weren't saved by knowing about the Lamb, by just knowing the

instructions of what to do with the lamb.

They had to apply the blood of the lamb to their household.

They had to take it. It had to be personal.

They had to act on it. And if they took what they knew

about the lamb and applied it, then judgment would pass over.

Not only that, by the work of God that night they would be set

free and taken out of bondage. In Galatians 51, Paul tells us

that it was for freedom that Christ went to the cross and set

us free. Jesus as the true, the better

Passover lamb didn't just die so that you and I could be

forgiven. He died so that we could live

free and not free in the shallow, callous ways that we

tend to think about it in western culture.

We have such a limited thought of what freedom truly is when

When Jesus died to set us free, he.

He sets us free from sins, power.

He sets us free from shame's grip on our lives.

He sets us free from the patterns, the habits, the

addictions that have broken our relationships and and diminished

our lives. He sets us free from those

things. Jesus isn't just a lamb who

saves us from judgment. He sets us free from bondage.

Some of you, you know what it is and you have received the

forgiveness of Christ in your life.

You've applied the blood for that, but you haven't stepped

into the fullness of the freedom that He offers.

You're still living like you're in bondage.

You're still living like you're in chains because Jesus is the

true and better Passover lamb. I just want to tell you, you

don't have to stay in those chains.

You know, if you chain down by shame and sin and addiction, if

you've been forgiven, if the blood of Christ has been applied

to your life, then you've also been set free.

And so here's here's the question for us today.

What do we do with this? Again, in Exodus, they didn't

just observe the lamb, they responded, they trusted, they

applied the blood of the lamb. They stepped into what God was

doing by faith this morning. That's what we're invited to do.

It's the invitation that Jesus has made possible for us to

trust and believe that He truly is a true and better Passover

lamb, To really believe that His sacrifice is enough for all of

it, and to receive with fullness all that He has done and

accomplished for us. So.

We're going to have a time of reflection here.

In a moment, I'm going to ask the people who are going to be

distributing the Communion elements, our Communion host, to

come down to the front in a moment.

Zach and Stephanie are going to come out and they're going to

sing a beautiful piece for us. And as those Communion elements

get passed out around this auditorium, I want to just

invite you to invite God to speak to you today.

Invite the Holy Spirit to prompt you today.

You might want to hold out your hands.

Maybe you need to bow your head, but just just invite him to

come. And, and consider this, first of

all, consider, have you ever responded truly to the reality

that Jesus is the Passover lamb? Have you applied his blood to

your life? Is your faith in the fact that

you belong to God, not because of anything you've done, but

because of what Christ accomplished for us on the cross

on Good Friday? If that's where you are, if

that's the the claim that you would make, then you are saved.

You've been set free. So we're then do you need to

apply that forgiveness in your life, maybe in your own life,

maybe in your relationships with others?

Where do you need to be released from guilt?

Where do you need to step into freedom?

Maybe just today, maybe you just need to hear from the Lord

again. He loves you.

You are deeply, deeply loved by God.

And after we have this time of reflection, we're going to take

communion together. None.

The. The.

The. The.

The. The.

At the Last Supper day before his crucifixion, he was in the

upper room with his disciples. They took the Passover meal

together, and Jesus redefined that Passover meal around

himself is the ultimate Lamb of God.

That He is the Lamb. The bread represents His body

broken for us. The cup, he said represents his

blood poured out for the forgiveness of our sins.

We take communion together. We are not just remembering, we

are declaring. We're saying his sacrifice.

It was for me. He was the spotless lamb that

was without blemish, and I was the one who deserved death.

But he died for me. He died to save me from the

judgement, from the death, from the destruction that I was due.

He's the one who sets me free. And that means ultimately, that

these elements are only for those who declare that, who

believe that. And so I would just invite you,

if, if this is not where you're at in your spiritual journey,

that's OK. But this is not just something

that we walk through. It is a declaration of a truth

that we believe, and if you do believe, then as we take it

together, let it be that declaration.

I live, I'm forgiven, I'm free because of Christ and Christ

alone. He died in the place for my

sins. He's my Passover lamb.

Let me read from Matthew 2626 to 28.

That moment in the upper room as they were eating, Jesus took the

bread He blessed and broke it. He gave it to the disciples and

said take and eat. This is my body.

So we're going to take the wafer from the top.

We're going to hold on to that. I'm going to pray over it, and

then we're going to eat it together as a declaration.

Father, we thank you. Thank you that you saw us in our

need. You saw us in our desperation.

You saw us in our bondage. You saw us in our slavery, and

you sent Jesus as the perfect, as the true Passover Lamb for

his body to be broken so that we could be set free.

Father, thank you. The spotless, the unblemished

Lamb of God offered himself up out of love for you.

He died so that you could live. If you believe this take and eat

it as a declaration. In verse 27, Matthew says he

took the cup and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and

he said, drink from it all of you.

For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out

for the forgiveness for many, for the forgiveness of sins, the

Lamb of God, whose blood purchased your forgiveness on

the cross through His death as it was smeared on the wood of

that cross, on those two pieces of wood.

That is the only way that we can stand forgiven, set free.

Let me pray over the cup. Father, thank you that Christ

was willing to have His blood spilled on the cross for us,

that he allowed the nails to Pierce his hand, the spear to

Pierce his side, a crown of thorns to be placed and pushed

down on his head. He breathed his last breaths on

those cross so that we could breathe.

Breath with you forever in the new heavens and the new earth.

God, thank you, we love you. If you believe that the Lamb of

God poured out his sins on the cross to purchase your

forgiveness and freedom and salvation, then take and drink

this as a declaration. Behold the Lamb of God, who

takes away my sin and your sin, and the sins of the whole world.