Forever Finished
Notes
Transcript
text
28 After this, knowing that everything had now been accomplished, and to fulfill the Scripture, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”
29 A jar of sour wine was sitting there. So they soaked a sponge in the wine, put it on a stalk of hyssop, and lifted it to His mouth.
30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished.” And bowing His head, He yielded up His spirit.
PRAY
Introduction:
Have you ever failed to finish something you started?
Maybe a project at your house, a book you wanted to read, or a New Year’s resolution.
I know someone who’s good at starting things and not finishing them.
He began several different Bible studies with family or friends and never finished them.
He made many different New Year’s resolutions that he never completed.
He started writing a book and never finished one chapter.
He bought a $500 Rosetta Stone language program during college and never made it past the first level out of 5.
Ok, I’m talking about me.
But how many of you can relate?
How many of you have started something that you really wanted to do and have not finished it?
Maybe you started a Bible reading plan and only made it to Leviticus.
Maybe you started a home improvement project and then got too busy to finish it.
All of us if we’re honest have failed to finish something that we’ve started.
But there’s Someone who never fails to finish what He starts.
He is the Author and Finisher of Creation, and He’s the Author and Finisher of Redemption.
I’m talking about Jesus.
In our passage today, Jesus speaks of something being finished, completed, or accomplished. He started something, and He finished it.
Sometimes we sing the song “It was finished upon that cross.”
And this makes us ask the question, “What was finished?” What did Jesus complete? What did He accomplish?
Jesus says in John 4:34
34 Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.
If we are to understand what He finished, we need to understand the purpose for which He came, the reason He was sent by the Father into this world. This is the work He came to do, and it’s the work He finished on the cross.
What Jesus Came to Do
Jesus came to fulfill the Scriptures
17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
Types
People - Adam, Eve, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Rahab, Ruth, Samuel, David, Solomon, Jonah, Isaiah, Hezekiah, Josiah, Jeremiah, Esther, and many, many more.
Events - Exodus
They appeared in glory and spoke about His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
Institutions - Passover
Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Offices - prophet, priest, and King
(Prophet, v. 1-2; Priest, v. 3; King, v. 3)
1 On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets.
2 But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe.
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
4 So He became as far superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is excellent beyond theirs.
Promises
8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs,
9 so that the Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy. As it is written: “Therefore I will praise You among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to Your name.”
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
4 Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
6 We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.
Jesus came to destroy the devil (& sin & death)
The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.
Satan, sin, and death overthrown
Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil,
26 Otherwise, Christ would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
Jesus came to save His people from their sins
She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”
By His perfect obedience
He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, because I always do what pleases Him.”
I have glorified You on earth by accomplishing the work You gave Me to do.
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him
By His substitutionary atonement
11 After the anguish of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.
11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come, He went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made by hands and is not a part of this creation.
12 He did not enter by the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption.
Jesus came to display the glory of God
27 Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? No, it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name!” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
1 When Jesus had spoken these things, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You.
4 I have glorified You on earth by accomplishing the work You gave Me to do.
Jesus came to display the character of God and the worth of God.
Righteousness
Wrath
Justice
Holiness
Mercy
Patience
Grace
Love
What Jesus Accomplished
God is glorified
In the cross of Christ, the glory of God is displayed like nowhere else. Jesus Himself was glorified because of His suffering, and He brought glory to the Father as well.
9 Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
31 When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.
32 If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify the Son in Himself—and will glorify Him at once.
Believers in Christ are justified, sanctified, and glorified
Every part of our salvation is secured by the death of Christ on the cross.
Justification, sanctification, and glorification were all bought by the sacrifice of Christ.
This is not only true for us today, but also for all who have ever trusted God’s promise of a Redeemer; OT saints were saved by faith in God’s promise of a coming Redeemer:
25 God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand.
26 He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
The sacrifice of Christ justified God’s past overlooking of sins, because those sins were finally dealt with at the cross. Their sins and ours are covered by the blood of Christ.
This is the song that the Redeemed sing to the Lamb:
9 And they sang a new song: “Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals, because You were slain, and by Your blood You purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
And Hebrews beautifully states it this way:
10 And by that will, we have been sanctified through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 Day after day every priest stands to minister and to offer again and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
12 But when this Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God.
13 Since that time, He waits for His enemies to be made a footstool for His feet,
14 because by a single offering He has made perfect for all time those who are being sanctified.
Jesus’s one offering was sufficient for our full salvation, from beginning to end. He didn’t just do part of the work and leave the rest up to us. Jesus paid it all, and His sacrifice is sufficient. It is finished!
Satan, sin, and death will be finally defeated
Satan was defeated at the cross, and yet he continues to fight against God and His people. But his time is short, and his defeat is sure. He will not win.
And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, into which the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Death itself will be defeated. Christ has already destroyed death by His victory on the cross, yet people continue to die. One day, death will be no more.
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire.
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
4 ‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”
As believers, we no longer need to fear death, because it is a defeated enemy - defeated by the death of Christ.
14 Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil,
15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
All who follow Satan and persist in sin and rebellion against God will suffer the same fate as him, separated from God forever. This is a terrible fate that we must warn people about.
But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”
The Message of Scripture is unified
In His Person and in His Work, Jesus brings together into one the whole of Scripture, unifying everything in Himself. It all speaks of Him and leads us to Him. All of its people and events, all of its beautiful stories are actually one story - a unified message leading us to Christ, because it is finished. This means that when we read stories like:
Adam and Eve
Noah and the Ark
Moses and the Exodus
David and Goliath
Jonah and the Whale
And every other story is intended to lead us to Christ.
For all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him, our “Amen” is spoken to the glory of God.
Jesus Himself taught His disciples to interpret Scripture this way:
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself.
44 Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
46 And He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,
47 and in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.
48 You are witnesses of these things.
So we need to understand all of Scripture in light of Who Jesus is and What He accomplished there on the Cross.
Jesus accomplished what He came to do. He finished the work that the Father sent Him to do.
It is finished!
Praise God! It is finished. Everything we desperately needed. All that we could not do for ourselves, God has done in Christ.
Application:
We must believe it
Believe that His work is finished. You don’t need to add anything to it. You don’t have to be good enough to earn God’s favor - you can’t! Stop relying on yourself, and rest in the finished work of Christ.
4 Now the wages of the worker are not credited as a gift, but as an obligation.
5 However, to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Read Scripture with Christ in view. It all points to Him, and it’s all fulfilled in Him. See Jesus in all of Scripture.
You can trust God’s plan for your life. If God can plan and accomplish something this great, certainly He is up to good in your life as well.
We must tell it
If you believe that it is finished, that Jesus paid it all, why not tell others of your Great Savior? Tell them what Jesus has done for you and what He’ll do for them if they trust Him.
Proclaim the Good News of the Gospel of Christ, that IT IS FINISHED!
12 Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
There is no other way of salvation. People need to know Christ, trust in Him and give their lives to Him.
Let us proclaim this good news wherever we can.
PRAY