It Is Finished - Good Friday 2019

Lunch will be available immediately following the service in the FLC (Gym), or if you need to head back to work quickly today, we have some lunches prepared and bagged and on the cart in the foyer with bottles of water for your to grab on your way out. But if you can stay, please do, and plan to be a part of the dessert auction supporting our High School Evangelism Training and Missions Trip to Denver this summer. And if we could all agree that if someone has a hard time standing for a long period of time, they can go to the front of the line for lunch, that would be fabulous.

We will be done by 12:45.

Pray

Opening

Have any of you ever had an “enemy?” I don’t mean someone you just didn’t like, or someone who just didn’t like you… I mean an enemy: someone who actively stood against you in some way, someone who desired do you harm somehow, or to take away your rights or property?

I haven’t had many enemies in my life, but I’ve had a few. In junior high and high school especially, there were people who enjoyed picking on me because I was smaller and kind of a nerd. Maybe we liked the same girl, or one time I made an enemy by sitting in the guy’s desk on my first day in a class.

But perhaps a better question is this: when have I been someone’s enemy? When have I been out to do harm to someone else? When have you?

We’re here this afternoon to take a few moments to reflect on Good Friday: the commemoration of the death of Jesus on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago.

It turns out that each of us has been an enemy to Someone else. And that Someone is the Lord God, according to Scripture. We have stood opposed to God. We have sought to do Him harm by trying to take away His right to be in charge of His creation. Make special note of how we are described in our focal passage today:

Romans 5:6–11 CSB

6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. 8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

romans 5:

Did you notice how we are described in this passage: “helpless,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” “enemies?” We need to realize that an enemy isn’t just someone who falls a little short of being a friend. He is in the other camp. He is altogether opposed. This is how Paul describes us apart from Christ in Romans.

There are many incredible aspects of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross. Certainly not the least of these is that in Jesus’ death, He provided a means of reconciliation to God.

Did you notice how we are described in this passage: “helpless,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” “enemies?”

There are many incredible aspects of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross. Not the least of these is that in Jesus’ death, He provided a means of reconciliation to God.

What does “reconciliation” to God actually mean?

DON’T READ THE POINT, JUST GO ON TO THE SENTENCE AFTER IT.

Meaning of Reconciliation

Reconciliation is the removal of enmity

“Reconciliation properly applies not to good relations in general, but to the doing away of an enmity, the bridging over of a quarrel.” (Nelson’s Bible Dictionary) Throughout the New Testament, this idea of reconciliation appears.

But the interesting thing about it is that the image of the reconciliation in Scripture is never that God must be reconciled to us, but always that we need to be reconciled to Him.

So for us to have reconciliation, what has to be taken away is the source of our enmity—the thing that is keeping us at odds with the Lord. It is our rebellion, our sin, our desire to go our own way that has brought about our enmity with God. It’s not Him, it’s us.

But the problem is that we are broken. All we have to do to see that is to watch the news for 5 minutes. But Scripture affirms what we see: we are broken. And since we’re broken, we’re not even good enough to resolve our enmity with God, even if we wanted to. And in our natural state, we don’t want to:

romans 7:

Romans 7:14–19 CSB

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave to sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. 19 For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.

And how did we see that God has moved to resolve our enmity? tells us in several places: “Christ died for the ungodly,” “Christ died for us,” “through His blood,” “saved through Him,” “through the death of His Son,” “saved by His life,” “our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.”

Paul goes on here to ask the question that we might ask as we see our inability to resolve our enmity:

Romans 7:24 CSB

24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

romans 7:

Then he gives his answer in verse 25:

Romans 7:25a CSB

25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Reconciliation is available through Christ

We saw this over and over in : that God has moved to resolve our enmity! “Christ died for the ungodly,” “Christ died for us,” “through His blood,” “saved through Him,” “through the death of His Son,” “saved by His life,” “our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.”

The work of the reconciliation of mankind to God through the death of Christ on the cross is clear.

When Jesus was on the cross, the Scriptures record that He made seven “final statements.”

We’re just going to consider one of those today:

John 19:30 CSB

30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.

John 19:30

“It is finished,” is only a single word in Greek: tetelestai. Jesus didn’t say this because He was about to die, as if it were a statement of surrender or defeat. No, He said, “It is finished,” as a declaration of completion, of victory, of triumph.

When Jesus was on the cross, the Scriptures record that He made seven “final statements.” The sixth of these statements was a single word in Greek: tetelestai, literally, “It is finished.”

But what has He completed victoriously? He has completed the means of our reconciliation to God!

Immediately following Christ’s death, several things happened. We’re just going to consider one of them as well:

Mark 15:37–38 CSB

37 Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 Then the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Mark

The thick curtain in the Temple separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. The Holy Place was open to the priests every day. They went in and out performing their duties. But the Most Holy Place was set apart: only the high priest was allowed to go into the Most Holy Place, and then only once a year.

Going into the Most Holy Place represented going into the very presence of God. There had been a curtain between the two—a barrier, a separation.

What kept us from being reconciled to God? Our sin. Our rebellion. But in Christ’s death on the cross, He took away the source of our enmity: He took away our sin, and made the way to come into His presence once again.

Our reconciliation is pictured by the tearing of the curtain! We have been given access to the Father through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, if we will surrender to going God’s way through believing in Jesus for our reconciliation.

The cross proves that God loves us

For my last point, we go back to :

Reconciliation pictured by the curtain - access to the Father through the death of Christ.

Romans 5:8–10 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.

Points back to Romans 5

Romans 5:8-

The fact that God is the One who moved to take away our enmity and reconcile us to Himself proves that He loves us. The only way for us to be made right was for our sins to be taken away from us, and Jesus, as the Son of God, was the only One who lived a life without sin, so He had to take our sins away if we were going to be saved.

And notice what Paul wrote here in : Since God loved us, He’s not just going to stop at the first step: “How much more then, since He’s declared us righteous, will we be rescued from wrath?” “How much more then, since He did the work of reconciling us, will we be saved?”

Jesus didn’t just die for us. According to Scripture, He rose from the dead, defeating death, and lives forever. And if we have surrendered to Him in faith, we are promised to live forever with Him as well.

God is working an incredible salvation that we could never earn, never deserve, never be able to claim for ourselves. He’s giving us Himself in this reconciliation, removing all reason for enmity.

Look at how Paul closed this passage:

Romans 5:11 CSB

11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

If we are in Christ, we have received this reconciliation borne out of God’s love for us, and we can truly rejoice! This is why Good Friday is so good.

We can rejoice in

Invitation

We don’t normally invite people to respond at this service, given the shortness of time. But this afternoon, I believe that we would be remiss if we didn’t do so. We will keep it short.

If you today are convicted of your enmity with God, and you know that you need to be reconciled to Him through faith in Christ, then all you have to do is give up. Surrender. Place your faith in Christ’s death on the cross for your salvation, and receive the offer of reconciliation that He has provided. You can be saved today.

I’ll be here, Trevor will be here, Camille will be here to pray with you. Coming here and praying doesn’t save you: faith in Christ does. But you can declare your surrender here this afternoon.

Pray. Father, we praise You because You are love, and You have declared Your love for us in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Thank you for providing the means of removing our enmity to You through Your Son. If any are here who have never before surrendered their lives to You through faith in the work of Jesus, I pray that You would draw them now by Your Spirit and that they would be saved. Use this time for Your glory and our blessing. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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