Rick Warren - It Is Finished What Jesus Completed On The Cross

If you pull out your message notes. I want us,

on this good Friday to look at the theme of

there's nothing more for you to do. There's nothing more

for you to do. Now, I want to begin with

a question. It's a little true confession here. How many

of you have ever said or thought, I just can't

seem to get it all finished. Cat, I see your hands.

The rest of you are liars, all right. How many

you have ever thought this, if I could just get

a week to catch up, then I could get everything completed.

How many of you have ever thought that, Yeah, okay,

I'm gonna start with the bad news. You're never gonna

get it all done. You're just never gonna get it

all done. You will die with unfinished business. Because we

live on a broken planet, and we have a limited

amount of time we all do, we all die with

unfinished business. The world is filled with unfinished projects, unfinished dreams,

unfinished buildings, unfinished national monuments. I remember many many years ago,

when my kids were young, I took the three kids

up to see Mount Rushmore, the National Monument, and the

first thing Matthew said was, when are they going to

finish it? Dad? That's true, It's not finished. The guy

ran out of money and died, and he left it unfinished.

His son picked up the slack, worked on it for

four months, and gave up. One of our national monuments

is unfinished. In fact, only one person ever in history

has ever finished everything he had to do before he died.

That was Jesus Christ. In John chapter four, verse thirty four,

Jesus says this, I must finish. I must finish the

work that God gave me to do. Fortunately for you

and me, he did finish it. He did finish it.

In fact, on this day, Good Friday, two thousand or

so years ago, Jesus was hanging on the cross and

at the end of his suffering. In John chapter nineteen,

the words of Jesus are recorded, and it says this

John nineteen twenty eight and thirty, knowing that all was

now completed. It's all finished. Knowing that all of it

was now completed, and so that scripture would be fulfilled,

Jesus said, I'm thirsty. And after Jesus was given a drink,

he said, it is finished. And with that he bowed

his head and gave up his spirit. Now this phrase

it is finished, is called the word of victory. And

in the Greek carayer it's an heirest indicative tance of

where actually Jesus shouted these words. The reason he asked

for a drink. He'd been on the cross for hours.

His voice is parched, he doesn't have any voice, but

he wants everybody to hear this, so he asks for

a drink. They give him a drink of water, and

then he shouts out, it is finished. It's finished, It's done,

It's completed. Now this is the word of victory. Throughout history,

there have been many memorable words of victory and battles,

in sports contests, in you know, scientific discoveries. There are

a lot of famous words that have been shouted as

words of victory. I got to thinking that, you know,

this July will be the fiftieth anniversary of man walking

on the Moon. This July the fiftieth anniversary nineteen sixty nine.

July twenty ninety sixty nine, Neil Armstrong and his fellow

astronauts landed the lunar module on the on the moon,

and his famous words were, the eagle has landed. How

many of you remember that the eagle has landed. I

don't remember, and I think I was in my mother's

womb at the time I was a little young. People

have told me about this, that he said the eagle

is landed. But these three words, it is finished. These

are the most important words in history. Nothing compares to

these words, it is finished. Jesus shout, is it now?

What's ironic is when Jesus shouted these words from the cross,

it is finished. Nobody understood what he meant. Nobody there

had the slightest idea what Jesus was saying when he

said it is finished. I'm sure the Roman soldiers thought,

this radical revolutionary is finished. Fine, we're through with him.

We've washed our hands. Fine, he's gone. I'm sure the

religious leaders who had him put on the cross thought

our competition is finished. We don't have to worry about

this messiah guy anymore. He's out of here. He's finished. Pilot.

The governor thought, my political headache is finished. I'm not

gonna have to worry about this guy anymore. Even the disciples,

the followers of Jesus, probably didn't understand this, and they thought, yeah,

it's finished. The dreams died, the kingdom isn't here, The

Romans haven't been overthrowed, thrown and we're we're we're finished.

I think even the Devil misunderstood this. He thought, the

son of God is finished. I have won I killed God.

Nobody understood what Jesus was saying when he said he

is finished. But Jesus didn't say I am finished, because

he wasn't. He didn't say I'm finished, He said it

is finished. What what was finished? His suffering, yes, his pain, yes,

the humiliation of the cross, drying a criminal's death, yes,

but so much more. What I want to do for

just a few seconds tonight is look at the five

things that Jesus finished on the cross. I don't want

you ever to misunderstand what this phrase means, because this

is the central thought of Christianity, of our faith. Now,

the first thing I need to explain to you is

that this phrase it is finished is just one word

in Greek. When Jesus shouted it out, he didn't shout

three words it is finished. The phrase it is finished

in Greek is the word to tell us sty, to

tell us sty. This is a very common Greek word,

and in ancient Greek society it was used everywhere. It

had a lot of different meanings. In fact, it had

five different meanings, and every one of these five different

meanings Jesus was referring to that when he shouted on

the cross it is finished. In the first place, it

was used by servants or employees. And and if you

had boss and you'd been given a job and you

finished a job, you would go into the boss and

say boss or master or whatever to tell us sty,

I finished a task. Okay, the job is done. The

job you gave me is completed. And of course Jesus

was saying that too, the job God gave me is completed.

But it just meant the job's done. I finished the

task you gave me. But it's also a legal term,

and judges would use the word to tell us stye

in a courtroom. In fact, they would stamp it on

prison sentences that had been commuted when you had served

your time. You did the crime, you did your time,

and you would come back before the judge and the

judge says, you've paid your debts to to society. Justice

has been served. You've completed your sentence, you did your time.

I'll stamp your document to tell us sty justice has

been served. And Jesus meant that too when he shouted

it out. It's also an accounting term and accountants would

stamp it on bills that been paid. It literally means

paid in full. So if you paid off your car,

you stamped the bill to telestock. Your car's paid off,

you own it, free and clear. If your house is

paid off, you stamp it to telesty, paid and clear,

paid and full, the debt has been paid. This word

to telesty is found literally on tens of thousands of

documents in the ancient Middle Eastern area because it's stamped

on papyrity, often on tax bills that were paid. They

have tens of thousands. Archaeologis found tens of thous of

tax bills where they stamped what Jesus said to telesty,

meaning paid in full, you've paid your debt. But it's

also a term that artists would use. And when an

artist was painting a picture, whether pastels or oils or whatever, charcoal,

and they're finishing, and they finished, and the very last

stroke of the brush, when the painting is completed, they

would say to telesty, the telesty, in other words, the

picture is complete. It's finished, there are no more details

to deal with, it's all done. The picture is perfect.

It's exactly every detail is done. The painting's finished. Finally,

the fifth way this word was used was used by

priest Jewish priest when they went to the temple, and

when they would offer a sacrifice to God, they would

come out and they would say to tell usty, which

means the sacrifice has been made. Now all five of

these phrases. The job is completed, justice has been served,

the debt has been paid, the picture is finished, the

sacrifice has been made. Jesus is saying all five of

these things when he shouts to tell us, stye, it's finished.

This single word sums up Christianity in a nutshell. If

you get this one phrase, you will understand how Christianity

is different from every other faith, whether it's Buddhist, or

Muslim or Judaism or any other faith. It's all different

because of this one phrase. It is finished, and there's

nothing more for you to do. Every year, Christians from

all over the world remember the death and resurrection of

Jesus Christ by traveling to Jerusalem, where they walk the

path that Jesus took on the way to the cross.

That path is called the Via dol Rosa. Now, since

you may not be able to ever travel to Jerusalem.

I want to suggest a way for you to celebrate

and reflect on and pray about what Jesus did for

you on the Cross. So I've created a brand new,

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So what did Jesus actually finish on the cross? What

did he complete by dying on the cross? What did

he accomplish by dying on the cross? Well, Jesus did

five things. You might write these down. Number one, the

first task that Jesus finished on the Cross. Is this

He fulfilled what God had promised us. He fulfilled what

God had promised us. Now, for thousands of years, God

had been promising to send a savior of the world,

a messiah, a savior to forgive and save us from

all of our sins. And for thousands of years there

are hundreds and hundreds of promises of God. Now, not

only are there hundreds of promises in the Old Testament,

the old part of the Bible before Jesus called the

Old Testament, there are three hundred and eighty prophecies. Their

prediction says, this is what the Messiah will do, This

is what the coming Savior will do. Remember Christmas under

you was born this day a savior, who is Christ

the Lord. When Jesus died on the cross, he fulfilled

every one of the promises and every one of the

predictions or the prophecies that had been made for thousands

of years. You see, in the Old Testament we get

a partial glimpse of God. We kind of get partially

the figure, but it's not real clear. But when Jesus comes,

he fills in all the details. He paints the picture,

He completes the picture. He gives us what it's like.

And here's what Jesus told some people after he'd come

back to life, after he'd raised on Easter Sunday, he's

talking to some people, and here's what he says. In

Luke chapter twenty four, verse forty four to forty seven.

Jesus said, this is what I told you when I

was still with you. This is before he died. Everything

must be fulfilled that is written about me in the

Law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms, that's the

Old Testament. He said, all the stuff that was written

about me for a thousand years had to be fulfilled.

Then he opened their minds so they could understand scriptures,

and he told them this is what is written. The

Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the

third Day, and repentance and forgiveness of sin will be

preached in his name to all nations. He's saying, I

just fulfilled all of the promises and all the predictions,

all of the prophecies that had been given for thousands

of years. Tewod Corinthians chapter one says this verse twenty

all of God's promises have been fulfilled in him. That's

why we say Amen, when we give glory to God

through Christ. There are over seven thousand promises in this

book and they're all yours to be claimed because of

what Jesus did. He paid for these promises to be

fulfilled in your life.

There's a second thing that Jesus finished for us on

the cross. He's satisfied what God's justice required. He finished

that for us. God is a god of justice. God

is a God who is always fair. People can be unfair.

God cannot be unfair because he's perfect. So that's who

he is. And the reason you and I have this

sense of fairness what's right wrong is because we're created

in the image of God. God made every one of us,

and our sense of fairness reflects the fact that God

is a god of justice and fairness, and God is

a god of laws. He's the creator and everything that

he's made runs according to laws that work, and I'm

glad that they do work. There are laws of physics

and laws of chemistry and laws of mathematics that work

every time. That's why the world runs and the universe

runs like it runs. But it's also true personally. There

are laws of physical laws and spiritual laws.

And moral laws. That God gave.

You can read that God gave his moral laws to

Moses and to the people of Israel, but it wasn't

just for them. He said, I want you to take

these moral laws. I want you to share him with

the whole world, because it's how relationships work, it's how

the world works. God gave us these laws, and you

and I have two problems with that. Number one, we

can't keep them. We are completely unable to keep all

of God's perfect laws. Now, some people keep some of

them some of the time, but none of us keep

all of them all of the time because we're not perfect.

None of us are.

And you want to say the right thing, you don't

want to hurt somebody, but you end up saying the

wrong thing.

You want to do the right.

Thing, you really committed to it, but you end up

doing the wrong thing. The Bible says this in Romans

eight three and four. The law of Moses could not

save us because of our sinful nature. But God put

into effect a different plan to save us. He sent

his own son in a human body like ours, except

that ours are sinful. God destroyed sins control over us

by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sins.

He did this so that the requirement of the law

would be fully accomplished for us, who no longer follow

our sinful nature but instead follow the spirit.

So Jesus, the.

Only person who ever followed God's law, completely gave himself

for you and I so that he could offer us

something we could not attain on our own. God knew

from the beginning that we could never gain a relationship

with him by the law.

The law of Moses could not save us.

But he also knew that he had a different way

to solve our problem. The first problem is we're unable

to keep God's perfect laws. The second problem is justice

requires that law breakers pay a penalty. If I break

a law, there is a penalty. Fairness requires consequences to

all of our actions. If I stole money from you,

If I was caught stealing money from you and there

was no consequences for that, that just would not be fair.

We all know that, and God has this sense of fairness,

and you and I, in our relationship with him, we

know that we've all broken a lot of God's laws.

But there's some good news. This is what Jesus finished

for us on the cross. Jesus did for us, but

God's justice requires from us. In fact, you might write

that down. Jesus did for us what God's justice requires

from us. He finished what we could not finish, so

he could offer us something we could never gain on

our own. Hebrews chapter five, verse nine, This verse up

on the screen. After Jesus finished his work on the cross,

he became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who

obeys him. Jesus is able to do that because Jesus

satisfied God's justice. He did it for me, he did

it for you, He did it for all mankind, and

he offers that to us. Romans ten to four says

Christ ended the law so that anyone who believes in

him may be right with God. Anyone who believes in him.

How does this become true in your life? You believe,

you trust in what he did for you, and he says,

I want to give you what you could not gain

on your own. Romans chapter five, verse eighteen sums up

everything we've been talking about the last couple of minutes.

Here it is in a nutshell. Just as one person,

Adam did it wrong and got us all in trouble.

This trouble with sin and death. Another person did it right, Jesus,

and got us out of it. But more than just

getting us out of trouble, he got us into life.

So Jesus fulfilled God's promises on the cross, and Jesus

satisfied God's justice on the cross. Here's the third thing

that he completed on the cross. He paid off the

debt I owed God. He paid off the debt that

I owed God. You owe something to everybody you've ever

hurt or offended or of sinned against. You owe something

to them. But you're also in deeper debt to God,

and that's a debt you would never possibly be able

to repay on your own. But here's the good news. Colossians,

Chapter two. The Bible says this verse fourteen. We owe

a debt because we've broken God's laws, and that debt

listed all the rules we've failed to follow. But here's

a good part. But God forgave our debt, and he

canceled our debt by nailing it to the cross. Can

you imagine if tonight you went home and all of a

sudden you got a call from Visa or MasterCard, and

they called up and said, we have decided to cancel

all your debt. We're just gonna wipe it out. Your

record is wipe clean. You are forgiven, it's all forgotten.

We're calling it our new tetelesty program. Paid in full.

You're free. Would you like that? Oh yeah? Would you

feel free? Oh yeah? You'd want to rejoice, because that's

what happens when your debt is forgiven. That's what Jesus

Christ did on the Cross. He paid off the debt

that I owed God Colossians, Chapter one, verse fourteen. God's

son paid the price. God's son paid the price to

free us, which means that our sins are forgiven. Which

sins are forgiven, all of them, all of them, every

single one of them. Just to have it all wiped off,

to have your debt paid off by somebody else, that's

an amazing thing that Jesus Christ did. A couple of

years ago, Kay and I decided we had never seen

the colors of New England in the fall, so we

flew back to Boston and we rented a car and

drove around the thirteen states in New England for about

ten days just looking at all the color, and in

one of the little hotels that we checked in doo.

As we walked in, we saw a family standing over here.

And as we're checking in, I noticed they're like staring

at us. You could feel like their eyes are burning

in staring at us. And so yeah, I didn't pay

any much much more attention to it. But then we

went up to our room. Then the next morning we

go down and I go down to check out, and

as I start to check out, the says, well, sir,

your bill has already been taken care of. I said

by who? He said, by that guy, And evidently the

guy had recognized this and he had already gone over

that morning and paid off my night's bill. I go,

you're my new best friend. So I went over and

talked to him for a while, met him and found

out what state he was from. And he listens to

Daily Hope on the radio. And I just going, you're

my new best friend. Jesus wants to be your best friend.

He's just paid off all your debt that you owed

to God. Now the Bible says this in Hebrews chapter ten,

verse eighteen. Now that sins have been forgiven, there's no

need to offer any more sacrifices. You know what your

problem is. Your problem is you keep trying to pay

for sins that have already been paid for. You keep

trying to pay for sins in your life that have

already been paid for. Jesus Christ paid for every sin

you have ever committed and ever will. He's even paid

for the ones you haven't done yet, the ones you're

gonna do next week, next year, and in ten years.

When he paid on the cross for all the sins

of humanity, he died for every one of them. There's

not any that's left out. But so many people go

around caring unnatural guilt because they don't realize their sin

has been forgiven. And in their mind, they're going, you know,

maybe if I just do this, then God will forgive me.

Maybe if I do that, then God will forgive me.

Maybe if I'm good in this area, God will forgive me.

You're trying to pay for sins that have already been

paid for. They don't need to be paid for twice.

Jesus Christ paid for every stupid mistake I've made in life,

every stupid mistake you've made in life, every sin, every error,

every fault, every week. You don't need to pay for him.

That's good news. He paid off the debt that I

owed God. There is nothing more you can do. There's

nothing more you can do. It's not like, well, if

I do this thing now, God's going to smile at

me and he'll kind of even the score. Here. I

did all this bad stuff. I gotta do this good

stuff to make it even. That's not in God's mind.

There's nothing more you can do. It's already been paid for.

To tell us, Diy, it is finished, paid in full.

All your sins have been completely paid for, even the

future BOS. Today, I want to invite you to join

me in something that's very close to my heart, fulfilling

the great commission of Jesus Christ. Sharing the good news

is the most important thing we do when we work together.

There's nothing that God cannot do to us. When we're

unified through daily hope. The message of Jesus Christ is

now reaching nearly every country in the world. That's one

hundred and ninety seven nations. We're going to even places

where it's difficult or dangerous or illegal to talk about

Christ openly. We're sharing the certain hope of Jesus and

it's changing lives every single day. Right now, we have

an incredible opportunity. That's why I'm saying this to you personally.

There's some very generous friends that have offered to match

every single gift given to Daily Hope dollar for dollar.

That means whatever you give today is going to be

doubled in impact. So I'm asking you. I want to

encourage you to give as God leads you today, and

I want you to pray this prayer, God, what do

you want to give through me? Not say God, what

should I give? Say God? What do you want to

give through me? That's called giving by faith, giving by revelation,

and your gift will go twice as far to share

the certain hope of Jesus Christ and make disciples all

around the world. God bless you.

Please consider giving a financial gift. Really generous friends of

the Daily Hope Ministry.

They're going to match.

Your gift up to ten thousand dollars. Thank you so

much for your support.