"Tetelestai?" John 19:30 Sunday Morning Worship Service

John 19, verse 28.

John 19:28

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst.

A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hysset branch and held it to his mouth.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished.

And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Earlier we sang, Men of Sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim.

Hallelujah, what a savior.

The fourth stanza of that song says, Lifted up was he to die.

It is finished was his cry.

That word, it is finished.

It's one word in Greek, to telesti.

It's the word from this verse here.

Lifted up was he to die, to telesti was his cry.

Now in heaven exalted high.

Hallelujah, what a savior.

This morning I want to look at Jesus' last words on the cross, specifically his last word on the cross, to telestai.

It is three words in English, it is one word in Greek, to telestai.

There is no subject on it, there's no object on it.

It doesn't say who finished, and it doesn't say what they finished.

It is just a declaration that of finished.

With this word, you see what is arguably the most important point of the gospel.

We'll look at that throughout the sermon this morning.

First, a grammar lesson on what telesti is and what it means.

I want you to understand the grammar of what he's saying before we get to the theology of it.

This word Tatalesti, you don't need to write this down.

You will not be asked this by the angels in heaven.

But I do want you to hear it.

Totelesti is the perfect passive indicative third person singular of teleos.

Did you get that perfect passive indicative?

Let me walk you through what that means.

First, the Greek word teleos.

It's one of my favorite Greek words.

Every time I come across it, I say it.

Telios.

It means to bring to completion, to mature, to grow up, to finish, to be perfect, to color in, to max out.

The most common way it's used in Greek is in contrast, not in the New Testament, but in classical Greek writing, it's in contrast with the idea of being a child or a teenager.

The Greeks had this idea that you're born into this world small, itty bitty, and then you grow throughout your life, and then you hit a point, and then you start shrinking again.

It's that zenith right there, that high watermark, that's your tellos.

That's your completion.

The most mature you are.

And it's not just about body size, it is about what you were designed to be.

That we don't have an English word like this at all, really.

We don't even have something in the right ballpark of it.

It's not just that you maxed out, it's that there was a purpose or a trajectory, something you were designed for that you grew into.

We have this concept of the connect the dot drawings, and then you can color in the drawing.

When the drawing is fully colored in from the inside out, then it's complete.

Not just the line is complete, but it's brought to life.

That's its tell-os.

That's what it was designed for.

Accomplished would be another way to say it.

Finished.

But even the word finished in English doesn't have the same connotation as in Greek.

You know, you might be filling out your homework.

Students here might be trying to do your homework, and you have to finish your homework before class.

You have to email it in before midnight.

So 11:59, what you have, you're sending it in and it's done there.

Great, it's done, and you're just hoping for a C.

That's not what this word is.

This word is not like you just got it done.

This word is that it was perfected.

And even English speakers have a hard time with perfected because with us, when we hear perfected, we give it a moral aspect.

It is not there in the Greek.

It doesn't, when we say it's telos, it doesn't mean that it's sinless or that it's morally perfect.

It means that it has brought to life the fullness of what it was designed to be.

So an oak tree that has reached its maximum size, we could say it's full grown, but it doesn't mean it's sinless.

Greek has a word for that.

It's telos.

It's it's maxed, it's maxed out.

Earlier in John's gospel, it was used in a noteworthy way, John chapter 13.

John 13 · chapter mention

Jesus having been with his own until the end, John says, he was about to go out of this world, and so he loved them to the end.

That's how it's translated in the ESV.

That word to the end, that's the word telos.

It means Jesus, it doesn't just mean he loved them until the finish line and the race was done.

It means that he did all that he wanted to do with them.

He loved them to the maximum capacity.

The old NAS even translated that way.

He loved them to the max.

That's this word.

And so when you see it here in John 19, the readers in Greek would remember that they saw it in an unusual place in John 13, where it says he loved them to the max.

And now at the end, his final word in life is that word, to telesti.

Finished, completed, accomplished.

But it doesn't just be that.

Colored out, maxed out, filled up.

All of it.

Perfected.

It's in the perfect tense.

Greek uses verb tenses differently than we do in English.

It's not just a past tense.

The perfect tense is Greek is something that happened in the past and is fully completed in the past, but you're feeling the effects of it now in the present.

They have a different verb tense for something that happened in the past that's no longer consequential.

You would say in driving in this morning, I hit a red light.

I got stuck at a red light.

Well, you probably wouldn't use the perfect tense unless it's still affecting you today.

Like if you hit the red light and now you're late and your kids are late to children's ministry and you're spilling coffee everywhere and you're rude to the usher, all because of the red light, then you could use this verb tense.

Like if something happened in the past and you're still experiencing the effects, that's this verb tense here.

Jesus is saying, whatever he's talking about, whatever has been brought to completion, brought to the fullness, maxed out, colored in, whatever he's talking about, at the moment he's saying here has already happened, and the effects of it are already being felt.

The perfect vertense is more about the state of affairs now because of something that happened then.

That's what Jesus is saying.

Something has been completed and we are feeling it right now.

That's the perfect.

Very unusual to use this word passively.

You could say, I finished.

That would be more active.

I ran the race, but this is passive.

It is finished.

Something acted on whatever the it is, something acted on it and brought it to its state of completion in the past.

There's no subject as I mentioned here.

Jesus doesn't tell you, it's third person singular, which means he, she, or it.

If he had a subject, he would have to say, it has been finished.

But he doesn't have the subject.

Moreover, he doesn't tell you what the it is.

Third person.

He doesn't say I finished.

He doesn't say we finished.

That would be first person.

He doesn't say you finished or you all finished it.

That would be second person.

So this is not an I did it.

He does not say, I did it.

He says, it is finished.

So the most obvious question is, what is the it?

Before we get to that, let's look at how he said it.

Before he spoke, he asked for wine in verse 29.

Earlier in the day, he had been offered wine and he declined it.

That was a different kind of wine.

The wine earlier in the day, we might call, well, the Bible calls it myrrh, and it's a wine that's designed to deaden somebody's pain.

It's something that you would give to somebody who is suffering to dull them.

More extreme than Advil, less extreme than morphine.

Sometimes people might drink that wine to go to sleep.

You drink it to numb you.

There were all kinds of do-gooders, historians tell us, that would go to people on the cross and offer them myrrh.

It was a way to help them die with some kind of dignity.

Crucifixion was brutal.

The people did not like the Roman government for crucifying people.

And so there were these do-gooders that would offer those dying myrrh to dull their pain while they died.

It was an act of mercy.

That was offered to Jesus earlier in the day, and he said no to it.

He did not want that kind of wine.

Why did he say no?

Probably because he didn't want to dull his senses.

He wanted to be in full control of his thoughts and his actions at this moment in particular.

It's not that he was a teetotaler.

He had wine the night before with his disciples when they instituted communion.

Of course, he would drink wine.

In fact, even the imagery for the wrath of God from Psalm 81 is that of wine.

And in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prays that this cup would pass from him, an image of wine.

This cup of God's judgment and wrath and vengeance would pass from him.

Nevertheless, he decided that he would drink it.

He would receive God's judgment.

He would receive God's wrath.

And he would drink it down to the dregs.

So the very bottom, the sediment at the bottom of the wine barrel.

He'll take it all.

He's not trying to get out of God's judgment.

He's not trying to get out of God's wrath.

He's not even trying to doll his mind for it.

Imagine if he had taken the myrrh.

You would wonder, is he in full control of his thoughts?

Is he in full control of what he's doing and how he's suffering?

Is he there voluntarily?

Is he there reluctantly?

Is he being compelled to be there?

Is he being acted upon in a way that he needs to deaden his thinking?

That's what you would be wondering.

Even to this day, you'd be wondering if he wasn't sober on the cross, did he know what he was doing in our place?

And so he says no to that.

So what's changed?

It's a different kind of wine, first of all.

It's a different word for this wine altogether.

This wine is not to deaden the pain.

This kind of wine is a wine that wakes you up.

It's a wine that soldiers would drink.

The Jews did not drink this kind of wine.

Soldiers drank it, and they drank it before battle, not after battle.

This is not the wine of victory.

This is a wine you drink to get your head in the game.

One commentator calls it Roman Gatorade.

And you would make it in these vats.

You'd put water in there and you would put spices in there and celery and anise or licorice and sugar, honey, and vinegar.

The biggest ingredient was predominantly vinegar.

I have tried making this with some friends.

It is nasty.

And you taste it.

And if it tastes like gasoline, you put more honey in it.

And if it tastes sweet, you put more vinegar in it.

And you want it to taste a little bit rancid because that means there's not things growing in it.

And it was the vat that's perpetually replenished.

So you don't drink it all and get a new vintage.

Like you're just remaking it.

And they would have barrels of it at the Roman garrisons.

And the sergeants, before they go out with their men, would have this box that they would fill up with it, and they would put it on their backs, and they would carry it on their marches, and they would march to wherever they were going.

And the sergeant, as a kindness to his men, would let them drink from the box that he had on his back of this before the fight.

That's what this is.

They had a box of it there at the cross because there was a centurion there and the soldiers that were there.

That's why it's there.

It's to keep them awake all day long while they're here.

That's what Jesus asks for here.

And they give it to him by taking a sponge.

There's a utility to this that Jesus is elevated on the cross.

How could he drink something from a box that you can't even get up to his mouth, probably?

You get like stepladders or something.

I mean, there's no way to help him drink this once he's on the cross.

So they get a sponge.

The Romans and the Jews did not use, the Jews definitely didn't use sponges.

They're, you know, unclean and from the ocean and all that.

The Romans would have sponges.

The function of the sponge, the only thing in this part of the world they use sponges for, this is it, was for cleaning the latrines, cleaning the bathrooms.

That's all they use sponges for.

So if there's a sponge here, that's what it was for.

Scripture doesn't say that's what the sponge is for, but that's all they use sponges for.

They spear it, they're not going to touch it.

They would sometimes dip them in water.

Here it appears that they dumped the wine on it.

Even the Romans wouldn't put a sponge in that wine.

So they dump the wine on the sponge.

It's held to a stick and they lift it up.

And Jesus can suck on the sponge.

He does this in order to wet his mouth so that he can be loud when he says this.

This is something Matthew 27 says, Luke 23 says it, Mark 15 says it.

John doesn't draw your attention to that, but the other three Gospels, all four Gospels describe this.

The other three describe the volume with which Jesus spoke.

He spoke loudly because he had the wine in his mouth.

And then after saying to Telesti, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

The Bible never talks about death this way.

This is the only time in the Bible it says somebody died by describing them as giving up their spirit.

The Bible describes death as people going to sleep, as people going to be with their ancestors, or as just people dying.

That's the way it's described in the Bible.

Here, Jesus is not said to die or to go to sleep or to go back with his ancestors or anything like that.

Here, Jesus gives up his own spirit.

That is highlighting for you that Jesus is not a victim here that's being acted upon.

He is the author of this plan.

He designed this plan.

When the scripture says it's appointed for man, once to die, and then the judgment, do you understand that it is Jesus who does the appointing?

It is Jesus who sets the hour of your death.

He is the one who writes that down in his own mind, in his own book, so to speak.

He declares when everybody will die, and he does that right here for himself.

He is in his deity the author of life, and in his humanity, here he has pinpointed the own moment of his death.

And so even though he is murdered by others, of course, the Romans did this to him, the people acted upon him, they are morally responsible for his death, but they are not ultimately the cause of his death.

He does this.

And so it says he gives up his life.

That should remind you of the passage that Dan read earlier in Isaiah 53, verse 12.

Isaiah 53:12

That he pours out his soul to death.

The idea that he pours out his soul, that should be reminiscent for you of offering language.

There'd be a drink offering.

The drink offering is taken in a cup and it is poured out on the altar, or it's poured out on the coals and it smokes.

That's the idea.

Here, Jesus pours out his own soul on the altar of a sacrifice to God.

He's pouring out his own soul that then smokes, so to speak, and rises into the nostrils of God.

He's doing this to himself.

As I mentioned, the Bible doesn't speak of death typically like this, but this is not a typical death.

When you take it all together here, Jesus has been on the cross for between six and nine hours, depending on how you I mean you could work backwards.

They had to put him in the grave by sundown on what we would call Friday night.

The Jews would call the start of the Sabbath.

The Sabbath starts at sundown.

It's not a scientific time of like the first part of the sun crests the horizon.

It's it starts with the evening, the late afternoon.

If you're in Israel today, the Sabbath starts on Friday afternoon.

People are off work for Sabbath, and of course, if you're off work when sunset starts, you're calling sunset at like 3:30, right?

The idea is that Jesus has to be in the grave by the late afternoon.

They take him off the cross, they wrap him in burial spices, and they get him in the grave probably by five or six at the latest.

The bottom of a cistern, really, confined area.

He was hauled out of that in the morning, probably around 6 a.m.

It was probably just barely light, marched over to Pilate's residence, Pilate's courtyard, by all the Pharisees who, of course, wouldn't be seen there in the daytime because they didn't want to defile themselves for the Sabbath.

Talk about irony.

Pilate gives Jesus a bit of an inquisition and sends him over to Herod's place.

He probably arrives at Herod's house around 7 in the morning.

Herod, of course, makes quick work of this, puts the crown of thorns on his head, has Jesus mocked and ridiculed, and marched back to Pilate's.

So he's returning to Pilate's around 7:30 or 8 in the morning, would be my guess.

These places are very close to each other.

Don't picture him like walking from here to Home Depot.

Picture him walking from like here to giant across the street.

He's back at Pilate's house.

Here's where the crowd begins to arrive and demand that he be crucified.

Pilate has him whipped and flogged as a way to possibly assuage all the judgment.

It doesn't work.

He washes his hands and sends Jesus to the cross.

That's probably happening around 8:30.

9 at the latest.

It's not far to the cross.

It would take you 15 minutes or so to walk from Pilate's residence to Golgotha.

Take Jesus longer because of all the suffering he's already gone through, the whipping and all of that.

He has a hard time carrying the cross.

He's falling down, remember, the Simon has to carry the cross for him.

The point is he's on the cross around 9 in the morning.

They wanted to start earlier than normal, so maybe even as early as eight.

He's spending several hours on the cross.

At noon, we do know this is the one timestamp we do get in the scripture.

At noon is when darkness falls in the land.

There's an earthquake.

The graves are opened.

Those who had died with their faith in Christ and hadn't seen the cross or the resurrection yet, the graves are emptied.

They're walking around the streets.

They're going to live out their own life there.

That's already happened by this moment.

Jesus turns to the thief, the two thieves that are arguing about him and tells one of them, your sins are forgiven.

That's already happened.

And Jesus prays for the forgiveness of some of the people that are there, including the centurion, including one of the thieves, and says, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

That's already happened.

He said to his mother, Behold your son, and to his son, behold your mother.

To John, behold your mother.

That's also already happened.

All this has taken place at this moment.

So he's been bleeding for six to nine hours.

He's been on the cross.

He hasn't slept all night.

He's been in the pit.

He's been whipped.

He's been mocked.

The sign is over his head.

The forgive them for they don't know what they're doing.

All that has already taken place.

And he declares it is finished.

What's the it?

As I mentioned, there's no subject, there's no object.

You get a hint here in verse 28.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, he said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst.

Now he says to fulfill the scripture.

This is the fourth time in John's gospel that phrase is used about Psalm 69.

It's always Psalm 69.

In John chapter 2, Jesus empties the temple, turns over the tables, and it said, This happened to fulfill the scripture, zeal for your father's house will consume you.

John 2 · chapter mention

That is Psalm 69.

In John chapter 5, everybody's angry with Jesus, and it says, This happened to fulfill the scripture, that the reproach of Yahweh has fallen on him.

John 5 · chapter mention

That's Psalm 69.

In John 15, the crowd is turning against Jesus, and it says, This happened to fulfill the scripture that says he was hated without cause.

That's also Psalm 69.

So here you have the fourth instance of Psalm 69.

Psalm 69 says that the Savior will drink the bitter wine, the gall at his death.

And so again, he's fulfilling Psalm 69.

This is the fourth time.

But certainly it also means more than that if you look at verse 28, knowing that all was now finished.

It means more than Psalm 69.

Psalm 69 is the pattern here.

Psalm 69 is a pattern of the Savior who will be suffering, who will be pure and purifying God's house, will be hated by people, and drink wine at his death.

He fulfills that.

That pattern is expanded throughout Scripture.

What it means here that he's fulfilled all, he's fulfilling everything that points to Jesus' death.

He's fulfilling the gospel.

The plan of redemption is completed and fulfilled right here.

This goes back to Genesis 3.

The prophecy that the descendant of Eve will crush the head of the serpent is finished right here.

The promise to Noah that you flee to the ark for refuge and God will shield you from his wrath if you run to him, that is fulfilled right here.

The promise to Abraham that you don't need to kill your son.

I'll provide another ram from the thicket.

That is fulfilled right here.

The promise to David that one of your descendants will be the son of Psalm 2 and will reign over the nations, that is fulfilled right here.

The promise of Psalm 110 that God will have his Messiah put his feet on top of his enemies is fulfilled right here.

The paradox that Moses wrestled with.

How can God be both just and the justifier is fulfilled right here.

This vexed Moses.

Moses was struck by this fact that God is too holy to entertain sinners in front of him, and yet God forgives sinners.

He can't be seen by sinful men, and yet he reveals himself to them.

That's fulfilled right here.

It's the entire mission of redemption.

In John's gospel, repeatedly, the Father sends his son to be the savior of the world.

That's completed right here.

He's completing his act of saving.

The Old Testament prophecies about Christ are completed right here.

The Old Testament types about Christ are completed right here.

He is the high priest.

He is the Passover lamb.

And notice these types are often paradoxes.

How can he be the high priest and the lamb who is killed by the high priest?

And yet that's what John says.

When John the Baptist sees Jesus, he says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And yet the veil is torn, demonstrating that Jesus is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

He is the scapegoat.

But if you remember, there's two scapegoats.

There's one that goes free, demonstrating that our sin has been taken away, and there's one that is put to death and his blood is poured out on the altar.

How can Jesus be both the goat that lives and the goat that dies?

He will be pleasing to the Lord, Isaiah says.

He will have the glory of the Lord resident in him, and yet, Isaiah also says, people can't bear to look at him.

He'll be like a worm and not a man.

He will be David's son and David's Lord.

He will be before David and after David.

He will be obedient to God's law, and yet he will be the author of that same law, and he'll be executed as a breaker of that law.

All of them are true, and before this moment, you don't know how any of them can be true.

How can one person be said to be the author of the law, one person be condemned by the law, and one person have kept the law perfectly, and yet it's all completed in Christ?

The scripture says he'll be the desire of the nations.

The gold and the silver of the world will funnel to him.

He will be the desire of the nations.

Kings will look at him, and they will gladly exchange their kingdoms out of obedience to him.

And yet it also says there's nothing in him appealing to look at, and he will die basically penniless.

He'll be buried in a borrowed grave.

All of that is completed here.

Broadly, it's all of the Old Testament imagery, all the prophecies.

More narrowly, it's Psalm 69, it's the mission of redemption, but more precisely, he's talking in the most narrow way possible about atonement.

That's what he's been doing since last night.

He's been burying our sins on the cross.

It began in the garden when he prayed for this cup to be taken from him, yet he submits his will and his humanity to his will and his deity.

He submits himself to God.

And he begins taking on the wrath of God for sin, sweating as if it was great drops of blood.

He's whipped and flogged in the crown of thorns on his head, and he's paraded through the streets and nailed to the cross.

This whole time, the wrath of God is being poured out on him.

Not wrath, like in an abstract sense, but wrath that God is angry at sin and he's pouring out the punishment for all the sins of everyone who would ever believe is being poured out on Jesus.

God's righteous indignation.

All of the anger and wrath of God for the sins of his children begin to be poured out on him, and it's been happening all day long.

Whether he's on the cross for six or nine hours, he's been enduring God's wrath all day.

And the wrath didn't kill him.

I hope you understand that.

The wrath did not kill him, he bore it.

It crushed him, but it didn't break him.

He bore the Father's wrath.

He bore it in himself.

He took all of it on himself, all of God's anger, all of God's justice, all of God's wrath, took it on himself and did not break after he endured it all.

Then he said, It is finished, naming that it's complete and he's still alive, and then he gives up his spirit.

That's why he can die as a conqueror and as a victor, not as one of many people who will be defeated by God's wrath.

I mean, do you understand that one second of this wrath would kill you?

People will suffer for an eternity under the wrath of God and never fully pay for their sins.

One person who dies apart from Christ will suffer for all time, forever and ever and ever, under the wrath of God and never fully atone for sin.

Because it's not possible.

A finite person deserves an infinite punishment because he sinned against an infinite God.

A finite person cannot bear an infinite punishment in himself.

There's no way.

A finite person could suffer forever and ever and ever and never say that the wrath of God is finished, ever.

Hell is going to be a loud place filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth, groans and curses.

All kinds of horrible things will be said there.

You know what?

One thing will never be said in hell?

The word to telesti, it is never finished.

So how could Jesus, being one person, bear the sins for many people in six hours or nine hours?

I kind of hid the answer in my earlier description, but he could bear the sins for many people because he is an infinite person.

We are not able to because we are finite.

Jesus is infinite, and so he could indeed endure and bear the wrath of God.

And so the justice of God comes after Jesus with a vengeance.

It comes like a bounty hunter.

It comes, God's wrath comes with weapons and savagery.

It comes to harm him.

And the intent of God is to inflict all of the righteous suffering that is due all of God's children.

And it accomplishes it.

And Jesus bears it, absorbs it, and pays for it.

So now here is the key question.

What is left?

If Jesus declares the telesciet is finished, what is left for you to do as it relates to salvation?

And strictly speaking, the answer is nothing.

There's nothing left for you to do.

Others will preach it and teach it for sure.

Others will declare it.

In fact, Paul tells the Colossians, others will fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, and there are those that see that as a contradiction that Jesus says it is finished, and Paul says something is lacking in it.

What's lacking in it is not the accomplishment of atonement or righteousness or the fulfillment of anything.

What is lacking in it is the messengers to live it out by sharing it with the world.

The Great Commission comes after this, in other words.

It's after this that Jesus will rise from the dead, and after that that he will send his spirit into the hearts of the disciples and compel them to go to all the nations of the world.

Others will still die for it.

Peter will be killed for believing it.

Paul will be killed for not denying it.

Many will be lost in hell for refusing it.

But nevertheless, it is finished.

There's no more work left to be done.

This is why not just me, but Protestants throughout church history have spoken so negatively about the Catholic concept of sacraments.

I often call it the blasphemy of the Mass.

Because could you imagine hearing the words to telestai, seeing this on the cross, and saying, but this is going to be reenacted in a meritorious way, and you can participate in it in such a way that is energizing your good works with faith in a way that gets you merit before God?

How can you get any merit before God if Jesus declared to telestim, it is finished?

How can you do something meritorious to earn yourself salvation if Jesus declared it is finished?

How could you reenact this sacrifice over and over and over again with every breaking of the bread?

How could you dare to do that?

It is finished.

There's nothing left to be accomplished.

But it can be experienced, and you can run it this way in your mind that God perfectly planned salvation before time.

Jesus completely accomplishes salvation in time.

Then you experience salvation when your heart is changed by the Spirit of God and you are drawn to Him in faith.

That's what I meant by the shockwave.

This here on Golgotha is the nuclear explosion.

This launches the shockwave.

This is the star that explodes far off in space and its light travels, and the shock waves reverberate through human history until one day there you are minding your own business and you get blasted by the shockwave.

Now you've experienced what was already accomplished.

And it will be brought to perfection.

And you'll experience the fullness of it when you close your eyes in this world and open them in the next.

If you had something left to do to earn favor before God, then Jesus could not say it is finished.

If you could earn your way to heaven, then Jesus wouldn't say it was finished.

If you have this system of works or acts you could do to energize your faith, to make you more able or meritorious for salvation, then Jesus did not need to die.

And I don't want to exaggerate the idea, but if you had something else to add to your salvation, then Jesus' death was wrong headed or was impotent, or it was even you could say it was a murder, that he was murdered by God if his death did not fully accomplish your salvation.

That would make Christ a victim, not a substitute.

But he is most certainly not a victim.

He is the author of this.

And I want to make a special appeal to any of you who are here today, where you are the kind of person that is constantly doubting your salvation, constantly wondering if you have done enough to earn salvation, constantly thinking, I don't know if I'm a Christian because I don't know if I love Jesus enough, or if I go on enough mission trips, or if I pray enough, or read my Bible enough, or if I am obedient enough.

Enough, enough, enough, enough, enough.

The word enough is just terrible.

If that's you, if you're constantly stuck on, I don't know if I'm doing enough, I hope this one word shocks you out of that kind of doubt.

Do you see in this one word that there's nothing left for you to do for salvation?

Jesus did it all.

You don't need enough.

Instead of viewing God as constantly judging your worthiness, instead view God as the holy judge trampled upon by your sin, but who sent his son to die in your place.

View the Son not as someone you're trying to measure up to, but view the Son as a substitute who dies in your place.

View the Spirit not as like an accountant constantly measuring your good deeds, but view the spirit as the one who ensures your full obedience and the assurity of your faith by sealing your heart with his promises.

Notice that Jesus was slain by God and yet trusted him until the end.

He was murdered by wicked men, and yet he was compassionate and worked for his children all the way until the end.

Those who did this to him knew what they were doing in some regard, but had no way to know the ocean that he was accomplishing on the cross.

Please don't doubt the full work of Christ.

I said this is the most important facet of the gospel here because it brings all of the other facets to completion.

Everything is done.

Bearing shame and scoffing rude, the hymn says, In my place, condemned he stood.

He sealed my pardon with his blood.

Hallelujah.

What a savior.

Lord, we are grateful that you gave your life so that we might live.

That you shed your blood on the cross.

You went to your borrowed grave, you descended to Sheol, and you rose again in victory three days later.

Ascended into heaven forty days later.

Sent your spirit after that.

We are here experiencing those shockwaves even now.

We're thankful for the precious gospel of Christ.

Pray for anyone here who has gone through periods of doubting their salvation.

I pray that you would give them the assurance that comes from a heart filled with the love of Christ.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBC.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.