Our Risen King: “It is finished”

Thank you, Ben. So we're continuing our

miniseries in the lead up to Easter, going through various

phrases that were standing out. And last week we had Ben

preaching about do what I have done and he was talking about

Jesus and washing the disciples feet and talking about service

and so forth. If you haven't heard it, go back

and listen to it. It's a great preach.

This week we've got it is finished, which you might think

is a bit of a strange one given that next week is Easter, but

sort of we've got a great preach lined up for next week, so well

worth coming along. Can I encourage you?

As Shaykhun said, it's a time when people are more likely to

come into church to walk through those doors and that is half the

battle. You know, we want to be friendly

to people when they walk through those doors, but quite often

they need to walk through those doors.

We're also believing about going out onto the streets and that's

part of the prayer walk that Shagun's talking about.

So just encourage you, encourage me to actually prioritise that.

Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that

you sent Jesus. He is the most important person

on this world. Lord, we thank you that he came

from heaven and he died for us. Lord, that was always your first

plan. Lord, we thank you that you sent

him. Amen.

So I'm speaking from John 19. I'm only going to grab a couple

of verses rather than reading the whole thing.

But sort of these are just a couple of verses and we'll get

into it. And as you would expect, it's

got the words, it is finished in it.

So at John 19 verse 28 through to 30 in the NIV later, knowing

John 19:28

that everything had now been finished and so that scripture

would be fulfilled, Jesus said I am thirsty.

A jar of wine vinegar was there. So they soaked a sponge in it

and a sorry soaked a sponge on and put it on a stalk of the

hissop plant and lifted it to Jesus lips.

When he had received the drink Jesus said it is finished.

With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Sorry, I'm trying to provoke my timer to start because yet

again, I will have no clue of how long I'm talking for.

I wonder, when you read that and picture the scene, do you

imagine that it is finished as a whimper?

As a whisper? It's funny, I see a few shakes

of the head, but what goes through my head is exactly that

it is finished. I don't know.

I was thinking about this. I wonder in part if it's because

I imagine death being the sort of last day that going quietly,

You know, this is his last breath, basically, and he's

saying it is finished. If we read the other Gospels,

though, it becomes clear that it wasn't a quiet whisper.

Jesus cried out again in a loud voice and then gave up his

spirit. That's Matthew's record marks.

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

Luke. Jesus called out with a loud

voice. Father, into your hands I commit

my spirit. When he had said this, he

breathed his last. So John doesn't say explicitly

that Jesus was speaking in a loud voice, but I think we can

take it that he was. So the thing about that is you

can go from Jesus just dying to Jesus going, it is finished and

you go hold on a moment then was Jesus not in pain?

Was he not nailed to the cross? He's shouting Jesus, it is

finished. And we can think that, well, we

say Jesus was man and God. So perhaps then He just forwent

his manhood at that stage. But if we go down that line, it

ignores everything in the Bible. You see, God was seeking for a

people to live their best life and He created us to live that

life. He experiences pain when we

don't do that, and that is why Jesus was sent.

Jesus was both man and God, but the point is, he's both at the

same time. He doesn't forego his manhood to

get round feeling the pain on the cross.

He experienced it all there, but he was focused on something

else. You see, it wasn't just the

nails that held him to that cross, it was his love for each

one of us. You see that it is finished is a

sound of a builder laying the final stone.

It's the sound of a runner crossing that finish line.

The Greek word. Because we all like a bit of

Greek and theology, don't we? Or is it just me?

The Greek word is tetelestai and I probably butchered that, but

we'll go with it. And it's translation is it is

finished. But it was a regular word.

It was used in business, written on receipts and what it meant

there was paid in full. Amazing, isn't it?

It was used injustice. When a prisoner had completed

their sentence and they sort of moved out of prison, they

received a certificate of debt which had Tete Leste on it.

It basically meant that debt has been fulfilled, it's been

cancelled, it's no longer relevant.

Isn't that amazing too? These two things tell us.

That's why that's not working. Tell us how we can interpret

what God, what Jesus is saying on the cross.

It is finished. So what was it exactly that was

finished? Well, one of the things is that

Jesus came to die on that cross. Yeah, from the very beginning in

Genesis through to Malachi that we were in a few weeks back.

There's this red thread, as people refer to it, running

through all of history. It's the promise of a rescuer.

Thousands of years God's people lived in a state of to be

continued. It's coming, but not yet.

There were shadows in men of God, of Jesus.

You look at Abraham, You look at David, Joseph, Elijah, Isaiah.

I knew I was going to trip there.

Elijah and Elijah and Isaiah, Daniel, Joshua, Joan.

I'm Joan. That's a story about Jesus.

It's a story about persecution and redemption.

It wasn't intended as the story of human persecution, even

though that's how we can identify with that.

Every time a prophet spoke, every time a king failed, every

time a psalmist cried out for mercy, the tension grew.

It's that Sunday school adage, isn't it?

So the Sunday school teacher asked a question, and the kid

answers with, well, the answer's got to be Jesus.

Yeah, the answer was always Jesus to Genesis, to Malachi.

It's about Jesus. He was born of a virgin that was

prophesied in Isaiah. He was born in Bethlehem.

He was descended from the King David.

Even when He was on the cross, his hands and His feet were

being pierced. That's in Psalm 22.

In fact, Psalm 22 carries a lot of things about it.

Psalm 22 says my mouth is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue

sticks to the roof of my mouth. Psalm 6921 finishes with and

gave me vinegar for my thirst. Jesus is there on the cross, and

he's looking to the complete fulfilment of scripture, of the

written word of God. Jesus is focused on the cross,

on completing the word of God, of finishing it.

See, back in Genesis 3, there was a curse that came and God

said to Adam and Eve, well, he said it to the serpent.

He said that the serpent's head, the devil, the accuser, his head

would be crushed and the serpent would strike the heel.

You know, I'm sure the accuser, the devil, assumed that it was

finished. He'd killed Jesus, the Son of

God. God continues to speak.

He continues to speak to us today through His Word, but also

through his Holy Spirit. But it is all because of what

Jesus did, of what Jesus accomplished.

We wouldn't have the Holy Spirit without Jesus having come and

gone back to heaven. Jesus is the completion of all

that God set out to do and accomplish.

So that's prophecy. That's the completion of the

word of Scripture. But the other thing that we

looked at that we talked about earlier was that certificate of

debt. The debt was finished.

The bill was paid in full. The curse is broken.

See, in the beginning we lived with God.

We walked with God in the call of the garden.

And then we did something. We did something that God had

told us not to do. And the result of that was a

curse. Now, this isn't Adam and Eve's

curse. This is all of us.

The result of our actions are a broken world, See?

The result of our actions should, in a just world, be

death. See, We're condemned to die.

Now you might go hold on a moment.

We do something that God says not to do, and that's it.

We're condemned to die. Surely not.

What kind of God would do that? Here's the thing you're missing.

When we did something that was against what God had told us not

to do, that created the separation between US and God.

That meant that we were forced out of His presence because He

is holy and just. It's one of the challenges in

marriage is you can do something that causes pain to the other

person and you have to work out how to reconcile it.

But here the problem was far bigger.

You see, we were separated from God, but now we can't come into

God's presence, so we're stuck to butcher some film quotes.

We're dead already. We just don't know it.

Yeah. If you live without Jesus,

you're dead. Yeah, because God created us,

but he created us to live with him.

Our life comes from God. So if we're separated from God,

we no longer have life. It's only through God's grace

that we breathe that without Jesus that we breathe and walk

around. But eventually that rule comes

in and it says no, you die because we're now no longer

supported by gods in US. See, salvation then trying to

get back into presence of God, Well, there's nothing you can

do. There's no works you can do.

You can't be good enough to come back into God's presence.

See, imagine with me for a moment.

You've got a mortgage, you've got car finance, you've got

finance for other things, say furniture.

It seems to cost an arm and a leg to buy a sofa these days and

and you're right at the limit of what you can afford.

Everything you've got coming in is going out on these things, on

food and so forth. And then war breaks out.

America and Israel decide to invade Iran and now petrol

prices are jumping by 35 PA litre and food prices go up.

It's all overwhelming. It's that stomach drop moment.

I can't pay this, there's nothing I can do.

But imagine somebody steps in and they pay everything.

They pay off your mortgage, they pay off your car, they pay off

your sofa. Finally you can sleep, the

weight is lifted. Finally you can live.

See, that's the but God moment. Jesus loves us so much.

Jesus loves you, Deborah. Jesus loves you, Lizzie.

Jesus loves you, Ethan, so much that he came from heaven.

As Ben told us last week, he came from a place where he was

King of Kings and stepped down to earth as a lowly baby.

See, we needed a Saviour, we needed a Redeemer, somebody to

put us back in right with God. We needed someone to pay the

price of our wrong. We needed someone to pay the

full price to cancel our debt. See, in the spiritual realm,

everyone who has recognised they need Jesus, everyone who has

made Jesus in charge of their life, what they do each day,

everyone who has started a relationship with Jesus, they

get this metaphorical certificate of debt with

Tetelesti put on it, paid in full.

Jesus didn't give us a payment plan.

Oh well, you know, pay this amount every week and by the end

of your life you'll be right. No, he didn't even give us a

discount. Oh, sales happening 50% off.

No, He paid in his blood, paid in full.

The dead didn't disappear, it didn't go.

It was settled by Jesus so it would never be demanded of you

again. We can live because of Jesus

sacrifice, because of his mercy, because of his grace.

Another thing that was finished, the system, I've titled it, but

if you'd walked into the temple on the morning that Jesus was

going to be crucified on the cross, you'd have seen a

massive, thick curtain in there. It was a barrier keeping

everyone out, except for once a year a priest would go through

that curtain. It stood between the dwelling

place of God, the Holy of Holies, and the rest of the

world. It was a constant reminder that

you are not clean enough, you are not holy enough.

But that afternoon, when Jesus gave up his spirit, that curtain

was torn in two, and it wasn't by human hands.

Who would have had to start at the bottom.

No, God tore it from the top down.

The need for a sacrificial system was no longer required.

You see, Jesus sacrifice was the ultimate sacrifice.

The price had been paid in full for everything, fire and

everything going forward. He completed it full.

The religious treadmill of do more, give more, sacrifice more.

It's abolished. It's finished.

The way is open into God's presence now.

The old covenant was finished and a new era, a new covenant

covenant was established in the temple.

There wasn't any place for a priest to sit.

That's because the priest's work was never finished.

But in Hebrews 10 and Mark 16, Jesus is recorded as going and

sitting down at the right hand of God.

See, it is finished. So if prophecy is fulfilled, if

the debt is paid, if the curtain is torn, why do we live as if

we're carrying around the bill? See, Jesus said it is finished.

No, I am finished. No, it is finished.

See, I am finished is the language of exhaustion.

It's the thing we say when things haven't gone quite as we

plan them to. It's the thing that we say when

we fall into that sin for the thousandth time.

We feel like God must be fed up with us.

We see God as the tyrant rather than the loving Father.

We see Jesus as God and perfect, which he is.

But we then compare ourselves to that idea of perfection.

We treat our relationship with Jesus as a spiritual treadmill.

You're all here on a Sunday. You might be attending because

you think that's the thing you've got to do to be the

perfect Christian for God to be pleased with you and smile on

you. We run our race striving for

that finishing line, trying to get clean enough, holy enough.

We try to add our little plus sign to the cross.

The cross plus my good behaviour equals salvation.

I don't know whether you've been to the Louvre or perhaps the

National Gallery is is more easy for us to reach, but in there

there's a load of masterpieces. Yeah, beautiful works of art.

You can go and see them. Here's the thing though, you

can't improve on those works of art, on those masterpieces.

You can't get out your little permanent borough and and

improve those things. In fact, I suspect if you did,

you'd end up in a lot of trouble for defacing them.

See, I'm a doer. Over the last month, though,

God's been talking to me about resting in what He has done.

To accept it is finished means that I have to give up what I

would do to try and save myself. I can't save myself anyhow.

In many ways, it's an assault on my pride.

But Dre says put the pen down. The Ledger is closed if you've

been living in shame. And just because I didn't get

the difference between shame and guilt, shame is where you say

I'm a bad person, OK. Guilt is where you say I did

something wrong. All right?

So if you're living in shame, that isn't of Jesus, that isn't

who he says you are. It's not who he's calling you to

be. That's the accuser in Zephaniah

Zephaniah 3:15–17

3 verses 15 to 17, it says the Lord has taken away your

punishment. He has turned back your enemy.

The Lord, the king of Israel is with you.

Never again will you fear any harm on that day.

That's when Jesus died. They will say to Jerusalem, do

not fear Zion. Do not let your hands hang limp.

The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you, in his love.

He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with

singing. We gather here and sing some

great songs and they were amazing this morning.

All about Jesus. And he's there right back

singing over each one of you, singing over you.

Jesus isn't asking you to do more.

He's not asking you to try harder.

He's asking you to rest. When Jesus said it's finished,

he meant your shame is finished, your striving is finished, your

separation from God is finished. And he didn't mean that you've

done enough up to this point. That well done, good and

faithful servant, you've done it all.

No, Jesus has done it all and we just need to accept that there's

nothing we can do. To add to that, Jesus sat down

at the right hand of God. It is finished.

As we move to Easter, it's easy to jump ahead.

It's easy to jump to the Hallelujah of the resurrection,

but for the disciples, on that Friday, it is finished would

probably have felt like a funeral.

They saw a tomb. They saw a stone that had been

rolled over the tomb entrance. They saw silence.

They assumed finished meant over.

They went back to their day jobs because they didn't know what

else to do. As we leave today, realise the

work of salvation wasn't finished when the stone was

rolled away. It was finished on the Friday

when the blood was shed. Sunday was just the proof, but

the payment happened on the Friday.

I hope that you walk out of here not needing to strive to be

better. I hope that for myself, I have

to keep repositioning myself. I hope that you're not wondering

if you're loved, You are. I hope that you're not hoping

you're forgiven because you are, but knowing you are because of

what the King of Kings did. He looked at your life, looked

at your debt, and shouted to the heavens.

It is finished. Next week we're going to hear.

Whom are you seeking? I'm excited for that.

Have a great week. Be blessed, Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus.

Thank you. Jesus, we've sung and and it's

been plain that you deserve all the glory, all the praise.

Jesus, we hold you as just amazing.

Lord, that you would sing over us is wonderful.

That you would come to earth from heaven for us, it's just

amazing. Lord, may we never take it for

granted. May we never stop singing of

what you've done for us. And Lord, may we be a people who

go out amongst the world here and proclaim your life for those

people. Lord, may people here and be

turned to you, Thank you Jesus, Amen.