John: The Cross and All That is Finished

So we are 44 sermons into the book of John, and we're in John chapter 19, and everything has been headed here to this morning's story in John 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

So Jesus has been taken from the Garden of Gethsemane, he's been arrested, he's been taken to the high priest, to the Jewish authority who deemed him blasphemous and guilty.

So they're going to try to kill him.

So then they take him to Pilate, which we talked about last week.

And Pilate gives in to the pressure of the crowd, and Pilate says, okay, we'll kill him.

And so now Jesus is on his way to the cross.

He carries his own cross and he carries it to Gagatha, where they nail him to the cross, and there's a thief on each side of them.

So last fall, Chris and I went to this wedding, and it was a wedding of some friends of ours.

Obviously, we got invited to the wedding.

So a friend of ours whose family can throw a party.

They throw a lot of parties and they can throw a party.

And Christy got to be a part of planning the party, which is great.

And Christy for months would come home from these little planning sessions for this party, and she would come home and she would tell me about this party.

She'd tell me about where it's going to be, and she'd tell me about the band, oh, you won't believe this band, and what kind of music's gonna be, and kind of the ambiance they're gonna create.

And she would she would tell me about the food, you know, like you won't believe the food, oh you won't believe the food, you won't believe, you know, and it was just kind of message after message after message about the party and about the food.

So we drive down there, and it was uh it was in a at a farm south of Atlanta, kind of this like really cool, nice farm, this big pavilion out in the field, and there's a pond, and it's surrounded by woods.

And so we have the service, and then after the service, uh the party starts, you know, and it starts kind of subtle, you know, and the band's kind of playing.

And um, and we get our drinks, the bars open, get get some drinks, get some friends, and sit around the table, and then uh the the waiters and waitresses start coming around with with the appetizers and like miniature pimenta cheese sandwiches and uh a pulled pulled pork on a cornblini, um uh fried pickle.

I mean and then they kept coming around and more and more, and it just kept coming around and again and again.

And this was good.

I mean, you're loading up, like bring, you know, like you've been to the wedding when you're you're waiting for the person to come back by you.

Like you see them, you're like, I hope they swing this way and come back around because I want another uh miniature pin minute cheese sandwich.

I didn't know I wanted it, but now I've had one and I want like 10 of them.

And so uh, but it's it's it's again, I this is good, but I know what's coming because Christy's been telling me, right?

Like she's been telling me for months.

She's been telling me about this meal.

And so this little plate that I'm getting with these little appetizers is good, but there is a much bigger plate coming, right?

And eventually they let us eat and it's good.

It's smoked beef brisket that I'm assuming was had been smoked for about the past six months because it just fell apart.

If you're healthy, you went over to the grilled salmon, you know, you had your salmon, or uh if you were really unhealthy, you went for the southern fried chicken.

And then they had macaroni and cheese with truffle oil, which maybe that doesn't mean anything to you.

What it meant to me is I just wanted to kind of like dive into that dish and just lather myself.

It was so incredibly good.

Pretty sure it's still in my arteries somewhere.

Um, it was the kind of good that you built the pyramid, right?

Like on your plate, because they never give you a big enough plate, and you get that kind of medium-sized plate, and you just kind of build your foundation and work your way up and hope it doesn't topple.

And you get back to your table and you go, I didn't see that.

Where was that at?

And you're oh, it's on the other side.

You gotta go to the other side for that one.

And so it's just so good, right?

Right?

Finally, the event that had been spoken of to me for so long, message after message after message, uh, was coming true.

Here's what we're seeing in John.

Well, we're seeing that.

That's what we're seeing in John.

Uh for 19 chapters, story after story, word after word, teaching after teaching, is heading here.

Now, maybe you don't know much about the Old Testament.

Maybe even reading the Old Testament is kind of strange, you know, like you're like, there's some weird history, and there's some weird stories in there.

I'm not sure how God is working in some of that strangeness.

Even the Old Testament is a picture after picture of a Messiah who would come, and he would not rule by political power, but he would rule and conquer by humility and death on a cross.

I mean, we can think about this, the words of so many prophets.

Isaiah 53 is a popular chapter to look at because he's prophesying hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus ever comes, and he prophesies that Jesus would be despised, he would be rejected, he would take our pain, and by his wounds we would be healed.

We can think about Abraham willing to sacrifice his son in Genesis 22, and we can look at Exodus 12, and we can read about the Passover Lamb.

And then we can think about John the Baptist, like 42 sermons ago in our church.

And John the Baptist sees Jesus coming, and John the Baptist says, Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

I mean, Jesus even spoke himself about how this was going to end.

In John 3, he's talking to Nicodemus in verses 14 and 15.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man, so I must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

He's referring back to Deuteronomy 21, talking about being hung on a tree.

And again, in John 12, verses 31 and 32, Jesus again, he refers to this again.

John 12:31

He says, Now is the time for judgment on this world.

Now the prince of this world will be driven out, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

Now, maybe you're here, and this idea is just strange, right?

Like the idea of God dying for man, the idea of forgiveness coming by shed blood.

Maybe it seems barbaric, maybe, maybe it just seems antiquated at this point, right?

You're thinking, man, this is so kind of antiquated, we're modern at this point.

Um there are mornings that kind of seems this way to me.

I don't know about you.

I mean, there are there are times when I have to like remind myself why something is true and that it is true.

And for me, kind of when I push past my initial doubt and I don't just settle into hearing about the cross, but understanding the cross is when the cross becomes so much more profound.

Here's what I mean: uh life is in blood.

Right?

If you're in the medical field, you know that.

I mean, the rest of us, we live in a society at this point where we're kind of like we're a clean society, like don't get around blood, somebody else kills our meat, you know, they handle it, and then it's nice and pretty when it gets to us.

But life is in blood, always has been.

The ancient Hebrews believed that the blood of a creature, in the blood of a creature contained its life.

And they they just knew this not by science, they just knew this because when the creature lost its blood, it died.

Leviticus 17, 11 says this, for the life of a creature is in the blood.

This is God speaking to his people, and I have given it to you, the blood, to make atonement for yourselves on the altar.

It is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.

Okay, so right away you go, okay, okay, what's this about?

This is the barbaric, strange part that I was thinking when you've been talking about blood for forgiveness.

Uh one's life, uh, more flawed than you thought, not living up to the standard that's been set, right?

So we are fallen and rebellious before God.

There's a separation before God.

How do we overcome this separation?

How do we atone for the fact that we don't live as we should?

And what God is saying is it's not up to you to shed your own blood.

I will provide for you.

See, that's what the Levitical laws in Exodus and Leviticus and the Jewish sacrificial system are all about, is God allowing his people to atone for their sins and shortcomings and failings by the blood of animals poured on an altar.

See, it's substitution.

Theologically it's called the doctrine, substitutionary atonement.

An animal's life for the person's life.

Now, having said that, perhaps you're sitting here thinking that just still sounds just kind of sounds absurd.

But God is teaching us something, and we can so easily think we are so advanced, so modern, so beyond this.

But the reality is you and I do the same thing.

We shed our own blood to pay for our own sin.

We sacrifice ourselves to make up for that shortcoming.

We beat ourselves up.

That mistake.

We're gonna earn our way back into favor, God.

We will sacrifice ourselves and shed our own blood to work our way back into atonement.

And maybe we're gonna do this so that we can feel a certain level of value, or maybe we're gonna do this and feel a certain level of righteousness.

But what this is, is this, and maybe you haven't thought about it this way.

This is you and I atoning for our sin by the sacrificing of our own blood.

But what if God graciously shed his own blood so that you wouldn't have to keep killing yourself?

Let's jump into John 19, verse 23.

John 19:23

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining.

This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

Let's not tear it, they said to one another, let's decide by lot who will get it.

And this happened that the scripture might be fulfilled.

That said, They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.

That's in Psalm 22, 18.

So this is what the soldiers did.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopus, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, Woman, here is your son, and to the disciple, here is your mother.

And from that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

So the clothes are taken, and then Jesus takes care of his mama.

We love that, right?

Verse 28.

Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I am thirsty.

And a jar of wine vinegar was there, and so they soaked a sponge in it, and put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips.

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

And with that he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit.

So I want to make two points, which may seem, if you've been around church, kind of basic, maybe you've heard them a lot, and maybe you're even gonna tune me out a little bit, but they're so profound.

And then two um these two phrases Jesus talks about.

It is thirsty, I am thirsty, and it is finished.

I want to talk about those two.

So the the first is the two statements.

So the first or the two points.

The first point is this Jesus on the cross is about God's justice and about God's glory.

So easy to see the cross and just see it totally for me.

Like I'm, you know, well, it's all for me, and it's about me, and it's for my glory, and he loves me, and it's all me, and me, and me, and me.

Well, it's not just for you.

He does love you and he died for you.

But we get this in Romans 3, which is so fantastic for us because it shows us that the world and even God Himself does not revolve around you.

Verse 25 of Romans 3.

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, so that's that's for us.

You you don't have to keep killing yourself.

So Christ is a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith.

Good news, you don't have to work your way into it.

Just shift your faith from shedding your own blood for your atonement to his shed blood for you.

He did this, God did this to demonstrate his righteousness.

Because in his forbearance, he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.

And in case you didn't catch it the first time, verse 25, he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

So his character, God's character is just and righteous and good, and he is the glorious one.

So what this means is it means we don't have to, we don't have to chant glory to some little football team wearing red that's gonna disappoint us, you know, like three times out of the 13 games.

We don't have to chant glory to a group of friends that doesn't accept us.

We don't have to chant glory to the economic level that we we just constantly want to be at.

We don't have to chant glory.

We don't have to chant glory to anything except Him.

And He's the one that's giving to us.

See, God is worthy of your life revolving around Him.

That's point number one.

Jesus on the cross is about God's justice and glory, so relieving to us, because it means that the world doesn't have to revolve around us and we don't have to even demand the world to chant glory to us.

That's good news.

All right, the second point is this Jesus on the cross is about God's love to us, right?

This is usually the one that we go to first when it comes to the cross.

And this is Romans 5.8.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this.

While we were still sinners, so you have to get your act together for this to happen, Christ died for us.

So for his glory, he chose to love you.

And chooses to love you.

Now that the two statements Jesus speaks from this cross in John's account.

I've been kind of processing and wrestling these two statements all week, just thinking about, okay, I'm thirsty, it is finished, I'm thirsty, it is finished.

What's John saying with these two statements?

So Jesus is hanging there, he's been nailed to the cross, he's parched, his body is ripping apart.

He's in pain and he's exhausted.

In verse 28, that's where he says, I am thirsty.

And I can't hear this without thinking about the times that Jesus, in the book of John, we've read about how he talks about how we are we're thirsty.

Like we're the ones who go to so many places to try to get water and get our thirst quenched, the thirst of our hearts, our inner beings.

And we go to wells and go, man, if I could just drink enough from this place, right?

If I just drink enough from over here, just drink enough from this person, if I just drink enough from these different things, then finally, finally I will be okay.

And what he says to us, and we see throughout the book of John several times, is he says, No, drink of me.

And then here he is, and he's on the cross.

He says, I am thirsty.

So Thursday, I'm refining this sermon, and I'm becoming convinced that if we ever move my study out of the room over our garage looking at our backyard, I'm gonna lose all my good sermon illustrations because I'm looking over my backyard, and my three-year-old comes out into the backyard.

And so she climbs up the slide a few times, you know, using her feet and hands, right?

They kind of shuffle up.

You've seen this, and at the top's like a little fort, a little platform.

And so then she decides, well, I'm gonna try to run up it without using my hands.

And so she gets going a little bit, and she's wearing these like sandals, you know, that are real slippery, and so she only makes it up a few steps, and so she scoots back a little bit.

I need to get a bigger head start.

If I get a bigger head start, I'll be able to do it.

And so she scoots back a little bit and she runs and she slips and she kind of hits the side of the slide and kind of rolls off and hits the ground.

But see, nobody's out there for to be like you know, sympathetic towards her, so she kind of sits up and kind of shakes it off and then she scoots back further, because that's the answer to this, is just scoot back further, and she runs even harder.

And this time her again her feet slip out from underneath her, and she hits her head, like the top of her head on the slide.

She kind of slides down.

I'm just kind of watching what's gonna happen here, and and so she gets to the bottom of the slide and she kind of shakes her head and she hits her head, ah, you know, like that.

And again, the solution is um scoot back further.

Right?

Like, not this is an impossibility of which I'm killing myself.

Uh let's scoot back further.

This time she scoots back further, and uh, she gets back, and and then nobody's out there.

She she scoots back further and she does this.

You know, like you know, and then she gets running, and mind you, every time she gets to the foot of the slide, she has to slow down for the step on, but she still thinks the scooting back's gonna help.

And and this time she gets she's she's going harder, and and she gets going, and then it's just a face plant this time, like face into the into the slide, um, and she slides down and then she runs inside and crying.

So here's what I think about this is uh watching this and going, man, that's what we do.

We're not getting the top of the slide of uh feeling righteous or feeling uh atoned for our mistakes, that season of life, or that mistake, whenever, or my personal value or importance to God.

And so I'm just gonna scoot back, I'm gonna run harder.

And maybe some of us are pretty good at running hard, like we're pretty moralistic and religious, and so we're pretty good at this, and we're pretty successful in the world, and so we think, man, I'm really gonna reach this fort.

But then you get up there and then the platform just raises, right?

You you know this.

The slide keeps getting higher and higher and higher.

And here is Jesus saying, I'm thirsty.

Like, I will take on your thirst.

Jesus took our thirst that we might have a path through him to know the God whom we can drink of so that we don't have to keep thirsty.

See, the cross is an emphatic and forever yes to you that God loves you.

Already decided.

You already decided it.

Already done.

It's already finished.

So I am thirsty.

The second statement, it is finished.

So he finished the work that redeems you and rescues you, and it was finished a long time ago, and you don't have to finish anything else.

Most days I don't feel like this, right?

You wake up and you feel like, well, I need to finish a little bit.

And there's a little bit left I need to finish.

You know, the idea of Jesus sufficient on the cross, okay, I get it.

Like maybe that's kind of like the entry in, but I still feel like there's something else for me to add to really be God's beloved, approved, my standing before God, secured.

Like, all right, good preacher, it's finished, but tomorrow I'm still going to add to it.

And it's like, no, no, no.

Substitutionary atonement.

Jesus is our substitute.

He is the Passover Lamb once and for all.

So what this means is it means that horrible mistake, that season of life, that forgiveness we want, you go, ah, I need to finish it.

No, you don't.

It's finished.

That lacking of personal value that you feel, and you feel like, well, if I've run up that slide hard enough and I get up there, you know, I need to finish, I need to finish, I need to get up there, you're not going to get there.

There's nothing for you to finish.

It's already finished.

God already decided how He feels about you.

And we see it in the cross.

So you may have your prayer time, meditation time, you may read the scriptures, you may give generously, you may love your neighbor, you may have all sorts of wonderful fruits of the good news that God loves you, but none of it is to finish how he feels about you and your position with him.

See, the end of John 19, the day's getting later, and the Jews want these guys off the cross.

They're about to have this huge religious festival, and they just don't want three guys up on a cross during their party.

And so the way that the Romans would just finish guys off is they would come and they would break the legs of the guys.

That way it just finished the crucifixion.

And so they go to the thieves on each side of Jesus and they break their legs, and that finishes them off.

But they get to Jesus, and Jesus has already given over his spirit to God and said, It's finished.

Done.

So a soldier gets a spear and he he comes up to Jesus and he pierces the side of Jesus.

And blood and water flow out.

I'm just wondering this morning if we can just stop finishing things that have already been finished for us.

Right?

Wasting all this time and energy and heart, sacrificing ourselves, thinking that we're going to be our own Passover lamb when Jesus was that for us.

And can we just ask God this morning, like help me trust in the cross and not myself, to live and rest in the cleansing of the blood of Jesus for my atonement, and to drink of the water of life that can quench the thirst inside of me so that we wake up and we shower and we dress and we drive to work and we work and we go to school and we do our school work and we we socialize with our friends and we deal with our co-workers and we do our the stuff around the house and we discipline our children and we socialize with our friends and we go on dates and we exercise and we pursue and we dream and we're disappointed.

We do all of this in the shed blood of Jesus that atones for our sins that we might be able to drink from a well that can quench our thirst.

And then we do all of this in the cry of the final three words of Jesus in this story, that it is finished.

Let's pray together.

And we come and first we do we just confess to say we love to try to add to your sufficiency for us.

Help us to trust more in the cross.

God, for so many of us, all we've ever known is faith in ourselves.

And secular pursuits and religious pursuits and moralistic pursuits, but never faith in you.

And we just take a moment now for those of us that have been living that life, and we say to you from within our hearts, I shift my faith from myself to Jesus and your love for me, and I repent of my sin, this self-saving life that I've been living, and I receive you as Lord and Savior.

Thank you for giving me belief.

For many of us, we wake up tomorrow, and there's this part of us that just wants to be able to finish the slide off ourselves and finish something and help us to rest and live in your finished work for us.

That we might know life.

That you are enough for us.

Help us to live in the atoning blood of Jesus and to drink from the well that never runs dry.

Amen.