It Is Finished

Week three, let me open up my pad here. We are in week three of our message series on the cross. So we're talking a lot about the cross. We just celebrated communion. It was about the cross.

We're entering into Holy Week. It's about the cross and leading up to the cross. And we're looking at the last words of Jesus on the cross. There's a lot of last words of Jesus, seven last words, in fact. And like I said last week, it was really, really hard to pick the ones I wanted to because I didn't have seven weeks to teach this.

And I wish I could have crammed like two or three words in a week. But I've saved some of those for another time. So I'll come back to them maybe next year, right? Maybe we'll talk about the other words on the cross. And so we've been walking through this meditating on the cross.

Really, it's kind of a thinking back. Meditation is just a simple, I'm thinking about the cross. I'm going deep in my thoughts about what Christ did on the cross. And some of those significant things about the cross can be found in Jesus's last words. His last words give us some idea of what it really means.

So we looked at week one and we saw that he was forsaken. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why did you turn your back on me? Why aren't you here? And he was forsaken so that you wouldn't have to be forsaken.

That you can eternally look upon the Father because the Father turned his back for just a minute on the Son of God. And we looked at that. And then we, last week, we looked at the idea of forgiveness. Forgiving. A real powerful subject.

You know, Jesus was able to forgive the people who were putting him on the cross. Can we not forgive those who just do less things to us? And that it's a prison and that we hold on to that bitterness when we don't forgive? We looked at that last week. But let's just go back for a second.

Just think about Jesus for a minute on the cross. He was brutally beaten. He was cut open like an animal. Organs exposed. In pain and agony, looking up to the Father.

Just think about that for a second. Reflect on that for a second. Just, I know it's brutal, but it is. That's what crucifixion is. That he actually went through horrific pain.

A horrific event in order to save you. To give his life for you. And men, when men were at his worst, God was at his best at that moment. He was at his best. So we're going to look at a scripture here.

Another last word of Jesus in John 19, 28-30. And if you're following along, those of you online who aren't able to be here today, if you want to pull open the Bible app and pop that up, and we'll talk about that today. Okay. But, um... We're going to look at, or you can follow along, you know, we've got paper notes, guys, you're paper people, paper people.

Okay, John 19, 28 through 30, here we go. Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I am thirsty, the Scripture was fulfilled at that point, because if we look back in Psalm 69, 21, we see that the fulfillment of the I Am Thirsty prophecy, that they gave him vinegar to quench his thirst. So that's what that's saying there, and then in 29, we roll to 29, it says, and a jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, but the sponge on a stalk of a hypis plant, and they lifted it up to Jesus' lips. And when he had received the drink, Jesus said, it is finished. One of the most powerful statements in the Bible, it is finished.

With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for your word. We thank you for these last words that you left us, God.

Pour into our hearts today. Pour into our spirits today. May your spirit be with us. Let not my mouth speak, but your Holy Spirit speak to the people today, as we meditate and think on the cross in these last words. Amen.

Amen. So, what does that mean? What does it is finished mean? When we look at the scripture, we see done. He says, it is done.

It is finished. It is done. I have completed it. The original Greek word means to end, to complete, to execute, to discharge debt. Telestai.

Telestai. Telestai. Telestai. Excuse me. Tetelestai.

Tetelestai. Tetelestai. Tetelestai. If you look at Tetelestai, you see it in three different ways. You see, okay, it is used interchangeably.

A servant returning to his master. I have finished. I have finished the task. Master, I have finished. I am through with the task.

And then the second way it is used is a merchant declaring the debt is paid in full. And then the third way it is used is a priest examining a lamb for sacrifice. It would look over the lamb and determine whether that lamb was perfect to decide whether that lamb was redeemable enough or used to be a perfect sacrifice. And Jesus said, say it again. Tetelestai.

I am having a little problem this morning. Tetelestai. Tetelestai. Tetelestai. That original Greek word.

It means it is finished. The assignment is done. And that very thing changed history. That very thing. It is finished.

What was finished? There were 300 prophecies in the Old Testament. Just a few of those prophecies I will share with you today to show you that it is finished. First of all, darkness would befall the land in Amos. It was completed.

Jesus would be rejected, Isaiah 53. He was betrayed in Psalms 41. He was beaten, Isaiah 53. They spit on Jesus, Isaiah 50. He was pierced, he was wounded, he was bruised for our transgressions, Isaiah 53.

And Psalm 22 says he was mocked. He was forsaken by his friends in Zechariah. He would pray for his persecution in Isaiah. He would be crucified among thieves, Isaiah 53. Soldiers would cast lots for his clothing in Psalm 22.

Not one of his bones would be broken. It wasn't broken, as we see in Scripture, Psalm 34. Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me in Psalm 22? And his hands and feet would be pierced, Psalm 22, 16. And he had been given vinegar to drink, Psalm 68.

All of these were fulfilled. It was the fulfillment. Not only that, Satan's plan was thwarted. That was fulfilled in that time. The debt was paid.

Death lost its sting. Jesus rose from the dead, as we're going to celebrate next week. And everything was fulfilled according to the Word of God. Nothing can be added. That Jesus did everything that the Father that sent him to do.

And he said to the Father, It is finished. We have done it, God. We have done it, Father. We have finished the task. We have finished what you've called me to do.

It is finished. Praise God that it is finished on Jesus' part. But it's not finished on our part. We haven't finished. In fact, we all have unfinished business.

We all have unfinished business in this earth. If we are alive, we have unfinished business. If we are alive, there's some things that we need to do. There's some things that God has left us on this earth to do. So, it's not finished yet for us.

Praise God, it's finished for Jesus. But it's not finished for us. In fact, Revelation 3, 1 and 2 says it like this. This is him talking to the church. Jesus is talking to the church through John the Apostle through a vision.

He says, I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. So, wake up. Wake up. Jesus is telling us to wake up.

Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds, get this word, complete. You haven't completed the task. Your deeds are not complete in the sight of my... God, there's more for us to do. It's not finished for us.

I was just thinking about when I first experienced Jesus and I gave my life, I committed my life to Jesus. I was so excited. I was so excited about what he had done. I'd finally figured it out. I'd finally connected with God in a way that I had never before.

I wanted everybody to know about Jesus. I was in my Bible. I was in the Word all the time. I was looking for opportunities. Have you ever met a new Christian like that?

It's just so excited. Maybe some of you are like that. Praise God. Stay there, please. Right?

And you get excited and you're going to be the next Billy Graham and you're going to go out and save everybody, you know. God's got a powerful plan for my life. I see it now. I'm ready to go out. I want to change the world for Jesus.

But then time comes in to play. Weeks and months and we tend to get lazy. I got lazy and I started seeing that there's a lot more to this flesh that needs to be worked out. There was things that were not completed in me, in my heart. There was integrity issues.

There were things, there were deep sins in my life that began to come back up and begin to creep back in. And I realized it isn't finished. What God has done in my life isn't finished. Yes, salvation is there for me. I am saved.

But there's more that had to be done in my heart. And I remember when I was called to ministry and I just had a hunger to go into ministry, but I knew I wasn't ready. I knew there was so much more for God to do in my heart, in my life. And I walked up to the front of this church that I was a part of. And I remember the elders and the deacons and these men and women of God just praying around me.

And I just, I just, I remember crying out, I can't do this with this stuff in me. I can't do this unless God delivers me from some of these things that are in my life that have been rooted in my life for so long. Some dark places in my life. I knew that God had to bring me out of that in order to do what He had planned for me from the very beginning. So we prayed together and God just filled my heart and filled my life.

And through a process of time and through development, discipleship, God took me to new places and, and, and, and praise God for people that can come around you and help you grow and pray for you and be with you and walk beside you and believe in you and believe that you're called to the thing that you know God has called you to. They walk beside you. But my unfinished business is that, uh, my inward passion didn't match my, I mean, my outward passion didn't match my inward character. My outward passion, that thing I had on the outside that was so exciting and so alive, as this passage says, the, the thing that's so alive, you're alive, but inside of me, it didn't match up with my inward character. So what is your unfinished?

Unfinished business is my question. We all have unfinished business. What is yours? Maybe it's forgiveness. Maybe you need to forgive someone.

Maybe you need to try to restore a relationship. Maybe God's been trying to lead you to do that, to restore something. Maybe it's something simple like, I plan to finish college. I plan to finish my education. I've been putting it off and I know God's calling me to do that.

Or I need to take better care of my body. Amen? I need to do better. Maybe God has been trying to lead me to do something and I'm too unhealthy to do it. And maybe that's what it is.

Or maybe it's to share your faith with someone. Maybe this week you need to go out and share the gospel with somebody. Maybe that's what God has for you. Or you need to give something away. Maybe something's holding you back because it's an idol in your life.

And you need to just let go of it and give it away. Get it out of the way. Or maybe you just need to deal with the sin in your life. Maybe there's some sin in your life that you just haven't been able to conquer yet. We need to identify.

First, identify your unfinished business. Identify your unfinished business. In fact, there on your note page, you can actually pull that out. And I want you to take some time. Not just this morning.

Maybe it is this morning. But during the week, I want you to pray and ask God, what unfinished business do I have? Identify your unfinished business. Write it down. Pray about it.

Seek God for it. And then the next thing you need to do is to make a commitment. Make a commitment. Make a commitment to God. A lot of people start, but few finish.

We like the starting part. We get excited and we're motivated and we're rolling and we're doing whatever it is God's called us to do. Or even simple things in life. But few people finish. And you know what society says?

Don't commit. Don't commit. Don't worry about committing. Don't commit to marriage. Don't commit to relationships.

Don't commit to church. Don't commit to your job. Leave your options open. It's good not to commit. Don't get tied down to that one thing because there's so many different things out there.

So commitment is kind of out the window. But here's what 2 Corinthians 8.11 says. Paul says, Now finish the work so that your eager willingness, because we've got a lot of eager willingness. We all have eager willingness.

We're eager to do things. Eagerness by itself doesn't really do anything, though, does it? You can have eagerness all day long. You can be sincere about a lot of things, but until you complete it, it's just sincerity. Sincerely wrong, in a lot of cases.

You can be sincere and sincerely wrong, right? You can be sincere about anything. But he says, finish it so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. Are you indecisive? Do you know that God has something for you?

Do you know that God has something for you? God is leading you to a particular direction, but you're like, yes, no, yes, no, maybe, I don't know, let your yes be yes and your no be yo. No, I cannot stand a maybe, okay? Maybe, I'll pray about it. Like, we love to say, I pray about it, right?

I'll pray about it. Just say no. Just say no. It don't matter. I mean, I'm not going to be offended if you say no.

Just let your yes be yes and no be yo. No. Poor, I mean, God, man, He's used for a lot of things that isn't even Him. Well, I've been praying, you know, and, uh, well, I've been praying too. We can all use that, right?

I feel like, well, I feel too. Feelings decide a lot of things. Maybe it's just lukewarm, okay? Let your yes be yes. Let your no be no.

I'm reminded of the story of Hernando Cortez. Some of you history nuts in here probably know, um, this beautiful smile. Uh, I don't know why they never smiled back then. I mean, I mean, he's got, he's got a little bit of, okay, this is getting off subject here. Welcome to Salt Church.

Some of you are like visiting for the first time. Wow, I've never seen anything like this. People just, but in 1519, Hernando Cortez, if you, if you know the story, commissioned by the Emperor of Spain with, uh, 11 ships and about 700 men to explore, uh, the New World. And, uh, as they entered into Veracruz to, uh, to settle there and, and to go into that land in, in, uh, Mexico, there was dissension among the people that were in, in, in the ships and in the armies and, and things like that. And what, what was happening is, is, uh, there was fear.

Some of it was fear. Some of it was just rebellion. Uh, some of it was, uh, there's many different things going on depending on what history books you read, but they were, there was a lot of fear of what was ahead of them. And Cortez wanted to eliminate that fear. So he ordered his soldiers to go and burn the ships.

When they landed, he ordered them to burn the ships so there would be no way they can retrieve and go and be, and flee. Burn the ships. No turning back. Burn the ships. I remember that old hymn, uh, there, I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. My question is, what are the ships in your life? What are keeping you from committing?

What's keeping you moving forward? There might be something that's, oh, this comfort or this thing or this job or this money or this, or this idea or, or, you know, it's, it's, I know it's hard. Commitment is hard. It's never easy. But in order to pursue what God has for us, uh, we have to think about those ships.

That may be getting away, in the way of what God has for us. We see this in Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was on his face, he was crying out to God. I can't even imagine what he was probably going through that night as he was facing his crucifixion. He knew exactly what was going to happen.

It would have been easy just to bail. It would have been easy just to run. But Jesus was committed. In fact, he was such an agony, his capillaries under his skin began to burst, and blood began to flow off his forehead. That's how intense he was at this moment when he was praying because, and he said this, he said this, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but your will be done.

Father, take this cup from me if you can. Father, if anything can be done, can I just, I don't want to do this. I don't want to face this. This was God in human flesh. The human side, the human side, the man side of Jesus going through this.

We say, well, he was God. No, he was fully man as well. And he was dealing with the agony of going through this, but he ended with, yet not my will, but your will be done. He stepped across the line of commitment. Are we willing to step across the line of commitment?

Maybe you need to burn some of those ships in your life and begin to step across the line and say, yes, Lord, I'm in. I'm all in. I'm ready to go. I'm here, Lord. Lord, send me.

I'm not saying no. I'm saying yes. You've been telling me all my life. Maybe some of you are like, all my life you've been calling me to do this. All my life you've been saying go this direction, yet we fail to do it because we lack commitment.

We have those ships in our lives. What's keeping you from that which God has left you on this earth to complete? What is that? The second thing is once we've identified and committed, the next thing we do is we've got to take the next step. Take the next step because it's easy to get overwhelmed by the big picture.

When we're thinking about what God has for us and maybe he's given you a really big vision for something, but it seems like impossible to get there. The chasm is just far too wide to even get there. It seems impossible to even look that direction. But what God wants you to do right now is just take the next step. What is the next step?

You don't have to know the future. You don't have to know the end result. Every day we make decisions. God's will is walking every day, taking steps every day. Little things, little decisions that we make every day is a part of God's plan.

God's will. People ask me all the time, what's God's will for my life? I can't figure out God's will for my life. Well, what are you doing? I can't figure out God's will for my life.

I can't figure out God's will for my life. Today. What small steps are you taking today? Galatians 5.25 says, Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

You know, you can walk with the world. You can step with the world all day long. We can step in everything with the world. But stepping in the world is just exhausting and it's overwhelming and it doesn't make sense and it just leaves you dry. But walking in the Spirit is refreshing.

Walking in the Spirit gives you peace and it gives you life and it gives you energy. There's something about walking in the Spirit that's beautiful. And listen, you may not know what the next five steps are, but you know what the first step is. It's little decisions every day that we need to make. It might be, I need to do this or I don't need to do that.

Let me step away from that sin. I don't want to go that route. I know what I need to do. For some of you, it might just be leaving something. Others of you, it might be putting something back in your life that you need.

What is the next step? It's baby steps. It really is that. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I love that scripture because when I think about it, the path is dark.

When you look into the future, when you look at the plan or the vision that God has for your life, it's hard to see. Let's just be honest. I don't know it all. We can't know it all. It's impossible to know it all.

But as I take steps, the lamp lights the path. If I take small steps, there's a light. Okay, there's another light. I see that. And we walk that path and it opens up doors for us.

We don't always know what's ahead of us, but we know what's right in front of us. We can take small steps, baby steps. One of my favorite movies is What About Bob? Bill Murray. And one of my favorite scenes, you know, Bob, Bill Murray's playing Bob.

And Richard Dreyfuss is playing this psychiatrist. And he's a hypochondriac. Everything's terrible. And he's wiping things off while he walks in. He's just a nervous wreck.

And he's all over the place. And he comes in to see this psychiatrist that gives him a book called Baby Steps. So he's taking baby steps to the door, you know. Baby steps to the elevator. Wow, this works.

Wow, look at this. I can do it. Baby steps. Just baby steps. Don't think about what's ahead of you.

Just think about what's right in front of you. Not like, I've got a table here. I can't see over there. I can't see back there. But I can see right here.

Baby steps. And he took so many baby steps, he ended up baby stepping right into their vacation. And not leaving. And to his family. And everything, you know.

So it's all about baby steps. It's all about baby steps. For me, I didn't know what God was calling me to this day, like specifically. When I was called to ministry, it wasn't like, oh man, you know what? I'm going to plant a church in Virginia Beach and it's going to launch this day and we're going to do this.

And then we're going to go through this and then we're going to come back to this. And then we're going to be here and be there, and we're going to move seven times during a pandemic. I didn't know any of that stuff. I think I would have quit real easily if I had known that. I would have.

But what I did know is that God had called me to ministry. I took baby steps. Stepped into my local church. Began to serve in my local church. That's a baby step.

I got this available. I got this gift. I've got this teaching gift. I can teach. I can lead.

I can put things together. I have a music gift. I can do this. That's a baby step. And from there, mentorship and fellowship and people approving and confirming my ministry calling.

I decided to fill out applications for seminary, for graduate school. I could have gone anywhere, but baby steps. Led me to Virginia Beach, to Regent University. Baby steps. I was at Regent University.

I met my wife. Baby steps. All right. Got married. Served in the church.

Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps.

It's right in front of you. The will of God is right there in front of you. People say, what is the will of God for my life? What do you have in front of you? What do you have available right now to give God?

Aim at that first, and God will begin to light the path to everything else. What's your next step? What is your next step? Maybe your next step is just to read a book. Maybe you need to get down and sit somewhere and read something about what you're trying to do.

Maybe it's getting a mentor in your life. Maybe you're without a mentor. Maybe you don't have anybody to speak into your life. Or maybe, maybe you need to write that letter that you've been planning to write to this person that you want to forgive. Maybe that's your baby step.

Maybe it's making an appointment with someone. You've been struggling with something for a long time. Maybe that, that's it. Maybe, maybe a doctor or a psychiatrist or psychologist or, or maybe you need to put together a resume. Maybe it's time.

You've been stuck for a long time in the same place you've always been. You know, it starts with a resume. Put a resume together. Put it out there, right? Or you want to apply to graduate school or you have a tough conversation with somebody.

Maybe you've been meaning to do that for a while, to have that tough conversation with somebody that you really love. Baby steps. Or, or maybe you just need to cut up your credit cards because you're spending too much money. Maybe that's a baby step for you. Or maybe you need, you need to confess.

Maybe there's a sin you need to confess in your life. Maybe you need to pull some people together and say, here, here's what's going on. Call a family meeting. Call a, and say, hey, here's where I am. This is where it has to start.

Baby steps. Maybe your next step is making a decision today for the first time to follow Jesus. Maybe that's the baby step you want to make today. Maybe that's the baby step you want to make. Thank you.

Paul says in Philippians, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ. He carries it on to completion. No matter what we go through, no matter what we have to face, we know that God will always bring us through. And it should give us a passion in our hearts to follow God when we see what he's done and what he sent us to do. In 1968, in the Mexico City Olympics, John Stephen Akwari from Tanzania fell and cut his knee severely and dislocated his joints.

Fifty-six other runners finished the race, a 26.2 mile marathon race in the Olympics. Everybody had left him behind. He was by himself. Could have been easy to say, well, I quit.

But he continued to go. And an hour later, after most people had left the stands, John Stephen comes running in. One hour later, this courageous runner entered the stadium. Though most of the fans had left the stadium, there he was to finish the race. And when they asked him, how did you do that?

When they asked him, why did you continue this race? He said, my country did not send me 5,000 miles to start a race but to finish it. God did not send you here on this earth to start a race. He sent you on this earth to finish it. We are called to finish a race.

We commit, we take the next step, and we finish the race that God has called us to do. Acts 20, 24 says, however, I consider my life worth nothing to me. Paul's saying, I consider my life worth nothing to me, but only that I may finish the race and complete the task that the Lord Jesus has given me. The task of testifying to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we are living, God is not through with us people.

God has a plan for our lives to share and testify of his goodness. If we're not dead, we are still in work with him. Finish the race. Run the race. Run the race.

Run the race. If you are alive, run the race. Commit. Take the next step. The cross provides us with those last words.

It is finished. The race you may be running today may be hard. It may be difficult. In fact, it is difficult. None of us have necessarily an easy race.

Globalization. Getting theanstcriptions, right? Whose life is dangerous. But it's the best race. The cross gives us the best race possible.

Because when you're in step with the world, it will drain you. But when you step with Jesus, everything is available for you. Everything. It is finished. Perhaps some of you here today have some unfinished business.

I want to let you know that Jesus is here to walk you through that unfinished business. And my hope is that one day, as I walk this life and as I do what God has called me to do, and some days it's not easy, guys. Most days it's not easy. Most days it's very, very difficult. Just to be honest, Jesus said, in this life you'll have trouble.

I mean, I'm sorry, you're just going to have trouble. I love how the series, if you follow the series The Chosen, he says, are you ready for hard things? Are you ready for hard things? The life isn't always easy, but man, it is way better with Jesus. It's way better to finish.

And I hope that one day, as I walk this life and I go through this, that I can look at God. And God just looks at me, well done, my good and faithful servant. You have finished the race. You have done well. You have done well.

God's looking down on us and he's like, you're doing it. Know that there's a God cheering you on, cheering you through the race. When you're running like John Stephen and your leg's broken and it's all over the place, you're still rolling. Jesus, I want you to picture Jesus for a minute, stumbling, holding the cross. If you have an opportunity to go back to the passion of the Christ, watch that again if you haven't in a while.

I know every one of you probably have. But as he stumbled and as he just kept picking up the cross, he just said, I take that next step. I'm taking that next step to Calvary. When you put the vinegar in his mouth, I'm taking that next step. He kept taking that next step, tripped and fell.

He was pierced. I'm taking that next step. They spat on him, accused him, mocked him. Father, forgive them. I'm taking that next step.

The cross is all about next steps so that we could have eternal life and begin to take steps to what God has for us as well. Father, we thank you for your word, Lord. Father, we thank you for your word. Father, we thank you for your word. Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank You for the cross as we study the cross. We pray, God, that we wouldn't take You for granted, Lord. We wouldn't take our faith for granted, Lord. We wouldn't take eternal life for granted, Lord. But that we would see that what You did was finished.

That everything was completed. Every prophecy was met. That You finished the work, Lord. Give us a heart and passion also to finish the work, God. That we would commit to You, Lord.

No turning back, Lord. We're walking towards You. No turning back, Lord. I'm letting go of my ships. No more of this holding me back, Lord.

I want everything that You have for me, Lord, I completely commit today, Lord. And I'm going to take the next step. Take those steps. And I'm going to finish. Lord, we want to finish.

We want to finish well. We want to make our Father proud. We want our Father to stand before us in heaven and say, Good have done my good and faithful servant. Lord, we pray, God, that we would remember. And for some today, as we continue to pray, maybe your first step today, maybe your commitment today is to make a decision for Jesus.

If that's you, would you make that decision? Would you give God an opportunity to change your life? Would you give God an opportunity to transform you? Would you give God an opportunity to show you what real life is all about? If you would do that, if that's you today, won't you pray this with me?

And everybody here can pray along with me. Father, I believe that You are the Son of God, that You died on the cross for my sin. I'm far away from You, Lord. Today, come into my life. Come into my heart.

I believe that You died and You rose again. Change me from the inside out. I make a commitment to You today. And I'm going to walk these steps out with You into eternity. Thank You, Lord, for saving me.

Thank You, Lord, for rescuing me. In Jesus' name. Amen.