Introductory Considerations
1. After being ordained into ministry and installed in Welland, local paper reported on the event - heading was "From Saving money to saving souls", referring to how an accountant became a minister of the word. Being involved in the work of God in saving souls is a much greater task than that of helping a business save money to increase its profits.
2. For that reason the work of ministry should be and often is more satisfying than that of accounting.
3. But there is one thing that I miss about accounting - every month we would have a number of jobs to do - paying bills, balancing books, preparing financial statements. Every year we would prepare a budget and go through a long and tedious budget. Sometimes we would have special analysis or projects to work on.
4. In each of these jobs, there was one thing that gave me joy that I often do not have in ministry. Each of these things were completed and after that I could rest from the work with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. The work was done. I could say "It is finished"
5. You experience this when car repaired, planting or harvest is over etc.
6. I still experience this when I finish a sermon or some other work.
7. But what I have deep inside is a sense of incompleteness - things are not finished. In working with believers, with you - there are struggles, issues, doubts, tensions, conflicts that seem to hang on and on - that never seem to be resolve.
8. While that is a normal part of our human existence, I wonder if it needs to be this way, at least as much as it is.
9. It seems that we hang on to the past, to sins, to hurts, to insecurities more than we need to. It seems that we struggle so much that we do not have rest or have peace or joy. Sometimes I wish we could just take some of these things and say "It is finished, lets move on".
10. Today we here Jesus say "It is finished" from the cross. As we consider what Jesus means when He says these words we also consider what they mean for us and how these words should help us to put some of our struggles to rest. So we can also say "It is finished"
Teaching
1. "It is finished". The suffering of our Lord had come to an end.
2. Jesus said these words that he said that he was thirsty and so one man put some cheap wine on a sponge and on a stalk of a hyssop plant and lifted it to His lips.
3. The thirst that Christ felt would well have been because of the heat and the crucifixion itself.
4. But it could reminds us of what Jesus had said to His Father in Gethsemane. (Mat 26:39). Rev 14:10 talks about drinking the wine of God’s fury.
5. Jesus suffered at the hands of those who killed Him - but also at the fury of God - the sense of even being forsaken by Him. It was a suffering that He could only take, a suffering on our behalf.
6. Some of us have seen loved ones suffer and have actually felt relieved when they died. The words "It is finished" are words of relief, like an escape.
7. We suffer because of different reasons. We suffer with each other as members of the same body. One of hardest tasks as minister is that of sharing in the suffering of others.
8. Becoming a Christian does not make us immune to suffering - some say it increases our suffering because we are more aware of sin and injustice - that may be true, but we need to be careful.
9. Person telling me they were struggling with what God wanted them to do. They felt that if they really felt a strong desire to serve in a way, they should not - they should rather take the job that would create more suffering. Then they would be denying themselves. (Mat 16:24)
10. We will have crosses to bear but we must not think all is bad if it does not create suffering. To deny self means to not even consider suffering as a big deal. To lay self aside and focus on Christ and others as well. Not to ignore but not to make it the main focus of our lives.
11. To deny self means to not take upon ourselves that which Christ died for, not to suffer for that for which He suffered. (Mat 16:25)
12 Recently I saw suffering with family in deciding what to do with baby that was dying.
a. What to do? Easy for them to put all on own shoulders - thereby suffering greater. Father said "As father I have to make it right - can’t - only God can - let go"
b. Later talk on phone - sense peace - why? - gave it over, gave son over to God.
13. As believers we need to give over suffering to God and die to ourselves so we can say, in relation to suffering "It is finished". At least the struggle we have with the suffering.
14. What about you? Do you have un-needed suffering in your life. As Christ we must die to self - then suffering does not affect us as much.
15. This is against way world looks at suffering - but very NB.
16. Also, Jesus meant this when He said "It is finished" - He accomplished or completed the work He came to do. (John 17:4)
17. Jesus came to bring both the news and the way of salvation. That work was finished through his death.
18. The cross was the consummation of His work. This included active and passive obedience.
a. Active - all He did to observe the law on behalf of sinners, as a condition for obtaining eternal life.
b. Passive - in all He suffered in paying the penalty of sin and discharging the debt of His people. (Phil 2:8)
19. What Jesus completed was the will of His father - for throughout history God’s will has been to redeem His people - to save them from their enemies, to save them from their own sin.
20. In that single act on the cross, Christ accomplished His Father’s will - writer to Hebrews says. (Heb 9:8-25).
21. God’s demands were satisfied completely thru Christ’s death on the cross. A righteous and holy God cannot overlook sin - someone had to pay the price.
22. Christ became our ransom to His Father.
23. What does this mean for us? We need to receive in faith what Christ has done for us. It means that we need to deny ourselves - that we admit that there is nothing we can do to add to what X has done already.
24. The job has been finished completely.
25. Some of you here make dresses - imagine spending a long time making a wedding dress - every frill, every detail has been planned and sewn together with great care - it looks and fits perfect. Imagine if you come to the wedding and you sit with rest of people waiting to see the bride come in. As you see her you are shocked - it seems she did not think the dress was good enough and so she tried to fix it but actually made a mess of it. She even needed to patch it up. She took that which was completed and made a mess of it.
26. I believe we sometimes do the same with Christ’s work of salvation. We feel that we cannot accept that He paid the price for us. We feel we have to add to it to just make sure.
27. We think that by living holy lives and doing the right things we are making our salvation more sure.
28. By doing this we are taking away from what Christ did on the cross - it is as if we are saying - it is not finished.
29. Can even mean we are nor saved - because we do not trust in Christ alone.
30. We start looking both at ourselves and others based on how good a life they are living and then we start questioning whether or not we have done enough and rather than knowing that our salvation is a done deal we spend too much time focusing on how we are doing and we have no assurance.
31. Our lives are to reflect our faith. James says that faith without works is dead, we may wonder if our works indicate if faith real.
32. Do we then look at faith or works? We can try harder but I find that leads to more problems. "Am I doing enough, why am I doing good things? - do I pray enough?"
33. Don’t focus on works to prove faith. Instead come to cross. Come to Christ and spend time with Him. Ask self if really trust Him. Do you believe He is sufficient?
34. Do you have to feel good about self before you feel saved? We can feel bad about self but trust in Christ. Humble self and stop even focusing on self.
35. Look to Christ and say with Him "it is finished". Think on Him and desire to live for Him not to prove anything but to let Him know how much you love Him and want to please Him.
36. Are you doing that?
