The Word Of Victory

I want you to follow with me beginning in verse 28, and we'll go to verse 30. John says, after this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said I thirst. Now there was set of vessel full of vinegar, and they filled the sponge with vinegar. They put it on a hyssop reed. It was like a branch of hyssop, and they put it to his mouth. Verse 30, when Jesus therefore received the vinegar, he said these words, "It is finished." And then he bowed his head and he gave up the ghost. The Greeks had a saying in biblical times that they wanted to put a sea of matter into a drop of language. Now whether it be the Greek language or Greek oratory, their goal was to put a sea of matter into a drop of language. And when I thought about that, I thought, what a great description of this sixth word, a sea of matter and a drop of language.

I believe that this is true of this sixth utterance when Jesus cried, notice it with me in verse 30, Jesus, after he received the vinegar, said these words, "It is," what? It is finished. Three words in our English Bible but in the Greek, it is only one word. It is the Greek word, tetelestai, T-E-T-E-L-E-S-T-A-I to tell us die. And in that one, Greek word is a sea of Doctrine and truth and the grace of God, the mercy of God, the redemptive plan of God. But a marvelous word is the word that Jesus uttered, tetelestai or just simply finished. It has been called the greatest single word ever uttered. Layman Strauss said, ever since Jesus spoke this word, the devil has kept busy trying to hide its real meaning. I think that's true. And I think today that the devil does not want you to hear this message.

He doesn't want you to know what Jesus did on the cross, and we're certainly going to delve into that today. In one word is wrapped up the whole gospel of Christ. In this one word, we find the entire basis for our salvation. In this one word, we find the ground for all our assurance and this one word, we find all of our hope for eternal life, tetelestai, finished. Now, what did Jesus mean when he cried? And by the way, the other gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that he uttered this statement with a loud voice. With a loud voice. They actually just say, and Jesus cried with a loud voice. And then he said, "Father, into thy hands, I commit my spirit." The last three words that Jesus uttered or statements happened rapidly right at the end of his death.

So he cries, "I thirst." He cried, "Tetelestai," then he cried, "Father, into thy hands, I commit my spirit." Then he bowed his head and he gave up, my King James Bible says ghost, which means spirit, his human spirit, the God man being man, he dismissed his spirit, he dismissed his soul and he died at that moment, Jesus gave his life voluntarily. He said, no man takes it from me. I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it up again. So Jesus laid down his life and then he rose again from the dead. Amen. So Jesus cries this word of victory. It is finished. Now, last week we saw in verse 28, he cried, I thirst, and there we called attention to the person of Jesus Christ. Today we go from his person to his work.

It is finished. So I thirst. We focused on the person of Christ. It is finished. We focus on the work of Jesus Christ. There is nothing more important for you than to understand those two things. Number one, who Jesus is, and number two, what Jesus has done. Know who Jesus is and know what Jesus has done because a response to that knowledge determines where you will spend all of eternity and the quality of your life right here and right now. Now, in this sixth word from the cross, it is not a word of defeat. Tetelestai is not a word of defeat. Notice he didn't say, I am finished. What if Jesus would've cried when he was on the cross? I am finished. It's like, okay, well, he's history. It's all over.

I say that because there are liberals. There are liberals who translate it that way. I am finished. I don't think so. By the way, he's on the throne right now wearing the crown, not of thorns, but of glory. He is not finished. He's coming back. He cried. It is finished. What is finished? The work the Father gave me to do. Interesting that the very first words recorded out of the mouth of Jesus was at 12 years of age when his parents lost him in the mall, they couldn't find him. When you lose your kids, maybe at 12 you're like, oh, who cares? Good riddance. But they're little. You freak out. It's like, ah, I lost them. So for three days they couldn't find Jesus. And then where'd they find him? In the temple. And he was hearing and answering questions and finally Mary, "Oh, didn't you know that your father and I, we were freaking out. We were looking for you. Where have you been, Jesus?"

And what did he say? First words, you recorded in the Bible out of the lips of Jesus. Didn't you know that I would be about my father's business in my father's house? The word that Jesus used could be translated either way about my father's business or didn't you know I'd be in my father's house. So now the last words he uttered are it is finished. Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. So he finished the work the Father gave him to do, and he committed his spirit to the Father who had sent him into the world to do that work of dying for the sins of the world. Now, what did this dying utterance of our Lord mean? There are four points I want to bring out, or four facts. If you're taking notes, I encourage you to write them down. Four facts about this word that Jesus uttered.

It is finished or tetelestai. The first is that it meant that consummation of prophetic scriptures concerning his suffering. Now, sorry about that long point, but I had to pack everything in there to make sure that I dotted all my I's crossed my T's, and that I accurately convey what is going on here. So let me repeat that. It was the consummation of prophetic scriptures concerning his suffering. I specify that because there are still prophecies to be fulfilled when Jesus comes back the second time. That's why he said he hasn't finished yet. He's coming back again and more prophecies will be fulfilled. But as far as his first coming and as far as his death on the cross, everything the prophets in the Old Testament spoke about is now been fulfilled. In the Old Testament, we had sacrifices which were types and symbols and shadows of Jesus' death on the cross of which he is the fulfillment.

The Old Testament, we call the type, the New Testament, we call the anti-type. So in the Old Testament, we had the lambs, we had the blood, we had the priests, we had the tabernacle, we had the Levitical rites and ordinances. They all pointed to Jesus Christ. All through the Old Testament, the Lord is found in every page, even the tabernacle, when you looked at it on the outside, it was a badger skin. It spoke of his humility and his humanity. And the Bible says there was nothing that we desired of him. He looked like a man because he was a man. He didn't have a glow, he didn't have a halo. He didn't speak with a reverb in his voice. He was just a peasant from Galilee. But if you went inside the tabernacle, it was glorious gold and silver and linen, and there were angels.

And it was glorious, glorious, because that spoke of his deity, his humanity, and his deity. And every altar, every curtain, every bit of incense, the showbread, the candle stand, all spoke of Jesus Christ. And it was pointing to when Jesus would come and die on the cross for the sins of the world. Let me give you an example. In the Old Testament, there was first of all, the death of Adam and Eve or the death of the lamb for Adam and Eve when they died or when they sinned. And God says, when you sin, you're going to die. So that was a picture or a fore-type of Jesus being fulfilled. The prophetic scriptures. So the veil of the temple also was ripped in two when Jesus died on the cross. Remember when Jesus died on the cross and there was darkness, the rocks ran. There was an earthquake.

Guess what else happened? God, the father reached down and ripped, I'm imitating God the Father reaching down and ripping the veil of the temple that separated, the two compartments called the holy place and the holy of Holies. Now that curtain was 18 inches thick, woven with gold and silver. It was very big. And when Jesus cried, "It is finished," and Jesus dismissed his spirit. God the Father reached on and ripped that curtain. You know what that signifies? Signifies that the way into the holy of Holies, the presence of God is now made available for us. John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who carries away the sins of the world," Jesus is the substance. Jesus is the reality. Someone said, finished all the types and shadows of the ceremonial law, finished all that God has promised death in hell no more shall I.

It is finished. It is finished. Saints from thence, your comfort draw. Jesus died to fulfill all of the prophecies concerning his death. Let me give you point number two or fact number two about this statement. It meant the cessation or the end of all his physical sufferings. Jesus Christ was the only person ever born for the express purpose to die. You got that? When a baby is born, we think of its future. We think of life, we think of hope. Jesus was actually formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary, given a body so that he could die. Those little hands on the baby Jesus were formed so that nails could be driven through them. His little feet, baby feet are so cute. You can kiss baby feet. I won't kiss your feet, but I'll kiss a baby's feet, pudgy little feet with their little toes and you kiss them and weird, we kiss baby's feet, but again, I will not kiss your feet.

Those little feet were made so that nails one day could be driven through them with a spike. We love to kiss baby's all over. We kiss their cheeks and we kiss their forehead, that precious forehead of that little child, that baby Jesus was made so that a crown of thorns one day could be shoved down over his brow. When Jesus came into the world, a writer in Hebrew says, a body that has prepared for me. Sacrifices and offerings, I would not, but you gave me a body so that I could suffer, so that I could die. So Jesus Christ became the fulfillment of that by suffering and by dying. He says, I have a baptism to be baptized with and how can I be constrained until it be accomplished? I have to suffer, I have to die. No one ever suffered like Jesus. Now, when I wrote that statement last night in my sermon notes, I paused.

I try my best to think about every word that I utter and every word in my message. Every word that I utter, I want to have truth and significance. And I thought, can I really say that? Can I really say that no one ever suffered like Jesus? And as I thought about it, yes, I'm saying that no one ever suffered like Jesus, where people tortured similarly, yes, where people crucified similarly, but Jesus bore the sin of the world and Jesus' sensitive soul, never knowing sin, had to bear the agony. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And that was the greatest suffering that he endured. He was mocked, he was ridiculed, he was spit upon. Other people were killed and crucified by crucifixion in Roman time, but crowds didn't gather around and mock them and ridicule them and spit upon them like they did our Lord.

But Jesus Christ, who suffered like no one has ever suffered before, cried, "It is finished." No snarling enemies will ever again spit on his lovely face. No soldiers will ever scourge his back. No crown of thorns will adorn his head, now his head is adorned by a crown of glory. The suffering is now over. The separation is now ended, and Jesus quickly says, "It is finished." And he said, "Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit." And he bowed his head and he gave up the ghost. This is the one point that really touched me. I think most of this week to think about, Jesus suffered so greatly for me and now it's over. No more spitting, no more buffeting, no whipping, no more nails, no more pain, no more shame. It is finished and I believe that one day the application is for us, that the day will come when our earthly sorrow and our suffering will be over.

Do you believe that? I believe that there is coming a day. Where there'll be no more sorrow. There'll be no more suffering. There'll be no more sin. There'll be no more pain. For all the former things will be passed away and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. I believe that day's coming. And the reason I believe that is because Jesus died on the cross for my sin and he cried, tetelestai. It is finished, complete, done. Someone has called heaven the land of no more, no more death, no more crying, no more sin, no more suffering, no more Satan. For all the former things are passed away. The suffering of Jesus has now been over. It's finished. Here's point number three. What did the cry tetelestai mean from the cross? It meant that he conquered over the power of Satan.

Write that down. When Jesus hung on the cross and he cried, "Tetelestai," finished, he conquered over the power of Satan. What looked like the defeat of good at the hands of evil in the death of Christ was in reality the very opposite. Good had conquered evil, light had conquered darkness. All the way back in the Book of Genesis chapter three, verse 15, it says that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. That seed of the woman is Jesus Christ. He's the promised one, he's the promised Messiah, and he would crush the head, the power and the authority of the serpent being Satan, I'm so glad that when Jesus died on the cross, he divested Satan of all his power and all his authority over my life. And as a believer in Jesus Christ, I can enter into that victory.

I can enter into that. In Colossians two 15, it says, on the cross, Christ spoiled principalities and powers made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it. He spoiled Satan's power in your life, you say, but Pastor John, he hasn't risen from the dead yet. Good question. How can Jesus say it is finished if he hasn't risen from the dead yet? Better than that, he hadn't even died yet. He was still alive when he uttered the word, tetelestai. I believe Jesus knew the future. He knew the work he'd complete. He knew that in just a moment he would dismiss his spirit. You say, well, what about the resurrection? Isn't that necessary? Yes, it is necessary, but I believe the resurrection was God's confirmation on the work that Jesus did, that it was complete, that it was finished, that it was accepted.

I like to look at it like this. Jesus hung on the cross and cried, finished, tetelestai. He was buried in the grave for three days. And God the father said, "Amen." And raised him from the dead. He said, "Finished," God the Father said, "Amen." And raised him from the dead to prove that what he did on the cross was sufficient and efficient for the sins of the world, for those who believe in Jesus Christ. So he's literally spoiled Satan at the cross. We can also enter into the finished work of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12, 11 says they overcame him. That is Satan, by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony. And they love not their lives unto death. The blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony, and they love not their lives unto death. So if you are a Christian, if you are a child of God, Satan has no power.

He has no authority. He has no jurisdiction over your life. Why? Because Jesus broke his power at the cross. It is paid for, it is finished. The Messiah dies for sin but not his own. The great redemption is complete and Satan's power is overthrown. I love that. No more power over my life as a child of God. But here's number four, write this down. What did it mean when Jesus cried, "Tetelestai? It is finished." It meant the completion of his perfect sacrifice. The completion of his perfect sacrifice. And I believe that this no doubt is the primary meaning behind this word tetelestai. Jesus completed his work on the cross of redemption of salvation. Now let me break it down for you. I'm going to give you some theological terms. I don't know of any other words to use and I'll try to simplify them, make them explain them to you.

But you need to understand these words that explain the meaning of the work of Christ on the cross. The first is substitution. Or you might say substitutionary atonement. When Jesus died on the cross, what was he doing? He was making substitutionary atonement. To deny that is to deny the teaching of the Bible as to what Jesus did when he died on the cross. I mentioned Adam and Eve earlier. You know when they sin, what God had to do to cover their sin, had to kill an animal, right? I believe he killed two animals, one for Adam and one for Eve. And when they saw that animal die, first time they ever seen anything die, what a heinous, horrible thing that must've been. Oh, that's terrible. The animal dies, its throat is slit, the blood is spilled. And then God took the skins. He said, take the skins and close off.

Go into the dressing room, take off your fig leaves and put on the animal skin. Your fig leaves represent self-effort. Human attempts to cover sin. People are doing that in religion all the time. The skin of the animal represents the death of Jesus Christ. It is finished, the provision that God gives to you to cover your sin. We can't cover our sin by our own self-efforts. God has to provide for us atonement in a substitutionary death, in which in this case were the animals for Adam and for Eve. So this is the point I want to make, one substitute for one individual. Then you have the Exodus. And when the children of Israel came out in the Passover, you know the story, I'll make it short. They took a lamb and they killed it. One lamb, and they took the blood of the lamb and they put it on their door post.

Bible says lintel the top beam and the door post. So that when the death angel came in, it passed over the home where the blood was applied. In the home of the Egyptians, there was no blood and the firstborn died in that home. Now here we have, listen carefully. We have one lamb slain for a whole family. There's a third illustration I would get of substitutionary atonement, and that is the substitutionary atonement of one lamb for a whole nation. The day of atonement is called Yom Kippur. Once a year and only once a year does the high priest take the lamb, slay the lamb, take the blood, go into the temple. At the time of Jesus, Old Testament would've been tabernacle, and he sprinkles the blood in the holy of Holies upon the mercy seat, the Ark of the Covenant. Here we have one lamb for a whole nation.

So we have one lamb for one individual, one lamb for a whole family, one lamb for the whole nation of Israel. And then we come to the cross. And when Jesus dies on the cross and he cries, "It is finished." We have what John said as he pointed to Jesus, behold the lamb of God who carries away the sins of the what? One lamb for the whole world. Isn't that awesome? The Bible says by one man, Adam's sin came into the world and sin and death. And by one man, Jesus Christ, theologians referred to him as the last Adam. First Adam brought sin and death last Adam, Jesus Christ, brought forgiveness and righteousness through his one sacrifice. See, God devised it so that we individually don't have to try to work our way to heaven. But God provided a sacrifice so that we put our faith in him and our trust in him that anyone in the whole world can be forgiven.

For God so loved the what? That whosoever, anyone, believes in him will never perish, but have what? Everlasting life. So God provided a sacrifice that would carry away the sins of the entire world, substitutionary atonement. Then the second word is reconciliation. Reconciliation. Paul said in Two Corinthians five 19 that God was in Christ reconciling the world into himself. Now, important thing about reconciliation you understand, is that it is God who reconciles us to himself. Man doesn't reconcile God to himself. God is the reconciler. We are the reconciled. And God is the one that invented or devised the means by which God could take man who was an enmity with him, separated from him, running from him, and he could deal with the enmity, the hostility, the issue, the barrier that kept man and God apart. And when he dealt with that, then man could come back to God and be reconciled.

Man started with God, man knew God, man fellowshiped with God in the garden, but he was separated from God. Now he has to be reconciled. One of the best illustrations is World War II. At the end of World War II when we were fighting in the South Pacific against Japan, when the war came to an end and there was the declaration of peace and the war was over, guess what? Lots of islands in the South Pacific still had soldiers, Japanese soldiers especially, hiding in the jungles with their rifles, with their weapons, thinking the war, the hostility was still in existence. And some of them for months and some of them even to years were still hiding in the jungle thinking the war was still on. And they had to go to these islands and find these Japanese folks and say, look the war's over. The peace treaty has been signed.

You don't need to hide anymore. Come on out. There's reconciliation. The same way with God, with sinners, God gave his son to die on the cross so that you could come back to him so that the hostility that existed was dealt with. You don't have to hide anymore, you don't have to run anymore. You don't have to turn your back on God. You can come back to God. So when Jesus died on the cross, it was a work of reconciliation. There was enmity between us and God. It was involving the law and the payment of the law. So he bore our sin and paid for the penalty and reconciled us back to God. Here's the third word, propitiation. Propitiation. Colossians two verse 14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances, it was against us, which was contrary to us. He took it out of the way and he nailed it to the cross.

Now, I got to make this as simple and quick as I can so that we won't be here all day. But listen, God gave his son on the cross to satisfy his holiness and his righteousness and his law. So when Jesus died on the cross, you need to track with me here for a moment. He died not only for sinners, but he died for God the father. He died God-ward, the death of Christ toward God the Father. You say, what do you mean by that? God had a predicament. He loved man. He wanted to save man. He wanted to take man to heaven, the love and mercy and the grace of God. He wanted to take man to heaven, but man was a guilty sinner. So how could God save, take to heaven, forgive guilty sinners, you and I, and still be a righteous holy just God because not only is he loving, but he's also holy, righteous and just, so to be consistent with his nature, his law that had been broken by sinful man, had to be satisfied.

God couldn't just say, oh, I forgive you. Come on up to heaven. That's okay. If you were driving your car and you hit somebody and you did a hit-and-run, you took off from the scene and it was kind of a horrible thing and they finally got arrested and you're brought to court and you're brought before the judge and the judge looks at you and go, "Man, I like those shoes you're wearing."

And you kind of hit it off with the judge and he thought you were cool. He goes, "Hey, I think you're a nice guy. I'm sure you didn't mean to do that. I'm just going to drop the charges. Yo, man, give me those shoes." But you would also say, here's the point, that judge isn't fair. That judge isn't righteous. You did a hit-and-run. You left the scene. You're guilty, you should go to jail, you should be punished. And the judge is signed a willy-nilly says, I think you're a nice guy. I'm just going to let you go. He's a nice judge, a friendly judge, maybe a kind judge, but he's not a just judge. God is loving, God is kind. God is merciful, but he also is just and he's righteous and his law had been broken. It must be satisfied. That's what the word propitiation means.

The satisfaction of God's law, the demands, the soul that's sinned, it shall surely die. So what does God do to satisfy himself? He gives his own son to pay your penalty to pay your debt. Be like having a friend walk into the courtroom and say, "Judge, I know they're guilty. They can't go to jail, or they can't pay the fine. I'm going to take it for them." So the judge could say, "Okay, I'm satisfied. You go to prison in his place." We owed a debt we could not pay. He paid a debt he did not owe. Jesus died to propitiate or to satisfy the righteous just demands of God the Father. His law had been broken. And here's my fourth and last word, redemption. These words describe what was finished on the cross. These words describe the finished work of Christ. Redemption. It means to buy and to set free. Romans three, verse 24, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

It is a finished work. It means there's nothing more that we and can do. The work has been done for man's salvation. Now, in the ancient world at that time as sadly it happens around the world today, they were buying and selling human slaves. And you would actually go to a slave market like we would go to a supermarket, they would go to the slave market. And I want that one second on the left. That big strong one. Yeah, I want that one. You buy a slave and that slave became your property.

But if you wanted to and love to that slave, you could release them and set them free. So we were all sold into sin, slavery of sin, and we were all on the market. And Jesus came into the market, the world, and he shed his blood, the price of our redemption to buy you and I out of the slave market of sin. And then he set us free. Redeemed. This is why I love that old song, redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed by his infinite mercy, his child, and forever I am. Amen.

I've been redeemed. Have you been redeemed? Jesus bought me or sought me and he bought me with his own precious blood. And then he sets me free and then after setting me free, I say, Jesus, I love you. You've done so much for me. Now I want to live for you and I want to serve you and I want to follow you. I once was a slave to sin and now I'm a slave to Jesus Christ who gave his life to ransom me and to buy me from sin. Do you know what tetelestai was a common word used in the Bible days? Do you know that first of all, the servants would use that word when they would do a task the master asked them to do? Like you ask your kids, clean your room, right? Do you ever ask your kids to clean your room? Then they come out after it's done, they say, "Tetelestai." And you go, I'll believe it when I see it.

Instead of tetelestai, it looks like a tornado. You didn't clean your room, Johnny. I want you to take the trash out. "Tetelestai mom, I've already done that." Finished work. And then maybe they don't do what they said they'd do. So a servant would go out, he'd do the job, he'd do his tasks, he'd finish his work. And when he reported back to his master, you know what he would say to his master? Tetelestai. Jesus Christ became a servant. He humbled himself and took on himself the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And now he is saying to his father, "Tetelestai," done, finished are complete. The word was also used by artists. I love art. I love painting. I love drawing. I love pottery. I love different kinds of art. And when you're painting a picture, you're on the canvas, maybe you're using acrylics, you paint a picture, you get everything done.

You put your background and your foreground, you're painting, and maybe you put your final last touches on the canvas with your brush, your painting, and you very, very carefully just, okay, you put that last little bit of color and you put your brush down and you get back and you look at your painting and it's done. The artist would then say, "Tetelestai." Finished. The last thing you want is someone to grab your brush and I'll help you out here, put down that brush. You're ruining it, which is significant. This is a whole other thought we could go into, is you cannot improve on the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Your baptism doesn't improve on it. Your confirmation doesn't improve on it. Your rituals, your Christian haircut, you're going to church, whatever you do does not improve or add to the finished work of Jesus Christ. Did you know you can't take away from it? You can't take away from it and you can't substitute it. People that are trying to substitute the gospel of the Jesus Christ with other religions and other philosophies and other isms and other ways to God, you can't substitute. You can't add to it. You can't distract from it. You can't substitute on the work of Jesus Christ. People think if I take communion, I'll go to heaven.

You can't add to the finished work of Jesus Christ. You can't add to what Jesus did on the cross. He cried "Tetelestai." It is finished. And then thirdly, the word was used by merchants, by businessmen. And whenever someone would buy something from them, we do this today. When you buy something and you get a receipt and you've paid in full for what you bought, what do they do with the receipt? They stamp it. These are the receipts I love. I like the ones that say with a big red stamp, paid in full, right? I don't like the ones that say balance due. $10 million. Are not no way.

That last payment on your car, finally the last payment on that car, people have $800 car payments. Last payment, I paid off I go, "Oh, it's paid for." Tetelestai. That last mortgage payment, it's very few people get to see, sign right here and pay until the day you die. Wouldn't you like to have a mortgage right now in your home? And it just said tetelestai on it, paid in full. What an awesome thought. But again, we had sinned. We had broken God's law, the soul that sins shall surely die. And when Jesus died on the cross, he cried, "Tetelestai," paid in full. You could translate that phrase, paid in full. He paid for my sin.

I was destined for hell. I was destined for eternal death and separation. And he took it for me. He drank the cup. What a marvelous truth is this finished work of Jesus Christ. It is finished. Nothing left for us to do, but what? Believe. For God so loved the world, he gave his only-begotten son that whosoever does what? Believes. A child can believe. An elderly person can believe. An educated person, an uneducated person, black person, white person, brown person, red person, yellow person. Doesn't matter what color your skin, you can believe. It doesn't matter what race or nationality or country, you can believe, what it means is to trust in Jesus. It means that you put your faith in Jesus. I believe. They asked, Jesus said, what can we do to do the work of God? You know what his answer was? This is the work of God that you believe on him.

Who God has sent. What do we need to do to do God's work? Jesus said, just believe on me. I do the work. He finished the work the Father gave him to do, and all that's left for you and I to do is believe. Someone wrote in a poem. It is finished. It is finished. My salvation full and free. Jesus paid the debt for sinners when he died on Calvary. Salvation is a free gift. It's not cheap. It's not cheap. You ever had somebody buy you something very expensive? They bought it, they paid for it, and they give it to you.

If it's a gift, they won't go. That costs a lot of money. I want you to give me half of the money for it. What's the deal? I thought you bought it as a gift. You know at Christmastime, you don't open your presents, then take out your wallet and go around paying everybody for your Christmas presents. People are always trying to work their way to heaven, always trying to satisfy God, always trying to propitiate God, always trying to do something to atone for their wrongs or their sins. It's finished. It is finished. All that's left for you to do is to believe and to trust in Jesus Christ. Salvation is a free gift. The Bible says, by grace, we are saved that through faith and it's not of yourself. It's a gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast. I don't know if you're here today and you say, Pastor John, I don't know if I've ever really believed in Jesus.

I don't know if I've ever really trusted in Jesus. I don't know if I've ever really put my faith in Jesus. I always thought it had to be good and go to church or do something to get good enough to go to heaven. No, it's already done. And I want to give you an opportunity this morning before we leave here to say, Jesus, come into my heart and forgive my sins and be my savior. And please, if you haven't made that commitment today, all you need to do is believe. Just put your faith in Jesus Christ, and he will forgive you and give you eternal life. Let's bow our heads on a word of prayer.