Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Just read in Psalm 110, rule in the midst of your enemies. And then the concluding line of that psalm, he shall drink of the brook by the wayside. Therefore shall he lift up the head. The Lord Jesus Christ is seen in today’s sermon text as ruling in the midst of his enemies and raising his head in a great victory cry. John 19:25-30. We’ll actually be touching or speaking just on verse 30 directly. But in context, we want to read all three of the words of Christ from the cross as recorded in John’s gospel.

John 19:25-30. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

After this Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scriptures might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst.” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled the sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop and put it to his mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this text before us. We pray, Lord God, that Jesus would articulate that text to us by way of both comfort and gospel and also by way of instructing us in the proper response to this magnificent news, the culmination of all of your scriptures. We thank you, Father, for the accomplishment of all things that we read of here 2,000 years ago. We pray that you would cause us to rest and to rejoice in that accomplishment and be moved that we might indeed also accomplish the work you give us to do. In Christ’s name we ask you. Amen.

Please be seated.

We are continuing to linger, as it were, over the account of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ as contained in John’s gospel. I’ve given you at the top of your outline the structure that I think is the way to understand the movement of this text from Golgotha to the garden—from two wicked men to two disciples of Christ, soldiers fulfilling prophecy. The words of our savior at the very center of this text as the indication of what is accomplishing this movement. How do we go from the place of death and the skull to the place of life in the garden? Well, it’s through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is through his work articulated in these three words of our savior spoken from the cross.

And we want to look today at the third and concluding word in John’s gospel. And we want to understand once more that really it’s not too far a stretch to say that all of the scriptures lead us to this cry of victory from our savior that we consider today. The life of the Lord Jesus Christ is what was promised from the Old Testament. It is the focal point of all the fulfillment of the scriptures. They all witness to Christ. Luke’s gospel concluded with our savior saying that all these things spoke of him. We want to know how that is. John’s gospel has shown us how that is by picking up this conclusion.

Now it’s interesting that in these final words of our savior from the cross, there are what I have noted on your outline as some anticipatory parallel texts, and I’ve given them to you there from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

In Matthew, we read that Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and then yielded up his spirit. The death of our savior preceded by a loud cry. Mark 15 says, “Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.” Luke 23:46 says, “Then Jesus calling out with a loud voice, then said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ And having said this, he breathed his last.” So the picture that we get as we move toward what John is going to tell us is one of anticipation.

Matthew and Mark do not tell us what the loud cry is of Jesus just prior to him yielding over his spirit to breathing his last. Even Luke instructs us what happens in the context of that cry. It gives us the final word, the words of the savior, “Father, into your hand I commend or commit my spirit.” But this is preceded, this giving over of the spirit, according to Matthew and Mark, with this great shout. And so the shout moves us into the final, the seventh word of Christ from the cross.

But what is the shout? If we’ve read through the gospels and we understand we’re reading the culmination of all of the scriptures as we read through the life of the savior and then we get to John, the capstone gospel, we’re anticipating. We’re asking ourselves, what was it that he yelled out at such a loud voice, a crying out with a loud voice, before he finally then commends his spirit into the father?

And we’re told here in this text, finally, finally, the anticipation of really all of the rest of the scriptures and particularly the gospel accounts of the death of Christ on the cross—that we are now told the answer to that mystery. We’ve anticipated. What is it? And this text tells us that what it is is the loud cry—a single word in the Greek, “accomplished,” translated in the King James as “It is finished.”

So the conclusion of all this, the great shout of the Lord Jesus Christ from the cross is accomplished, finished, completed work accomplished. And that’s what we want to talk about today: this great victory cry of Christ from the cross.

Now we have seen the comprehensive sovereignty of God throughout the Gospel of John as one of the dominant elements. And we’ve certainly seen that in the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ right from the very beginning. You’ll remember at the beginning of this section of John’s gospel, at the arrest in the garden, he knocks them down with his word as they come to arrest him. The sovereignty of Jesus Christ is pictured for us. We do not have portrayed for us in John a defeated final statement, “Oh, finally over,” from our savior. No, we have a great shout of victory. All things are accomplished by Christ. The whole of the scriptures find their fulfillment in this great victory cry of the savior.

It is a victory cry and a shout that he has accomplished all things.

Now, I want to talk first of all from this text about the great promise, the gospel that this text contains to us, and if I can’t do it from this text I can’t do it from any text, because this is, as I said, the culmination of the gospel of John. You know, there’s a poem by Isaac Watts for the Lord’s day morning that some of us had our children memorize years ago. And one of the parts of that poem is this: “Is this the day that Jesus broke the powers of death and hell, and shall I still wear Satan’s yoke, love my sins so well?” Now that’s a poem for the Lord’s day morning. “Jesus broke the powers of death and hell.” The victory of Christ is what we celebrate every Lord’s day. “Behold, I make all things new.” But this text is not occurring on Sunday. This text is occurring at the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. This text draws our attention not to the resurrection, when Jesus broke the powers of death and hell, but rather to him breaking the powers of death and hell and accomplishing all things, fulfilling all things with his death on the cross.

So let’s consider that. Let’s talk a little bit about, first of all, the great promise. We have the victor’s cry, and I have a couple of other points in this promise section, but this is really the bulk of it. This is what I want you to walk away understanding: the victor’s cry of our savior. “It is finished.” Rounded out to completion is another way that we might translate this. G. Campbell Morgan, as quoted in R.J. Rushdoony’s commentary on the gospel of John, says it that way. So what is it that is finished? Well, it’s too comprehensive to cover in a sermon or a series of sermons, or the rest of our lives. This is really the culmination of all things—all of the reality that God has revealed to us. His entire created order finds its fulfillment here in this great victory cry of the savior.

But we can look at some specific elements and we should. And first, rather obviously, our savior has just said “I thirst.” We’ve been reminded by his thirsting of the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, his death on the cross for sinners. He suffers in the body. And that’s pictured for us, among other things, in him saying, “I thirst.” So the first thing we should recognize that is finished or accomplished by our savior is the redemption of the bride.

Now I’m using “bride” here instead of “church” or “elect” because, as we’ve seen and as we will continue to see in the next few sermons, the bride is a very important aspect of how this is all presented to us. In the garden in chapter 12, Jesus and Mary will be there, and she’ll represent the bride. She thinks he’s the gardener. She thinks he is the gardener, and in a way he is. He’s the second Adam and she’s represented as the second Eve. We’ve seen women representing the faithful around the cross of Christ. Next week my sermon will be on the piercing of Christ’s side, and the name, the tentative working title for that sermon, is “A Bride from the Side.” We see a picture again of something happening to the side of now the second Adam and this correlated to other texts in John’s gospel and epistles to those who are born of the water and under the blood of Christ.

And so we’ll see this bride imagery there. Again, we’ll see bride imagery when we get to the two men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, taking the body and preparing it with aloe and myrrh—compounds that were used for bridegrooms to be anointed with. So “bride” is the imagery I think that this text wants us to understand the church is represented in, and what Christ has accomplished with his death. This great cry of “accomplished” is first and, first of all, I want to focus on this fact that it is the finished redemption of his people.

Hebrews 7:27 says that he died once when he offered up himself. All the Old Testament sacrifices had to go on continually. Hebrews says, but now the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on that cross is the single event by which the redemption of the bride is finally and definitively accomplished. So this text tells us that what is finished is your redemption. The full atonement for sins is effected on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been reconciled. Romans 5:10 tells us to God through the death of his son. So this reconciliation of mankind, the bride, the elect, is pictured for us here.

This particular Greek word that’s translated as “finished” or “accomplished” was actually used in the Greek time of the day. They would write this word across a debt of taxes that had been paid. So you have a bill, tax bill, and you pay it, and the official would stamp it or write on it, “Finished, accomplished.” Same Greek word that’s used here. Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins. He has paid the full price of our sins. He has made complete redemption for us.

Now, you weren’t there in a physical sense 2,000 years ago, but you were there in the mind of God. You were there in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can abstractly think of the redemption of Christ—rather, of his bride—and the securing of that bride, the accomplishment of all things necessary for her salvation. But we should also personalize it. We should understand that the significance of Christ saying “finished, accomplished, completed” is that your sins have been totally redeemed and the price paid for them by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.

What we do in the Lord’s supper doesn’t add to that work. It calls on God to see that work and apply it and treat us according to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You should understand as you come here today that you have been purged of your sins definitively once and for all. That’s so important.

Martin Luther said, “The great test of our doctrine and our belief in the doctrine of justification by faith will be at the point of our death.” Because as you go through crisis or difficulty, as you approach the hour of your death, all the pretensions usually are stripped away from us and we recognize what horrible, rotten, sinful people we have really been. All of our sins come back to us. You know what I mean? If you’ve gone through a crisis, a time of trial, God taking a hold of you either physically, mentally, or in some way, shaking you down to who you are. And you know that in the context of those kinds of trials, your sins come back. The devil wants to whisper in your ear, “See how filthy you are.”

Remember, when those times come, the great victory shout of the savior: “Accomplished. Redemption accomplished. Your price for your sins paid by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You’ve been reconciled through the one singular, his historical act of Christ dying on the cross for you.” The scriptures are quite clear about that. You were there. You were there in the Father’s heart as he had his son come to pay the price for your sins. You were embraced through the pain and suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ. You individually, Christian, were God’s thoughts on his mind, and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ was done specifically for you.

He has accomplished the sins of you being rolled away and purged individually as well as, of course, in terms of the corporate bride. But Jesus Christ gives himself for your sins, and he has accomplished definitively your redemption.

Oh, as I say, the great moment or test of this is our death. And then God will see us through that quarrel. And then we’ll know in a way that we don’t know fully now, yes, those sins have been fully atoned for, that accomplished historically 2,000 years ago. And we will praise God’s holy name with all of our heart and being. May he grant us the grace today to believe this word: that the punishment for your sins has been fully paid by the Lord Jesus Christ. And may the result of that today be that you desire to serve him, to praise him, and to live your life in response to this great act of accomplishment, the rolling away of your sins.

Now, Matthew Henry says that this term “accomplished,” the Greek word that’s translated “accomplished,” is a comprehensive one and a comfortable one—a comprehensive one and a comfortable one. It comprehends all of your sins, and it brings you comfort that these things have been accomplished. The redemption of the bride.

Now, there’s other things as well. We have just read in verse 28 that Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scriptures might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst.” And you remember we said that this is not the normal phrase used—that the scriptures might be fulfilled. Usually it’s a point action. Something’s said back here. Some particular event is fulfilling that. But this word “fulfilled” is comprehensive of all the scriptures. The scriptures have been brought to completion now in what’s going to happen. So Jesus says, “I thirst.” He prepares his mouth for a victory shout in the midst of his pain and dehydration and sufferings. He takes to himself liquid nourishment so that he can shout out the victor’s cry that indeed all things have been fulfilled.

Now, so the second thing that the Lord Jesus Christ has finished or fulfilled is the fulfillment of the scriptures. “No falling words”—that’s the title of a commentary on the book of Joshua. God had no words that fell to the ground as he fulfills his promise to Joshua and the Israelites as we read the historical account of the victories he gave them. God’s word shouts forth from Genesis on—that indeed he will bring redemption for his people and he’ll fulfill his word, and his word does not fall to the ground. No falling words by God. They’re all brought to completion right here in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ: finished, accomplished. All things that the scriptures have predicted or said.

Third, Jesus has just said in his other words, “Behold thy son” to the woman and then to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” Jesus Christ, as we said, has restored community. Remember that the effects of sin is a disruption in relationship—first and foremost, first between Adam and Eve and God, and then Adam and Eve and each other. And man and woman are now brought back, as the basis of community, on the cross of Jesus Christ. On the basis of his death, the completion of his work, “It is finished,” we can read that what is finished is the recreation of community and the bride. The bride exists in a society, people. God has not just paid the price for your sins and restored you to him. He has reconciled you to the other members of the bride of Jesus Christ as well. He has brought community back to life.

Now that’s a statement that we have to believe by faith, because so often our community—in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our church—it feels like something else. It feels pretty Adamic. Husbands blaming wives, wives blaming their circumstances. Nobody really accepting responsibility for their own actions. Nobody trying to love each other through the difficulties. You know what I mean? But here Jesus assures us that community has been restored. He has done an action in indicating that this is at the center of his work. And then he has told us, “It is finished”—the accomplishment of this creation of community.

The great despair of our time—Rousas John Rushdoony said, and I believe it’s true—it’s not really “Are we forgiven of our sins?” It’s not “Do we have knowledge of the world about us,” but it is “Can I get along with my wife and children? Can I get along with the neighbor that I have on my block? Can I get along in the church?” You know how few people stay in a church over the course of their lifetime? And a lot of that movement has nothing to do with moving physically. It has to do with problems and difficulties, little breakdowns in community. We need to hear the gospel of Christ today: that community is not only possible, it is inevitable in the flow of history. Jesus Christ has accomplished the restoration and recreation of community.

Fourth, he’s accomplished the overcoming of the world and the devil. We take this statement kind of back out to what this gospel has told us. It’s told us that you know, he’s finished the redemption of his people. He said, “I thirst.” The scriptures are fulfilled. He said, “I’m going to create community.” So that’s being fulfilled. And he’s told us earlier in John’s gospel, in chapter 16:33, he says to the disciples in the upper room discourse, “These things I’ve spoken to you that in me you might have peace. In the world you’ll have tribulation. Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” Jesus Christ says, “It is finished here.” His work on the cross is the final death blow to Satan and his empire. Jesus Christ has assured us of victory over our opposition and over the opposition that he had as well. The strong man has been spoiled definitively on the cross.

What has been accomplished is the overcoming of the world and its ruler, so to speak, in terms of Satan or the devil. God had promised in Genesis 3:15, “I’ll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed, that is the serpent’s seed, and her seed. He shall bruise your head. You shall bruise his heel.” Jesus’s heel is being bruised. He’s suffering for us, but he is crushing the head of the serpent definitively. Gary North said, “What we have left to us is a mopping up operation—it’s a working out of the implications of what happened on that cross 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ definitively crushes the head of the serpent. It is finished,” he told us, on the cross.

Redemption accomplished. The scriptures fulfilled. Community restored. Our enemy, the devil, crushed and defeated by Jesus Christ definitively on that cross. Praise God for the great shout of victory over these various enemies that we have.

Another aspect that’s fulfilled, and I know we’re kind of beating this drum a lot, but it’s so important. Jesus Christ said that his work was to do the will the Father in heaven, to complete the work he’d been given to do. And in John 1:18, we read that his work was to exegete or declare the Father. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten son who is in the bosom of the Father—he has declared him. In Greek, the term could be more properly translated: Jesus has exegeted the Father to us. He has shown us the nature of the Father. So important.

It has accomplished now the revelation of who the Father is. And again, to emphasize the truth of Philippians 2:8: It’s not in spite of being God that Jesus humbled himself by taking upon himself our sins on the cross. And it’s not in spite of him being God that he didn’t grasp at the glory of being God. No, it’s because he is God that he entered into this work. Being in the form of God, he didn’t grasp at glory and self-glory for himself. He didn’t find it difficult to humble himself by dying for you. He found it to be of the very nature of the Father in heaven that he was executing and declaring to us. It is of God’s very nature to serve others. The Father, the Son, the Spirit—serving one another and then all of them serving, laying down their lives, so to speak, and definitively here of the Lord Jesus Christ suffering and dying for us.

Not as some kind of—you know, secondary mechanism by which things could be made right again. It wasn’t that—you know, “what I want to do all along is just rule them and never serve them.” No, God’s intent all along was to serve.

Many of us have trouble at the Westminster Confession of Faith describing the relationship of God with mankind. It says that he condescended to enter into a covenant of works. And the picture we get is that God is high and mighty, and you know, he doesn’t really want to do this thing with you, but he’ll condescend. You know what a condescending attitude is. Well, that’s what the confession says. Now, maybe we’re just using different words today. Maybe the word meant something else back then, but I know that all too often this is the way we think of it.

God doesn’t condescend to enter into covenant with us. He creates us in covenant. He doesn’t condescend and do something outside of his nature—dying on the cross for us. The Lord Jesus Christ, he executes not just who he is but the Father. He is declaring to us the Father. And as Doug preached so well several weeks ago, that’s so important for understanding who we are as image-bearers of God. That’s where we’ll find joy. You know it. You know, the last time you went out of your way to help somebody, how good that made you feel about yourself? It’s not because—you know, it’s weird. It’s because it’s your very nature now as Christians to lay down your life to serve other people. You see it?

The nature of God—Jesus has accomplished the revelation of the Father. He has accomplished definitively the new creation. You know, we said all along that John’s gospel begins “in the beginning.” What’s happening here is nothing less than a new creation. God applies that to us individually in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Why? Because Christ definitively accomplished the onstart, the starting up, the beginning again, the recreation of the world at the cross.

“It is finished.” We have to take that in the context of God’s job in John’s gospel to mean that this new creation promised to us from the beginning of the gospel is now brought to pass by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is reality, not wishful thinking, not a metaphor or simile. Jesus Christ says this new creation has been accomplished as he dies on the cross—not the resurrection. Now, we can definitively point all these things to the resurrection. It’s certainly linked to the death of Christ. But John’s gospel wants us to see all these things we’ve spoken of as culminating in being accomplished in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the day—Good Friday—see that Christ broke the powers of death and hell. Now our savior, then—that’s his victory cry—the accomplishment of all things, the new creation and all the implications of that we’ve talked for.

Our savior’s faithful self-sacrifice is also spoke of, and I’ve used it here: that bowing the head. And these events are kind of connected. He bows the head. He makes a move with his head and then delivers over the spirit. He dies, in other words. And our savior’s voluntary self-offering of himself is portrayed to us in this text. We have the victor’s victory cry, but we also have the victor’s faithful self-sacrifice as he bows his head.

John 10:17 says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.” Jesus doesn’t die ultimately of a broken heart or the physical causes of death. The text wants us to see Jesus voluntarily handing over his life just as he had promised he would do. Verse 18 of chapter 10 says, “No one takes it from me. See, natural causes, enemies—nobody takes it from me. I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I received from my Father.”

Jesus, not recorded for us here, but as I said in Luke’s gospel says, after he yells forth the victory cry, “Father, into your hands I commit or commend my spirit.” This is a citation from Psalm 31, verse 5: “Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, oh Lord, faithful God. I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.”

In this voluntary self-sacrifice of Christ on the cross, what we see is the ultimate act by which the accomplishment of these things has happened. It is the death of Christ. But it is a death that is a faithful submission to the Father who will judge righteously. It is giving up on his own and commending his very life into the hand of the Father. It is the ultimate act of faith, belief, trust. And that citation from the Psalms tells that he says just before he says, “Into your hands I commit my spirit. You take me out of the net that they have hidden for me. You are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, oh Lord, faithful God. I trust in the Lord.”

You see, the context tells us that the commending of his spirit into the hand of the Father is this great demonstration of the faithfulness in God the Father that Adam did not have. Adam wasn’t called to work out his salvation. He was called to be a faithful follower and a faithful one to the word of God. Jesus Christ, at the height of his manifestation of his glory—that’s what this is all about—is the one who is glorified by being faithful and submitting himself to the Father’s hands, even to the point of death. And again, this is the picture of who we are in Christ as well.

The third thing we see in this text by way of the gospel, then, is the victor’s prolleptic gift. A prolleptic thing is something that’s kind of a picture of what’s going to happen fuller in a little while. It’s the beginning picture of what will finally be accomplished in a more definitive way later. And you know, here this isn’t obvious, I know, but you have to understand that when Jesus says—here, when it says that Jesus delivered over his spirit—the particular word has already been used for “delivered over.” It’s been used—I don’t know—six, eight times in chapter 19 already. It’s the word that we translate “betrayed.” Judas betrayed Jesus. Judas delivers over Jesus to the authorities. The authorities deliver over Jesus to the high priest. The high priest delivers over Jesus to Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate, in spite of the innocence of Christ, delivers over Jesus to be crucified. So the meaning of the term has been built up. There is a transfer over from one person to another that’s being described.

Now, we know from Luke’s text that from one perspective, this is the handing over of the spirit of Christ to the Father. But I think in John’s gospel, we have to remember a few other things to interpret this correctly. We have to remember that in chapter 7, he said—and it’s interesting, remember, at the feast of booths, the great culmination feast, he shouts out with a loud voice that he is the living water, right? And he shouts out by saying that anyone who is thirsty, come to me and drink, and out of the innermost part of his being will flow rivers of living water. And this the scriptures tell us he said, speaking of the Spirit, which had not yet been given because he had not yet been glorified.

But here we are. The gospel of John has pictured in so many ways that the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ happens on the cross. All the victory is being pictured for us there. All the completion, all the restoration of community—even the soldiers are fulfilling prophecy in terms of Jesus. The transition is all being pictured for us. Jesus’s moment of glory according to John’s gospel is preeminently the moment of his death. Now, of course, it’s linked directly to the resurrection, and the scriptures make clear that it is also the demonstration of glorification, but it all is focused in John’s gospel on his death.

That being the case, we see the parallelisms here. Then the shouting out with a loud voice: receive from me and be able to distribute to others my spirit—the spirit that has not yet been given because Christ hasn’t been glorified. Here we see Christ being glorified on the cross. And when he is said then to deliver over his spirit, I think it’s appropriate for us to say that this is a picture of what will happen again later in this gospel, and then finally what will happen in the definitive way with the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ on the day of Pentecost—the spirit comes forth in fullness upon his people. But we know there’s little pictures of that already happening. We know for certain, for instance, that in John chapter 20, Jesus breathes upon the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Ghost.” Now the text says that the spirit hadn’t been given because he hadn’t been glorified. Well, that’s true in its ultimate sense on the day of Pentecost, but it’s also true in these pictures, and by way of prolepsis pictured for us in John chapter 20, and I believe pictured for us here as well.

Jesus delivers over his spirit to us. Jesus said, “It’s convenient for me to go away, because then I will send you the comforter.” And immediately, upon the connected with the death and glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, is this—not you know, giving up, dying—but a delivering over of the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus has been shalom. He has been filled with the spirit at his baptism. He is dispensing the spirit. We are now to be the scent ones who leave the cross in his power and authority doing his work. And Jesus prepares us for that by delivering over his spirit to us.

So this prolleptic gift of the Holy Spirit, I think, is pictured for us here. Jesus delivers over his spirit that we might walk in the context of this new creation. That’s gospel. The great news is the victory Christ shouting forth from the cross: that your redemption has been accomplished. The scriptures have been fulfilled. Community has been restored. The world has been made over again. The Father has been displayed to us, that we might know how we live in the context of this new creation. Jesus has faithfully submitted himself to the Father in death. And then Jesus delivers over that spirit of faithfulness, trusting God, to us, that we might then live out all the implications of what has been accomplished definitively on this cross.

This is tremendous news. This is, as I said, no exaggeration. This is the culmination of the whole thing. Everything that we believe, all that we’ve been taught by God, the whole scriptures completed and accomplished here on the cross. Tremendous, tremendous news for us.

But like all great promises of God, the proclamation of the gospel is also a call for a response. It is gift. What I have told you does not depend on you. It depends on the actions of God. It is gift to you. But it elicits a proper response from you as well. And I want to talk about that. I want to commend us by way of application. Our response to this text is that we might be just like Jesus—that we might be a finisher of the work that we’ve been called to do. Jesus was a finisher. And the only way to finish is to remember the other part of this text by embracing the spirit who empowers us to be finishers. So that’s the proper response: to be a finisher of tasks by embracing the Holy Spirit who empowers us to walk in the ways of God.

You know, this is on my mind lately because Dave H. always said that’s what he wants for his girls. He expects whoever ends up marrying them to be finishers of the work he’s done in their life. Excellent perspective. Excellent perspective. Judge Beers—most of you don’t know him, but he was very influential getting our church started twenty years ago. Died after a couple of years, cancer, struggled for a long time. He’s supposed to die, hung around for a long time because he had a task to go up to a conference in Seattle and give the prayer at that conference. And he held on because he thought that was part of the work God had given him to do. And he outlived the predictions of when he would die by months and months and months and made it up to that conference to deliver that prayer, to do his will.

And then afterwards he came back and was in a little apartment, and I remember visiting him and him giving me instructions. Take care of this guy, and this person needs this, and you know, yeah, giving me all these instructions. A little cranky. He’s in a great deal of pain throughout this process. You know, he said to me more than once, “Dennis, I can’t just quit. I got to do—I got to finish this until God sees fit to take me on.” He was a finisher, you see, of what God had called him to do. He didn’t want to get out of this. He wasn’t like the lazy servant who sits around saying, “Oh, the sun’s so hot. The task is so hard. Please get me out of this, Lord Jesus.” No, he was a finisher.

And that’s what Jesus is picturing for us here. He finishes the work the Father has given him to do. God is a finisher of you. Philippians says that I’m sure of this: that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. We can be sure of that because God is not a quitter. He doesn’t do things halfway. He finishes the task. And today’s great gospel shouting forth from that cross is the finishing of all things by the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he would have us finish.

Now, my first point under this is a little kind of the other way, but I think it’s so important that we become finishers by having faith to trust God for our children, our spouses, our church, our relatives, our friends, our neighbors, all the trials and tribulations we have. The first task in response to this is to believe it: to believe that all things have been accomplished by Christ. The work of your children’s life that will manifest itself in eternity is finished from one very important perspective by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. He has accomplished all things necessary for their salvation. He will do what he will in their life, and he is the one who will bring it to completion and perfection. Philippians says not you. Ultimately, see, Dave turns over that task to the next guy that God is going to use to finish the work he began in his daughter. And ultimately we ought to turn over that task—that Jesus Christ has finished the work of our children. Don’t want our spouses to be the way we are. We’re all sinful. But trust God that he will finish that work. Rest in that knowledge.

We had a situation here kind of like Wilson Elder Wilson’s dog story. You know that dog gets out, does the Houdini trick, and you do all this stuff which you’re supposed to do, then the dog just comes on home sometimes on his own, for some reason on his own, finds his way home unrelated to all the effort that Chris and his employees did to find it. Well, we had a situation here in this church twelve years ago, and something very difficult for us started. Biggest trial some of us have ever gone through, and Lord willing, Lord granting it will ever have to go through. That trial was very intense for several years, and I worked hard trying to make that dog come home, trying to find it and get the thing resolved. It didn’t resolve. Didn’t resolve. Didn’t resolve. It’s not fully resolved now, but a very significant thing happened this last week: reconciliation. A new dawn of relationship between us and another church in this area is now possible because of the way God moved. That dog came on home, so to speak.

See, when we work these problems, if we work them with a sense of anxiety, not the rest of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can press so hard that we end up defeating our very purposes. You begin to finish the task that God has given you to do by recognizing that ultimately all you’re doing is—like we said—a mopping up operation. Jesus Christ has accomplished it all. We trust him. We rest. The joy of the Lord is our strength to do the finishing work. The belief that he’s finished all things. The belief that victory cry is directly applicable to the problems, the difficulties, the child raising, the spousal difficulties, church relationships. It’s directly applicable to all those things.

We don’t know how it’s going to work out. Maybe the only time certain relationships will be resolved and reconciled is in heaven. But that’s coming soon enough. That’s coming soon enough. It’s coming soon, and it prevents us from despair in this life to recognize the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it’s important: accomplished, the upbringing of our children; accomplished, the vocational work that God has called me to do; accomplished, the ministry of this church in this area and surrounding area—accomplished in the mind of God. He knows what he’s going to accomplish, and he knows that the basis for it was the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The way we become finishers is believing that, trusting that, and not flailing our arms about trying to take care of problems when God says, “You know, there are things you got to do, but trust me. I’ll bring this conclusion around when it’s my time and in my own particular way.”

Now, secondly, we’re supposed to be finishers by grieving not the Holy Spirit. If Jesus says it’s finished and then delivers over the spirit to us, then we can see this relationship between the empowerment of the spirit to work out the implications of the new world that the Lord Jesus Christ has brought into being. Our job is to walk in that same spirit. Jesus says that if he is glorified, then we could take of that spirit. He’ll give us the spirit, and the way that’s to flow is out to other people.

Siloam again—remember, the blind man washed at the pool of Siloam. “Sent one” is what that pool meant. Jesus was a sent one from the Father. And as disciples, he says, we are sent ones from him. But not in their own power or strength. Even Jesus didn’t do that. He operated in the power of the Holy Spirit. And he delivers over that spirit to us to enable us to be finishers. And the scriptures say many things about the Holy Spirit and walking in the spirit, but I picked just a few here.

We can grieve the Holy Spirit by isolation. We can grieve the Holy Spirit by unthankfulness. We can work against the work of the spirit by being disobedient. And we can grieve Christ and the spirit by hard-heartedness. And I’ll go through these individually.

First, grieving the spirit by isolation. The command of course to grieve not the Holy Spirit is given to us in Ephesians 4, verse 30: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” So your finished work—related to the Holy Spirit—well, in context, the implications is that we will grieve the spirit if we don’t encourage one another—one another—in the context of what Ephesians is telling us to do. He has just told us in verse 28 that people that steal shouldn’t steal, but have money so that they can minister, they can share with other people. “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.” The next verse. So to grieve the Holy Spirit is to isolate ourselves from giving positive encouragement, words of encouragement, grace to one another and positive acts of kindness to one another. We fulfill the spirit’s work. We finish what we’re going to do in the power of the spirit by being those who work and exercise in the context of community.

“Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.” Verse 31 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another.” See, right in the middle or the context for grieving not the spirit is correct actions in terms of community one to the other—graciousness of speech on the one hand and putting off the things—slander, envy, evil speaking—putting off the anger that breaks down those relationships and produces isolation to us.

So, first, we grieve the Holy Spirit through isolation, and we can be finishers then in the power of the spirit by acting in the context of community, by dealing with others the way we should. In Hebrews it says that the people of God in the wilderness provoked him or grieved him in the wilderness. And in Hebrews the direct application is “don’t stop going to church. Don’t stop being part of the society of God. Don’t move to isolation by pulling back.” You see, if you do that, if you pull back from community, then you’ve isolated yourselves. You’ve grieved the spirit of God, and that gets in the way of finishing the work God calls us to do.

So, isolation. Secondly, unthankfulness. Again, we’re told not to quench the spirit. In this case, in 1 Thessalonians 5:19: “Do not quench the spirit.” What’s the context again? “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ for you. Do not grieve the spirit.” Complete the work God is doing in you. Be a finisher of the task. Do the will of God by being thankful in all things. A spirit of thanklessness grieves the spirit and gets in the way of us being the finishers of the work that God has called us to do. We need the power of the spirit flowing through us to finish what God has given us to do. And if we move in isolation or we move in bitterness or unthankfulness—no matter what happens in our lives—if we aren’t thankful for these things before God, then we quench and grieve the Holy Spirit.

Disobedience. Clearly in Acts 7:51, we’re told, “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit. You had the word of God,” he says, “and you didn’t obey it week by week. You people probably have better knowledge of the scriptures than many people. But God says that you’re required to walk in obedience to these texts that you know about. And if you don’t, then you’re resisting the Holy Spirit.” That’s what Acts verse 51 says. When you’re stiff-necked and don’t obey what you know God’s word tells you to do, you resist the Holy Spirit.

And then, finally, hard-heartedness. Jesus is grieved at some men in Mark chapter 3. On your outline I’ve got it as Matthew. I’m sorry about that. It actually is Mark 3:5. He looks around at a group of men, and he’s grieved at them. What is he grieved at? Well, there’s a guy there with a physical problem, and Jesus wants to heal him, and these men are complaining that he shouldn’t be doing that healing on the Sabbath. They have become hard-hearted toward the infirmities and difficulties of their brother. And Jesus, in response to that hard-heartedness, is grieved with them.

The spirit of Christ within us is grieved, and doesn’t flow in that sense—is grieved—when we’re hard-hearted toward one another. Sort of an extension of living in community, but very specifically to those who have needs in our surroundings. I have to remind myself of this one. You know, Isaac and I get calls several times a week—people wanting money for this or that. It’s so easy to become hard-hearted toward these people. And many of these people, they’re just calling through the phone book looking for money and don’t really love Christ and respond to exhortations to do that.

I mean, I’m not saying here that in trying to put away hard-heartedness, we become foolish and we don’t actually minister to people. I had a rather rough conversation this week with a man who wants money from us. And I told him that the most important thing he needs is to worship God and to lead his family that way. You know, everything we can help with this or that problem, but you know, there’s nothing that’s going to help you apart from the worship of God and loving him. So we don’t want to be foolish, but on the other hand, we don’t want to so stiffen our hearts up against one another that we aren’t grieved and have compassion for each other.

So hard-heartedness is another way to grieve the spirit of Christ, or the spirit—the Holy Spirit—and gets in the way. If we’re supposed to finish things in the power of the spirit, then we must operate in a spirit of thankfulness, a spirit of compassion one for the other. We must operate in a spirit of community and in a spirit of obedience to the very voice of the spirit as he speaks to us through the word.

Now, assuming all that stuff is in place—that we understand the completion of all things through the savior’s work, we rest in that, everything’s been accomplished, and we work in the context of the Holy Spirit, in community with kind-heartedness and obedience to God—then the exhortation is, in the power of that spirit, to be a finisher in your home, to be a finisher in your vocation, to be a finisher here at your work at this church. Whatever task you put your hand to do, do it well. Do it diligently the way the savior fulfilled his work, and do it to completion. As I said, Jesus Christ said his very food was to do the will of the Father in heaven and to complete the work that he had been given to do.

Jesus Christ is a finisher, and we are to be imitators of God as beloved children. And we’re to take that work of Christ and apply it and finish the work. Ephesians says: Husbands, one of the implications for you is to love your wives. Jesus Christ—what we’re celebrating today, the death of Christ, accomplishing all things—it is Jesus who died for the sake of his bride. And that’s the image given to you as husbands: to finish the work with your wives, to be those who try to build them up, to be the best husband you can be. The years roll by, problems occur, you know, difficulties happen, tests and trials. God says, “If you’re getting weary and you’re thirty-five, forty, fifty, sixty, be a finisher of that fine job that God has given you to do to love your wife.”

Wives, be a finisher of the submissive attitude you had to follow your husband. Submission is a desire on the part of the wife to joyfully follow her husband’s lead. You know, to—it’s a—it’s having a hard attitude to want to receive his word. Remember, Harlo preached that great sermon, you know, the Bereans gladly receive the word. Wives are to gladly receive whatever their husband’s direction is. And they’re to have a heart that’s geared toward wanting to follow. That’s submission. You started well when you took those marriage vows—husbands pledging to love your wives. You started well, wives, pledging to honor that man that you looked up to with worshipful eyes when you got married. Most of you have lost those eyes again. Be a finisher of the commitment you made before God in that covenant.

“Well, yeah, I can’t do that. My husband’s a terrible person.” Well, you know, first Peter chapter 2 says this. When Christ was reviled, he didn’t revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Now, you wives know that verse mostly. You know, that’s the basis in the text in Peter for submission to your employer, to your husband, to the civil magistrate. But understand—and that is the very thing we have in the verse before us—as Jesus commends his spirit to God, as he voluntarily trusts God by dying. This is what it’s talking about. He entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

Wives, be finishers by you being having the mind of Christ and the spirit of Christ flowing through you to entrust the Heavenly Father, and by means of that then to honor and to win your husbands—if necessary, by without a word from you, as Peter goes on to talk about. Be a finisher of the work in your home.

Be a finisher of your children. It’s homeschool, right? And school time, and it’s September, and you’re starting to take the task on. And I know that some of you—I get these prayer requests—just finished math last month, right? Some of the kids—be a finisher. Children, be a finisher of your homework. Don’t stop short by doing half the work. Finish the work. That’s the spirit of Christ in you.

Parents, be empowered at the beginning to want to finish this work as you go through the school year.

Men, when you go to work tomorrow, finish the task that you can do as much of it as you can do that day. Don’t do things halfway. It is of the nature of the Christian church, the new creation, the culture that we are to build—that we are filled with families and children, workers in their vocation, people taking on jobs at the church—that we finish those things. It is increasingly the nature of our culture as it moves away from Christ to not finish anything, to leave things unfinished all over the place. Let that not be true of us.

May we remember the victory cry of our savior: that our savior is a finisher. And may God grant us the power of the spirit that Christ delivered to us to finish the work that we have been given to do. Jesus told the Father, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” Paul understood this. He said in Second Timothy, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race.” May God grant us the grace at the end of our lives to say, “We’ve finished the race. We didn’t leave things half done. We didn’t leave mess after mess of what we started and never completed, but we saw tasks through to their completion.”

May God grant us to be finishers in the power of the spirit of Christ. Jesus came that he might accomplish the work of the Father. Jesus said—rather, it says in John 13:1, at the very beginning of this section—that the feast of the Passover was come. Jesus knew that the hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

Be a finisher—loving those children, spouses, church members, friends, people that you work with, your neighbors. Love them to the end. Don’t quit.

To those of you who are my age and older—in the fifties. Psalm 71, I’ve thought about this psalm for years how important it is to remember. Now also the psalmist says, “When I am old and gray-headed, oh God, do not forsake me until I declare your strength to this generation, your power to everyone who is to come.” We are marked by a culture of retired people not finishing anything, begging out of work or vocation. Now a change in what you do when you turn fifty, sixty, seventy. The scriptures know about that—an alteration in life patterns has to accompany your change in physical state. But you must finish the work, no matter how old you are, as Judge Beers knew of—showing to the generation to come the glory and strength of God. You’re never done with that task. You never retire from that task.

Doug H. told us this week, “I want to do something for the kingdom. I want to serve.” I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this, but it’s so right on. “I am motivated to do whatever I can for the kingdom of Christ.” May that be the motivation that God grants us today. He’s given us this wonderful promise: victory accomplished. And he calls us to respond by saying, “Yes, I want to serve the kingdom of Christ. And I don’t want to do it just for a year or two years. I want to finish the work that God has called me to do. I want to lay down easy when I die.”

You know, it’s interesting. In conclusion, I’ll point this out: When it says that Jesus bowed his head, we don’t know that he bowed his head. The same word is used in Greek for laying your head back on a pillow. And it seems a little more appropriate that our savior actually shouts forth the victory cry and then just rests. We don’t know, but we know the word can go either way. And John wants us to think that way.

Tonight, you’re going to go home and you’re going to bow your head. You’re going to make an action of your head as you lay down on that pillow. May God grant you tonight beautiful rest and sleep, knowing that the task you began today—to honor the Sabbath, to honor the Lord’s day—you completed to the end. May God grant us this first day of the week to be finishers of the call this week, this day, to honor God, to serve one another, to live in community joyfully, to be thankful and submissive to one another and minister grace.

So that when we go to our beds tonight and lay our head back, may we think of the savior accomplishing his work, trusting the Father. Every night when we go to bed, it’s for our death. May God grant us grace to be finishers in the power of the spirit so that when we ultimately lay down our head, when we ultimately deliver over our spirit to the Father, that we can look back and then look forward to hearing those great words from the savior: “Well done, our good and faithful servant.”

Let’s pray. Father, grant us the Holy Spirit. Grant us the power and strength of that spirit that we might be finishers of the work we’re called to do. Lord God, what wondrous news we read in this whole verse today, and this one word “accomplished.” Give us strength, Father, by meditation upon that, to accomplish the work you’ve called us to do as well. In Christ’s name we ask you. Amen.