It Is Finished: Living in the Victory of Jesus
Speaker: Colin Toews
Date: April 27, 2025
Please Note: This sermon transcript was generated automatically and may contain occasional errors or odd phrasing due to the transcription process.
Introduction
Easter Sunday, the last two Sundays have been pretty intense, pretty important. Services, pretty important times in our church calendar, haven’t they? They’re the time when we sort of remember why it all happens, why we do church. Easter is kind of like the linchpin, the hinge that everything turns on. And so it’s a big deal.
And if you need a refresher on either of the sermons from the last two weeks, Pastor Ruben’s sermon on donkeys, being donkeys for Jesus, or Pastor Chantal last week shared about simply, He is risen. If you want a reminder, a refresher on those, later on after the service, you can go to our website, check it out. You can hear them again. Or if you want to go a little deeper even, if you scroll down on the page, on our home page, you look for the other six, the devotionals. And you can click into there, and you can go back, and you can see the ones from the past. So you can go through and just get that reminder, go a little deeper, refresher on some of the past devotionals that we’ve done, just to help root ourselves a little deeper and grow closer to our Lord and Savior, because that’s important.
And if you like to listen, maybe you’re not big into reading, or maybe English is a struggle for you sometimes, you can also listen to the devotionals there. If you go in, click into a devotional, you scroll down a little bit right near the top, just above where the devotional itself starts, there’s a play button. You can click on that, you can play it, and listen to the devotional being read to you. So it’ll read out the whole thing, except for the two homework sections near the end of every devotional, because you want to take out your notebook, you want to be writing and stuff. So those aren’t part of the spoken, but the rest of it is.
And if you really enjoy listening, more than even the reading part at all, you can even subscribe to our daily devotional as a podcast. So on our homepage of our website again, instead of where you click on just the logo that looks like this, there’s one that says podcast under it. If you click on that, there’s two of them. There’s one that’ll take you to YouTube Music, the other one takes you to Spotify. In those, you can click in and you can subscribe, and then you get it delivered to your podcast player every morning, and you can listen to it on the go, wherever you are.
So that’s just a little free advertisement for our devotions, and for a reminder that we don’t just hear what we hear, or do what we do on Sundays, just to make us feel good for the day, but it has purpose and meaning throughout the rest of our week and throughout the rest of our lives. Not because I’m such a great preacher, or any of our speakers are always like amazing, great preachers, not that they aren’t, but that’s, it’s beyond that. They’re sharing God’s word with us to help us grow in him, closer to him, and so that we can live successful lives in Jesus. And so let’s take some time, some energy, some effort to invest more into our spiritual lives in that way.
Today though, we’re gonna revisit some of the events that we’ve talked about over the last couple of weeks. Not because I don’t think that our pastors did a good job on them, but like I said, Easter is the hinge, the linchpin, the most important part of everything that happens about the church, and I just wanna dig into it a little bit more, because honestly, we could talk about it just about forever. Every Sunday, we could talk about Easter, and we wouldn’t exhaust everything there is for us to understand.
But before I get too much more carried away, let’s just take a moment and pray.
And Heavenly Father, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for your presence here with us this morning, Lord, that we can spend time singing your praises, lifting up your name because you are worthy, Lord Jesus. You are worthy of our praise. And Lord, I pray now as well that I share this word that you’ve given to me. I pray that I would do it justice, that I would honor you as I speak forth these words, Lord Jesus, and that it wouldn’t be my words that are spoken and heard, but Lord, by your Holy Spirit, that each one of our hearts will be touched this morning. We pray this now in Jesus’ precious name, Amen, Amen.
I. Understanding What Jesus Meant by “It is Finished”
A. The Context: Jesus on the Cross
So as I was talking about last Sunday, we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection, his victory over sin, death, the grave. But today, I’m gonna zoom in on something that happened before that. Last week was about Sunday, about Easter, about the resurrection, but a few days before that, when Jesus was crucified, he was hanging on the cross and he’d been there, all that stuff had happened.
And it says in John chapter 19, starting at verse 28, just gonna back up a little before I wanna talk about today, but it says, “Jesus knew that his ministry was now finished. And to fulfill scripture, he said, I’m thirsty.”
Kind of a strange thing, but he fulfilled a prophecy and we’ll see, that’s important.
“A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch and held it up to his lips. When Jesus had tasted it, he said, it is finished. Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
Now, when you just read it, when you just see the words, it is finished, it doesn’t necessarily tell us the whole context of that. It doesn’t sort of share with us or convey the full importance of those words because it’s just written word. But in some translation, it says he cried out or in mine, in the version I just read here, it simply had said, it is finished with an exclamation point at the end of it. So it wasn’t the Jesus at the end there, he said, it’s finished. Or he didn’t say, I give up, it’s finished. I’m done, I’m out of here. Maybe later, it’s finished. No, what Jesus said, it is finished!
It was an exclamation, it was, I did that early in the service so none of you were asleep yet. But it was like that, that was important. It wasn’t just a passive thing Jesus did when he died, it was finished. He completed it, what was completed?
So today we’re gonna grab hold of those words, it is finished. Because when we really understand what Jesus finished and how completely he actually finished it, it changes everything. Changes everything about how we live, how we love, and how we walk with God.
So if you’re taking notes this morning, we’re gonna talk about three simple but powerful truths that we can pull out of these three little words. First of all, we’re gonna talk about just what it was that Jesus finished. Then we’re gonna explore what him finishing this means for you and me. And then we’re gonna push it a little further, we’re gonna look at how do we live this out then every day.
So let’s start by understanding what Jesus meant when he said it is finished.
B. The Meaning of “Tetelestai”
Sorry, the word he used, he didn’t speak English obviously, translated. The word he used, or at least the word we’re given in the original translation or the original transcript was tetelestai, which is a Greek word. And that word, it loosely translates it as finished, but more correctly, it would be translated paid in full.
So think of it in terms of a financial situation. So a merchant would stamp if you made a large purchase from them, you purchased a whole bunch of cotton or a whole bunch of grain or something, and you gave them the gold that they required or whatever you were paying with. The proper exchange was made, they would stamp it paid in full.
When soldiers were on a campaign, so they’re in a battle, or in a skirmish or on a mission, when they completed that, they would explain tetelestai, it’s finished, which meaning the task they’d been given to do was accomplished.
Even servants, if they were told by their master to do a certain specific task, no, so more than just like the laundry today, but a specific task, I need you to go down to this place, I need you to make this purchase, whatever, something very specific. When they completed that task, they would return to their master and they would explain to him tetelestai, it is finished, it’s accomplished, it’s done.
So it’s more than just finished, it’s completed, it’s fully, completely, absolutely done finished. Every final kind of phrase you can imagine to put in there, it’s there.
C. What Exactly Was Finished?
So exactly what, what is finished with Jesus? I see a lot of you trying to read the little print on that diagram. Hopefully I’ll explain it because it is kind of small, I can’t read it until I get really close.
But the first thing that was, when Jesus said it’s finished was the payment for our sin. In the moment, the moment that Jesus’ life ended, his physical human life on earth, the moment that it ended, my sin was paid for. That moment, my sin was paid for. It was finished.
The next thing was the fulfillment of every Old Testament prophecy that had been made about the Messiah, his coming and his sacrifice, all of those were finished. And in fact, you notice when we were reading in that one and it said, when he asked that I’m thirsty, there was a fulfilling of prophecy. It was part of him saying it is finished. That was the last thing he had to do to fulfill what had been said in prophecy about him coming to that moment.
Now the next thing that was finished, Jesus’ perfect life of obedience. Jesus lived as a human being on earth, he lived a perfect sinless life as a human, something that you and I could never, ever hope to accomplish. But it had to be done, it had to be fulfilled, and the only one who could do that and did do that was Jesus. And so that was finished in that moment.
And then finally, the last thing that was accomplished, that was finished, when Jesus said it was finished, as the moment that he said it is finished, because my sins were now paid for, I now had a way, an opportunity, a means to come back to God the Father. Before, there had been always the system of sacrifices, and they always had to, in Jewish culture, they would come on a regular basis, they would come and they would make their sacrifices to atone for their sins. But it wasn’t, like they had to do this, and depending on different types of sins and how much they had and whatnot, but it was very complicated and convoluted, but it was always an ongoing system, an ongoing thing where, okay, I paid for my sins before, but I’ve done stuff since then, so I have to make another payment. I have to do something that will help atone and appease. That moment, that was done, that was finished.
So every detail, every requirement, every prophecy, every righteous demand was completely fulfilled when Jesus said it was finished.
D. Victory Declared Before the Resurrection
You know when we talked about the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday a couple of weeks ago, and we saw how Jesus entered Jerusalem, fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy, exactly. And last week when we celebrated his resurrection, and we saw even the grave couldn’t hold him down, but right there on the cross, Jesus declared victory before, sorry, before the resurrection even happened. So, and that’s something that, it used to kind of puzzle me. Like, he said it’s done, and then we don’t celebrate until like three days later.
We’re gonna dig into that. But right there on the cross, Jesus declared the victory before the resurrection even happened, because at the cross, that was where the real battle was fought and won. When Jesus cried out, it is finished. It was the final victory, the victor’s cry of the champion.
And before we move on much further and continue digging into this, I wanna ask a simple question. I alluded to it just a moment ago, but if it was finished on the cross, then why all the rest of it? Why the resurrection? Why was that so important and necessary? What about Jesus’ ascension? Why did he have to, why was him going back to the Father such an important thing? And the Holy Spirit that he sent. Like that’s good, but why? And finally, why does Jesus still tell us in his word that he intercedes for us before the Father? Why? If it was finished, why all the rest of this stuff?
And those are valid questions, and it’s important, I think, that we understand these because it makes a lot of sense when you do. First of all, let’s think of it like this. First of all, the cross. The cross represents the victory is won. The debt is paid and the work of atonement, our salvation is complete. It’s finished, there’s nothing more required for it.
But then the resurrection happens. This is God the Father saying, “Yes, I accepted that payment. I stamp it paid in full.” So the resurrection is God’s acknowledgement that the payment has been made. Jesus declared that he’d finished paying. God’s saying, “Yes, he did. I acknowledge that that debt is paid in full.” So in Romans 5.25 says, “Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” While our sins were paid for at the cross, the resurrection is the divine receipt. It’s the proof that the payment was accepted and that it was effective guaranteeing our justification, which means we’re declared right before God.
Next up is the ascension and then the subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit to us. These are about the application and implementation of the finished work. Jesus takes his rightful place and sends the Holy Spirit to apply the benefits of his complete sacrifice to believers throughout history. So here at the cross, it is finished. Now, think of it like a court case where there may have been a judgment given where I won the court case and the person that I was going against, they have to pay me a sum of money or do something to make things right with me. So in the moment that the court case is declared, the judge wraps the gavel, that doesn’t mean that I’ve now got the money or I’ve got restitution made to me. It’s just been declared that’s what’s supposed to happen. So the Holy Spirit is how that’s carried out. The Holy Spirit helps ensure that payment is made appropriately, however it is deemed.
And then we talk about Christ interceding for us. He’s in heaven, not doing more work to finish the atonement, but representing us, applying the benefits, similar to what the Holy Spirit is doing. He’s applying the benefits of his finished work based on the fact that the debt has been paid. So everything that’s happened subsequent to Jesus declaring it is finished is validating and proving that A, it’s true, that it’s been accomplished, and next making sure that we tap into that and we get the full benefits of the judgment that’s been made in our favor.
II. What “It is Finished” Means for You and Me
So now maybe we’re sitting here thinking, that’s amazing, Colin, but what does it mean for me? Well, I’m glad you asked, because that’s exactly where we’re gonna go to next.
A. No Need to Earn What is Already Paid For
Because Jesus finished the work, it means that you and I don’t have to try to finish it ourselves. Let me say that again. Because if you only remember one thing this morning, you need to remember this. Because Jesus said it is finished, you don’t have to keep trying to earn what he already paid for. You don’t have to try to earn God’s love. You don’t have to try to work off your guilt. You don’t have to clean yourself up before God will accept you.
B. Freedom and Forgiveness are Ours
When Jesus said it is finished, he meant it. The debt is paid, the wall of separation was torn down. The temple veil was torn from top to bottom and the way into the Father’s presence was made wide open. You are free. You are forgiven and you are invited in. There’s no more that we need to do to make that true or truer.
C. The Absurdity of Trying to Repay a Gift
Have any of you ever owed money for something? Something big that you purchased, I don’t mean just like a small debt, I mean something really big. Something that you don’t normally have money laying around for so that maybe you would have to take out a loan to make it happen, maybe purchasing a house or a new car or I don’t know what it would be for any of you, but something big like that. So imagine that’s the situation here.
Now imagine that something’s happening in the economy and all of a sudden interest rates skyrocket. Your monthly payments are doubling, tripling, something insane and it’s getting a little tense, maybe a lot tense. Then add to that that you lose your job for some reason. Maybe the economy is such or maybe something happens to you that you can’t work anymore. Just imagine that scenario, all these things piling up against you, all of a sudden now you went from things, things are wonderful and I’ve got this wonderful new house or whatever is playing out in front of you. Now I’m overwhelmed with something that I can never ever ever hope to repay if things don’t change. And then all of a sudden into the picture steps, your long lost uncle who happens to be wealthy and heard about your situation and says, I wanna help you out. He writes the check, gives it to whoever your debtor is, makes payment and you are suddenly, inexplicably, wonderfully free and clear.
In the wake of that, how silly would it be for you to keep trying to make payments? You go to the bank and you’re like, okay, I need to make another payment for, why? It’s paid, see this paid in full, it says right here. Would you do that? Would you hide from your wealthy uncle who made this wonderful donation to you, no strings attached, he never said, I’ll do this, but it was a gift, a free and clear gift. Would you hide from him? That would be insane. He never attached any strings to it. He never said, if you do this, I’ll do that. He said, I’ll do this.
But that’s exactly what so many of us do with God. We live like the debt isn’t really fully gone. Every day, maybe I accumulate a little more debt. So whatever he paid for yesterday, I need to take care of it. We live like we somehow have to earn what Jesus already finished. When he said, it is finished, he didn’t just mean except for. He said, it is finished. It wasn’t a partial statement. And yeah. So when he says that, he’s inviting us to live in the freedom that he’s purchased for us. It’s a beautiful invitation that he’s made for us.
III. How to Live This Out Every Day
So how do we live in this? How do we move from stumbling along and feeling guilty sometimes and trying to make it right? Because it’s one thing to know the truth and it’s another thing completely to actually walk it out every day.
A. Living by Faith
The Bible tells us in Romans 1, 17, it says the righteous will live by faith. Not by feelings, not by circumstances, by faith. By believing what Jesus has done, even when life tells us otherwise. Things don’t always look like the truth is.
A great example of that that I’ve been seeing lately is in Canada right now. They’re in the midst of a general election. They’re gonna be electing a new prime minister on Monday in Canada, which is Tuesday here. Through the course of the election campaign, there have been a lot of things said. There’s a lot of, like any election campaign, there’s a lot of emotions that run high, there’s a lot of people with a lot of feelings, a lot of promises being made, a lot of statements being made. But then I see a lot of things being spoken by these people who like this guy and so they’re saying things about this guy or these people who like this guy and they’re saying things about this guy. And a lot of those things are not true. They’re absolutely made up, but people are buying into them and they’re even basing their decision on untrue facts. And that’s kind of what we deal with as believers, is we have to sort through, we get these untrue facts coming at us and it makes it really hard sometimes to live out this truth, this fully paid and guaranteed salvation that he’s given to us.
B. Three Daily Choices
So here’s three daily choices that we can make that are gonna help us to live in this.
1. Start Every Day with Gratitude.
And believe me, I know that’s a lot easier to say than do sometimes. I’m at the age now where oftentimes I wake up and it’s hard to be thankful when you’re woken up because something is uncomfortable. I didn’t wake up and I’m fully, oh, ow, oh. So it’s, you have to make a very conscious choice thank you Jesus, thank you for the finished work. Thank you that I am loved, forgiven and free today. I’m not gonna root my thankfulness or my gratitude in my circumstances because things happen. Things aren’t always gonna be perfect, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have some aches and pains, the fact that I may have some life struggles or whatever, doesn’t change the fact, the truth of what Jesus has done for me and continues to do for me today.
Gratitude focuses your heart on what’s already true. It reminds your heart that I’m living in the finished work of Christ, not in my unfinished mess. And that’s a great thing to keep in perspective because I know again, things happen in life and when you’re in the midst of them, you’re like, oh my goodness, is this how it’s gonna be? But then you look back maybe a month, two months, a year, whatever, time passes, you can look back on something that was an absolute disastrous mess and somehow you’re not there anymore by the grace of God, by hard work, by all kinds of different things. So that moment wasn’t the truth, that was just the moment. But what was still the truth then and is still the truth now is the work of Jesus, still finished in my life. So when it was hard here, it wasn’t because he abandoned me or he was ignoring me or anything like that, that’s often what the enemy will try to do, try to say, well, you know, God’s not pleased with you right now, that’s why you’re having these hard struggles or you deserve this bad thing happening because sometimes maybe we do deserve some of the bad things that are happening because maybe we did some silly things, we made some bad choices. But me making a bad choice doesn’t affect what Christ has done for me. He’s still, all I need to do, I’m sorry Jesus, please restore me to your presence. Immediately, he doesn’t, okay, we’ll work you back in, I’ll put you in the line, when the cue comes to you, you’re back in. It’s immediate. He doesn’t make us earn our salvation back. So let’s be thankful, let’s be gracious, express gratitude every morning when we wake up, put our minds in the right frame so that we’re thinking of what he’s done for us and not focusing on our struggles and our troubles.
2. Refuse to Pick Up What Jesus Put Down.
It’s easy to pick up old burdens, but when guilt, fear, shame, when they try to creep in, we have to refuse them. We have to be aware of that happening. It’s kind of like sometimes, especially if I’m getting hungry during a day, I find that I can get really kind of short-tempered, a little snappy sometimes, but it doesn’t give me an excuse to be, oh well, I’m hungry, I can be snappy, I can be short-tempered, I can say something that I shouldn’t have said because I was hungry. I’ve learned over time and so I’m aware of it and so either I do something about it, I bite my tongue, or if I do happen to lash out like I shouldn’t and I know I shouldn’t, I don’t have the excuse that, I was hungry so that was what happened. No, because I’m aware of it. In the same way, because even though I may not feel it in the moment, it’s still true that Christ has forgiven me, he saved me, he set me free, he’s set me up in high place, all those wonderful things that they’re still true and if I choose to forget them or if things distract me and I forget them, doesn’t give me an excuse to sort of, well, I forgot about that, I’m sorry God, I remember that you are true, turn back, set back down what we try to pick up, leave it there. You’re not carrying your guilt today, Jesus already carried it. You’re not earning your worth today, Jesus gave you your worth.
3. Boldly Walk into God’s Presence.
So the third thing that we need to do to help continually, daily applying this truth of Jesus’ work being finished at the cross is we need to remember that last thing that we talked about in what was accomplished is that we get to boldly walk into God’s presence. We’ve been given that opportunity, when the veil, the curtain in the temple was opened, the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom so that all of a sudden the Holy of Holies was just exposed bare to everybody. That was symbolic of the fact that we now get to be, we have immediate instantaneous access to God’s presence whenever and we need to make use of that, we need to avail ourselves of that. Don’t let these distractions pull us away, hinder us, draw our attention, make us forget that we get to do that.
Hebrews 4.16 says, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence.” Not because you’re perfect, not because you deserve it, but because Jesus is perfect. And he said, “You deserve it.” (Congregation Murmuring)
No, I missed a slide.
We’ll go there.
Conclusion
When Jesus cried out, “It is finished,” he wasn’t just marking the end of his suffering, he was marking the beginning of your new life and my new life. You don’t have to finish what he already finished, you don’t have to earn what he already paid for and you don’t have to fear what he already conquered.
Now, I’m sure this happened to all of us at some point or another, but we find ourselves living like it isn’t finished. We find ourselves carrying guilt and striving to win God’s approval once again. And if that’s where you’re at today, I just wanna encourage you, stop. Turn to Jesus and just remember that he said, “It is finished. Come and live in the victory that I’ve already won for you.” This isn’t a thing about feeling guilt or feeling shame. Not that we never do things that we’re guilty of or we should be shameful for, but when we come to Jesus, it’s not about, he’s not exposing all those things, he’s already well aware, fully aware of everything that we’ve ever done and are gonna do, all those things. And he still looks at us, full in the face, with love in his eyes and he still says, “It is finished. I’ve already covered the cost for you.” So let him.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, I just wanna say thank you today. Thank you, Lord, for the finished work of Jesus. And Lord, I pray that you would help us each and every day, Lord, that we would be able to remember and to live in this work that has been finished. Lord Jesus, I thank you for this wonderful gift that you’ve given us of salvation. Lord, the way you’ve made for us back to you, that we don’t deserve, but you’ve done it. You’ve made the way. Lord, may we always remember and continually turn back to you, Lord Jesus. Lord, I pray that you would help us, you would give us the strength that we need each and every day as we struggle through life and with life. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for those words that you declared so long ago that are still entirely true now that it is finished. I thank you, Heavenly Father, for your finished work. And we pray this now in Jesus’ precious name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Thank you.So just three final phrases.
Live loved, live forgiven, and live free. Because that’s what Jesus did for us, amen.
🙏🏼If you would like us to pray for you. please click on this button:
🪙 Support our ministry: If this message blessed you, consider partnering with us to share the Gospel. Donate here:
Leave a Reply