[0:01]On the cross, there are seven famous sayings. They're called the seven last words. Where Jesus uttered seven statements that really summarizes all of the glory of this occasion this weekend. I would just like to look at the sixth statement that he made. It's recorded for you in John chapter 19 verse 30. This is the sixth of his seven statements on the cross. Verse 30 says, when Jesus therefore had received the sour wine. He said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. The sixth word of Jesus on the cross, preceding the seventh word where it's recorded in another passage, he told his Father, I'm giving my spirit back to you. Which is a sermon in and of itself. We can see Jesus's life was not taken away, he handed it over. But before that, he makes the statement, it is finished. In the English, you see three words. It is finished. In the Greek text, the New Testament was written in Koiné Greek, that is common language Greek. It is finished is really one word. We use three words to summarize it, but it really is one word in Greek and that word is Tetelestai. Tetelestai was used as a regular part of communication if you lived in that world. The word Tetelestai meant the completion of a transaction. It meant whatever the agreement was, has now been fully and finally fulfilled. Completed or in the realm of merchants paid in full. The word Tetelestai was always a happy word. Or victorious word, a word of achievement. Whenever you saw Tetelestai, somebody was happy because something had been completed. Fact, when it comes time to die, and as you lay there on the your deathbed, and you know that Heaven is around the corner. Paul says in second Timothy chapter four, I'm finished. It was a word of achievement, a word of victory. So when Jesus uses this word, it is finished, Tetelestai. He is speaking volumes about a past victorious, successfully and completely finished. There are four things that come out of this word that I want to briefly share with you this Resurrection Day. The first question is, what was finished? Please notice Jesus didn't say, I am finished. He was just getting started. He said, it is finished. What exactly was paid for, completely and fully? The issue of the cross involves at its core, the addressing of the problem of sin. The cross is more than a great example of sacrifice. It's more than simply a statement to be made of what a great leader will do for his cause, by application, we can glean some things from that, but that's not what this is all about. Good Friday goes deeper than that. It has to do with the debt incurred by sin. The human race incurred a debt by sin that it was unable to pay. Anybody here today made a debt you have been unable to pay? You've been paying on it for years, and it won't go away. You have been paying on it and on it and on it. You didn't refinance that baby. It just won't go away. Sin is a debt incurred by men, a debt that they are unable to pay. Why is sin a debt that we cannot pay? Because of the holiness of God. The reason why sin is a debt that you and I cannot pay is because the one who we owe is perfect. Therefore, since the one that we owe is perfect, all the payments that you make to get rid of the debt called sin can never get rid of the debt because you cannot pay your way back into perfection. The issue that needed to be addressed was mankind based on sin, has a debt that they are unable to pay. Please don't miss that. Because most people don't believe that. They believe that the debt of sin given enough time, enough religion, enough going to church, enough being good, enough being philanthropist, enough of this and that and the other. If I do enough of it. I can pay off this debt that I owe to a holy God. You see, people do not understand a fundamental principle, and that is God does not grade on the curve. You remember going to school and doing the best you could, but dying for the teacher to curve the grades. That meant pulling all the scores of all the students, finding out what the average is, using the average as the high score, which automatically elevated you. But you will also remember that there was always this nerd in the classroom. Usually named Billy. Some nerd in the classroom that would go out there and make a hundred.
[7:38]Nobody liked Billy, and the reason nobody liked Billy is because he kept messing up the curve. God does not grade on the curve. He does not reduce the debt because of his nature. And his nature is perfect. Something had to address the debt of sin incurred by mankind in general and every individual in specific.
[8:21]Why did Jesus have to say, it is finished? Because up until he died on the cross, it was not finished.
[8:35]People were paying on this debt ever since Adam blew it in the Garden of Eden. Whole systems had been set up to pay on this debt. Lambs would be brought to the altar to put something on this debt. But all the lambs did was delay foreclosure.
[9:04]Anybody ever paid your bill just in the nick of time? Just before the lights go out, the gas is cut off, or the furniture is put on the street, just in the nick of time. Every year there would be the day of atonement. That's because up until Jesus died, they functioned on the layaway plan. The problem is, when are we going to pay this debt off? Animal slain, sacrifices given. Installments made. Men and women do not seem to understand, sin is a debt you cannot pay.
[9:54]Because once you've committed your first sin, you are no longer perfect. So everything you do good after that, doesn't cancel out. See, some folk think God grades on the curve, if I just get close. I don't have to have it all right, but, but if I get close, it'll be okay.
[10:20]Picturing a basketball game. The score is tied. 100 to 100. The whole team has the ball and they're coming down the court for the last shot with a couple of seconds left. The star player receives the pass, looks, jumps, goes up, stares, it looks like it's just right. It hits the top of the rim, rolls around a couple of times. And at the last second, pops out. The player runs over to the ref. You ought to count that ref.
[11:10]It was close. The ref would have to explain. You don't get two points for close. It's got to go in. It's got to, it's got to be within the sphere of the rim. It has got to go in. Just because you're a nice person and close, doesn't make you acceptable to a God who demands it go in. A lot of folks think God's going to change the rules. When he sees you show up, he's going to make a little tweak and an adjustment here and there. When he sees you show up, you swimming, all of us, we, we go to a beach in California, and all of us agree, we're going to swim to Hawaii. It's a common consensus, we all just going to jump in and we're going to freestyle to Hawaii.
[12:13]We all get in the water, well intentioned, to swim to Hawaii. Along the way, folks are dropping out like flies. After I look back at all the rest of you. We discover that nobody makes it. Now, don't get me wrong.
[12:43]Compared to everybody else, you may be further along. Compared to the destination, you haven't gone anywhere. And the result is the same for everybody, drowning. Because no matter how good you swim, you're not going to make that trip on your own. It's too far. And I don't care how good you are, you cannot get from Earth to Heaven on your own. It's too far.
[13:22]So, sin is a penalty you can't pay.
[13:31]Jesus said on the cross, Tetelestai. It is finished.
[13:40]The cross at its core is that the issue of sin was addressed by the death of Christ. What was the issue? Issue of sin. The second principle is, what was the payment? The death of Christ. Because it was after he said, it is finished, that he gave up his spirit and died.
[14:11]The Bible makes it clear that the soul that sinneth shall die. The wages of sin is death, physical death, separation of the spirit, soul from the body, spiritual death, separation of the soul from God. Sin produced a debt so great that while man alone owns the debt, only God can pay it. Don't miss that. While we own the debt, only God has enough to pick up the charge. It's our bill. Sin is not God's bill. God is perfect. Sin is our bill. The only problem with this bill is you and I don't have what it takes to pick up the tab.
[15:16]Sin is our problem alone, but only God can pay it. But we have a problem.
[15:26]If the penalty for sin is death, and all of us have sinned, but none of us can pay the tab, how in the world can the tab be paid by God who cannot die, since God is a spirit? Did you understand the question? If if the penalty of sin is death, and you and I have all sin, therefore you and I will die, and the proof that you're a sinner is that one day you are going to die. If the penalty of sin is death, you and I can't pick up that payment. And the only one who can afford to pick up the tab is God, but God is a spirit and can't die.
[16:08]How in the world will this bill ever be paid? Simple. God must become a man. It's called the incarnation. The incarnation is where on Christmas morning, God the Father fertilized the egg of Mary a human mother so that what you had born in Bethlehem was the God-man. Fully God for God was his father, fully human, because Mary was his mother, able to die as a man, but have the perfection of God. What you have in Jesus Christ, is the one of a kind Son of God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten. That means one of a kind. Never seen before, it will never be seen again outside of Jesus Christ. Where God looked at your bill and said, you can't pay this. Therefore, I'm going to pay it, and the way I'm going to pull this off is I'm going to become like you, only I'm still be me. I'm going to be the God man. And on the cross, the death of Jesus Christ fully paid God for the sins of men which required death, since the soul that sinneth shall surely die. Therefore, death had to occur because the payment is death. On the cross, God took the penalty so he could love the sinner, pay for the sin, satisfy his wrath, express his love without compromising his nature. Let me say that again, that was too fast. On the cross, God took the penalty, so he could still love the sinner while paying for the sin in order to satisfy his wrath, so he could express his love without compromising his perfection.
[18:21]On the cross, God become man in the person of Jesus Christ, died because he had no debt to pay himself. That's why it was so important for Christ to prove his sinlessness.
[18:43]For if he were to sin, he would have incurred your debt and ours. But since he was perfect, he could incur your debt for you, for he had no debt of his own. It's hard to get other folk out of debt when you owe everybody. And so the Bible says, on the cross, second Corinthians 5:21, he who knew no sin, became sin for us.
[19:33]That is, became the substitute for the sins of every man, woman, boy, and girl, whoever has been or whoever will be born. Only eternity will fully explain this, but let me try. In order to satisfy a holy God, you've got to be as good as a holy God is, and a holy God is perfect. In order to pay that bill, you got to be as good as God, and God demands perfection.
[20:08]Jesus Christ lived 33 years perfectly. Not one second of one day did he ever act or think or do anything that was unacceptable to the Father. He says, I have come in the volume of the books to do thy will, oh God. He says, I always do that which pleases the Father. He did that for 33 years.
[20:40]On Easter Week, Good Friday, he who knew no sin became sin for us. That is, became the substitute for the sins of every man, woman, boy, and girl who ever has been or who ever will be born. That's what happened on the cross. He who knew no sin, became sin for us. That he might become the righteousness of God. Now, let me explain how this works. It's like you having a hundred thousand dollars worth of debt. Bills you cannot pay. Somebody calling you up and telling you,
[21:36]that another person has credited to your bank account, $100,000. It's a credit. That was removed from their over abundance, to your lack of abundance, and it's a credit. They take from them and give to you, because you can't pay it. Now watch this thing. On the cross, two things happened, not one. On the cross, Jesus Christ paid the price for your sin, which is death, physical and spiritual. But that's only one half that happened. Here's what God does to a person who accepts Christ. He takes the 33 years of Jesus's perfected life, and he credits that to your account. See, you didn't get that. He looks at your sin and takes that from your account. He looks at Jesus's perfection and credits that to your account. That means you are not only not in debt, but you got a perfect surplus. Because he removes your sin and he credits the righteousness of Christ to your account.
[23:09]My son Anthony was here for the wedding yet to go right back out of town and sing tomorrow morning, but he came in for the wedding. Of course, his name is the same as mine, he's junior, Anthony Tyrone Evans. I went to the airport to get him yesterday morning, and when I was at the airport, they came out of the plane. And he was the third person off. I said, boy, that was quick, you were sitting near the front of the plane. He said, yes. We started walking down the hall and I started thinking about that. Somebody know where I'm going. I said, wait a minute. If you're the third person off the plane, that means you were either in first class or sitting so close to first class that you beat some of the first class people out. And then I said, just one cotton picking minute. You see, I'm a platinum American flyer. I got all of these stickers that are there because of my relationship. Guess what my boy did? He went up to that counter and said, my name is Anthony Tyrone Evans.
[24:36]They said, yes sir, we see your name in the record. Would you like to be upgraded? Yes, I would.
[24:47]Guess what they did? They dipped in my account, and they credited him with that which does not belong to him, will never belong to him, and I don't like the boy no more.
[25:03]They credited my account. So he got to fly first class and wasn't going to tell nobody. If I didn't see him be the third person off, he was going to tell anybody. But they credited to his account, that which belongs to me. On the cross, God saw you could not fly first class. But he says, I am willing to dip into my account and credit it to you based on my payment and who I am. The death of Christ is the only form of payment God accepts. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under Heaven given among men whereby you must be saved. The third point, the proof of payment. When you go pay something, you want proof that payment was made and payment was accepted. You want proof.
[26:17]When you go to a restaurant, they say the yellow copy is yours, the white copy is ours.
[26:26]The white copy says, payment was made. The yellow copy says, you can prove it. You can prove that the white copy was given because you possess the yellow copy, and they both say the same thing. It's a receipt.
[26:46]How do we know that we haven't made a mistake banking it all on Christ? How do we know?
[27:05]The receipt that payment was made in full is predicated on the resurrection. It is the resurrection, early Sunday morning, that places Jesus Christ in a class by himself. You cannot place living faith in a dead savior. Paul says, if the resurrection is not true, we are still in our sins, which means the cross without the resurrection is a waste of time. To celebrate Jesus dying, and not believing that Jesus arose, means we can all go home. He says, for we are still in our sins and we are of all men most miserable. Because we have declared that Jesus has arisen when he is still dead, and a dead savior can't help nobody. It is the resurrection. A lot of ways we could go here. But for time sake, I just want to show you one in chapter 20 verse 6. Simon Peter came, and they come to the tomb on Sunday morning. Well, verse verse four, and the two were running together, and the other disciple ran ahead. This is Peter and John, faster than Peter and came to the tomb first, so John gets to the tomb first. And stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there. But he did not go in, so he saw Jesus's loin cloth, the cloth around his waist. He said, he saw it lying there.
[29:01]But look at verse seven. And the face cloth, the turban that we go around the head, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple, John, who had first come to the tomb, entered then also and saw and believed. Now, now, see, that's one of those passages that you just read over and say that's cute. Wasn't cute for John. John came in and saw the linen wrappings, saw the headband and saw that the headband was not with the linen wrappings. And when he saw that, all he's looking at is cloth. He's not seeing Jesus, he's seeing cloth. But he says, when I saw the cloth, I knew Jesus had arisen. Now, what was it about this cloth that was so potent in John's mind that he knew the resurrection was true? When Jesus died on the cross, he had a linen cloth around his loins, and a cloth rolled around his head. Now, if thieves came in and took him, first of all, it's unlikely that they would have undressed him first. But even if they undressed him and stole his body, so he came out nude, you would not see, John says, the linen cloth still in the tight roll that it was when it was around his head. And you would not have seen the linen cloth separated, the the turban separated from the linen cloth because his head is up here, his body is down here. John said when I saw the linen here and the body here and that the turban was still attached in a ball, I knew that the only way that could have happened is if Jesus Christ rose right through his own clothes and is now alive. And when he saw the cloth, he believed. The resurrection is one of the most attested events in human history. If you believe history written by reasonable people, you know Abraham Lincoln lived not because you were there, but because a historian with with with within his right mind told you that the 16th president was Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth shot him in the theater, and you've been telling that to your kids, and their kids because a historian wrote it. Well, I'm here to tell you that the Bible is the most accurate history book in all of creation, and the resurrection is attestable. He says, it's a receipt. On Friday, Jesus died. Oh, this is sweet. On Sunday, Jesus arose.
[32:32]One day I got to preach a sermon on good Saturday. See, we know what happened on on Friday, Good Friday, Jesus died. We know what happened on Easter Sunday morning, Jesus arose, but between Friday night and Sunday morning, all kind of action was taking place. Ephesians 4 says that it was between this time that he led captive a host of captives. That is, he reached back to all the Old Testament saints operating on the layaway plan. He went down to Abraham and said, Abraham, let me see your hand, boom, paid him full. Moses, let me see your hand, wap, paid him full. He went back to all the Old Testament saints who still had not gone to Heaven because final payment has not been made. And you know when stuff's on layaway, you can't take it out until final payment is made. But when final payment was made, he went back to all the Old Testament saints and he led captive a host of captives. You said, how do I know he did that between Friday night and Sunday morning? Because Jesus Christ on the cross, looked at the thief on his right and said, today you shall be with me in paradise, not Sunday when I get up, we're going right now.
[33:52]The resurrection is your receipt.
[33:59]So that leads to my final point, doesn't it?
[34:04]What do you do with this? Jesus said, it is finished. John said, when I saw it, I believed.
[34:15]Sin is a debt, you cannot pay.
[34:25]Listen to me. God will not credit your account until you declare bankruptcy.
[34:38]You know when folk declare bankruptcy, when they have determined they have a debt that they cannot pay. You declare bankruptcy when all hope is lost, for ever being able to liquidate yourself out of this dilemma, and you throw in the towel and you say, there is absolutely no way I can pay this debt. I'm going to declare Chapter 7, Chapter 11, depending on what kind of bank, I'm going to declare bankruptcy, I can't pay it.
[35:15]As long as you think you can, he will not credit your account, because you can do it without him. Bankruptcy is throwing in the financial towel. Most people, even people here this morning, are hoping that their good life, good works, being nice, keeping the Ten Commandments, going to church, and a million other things, God will use to credit their account. But God only accepts the death of Christ as payment for sin. That's all he will accept.
[35:59]Why? Your good works, as good as they are, mess up a good thing. Jesus died because he could take care of it all by himself. He doesn't need you messing up a good thing. The death of Jesus is so complete, he could say, paid in full. Now, aren't you looking like a fool, somebody else pays your bill and you're still trying to make payments? The death of Jesus Christ is totally complete, and therefore, your good works, while it's nice to be a good neighbor, and it's nice to be a good citizen, that may be great for society, but it doesn't help you one hour older with a holy God. It's like having Monopoly money and taking it to the mall. Monopoly money is good for Monopoly, but it won't work in this economy. Good works is good for your neighbor, but it doesn't work in the economy of God, it's not transferable funds. You cannot make yourself acceptable to a holy God. Have you ever seen a policeman get stopped? Policeman speeding down a highway, you know, Policeman speeding down a highway, of course, the other cop, he's, he's looking like a regular citizen, so they don't know it's a cop. So, so they pull the policeman over. Pull the policeman over and say, sir, let me see your license. I saw this one. Policeman pulled out his license, but above his license was his badge. The policeman, who stopped him, said, have a nice day, officer. Make you want to go out and buy a badge.
[37:46]Above the license, was a badge. The license identified the guilty speeder. But the badge identified a bigger authority. And when the policeman saw that above his name, there was a badge, the badge overrode the sin on the highway. Unless Jesus Christ is above your name, unless his death and his resurrection is the badge, then your name is in trouble before a holy God. So what must you do? You must believe. How does believe mean? Three things. One, believe assumes knowledge, you must know that you're a sinner and you can't save yourself. Religion can't save you, reading your Bible can't save you, going to church can't save you. You could be born in the church, your mother and father could raise you in the church, they could bring all your meals and let you eat out of the church, bring your death, let you work out of the church, bring your bed, let you sleep in the church, pick up the pulpit, dig a hole, let you die in the church. If you don't know Jesus Christ, you're going to die in the church and wake up eternally separated from him. Keeping the Ten Commandments can't save you. Because you can't keep them perfectly. Only the death of Christ is an acceptable payment, so you must know that. Secondly, you must be convinced that that is true. You must not only know it to recite it, you must be convinced that that is true. I cannot save myself, only the death of Christ can save me, so you must have a conviction about it. Thirdly, you must make a commitment to it. I don't mean a commitment to start living, changing your life, and I promise I'm going to do better. That's not good works. No, no. A commitment to trust Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins. A lot of you here know the facts, because you've been going to church and you're not on your way to Heaven. Not because you don't know the facts, you know it, you've been in church all your life, and you know the facts, but you're not on your way to Heaven. Some of you are here and you know the facts, and you are even convinced that the facts are true, but you're not on your way to Heaven, because simply believing that the product does work doesn't make it work for you. You have to sign on the dotted line. You have to say, Lord, Jesus Christ, I not only know that you're the Savior, I not only believe that you are the Savior, but I entrust my personal eternal destiny, and I place all of my eternal destiny into the hands of Christ alone. If you don't take me to Heaven, I won't get there, because I've rested my eternal take on you. If you died right now and God said, why should I let you in Heaven? What would you say? It is to rest your eternal destiny by placing faith alone in Christ alone for you.
