Playlist For | Week 6

What's so funny? I When she handed it to me, I didn't know if this was like a policy. I didn't know if she was mocking me. I don't know if she was trying to encourage me. Like no you actually need this. I don't know. But I gotta tell you when I put it on I was a bit confused.

But then I kind of started liking it a little bit. I started feeling like you all feel. Which is like yeah I actually have something up there. And felt good for a little bit. And they bring me in the room. I got the hairnet on. I got the mask on. I got the whole thing on. And the

pregnancy, the birth could not have gone any better. It was smooth. The doctors were amazing. Baby came out healthy. I have a picture of baby Moxley to show you. Yeah.

I would love to tell you all about this kid and how just two weeks ago he started smiling for the first time and how his brothers interact with him. But the clock's telling me I got nineteen seconds left. So we're gonna have to hold that for another day.

But when I hold this kid to keep this picture up for a second. I went home last night and I picked this kid up and I'm just looking at him. All of you parents in the room you totally understand this. That when I pick this kid up, this overwhelming sense of love that I have for him.

And at this age, he can't really do much. But yet, when I'm holding him, there's nothing this kid can do to make me love him anymore. And there's nothing he can do to make me love him any less. I just love him because he's mine.

And, I can understand this when it comes to my kid, but if I can be just pretty honest with you and raw with you, I struggle with this when it comes to my relationship with God. At times in my life, I start to think that God's love for me is not simply because I'm his, but because of things I do or don't do.

That I start to drift and think God's love, if I do good things, me and God are good. If I do bad things, me and God are not good. And somehow my relationship with God is based on my obedience to him. And church, I don't know about you but if God's love for me is based on what I do, I'm in serious trouble.

But we have a God who created everything. Who looks at you and I and says, there's nothing you can do to make me love you anymore and there's nothing you can do to make me love you any less. I just love you because you're mine. This weekend is a worship

weekend and I wanna get to the very heart of the scripture that Bronwyn just prayed. She said, praise God 13 different times. So, as we close out this worship series, I wanna get to the very heart. How can we know for sure that God's love for us is not based on us, but based on him?

And, to get that answer, I think we need to leave the book of Psalms and we need to get to the cross.

And, I wanna point out the last word that Jesus said on the cross and I believe it gives us a definitive answer of God's love for us. So, Jesus is is on the cross. His blood is being poured out. And, I wanna look at the last word that he said in John chapter 19

verse 28. Jesus knew that his mission was now finished. And to fulfill scripture, he said, I am thirsty. A jar of sour wine was sitting there so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, that's interesting, and then held it to his lips. When Jesus had tasted it, he said the greatest words in the bible. It is

finished. Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Here is why you and I should praise our God because the big idea today is very simple but I wanna get it from your head to your heart and your soul. Is we praise because Jesus finished what we never could. The reason why we praise God is because Jesus

finished what you and I could never do. He's on the cross. He he pushes up to get breath in his lungs and he cries out, it is finished. Now, to understand the the gravity of what Jesus is saying. To understand how this phrase, it is finished, can definitively tell us about God's love for us, we need to ask this question,

what's finished? And to answer that, when we look at the bible, I need to ask it, how many of you ever seen the movie, The Sixth Sense? How many of ever seen that movie? Okay. Not as many as you as I was hoping. Which means I can't spoil it. Okay. So

it's twenty seven years. Can I spoil it? Yes. That wasn't a good enough answer so I'm not gonna do it. Okay. I don't need any emails. If you're if you're not familiar, it's a movie that when you're watching it you're kind of like, I don't get this. Wait. Why did that happen? I'm confused about that.

And then at the end of the movie something happens. Okay? No emails. Something happens. And you're like, woah. And then you do what any normal person does. You watch it again. And you realize it makes perfect sense. It's almost like you're watching a completely different movie. And this posture

is exactly how you and I should read the Old Testament. Because if you and I just read it at face value, we're gonna be like, that's weird. Why did God say that? But when we read it when the context of it is finished. When we read it understanding what Jesus has done we look back and go, ah.

It's so much better. It's so much more clear. So to understand it is finished, we have to understand what he finished. Because on the cross he finished what happened in a garden.

When mankind first rebelled against God, the serpent shows up and it convinces man and woman to to rebel against God. And God looks at our enemy. You and I have an enemy. And God looks at our enemy and says, one day I'm gonna send someone who's gonna stomp on the head of our enemy. And Jesus is on the cross and he says it is

finished. In the book of Exodus there's this really weird story that they must have been like Jesus why are God why are you asking us to do this? He's like it's a sixth sense thing. You'll understand later. Just do it anyways. Where God's people were enslaved and they were going to experience death.

But God said hey to get out of death, to get out of slavery here's what you need to do. You need to grab a perfect spotless lamb. It needs to come live with you for seven days and I need you to kill it. They must have been like I don't get it. You'll get it later. Kill it. Take the blood of the lamb

and put it here on your door, here on your door, here on your door, here on your door. Which by the way do you know the stick they use to put the blood up? It's a hissum branch. And then if you do that God will see the blood that covers you and you will not experience death.

It's a sixth sense thing, sixth instinct. As in Jesus on the cross bleeding here, here, here, here. Just had that same branch to his face said it is finished. The book of Leviticus, the third book in your bible. God puts together something called the sacrificial system. Here's the idea. Sin requires a sacrifice.

For every sin, it requires a sacrifice. And we see this throughout the Old Testament. People would sin. To be right with God, there had to be a sacrifice. It is all pointing to a final sacrifice that would happen on behalf of all sin for all time. It is finished. There's this weird story

in the book of Numbers where some poisonous snakes get into the camp of God's people. And they begin to bite God's people which causes poison to get into their body which is gonna cause them all to die. And God said, hey here's how you're gonna save your people. I know it's weird. Stick with me. It's gonna make sense in a few thousand years. Okay? You need to get a wooden pole. Probably looks something like this. Tell me if this looks familiar.

Did you catch it? Shouldn't have been confusing. Okay. Get a wooden pole and I need you to make a bronze serpent interesting and I need you to hang it from the pole. And all you need to do is hold up the pole. Whoever looks at that pole and what's hanging on it will be saved. Interesting, a bronze serpent.

The very thing that our enemy showed up as. The very thing that embodied sin. The very thing that embodied the curse. And then Jesus in John chapter three says, you know that story about that pole? It's all about me.

And on the cross he took on our sin. He took on the curse of mankind and said, it is finished. David talks about crucifixion centuries before it ever existed. David says our savior's gonna have some nails through his wrist and through his feet and he's gotta be thinking,

I don't understand this and God's like it's a sixth it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, trust me, trust me. It'll make sense later. We see throughout the entire old testament. It's like God is painting one singular picture.

And then we see prophets and we see the last book of your old testament Malachi saying something's coming. God is onto something. God's on the move. And after Malachi, we see four hundred years of absolutely nothing from God.

From generation to generation looking up saying, God, what's this all been building to? Complete silence until a penniless carpenter from Nazareth shows up on the scene and John says, that one, that's the lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world

and Jesus gets on the cross and he cries out three English words and one Greek word, it is

finished. What's finished? Everything you and I need to be in a right standing with God. See, this book is not about what you and I have to do to get to God. It's actually so much better than that. This book is about everything God has done to get to us.

It is finished. Now here's what you need to know about that word. It is finished. It's English, it is finished, but the Greek word is tetelestai.

Tetelestai. Now this word is not like a religious word. This was like a normal word that people in Jesus' context would say. Some bible scholars say that it was used in three different contexts in Jesus' time. This is so cool. Stay with me. The word was used in a in a business context.

Check this out. This is so cool. That if this guy owed this guy money in a business context, this guy would write a receipt of everything that this guy owed and he would keep that on file until this guy, listen, paid it off in full. Once this guy paid the debt off in full,

the business owner would pull out the receipt and he would write a word on the top or he'd stamp something on top. And it is the word tetelestai. The debt has been paid in full. This word wasn't just used in a in a business context. It was also used in a judicial context.

Where if if you committed a crime against Sokol. If you committed a crime against the Roman army, the Roman government, you would then have to go to court. And whatever the sentence

that you had to to see out would be written on a file and they put your name on it. So whatever crime you did, whatever you were you're sentenced to have to do to repay the crime would be written on on a folder that they would keep. And once that person completed the sentence, Completed it entirely.

They'd pull out that folder and they'd write one word on it. Can you guess what the word is? If you can't you're not following along very well. Tetelestai, sentence has been fully served. Now, it wasn't just used in business

context. It wasn't just used in a judicial context. This is so cool. This word was used in a military context. Stay with me. That the If a Roman city had an enemy coming to listen, kill, steal, and destroy everything from the city. The Roman city would send out a unit of fighters to fight on behalf of the city.

Sometimes it would be like a one on one thing like mano y mano, David and Goliath type of thing. But usually they would send a unit to fight on behalf of the city. And they would go to battle and whatever the outcome of the battle is would be imputed onto the people of the city who listen did none of the fighting.

So they would go out and they would fight and the city would wait to know are they gonna experience death? Are they gonna experience destruction? Or are they gonna experience life? And all dependent on what happened on the battlefield that they were not fighting. And then when the Roman unit would win the battle,

they would send someone back into the city to listen, declare the good news of what happened on the battlefield. For all my bible nerds in the room. That person that they would send back to declare the good news, they would call him an evangelist. So the evangelist would go back into the city declaring

that victory over their enemy has been accomplished and he would go throughout the city and he would say something like this, it is finished. Tetelestai, victory has been accomplished on your behalf.

We will get life and life to the full. Now are you putting are tracking with me now? Okay. When Jesus is on the cross, it's so cool and he shouts out to Telestai here is what he's saying to you and I. The debt of your sin has been fully paid. The judgment of your sin has been fully served and victory over your enemy

has been fully accomplished. It is finished. Here's the best part. You and I didn't have to do any of the fighting. It was all done on your behalf. In fact, the only thing that you and I contributed to our salvation was the sin that made it necessary. It is finished.

Now, we we can know this intellectually but like I said earlier, this is where I I can struggle when it comes to understanding this really in my soul. And, I know I'm not the only one because what we can tend to do is we can begin to drift and we don't believe it's actually finished.

Some of you, you walked in here today and you didn't have this kind of language, but you don't believe it is finished. You believe it was finished.

It was finished. That at one point you and God were good but you've done some things that there's no way God still loves you. So, you believe it was finished. At one point me and God were on the same page but since then man I've gotten off track and I've done some things I don't want people to know about. So there's no way if there's a loving God that he loves me. There's no way. And what you really believe is it was

finished. Others of you, you walked in here and you don't believe it is finished. You believe it's kind of finished.

It's kind of finished. Right? Jesus did his part on the cross but there's some things I must have to do to be in right standing with God. It's Jesus did his thing and I believe that wholeheartedly but there must be some things I have to do in order to to be right with God. And just to say it real blunt,

a lot of us based on where we live, we've come from religions or churches that that is their official doctrine. That it's what Jesus did on the cross plus there are some things that you and I have to do.

But Jesus did not say it's kinda finished. He said it is finished. Others of you, I had a conversation with someone this morning. Others of you walk in here and you don't believe it was finished, you don't believe it's kinda finished, you believe it will be finished.

That you have to clean up your life before you can go to God. That before you go to God and say, God, I'm gonna surrender myself. You're like, there's some things I gotta figure out first. I gotta make myself better. I gotta clean up my life before I can possibly turn to God.

But when Jesus was on the cross he did not say it was finished. He did not say it's kinda finished. He did not say it it will be finished. He declared it is finished. Everything necessary for you and I to have a right relationship with God. It's all been done. This is why you and I praise. Because it has been fully

accomplished.

I wanna wrap it up by telling you, we talk a lot about Jesus on the cross. And I wanna talk to you about, that's funny. They they're telling me I'm overtime. There's no service after this one. Y'all can just turn that clock off.

I got another forty five minutes.

Jesus is on the cross and I wanna I wanna kinda shift your attention. He wasn't the only one on the cross that day. Jesus was on the cross and there he was had two people next to him. So there's one on the right, one guy in the middle, one guy on the left. And

what the bible teaches is that when Jesus was put on the cross, the two thieves on the cross next to him start this whole journey by mocking and cursing out Jesus.

So as soon as Jesus gets on the cross, they're mocking him. They're cursing him. Which is kind of interesting because people die on a cross usually by suffocation

because you have a hard time breathing when you're hanging there and you don't have a lot of muscle left. You don't have a lot of strength left. So in order to speak was like a big deal. You have to push up to get breath back in your lungs and speak. And these two guys, criminals the bible says,

decided to use energy to mock and curse Jesus. But some of you know the story. After some time passed, we're talking maybe hours pass. The guy on the right of the cross looks to Jesus and says, hey, wherever you're going, can I come? It's like a hail Mary, why not give it a shot?

And Jesus pushes up and says, today you'll be with me in paradise. Now, forgive me. I'm using my spiritual imagination which means I'm making this part up. Okay? I don't know exactly how this all goes down when we get to heaven. But I gotta believe that this guy

had to be shocked it worked. Like, you talk about getting in in the last possible second. That's like you being 105, cussing out Jesus your whole life, on the hospital bed being told you got eight minutes to live. And you're like, hey Jesus, we good? Like And yet it worked. It it worked for this guy. I

think he had to be as shocked as anyone. Again, I don't know how this works. I don't know if there's like We all seen cartoons of heaven where it's got these, like, nice gate and you've got like a bouncer angel standing by the door.

And he's he's got, like, a a binder of, a checkbox and he's jacked like Bill. And he's just he's like a bouncer making sure the right people get in, the right people don't come in. And the guy on the cross after cursing out Jesus is like, hey, why not give it a shot? Woah. He gets there and he's like,

I expected this to be a lot hotter. It worked. I'm here. I I I kinda picture him walking up to the gate and the the bouncer angels like, what are you doing here? And he's like, I don't know. I'm as shocked as you. And the bouncer angels like, you don't know how why are you here? I don't know. I just showed up here.

And and the bouncer angels like, okay. Let me ask you a couple questions.

Nope. I took a bath before this crucifixion process. Does that count? No. It doesn't count. It doesn't count. Have you been in a bible study? No. No. I don't even know what that means. Are you a member of a church by No. Of course, you're not. Are you at least a good person? Woah. I was just on a cross

for something I actually did. So I don't know if I'd use the word like good. Picture the angel being like, then why are you here? What basis do you think you deserve to be here? The guy on the cross said I could come.

Church, that's it. And if you and I stand before God one day and he says, basis do you deserve to be here? And we start that in the first tense we've gone horribly wrong. Because I believed, because I'm good enough, because I've gone to church, you've gone horribly wrong. That answer is in the third tense. It's because he

and everything he did. And when I stand before God and he looks at me and says, what basis do you deserve to be here? I sure know it ain't my own actions, but the guy on the cross said I can come.

And that is why we worship and we praise him because our relationship with him is not about us. It's about everything he's done on behalf of us.

And there are some of you that walked in here and you've never looked to the man on the cross and said, I'm gonna give you my life. I'm gonna believe my debt has been paid. The judgment is fully served and victory is fully accomplished.

And if you've never given your life to Jesus, wanna give you a chance to do that. Can we all bow our head and close our eyes for a second?

If you've raised your hand before, you've given your life to Jesus. That's not something you and I need to do again because it is finished. Not was finished. It is finished. So if you've already given your life to Jesus, that's not something you do again.

But if you're sitting here and you've never had a moment where you've said, God I surrender you. I believe it is finished. I wanna give my life to you. That you are the only way, the truth, and the life. That's you. I want I wanna ask you to raise your hand while no one else is looking around. Raise your hand. Yeah.

All over the room. I I wanna lead you into a prayer. There's nothing special about the words I'm gonna say because it is finished. It's not about what we do. But just helps you communicate with God. So I want you to say this prayer in your own heart and mind as I pray it. Say, Father, thank you that it is finished. Thank

you that my relationship with you has nothing to do with what I've done, but it's all about what you have done. So today, I surrender my life to you.

Pray all this in Jesus name, amen. Church there are hands all over the room. Can we celebrate that? Yeah.

I'm gonna ask you to stand as we get back into a time of praising and worshiping. But I wanna read I just wanna speak something over us. Because if it's true that it is finished, if it really is finished, then that changes everything about God. Because it is finished, again, hear this in your heart and soul, that God loves you.

Because it is finished, you are completely forgiven. Because it is finished, you are just with God. It is just as if you've never sinned and just as if you've always obeyed. Because it is finished, you can know for certainty that God loves you as you are, not even as you and I should be. This is why the book of Psalms,

the very last statement we see in this book about worship, it says this, let everything that breathes sings praises to the Lord. Praise the Lord. Church, with everything in us, let us praise the God who on the cross said, it is finished.

Amen. Church of the Wayne, you should have got an element for communion.

And we take communion to remind us of what pastor Rocky preached about, that it is finished. That Jesus on the cross through a sinless perfect life, through his death, through his suffering, through his bloodshed, and through to And able blood

We

of do so as we stand as the body of Christ and in the presence of God, we remember Christ's sacrifice. You know, it also says in the New Testament that if Christ didn't resurrect, then we as Christians are to be the people group pity

most of all. But that is not the case. The tomb is still empty and Christ indeed is risen and is still alive. So we remember his sacrifice. We remember his body broken on the cross. So we can take a

And we remember his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins, we can take and drink.

In this next song we're gonna sing, it is written out of Philippians two and it says, because Christ humbled himself and took the lowly position and humbled himself to death, even death on a cross. Because he lowered himself, God elevated him.

And it says that he gave Jesus the name that is above every name, that at that name of Jesus,

one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And so as we continue to worship church because of who he is, because he is wholly set apart, because he is the name above all names, and because of his sacrifice on the cross, who he is and what he's done. Let that draw us into deep

passionate worship with gratitude in our hearts and souls. Amen. So come on. Lift your voice. Sing

is the highest. Your name

We want to give the highest praise to the highest name. King Jesus. The same church.

Like Psalm one fifty says, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. So with all the breath you've got, we see.

Come on church. Give the highest praise to the highest name. The name above all names, Jesus. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Hey, if you gave your life to Jesus, you just made the best decision of your life. Can we give it up for those who made that decision today? If

you wanna get baptized because you made that decision or you've never been baptized, we have towels, shirts, shorts, whatever you need. Like, go out there and get baptized and we will make that happen. If you need to pray with someone, we have a prayer room over here to your left, and we have amazing people who would love to pray with you, sit with you, whatever you need. Have a great Sunday, and we can't wait to see you until next week. Thank

you so much for joining us for church online this weekend. Make sure to stay up to date with everything happening here at Rock Point on our social media or by visiting rockpoint.io.