Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program. I'm glad
you could join us today. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to continue a series of messages
from John chapter four, and I'm going to focus on verse 34, the
last two messages. This is the third in a series
entitled The Finished Work of Christ. The Finished Work of
Christ, part three. And this will conclude the series,
I hope. We'll see if I can conclude it
with this. But what this is talking about,
this is when the Lord Jesus Christ, going on his way to Galilee,
went through Samaria. And he met a Samaritan woman.
and adulteress, and he spoke to her of the water of life.
He is the water of life. And when he was speaking to this
woman, he sent his disciples away to buy food. And when they
came back, they asked him if he wanted some food. In verse
31, this is John 4, 31. It says, in the meanwhile, his
disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. They were wanting
him to give him physical food. But he said unto them, in verse
32, I have meat to eat that you know not of. Therefore said the
disciples one to another, hath any man brought him ought to
eat? Now, just like he did to the woman at the well, their
minds were on physical things. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
his perfect way, in the wisdom of God, he's going to turn their
minds to spiritual issues. because these are the most important
issues. And so he said, what feeds me,
what fills my hunger is to do the will of his father. And he
says it in verse 34, Jesus saith unto them, my meat is to do the
will of him that sent me and to finish his work. Now, this
is what Christ came into the world to do. to do a work, to
finish a work that the Father, before the foundation of the
world, commissioned Him to do in what we know as the everlasting
covenant of grace. And this is where God the Father
chose a people to save and put all the responsibility upon Christ,
God the Son. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit, all three persons of the Godhead involved
in the covenant and in the salvation of his people. And so, and again,
I'm not gonna go into the Trinity as I did in other messages, but
we believe in one God in three distinct persons. One God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. And so the Son, God the Son,
became incarnate, which means He was made flesh, as John said
in John 1.14, dwelt among us. And He did that for the purpose
of doing a work. Now the work that He was sent
to do, of course, is the redemption of all the people, all those
whom the Father gave Him before the foundation of the world.
And that work involved His obedience unto death as Paul wrote in Philippians,
even the death of the cross because they are sinners. The ones that
God chose would fall in Adam into the state of sin and depravity
and spiritual death. They'd be born spiritually dead
in unbelief, rebellion. Sin marked our lives in our natural
state. we had to be redeemed from sin. The Bible says that when the
angel came to Joseph concerning Mary's pregnancy, he told Joseph,
he said, don't put her away for she's with child by the Holy
Ghost and his name shall be called Jesus for he shall save his people
from their sins. And that's the work that he came
to do. That's the work that he was sent to finish. Now in the
last messages, I dealt with some Old Testament scriptures that
prophesied of the finished work of Christ. Speaking of the glorious
person of Christ, who he is, God manifest in the flesh, God-man,
that's the kind of person that it took to save sinners because
he had to be God. Only God can create and give
life. Man cannot do that. Only God
can render forth perfect righteousness without any flaw and that cannot
be changed or contaminated. And then only man can die for
sin. See, the penalty of sin is death. Death in every facet of it, physical
death, eternal death, all of that, spiritual death. That's
the wages of sin. The wages of sin is death. So
Christ, in order to save His people from their sins, He had
to die. And in His death, He had to satisfy
the justice of God against the sins of His people. That's why
He was sent, so that God can be just to justify ungodly people. That's what His blood is all
about when we talk about the blood of Christ. The blood of
the Lamb, we're talking about His death under the penalty of
God's judgment against the sins of His people. And we're talking
about righteousness, that's the keeping and the satisfaction
of the justice of God, the law of God. Christ brought forth
an everlasting righteousness. This is the work He had to finish
in His death. And He died, He was buried, He
arose again the third day, signifying that the work was finished, that
the work was complete, that it was successful. And He's now
ascended unto the Father, seated at His right hand, ever living
to make intercession for His people. We serve a living Savior. So He's telling His disciples
here, this is the work that I was sent to finish. Well now, let
me show you in Scripture the exact description of that work
as Christ Himself stated it. When he began his public ministry,
as recorded in Matthew chapter 3 and verse 15, he was there
to be baptized by John the Baptist. And John admitted that he was
not worthy to baptize the Savior, but Christ said, this is the
purpose of this baptism. He says in verse 15, when he
asked John to baptize him, it says, Jesus answering, this is
Matthew 3, 15, Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to be
so now. In other words, allow this to
happen. For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. And then John suffered him. John
allowed him. Now the baptism of Christ was
not the same as the baptism of a sinner saved by grace. When
we're baptized, we're confessing our sinfulness and our identification
with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Christ's baptism
was a picture, a type, even you might say even a prophecy of
the work that he came to do and finish in his death, burial,
and resurrection. And he claimed, he stated it
this way, he did it to fulfill all righteousness. That's what
he had to do. Over in the book of John chapter
five, if you'll look at verse 36, listen to this. He's talking
about how John the Baptist came to give witness of him. John the Baptist came to point
sinners to Christ for salvation, for forgiveness, by his blood,
for righteousness, by his righteousness imputed. And so he said, John
came to gave witness, but here in John 5, 36, listen to this. Christ says this, he says, but
I have greater witness than that of John. There's an even greater
witness than John. What is that greater witness?
He says, for the works which the Father hath given me to finish. The same works that I do bear
witness of me that the Father hath sent me. The works that
he was given to do to finish. Now, a lot of commentators say,
well, that's referring to his miracles. Well, everything he
did in his public ministry was a work. working towards the ultimate
goal of going to the cross to finish and fulfill all righteousness,
to finish it. And so the works that were given
him to do to finish, to end it all. And just like we read last
week in the book of Daniel, he came to make an end of sin, to
finish the transgression, to bring forth everlasting righteousness.
And the main point of that witness of those works comes in his death,
burial, and resurrection. How do we know that Christ finished
the work of putting away the sins of his people? How do we
know that he finished the work of fulfilling all righteousness?
I'll tell you how we know. He died, he was buried, and he
arose again the third day. That's the victorious living
Savior. He conquered death. He conquered
the grave. He conquered sin. He conquered
Satan. He said over in John 12, he said
that now is the time that the prince of this world must be
cast out. And he was speaking of the death,
that he should die. So that's the finished work of
Christ. And we can go through scripture
here, and we can learn so much from this. And I'll show you
some other scripture. If you'll look at John chapter
17. In John 17, beginning at verse
one, this right here, in John 17, is what should be called,
if you don't, the Lord's Prayer. Now I know a lot of people say
that the prayer that Christ prayed in Matthew 6 is the Lord's Prayer,
but that's the model prayer. What he was doing there was teaching
his disciples how to pray. But if you want to see an example,
of the Lord Himself as the Son of God incarnate, the Savior
of His people, praying unto His Father, His prayer to His Father
as the mediator and intercessor of His people. Go to passages
like John 17 and listen to what He says here. He says in verse
1 of John 17, These words spoke Jesus and lifted up his eyes
to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son
that thy son also may glorify thee. Now this is that time that
he's actually going to be arrested, to be tried, and going to the
cross. That's the hour. You know, many
times in scripture, he would, in his life, he would tell his
disciples when he performed a miracle, he said, now don't go out and
tell everybody this because my hour has not yet come. He knew
the more that his fame spread throughout Judea, He knew that
the Pharisees would jump the gun, as it were. Of course, they're
not going to overturn the sovereign will of God. The hour for Christ
to go through all this to the cross was appointed by God before
the foundation of the world, and that wasn't going to change.
But he had things to do, things to say leading up to the cross. And so he would tell them, he'd
say, now don't tell any man this. He said, my hour has not yet
come. But now here in John 17, he said,
the hour's come. And that hour is to glorify thy
son, that thy son also may glorify thee. Look at verse two of John
17. as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should
give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." So he's
praying here as the high priest of his people for a specific
people identified as those whom the Father had given him. Back
in, how do you know who they are? Well, back in John 6, 37,
he said this, he said, all that the Father giveth me shall come
to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. They'll come to him, they'll
believe in him. And that's an act of God's power and grace
in the life of a sinner giving spiritual life in the new birth
and giving him the gift of faith. You see, if you truly believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, you've got nothing to brag about in
yourself. You can't say, well, I'm saved
because I made the right decision. No, what you have to say is I
made the right decision because God powerfully and invincibly
gave me life and called me to himself. In John 6, 44, he says,
no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me,
draw him. and I'll raise him up at the
last day. So here he says, give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given him. And verse three, now look at
John 17, verse three. And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent. The essence of eternal life is
knowing God intimately through revelation truthfully as he reveals
himself in the glorious person and finished work of Christ.
That's how we know God. That's what eternal life is. And we can only know God through
Christ by revelation. God's revelation through His
Word in the power of the Holy Spirit. You can read the word
and claim to understand it, but unless the Holy Spirit turns
the light on and reveals Christ to you, you don't know God. But
now look at verse four. He says, I have glorified thee
on the earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. Now, he's not talking about he
finished it in time already. because he hadn't, he's going
to the cross to finish it. But he speaks in what we look
upon as past tense. This is in a tense, a verb tense,
that we don't have an English equivalent to. And what it's
talking about is something that has been true all along, even
though it had not yet been accomplished in time. But it was sure and
certain to be accomplished in time, and so Christ speaks of
it as if it's already done. That's the way God is. He speaks
as things that are not as though they were. You know why? Because His will cannot be thwarted. God works all things after the
counsel of His own will. So when Christ says, I have glorified
thee on the earth, which he had done already up to this point,
but not in the highest, not yet, because he hadn't yet gone to
the cross, and that's the highest glory of God. The revelation
of God as both a just God and a savior through the blood of
Christ, the righteousness of Christ is the highest glory of
God. because it reveals every attribute
of God's nature working consistently together in the salvation of
a sinner by his grace. And so he says, I finished the
work which thou gave me to do. He's speaking in anticipation
of the cross. That's the finished work of Christ.
And then if you look over in John 19, now here's Christ on
the cross. He speaks from the cross, you
know, the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross. And one of those
sayings is recorded in John 19, 30. Listen to this, it says,
when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, that's the spoiled
wine that the soldiers gave him, because he said, I thirst. He
said, listen to this, it is finished. The finished work of Christ.
And it says, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. He actually
died. In his humanity, he gave up the
ghost. And he didn't give up the ghost
until when? Until it was finished. It is finished. What was finished? Well, as Daniel
said, he made an end of sin. He finished the transgression.
He brought in everlasting righteousness, He sealed up the vision and the
prophecy, and He entered into the holiest of all, the very
presence of God, as the surety and the substitute of His people. And just when He talked to His
disciples back in Samaria, you say, how could He have had all
this in mind? Well, He's God. He's God-man. God-manifest in
the flesh. He knew what He'd come to earth
to do. Let me show you another scripture.
This is in Romans chapter 10. And listen to what it says here. Now remember what He said. His
meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His
work. What was His work? The glory
of God in the salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ. And so here
in verse one, this is Romans chapter 10. Paul writes here,
he says, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for
Israel is that they might be saved. Now he's talking about
unbelieving Israel. Those unbelievers who didn't
know God, didn't know Christ, who were trying to establish
a righteousness of their own by their works. And he said this
in verse two, he said, for I bear them record that they have a
zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They have a religious
zeal. They wanna keep the law. They
wanna do right. But they're ignorant of some
knowledge. There's knowledge that they're
missing. Well, what is the knowledge they're missing, Paul? Well,
verse three tells us. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, Now, another term for righteousness is justice.
What do you mean they're ignorant of God's righteousness? Well,
they don't know the reality of what God requires for a sinner
to be saved. You see, if you're trying to
be saved by your works, or by your will, or by anything you
do, you don't know the reality of what God requires. So they're
ignorant of God's righteousness. Now, how do you know that? He
says, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they've
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Now
that term, the righteousness of God, is one of the most important
terms in scripture, one of the most important phrases. Paul
had already written back in Romans 1, 16, and 17. He says that the
gospel is the revelation of God's righteousness. You remember?
He says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for
it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first, and the Greek also, or the Gentile. For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed. from faith to faith. That is
from God's knowledge revealed to God's knowledge received,
as it is written, the just or the justified shall live by faith. They live by looking to Christ
and in the glory of his person and the power of his finished
work. So they're ignorant of the righteousness of God. Well,
what is the righteousness of God? Look at Romans 10 and verse
four. It says, for Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Now that word end, Christ is
the end of the law, that word end is a derivative of the same
word that's translated finished. Christ is the finishing of the
law. He finished the law in all of
its precepts and all of its penalty for who? for all those who believe. Well, who are going to believe?
Only those whom the Father had given Him before the foundation
of the world, only those to whom God reveals Himself by the power
of the Spirit in His word in the preaching of the gospel.
Christ is the finishing of the law for righteousness. To everyone
that believe, Christ is the righteousness of God in the glory of His person
and in the power of His finished work. He is the end of the law. He's the finishing of the law.
He's the perfection of the law. He's the completion of the law. All of those things are true
of Him whom to know is life eternal. If you'll look over in the book
of Hebrews, several passages in Hebrews, in showing the contrast
between the priesthood and the sacrifices of the old covenant
law of Moses, against the greater glory and fulfillment of the
priesthood of Christ and the sacrifice of himself that he
gave for his people shows that there was nothing finished under
that law. That law, for example, look at
Hebrews chapter 10 when he says in verse one here, now listen
to this. He says, for the law having a shadow of good things
to come, Not the very image of the things can never with those
sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make
the comers thereunto perfect. The sacrifices of the Law of
Moses, the animal sacrifices, could not make anything perfect
or finished or complete because they weren't finished. And he
says down in verse four of Hebrews 10, he says, for it's not possible
for the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. Couldn't
do it. And so what does he say? Well,
he comes to Christ now. He said, the father has prepared
a body, a human body, sinless human body for Christ to do what
those animal sacrifices could not do. And what is that? Well,
look at Hebrews 10 and verse 10. He said, he's talking about
the will of God doing, Christ came, he said, remember he said,
my meat is to do the will of him that sent me And to finish
his work, well, he says in verse 10 of Hebrews 10, by the witch
will, that same will that he's speaking of in John 4, we are
sanctified, set apart through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once. Only one time, because he finished
it. Now, if you've got a King James
Version, you'll see in italics following the word once, it says
once for all. Now, many people look at that
and they say, well, see there, he did it once for everybody,
all people without exception. That's not what this teaches.
If he, listen, if Christ, through the offering of his body for
everybody without exception, finished the work, then everybody
without exception is gonna be saved, but the Bible does not
teach that. The Bible teaches that there'll
be few that find it, and the majority will perish. What it
means is that the body of Jesus Christ wants for all time. That's what the construction
here of the original language means, for all time. His one
sacrifice took care of the problem for all time. And then look down
at verse 14 of the same passage, Hebrews 10, for by one offering,
he, Christ, hath perfected, completed, finished forever them that are
sanctified. That's the finished work of Christ.
And then look over again at Hebrews chapter 12. Listen to this. The writer of Hebrews here is
talking about the things that get in the way as obstacles of
faith. And he says, the way to overcome
them in verse two is looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. And the faith there is the gospel.
It's salvation. Christ is the author of it. He's
the finisher of it. He finished the work. All righteousness,
all forgiveness by His one offering for the sins of His people. And
everything that He did is eternal. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you. you