It is still finished

0:08 Think about the last time you celebrated something, like you really celebrated something. Let's say your birthday, for example. With that day you posted, you called people, people called you, sent you sweet messages, and you just felt so full that day. Now think about a week after your birthday or two weeks after your birthday, how much of that energy that you had on your birthday is still there? I knew my Ling out two days, three days, but basically how much of that energy was there one week or two weeks after your birthday?

0:43 So there's this thing where we're good at celebrating things in the moment, but they were not always as good at carrying the width of what it is that we're celebrating past that moment or well past that moment. And I think the same thing happens with Easter. It's like the services are full, the worship hits difference, you know, there's this collective acknowledgement that something great has happened. I particularly, I saw someone make a post about it and I genuinely agree. I think this year people were really loud about Easter.

1:13 I didn't see star eggs or Easter bunnies anyway, very good. But people were really loud about Easter. But in Easter Sunday ends. Monday came the week, you know, was in full flow. Life basically picked back up some people that were happy about the public holiday back at work, looking towards the next public holiday. And the thing that we spend the whole season talking about, the cross, the resurrection of Jesus, the finished work of Jesus essentially quietly goes into the background for some people until next day anyway.

1:47 And I'm thinking about it and I'm saying I don't think that's how it's supposed to be. But are we back to that or I'll come back to that? Hi, welcome. Welcome back to Rooted with me. For me, this is where biblical truth is brought you in a way that's sincere, simple, heartfelt, and hopefully it leaves your loving good more than before. So yeah, this episode's actually after Easter intentionally. So I want to talk about what happens after Easter. So we have a calendar that, you know, kind of, you know, revolves around our fit all has elements of our faith included in it.

2:25 So yes, Christmas, Easter, some people celebrate Pentecost, things like that. And I think those are awesome traditions. I think it gives good space for reflection. But I think somewhere along the way, it's like we allow the times or the seasons to do the work that our hearts are supposed to do. So it's like we start waiting for a special service to feel the weight of the cross. We start needing a church program to remind us that the resurrection actually happened. And the downside to this is when the program ends, that feeling that we might get from the program, and that's a might begins to dim or begins to die down.

3:03 And like I said, for that's a problem, not because the feeling is bad, but because what we're celebrating is not a feeling. It's a fact. Sometimes we don't realize this ball. It's a fact like historically proving, you know, textually everything, everything, everything. Point is, we no need to then separate a particular season aside to celebrate a fact any day we think about any day they remain true on that day. Like let's think of Jesus Christ. Now I'm thinking of Jesus Christ. I don't know during the Easter period, I'm digressing it, but during the Easter period, I wanted to watch passion for Christ.

3:38 But then I saw a clip and I was just like, no, I can't do it. I don't have the I don't have the gods yet. Like I saw my last time I watched it, I was. I was boiling my eyes that I was crying too much. I'm not sure my heart can take it. Maybe I'll try again next year. Yeah, but after the arrest, the trial, the beatings, snails, crown of thorns, everything. Before he died, finally he said 3 words. It is finished. The Greek Ranger. That phrase or word is Tetelus style. During those days when the debts had been paid off completely, the so I'm thinking debits credits.

4:18 So debtor, creditor. I don't know when the creditor this clearance was, you know, documented stuff. You would write a telesty meaning that the debt had been cleared or it had been settled. When the priests examine sacrifice, I found that it was without blemish. You would say the telesty, the offering is complete. I'm listening to them. I necessarily said about like that was the idea the offering is complete, fully acceptable before God. So essentially when a task is fully accomplished to tell a style, the work is done.

4:48 So when Jesus said those 3 words on the cross, he wasn't saying, oh, I give up. It was saying that the work is complete. Everything that needed to happen for you to have access to the Father had been done fully, perfectly and once. And my point is this why I'm saying that of this is that that declaration to tell a style did not expire on Insta Sunday. It is not a seasonal announcement. It's it's it's eternal. It's an eternal 1 essentially. And when something is truly finished, when the work is genuinely complete, you don't have to keep doing it.

5:20 You get to rest in it. So I'm not going to I was about to say when your big sister, but I might seem to, you know, targeted. So I'm just going to say when your elder sibling and maybe you need to order and maybe your mom again, I might feel targeted. So maybe your guardian, they they just keep it clean, you know, but maybe, for example, you had chores and you've gone to go and do your chores. Maybe you wanted to watch a particular show that starts by 4:30 PMI don't know why that seems really specific for random.

5:47 You want to get there on time. You want to get to the TV on time to watch that show. And it's like you're rushing to deal with him and then you go, you sit down and then you're sorry. That's that guardian or that big signal, that person. And how come I tell you you're not done?

6:03 Oh, gosh, this is well, this is well, thank God for goods. The quantity. You're not done and you're so annoyed. Then you have to go back. You rush and you come back again and it just seems like you're never done. There's always something. Maybe we've done our assignments. I feel like, oh, I'm done with everything. All of a sudden your mom's like, no, you're not done. Brings out another nose from your bag or something like that. Maybe even walking throughout the whole day. It's like, oh, no, why not?

6:25 Don't you? Yeah, that's not the case with Jesus. With the work that he did. It's done, everything is complete. It's complete and you don't have to live your life constantly trying to validate what was already done like it's already done. Rather, you live from that place of the finished works of Christ. Like Hebrews 10 verse 14 was telling us about how like 1 sacrifice was made. That's Jesus Christ's life and because of that sacrifice he has made perfect. Whoever believes all of us who are being made holy, like all of us who believe in the work of Jesus Christ have made perfect forever, not for a season, not while inside decorations are up.

7:03 So point is the ground does not shift even when we feel bad, Let's say we fall back into sin. Let's say we go through a dry season. Let's say we feel forgotten. Maybe we don't pray enough, we don't study our Bible enough. Maybe we just feel like we're not doing enough generally. Again, there's there's there's an expert, there's an aspect to it where, yeah, we have to be disciplined like Paul tells us to exercise ourselves onto righteousness. It gives you the idea that you have a role to play. Paul tells us to yield ourselves, our members, our body as instrumental righteousness.

7:32 So you have a part to play. Yes. Well, point is, in all of this, the work is still finished. It doesn't change the fact that you've been reconciled to God. The finished work is not contingent on how well we're doing. I think you already know this book. It was finished before you woke up this morning. It was finished before you. I don't know. I don't know. It will still be finished when you go to sleep tonight. And on your worst day, the day you feel furthest from God, the day you feel most ashamed, the day I don't know, the day you feel somehow it is still finished.

8:07 It is still finished, right? And you, you need to remember that. You need to remember that it will always remain finished. So what is it now look like to actually live in the finished works of Christ? I don't want you to just be an idea. I want to do something I can actually practice. I think there's this one that I love so much and I'll say it like this. It looks like waking up and remembering the gospel. First time I heard someone say this, I don't really blew my mind. It's just like you wake up and the first thing that you think about.

8:33 I know there's the whole work and everything, but if you just wake up and you take 5 minutes, I know sometimes even 5 minutes might not seem because maybe sometimes you're already late. Like when you're waking up, you're already behind your schedule. But I'm like, if you're already behind your schedule, an extra 5 minutes change much. I don't know, I'm just saying. But the point is if you wake up early, you know, if you're that disciplined, which should be the norm. I'm trying as well, but you wake up early, 5 minutes, you just spend 5 minutes thinking about the gospel.

9:01 Like, take them to actually think about it. I was talking with a friend of mine recently and we're just reminiscing about our lives before Jesus, you know, came and changed us. And it's like, sometimes I cringe. I'm like, thank you, Jesus, thank you. Like, you know what? That song, thank you for saving me. It's so real. You know, when I was younger, I might have just sang it because it's humor was nice. But now I'm like, Jesus, thank you for saving me. Yeah. You think about the gospel about how you were you were gone, you were gone.

9:28 It was guaranteed where you are going, but then Jesus Christ came and changed all of that. Alright. How we are no longer on that condemnation, how we are no longer on that dominion of sin, how we can yield ourselves as instruments of righteousness. I think it's so beautiful. Alright, I'm thinking or living in the finished works of Christ also looks like going back to God when you fall into sin, right? So instead of you wallowing in shame or self pity, right, which is I think I've said this for an episode, but it's a form of pride.

10:00 But instead of doing all of that, you go back to God, you run back to God because you know that the work is still finished, right? So it looks like whenever you see him for sure do anything, right, you just you come back to tell the side the work is finished. So it looks like gratitude as well. It looks like gratitude that is not dependent on your prompts. Like basically, you do not need something to prompt you to feel gratitude. It's just this daily awareness that something was done for you that you could never have done yourself and was done freely, completely.

10:31 And it is still standing right now. So it's a daily like reality, sort of. So yeah, yeah. Point is, don't get used to what Jesus Christ has done. Don't let the cross become background noise. Don't let the resurrection become a theological factor you acknowledge every now and then. Let it be something that actively moves you. Let it be something that steadies you when you're like a shaky. Yeah, right. It's like when you go through the toughest, toughest of moments, when you feel you're too broken.

10:58 Remember that the cross has already answered or solved that problem a long time ago, and the solution is still standing today. It is finished. Not was finished is present tense right now, like right now as I listen to this. Yeah. So every ordinary day, the resurrection is still real. Every normal day, every time you go to God in prayer, you have access because of what is slash wars finished. Every time guilt tries to pile up and you remember the work is finished. All right, so Kai is with you. Not just on Sunday.

11:34 It's not just on Easter Sunday, not just on Easter season, Every Wednesday morning that you wake up and you don't feel any mood. Every Monday, see that Monday is very serious, but every Monday, remember, it's right. Every quiet and ordinary day, remember, is because it is still finished. That's the whole point of this episode. It is still finished. And that's right for the episode. Yeah. Thank you for listening, Ian. I just want to say I'm really happy that you're here. Thank you for listening. Sometimes I'm like, I recorded something for this long and you listened.

12:06 You made it to this point. Much love. Much love. And I think I want to start like maybe taking like topics or maybe there's something that you come across like, Oh, this came to mind. How does someone navigate this or what is the Christian perspective of of this or on this? How do you answer this question? Different things like that. Like I'm also, I have something I want to talk about, but I'm also open to accepting things like that. Genuinely want to hear what you might want me to talk about or give me an idea of something that you want to hear about.

12:33 Or are they particular things as well as the Bible that confuse you, that get you scared or that give you doubt basically, right. Very, very open to giving a take on that. And yeah, so please, like, no, sorry, that's YouTube. You can leave a rating. Sadly, you can't comments, Spotify disable that, but you can leave a rating and the other things share, yes, share this with someone. Buy. Stay rooted.