Good morning! I’m glad to welcome you to worship today at Hillcrest Baptist Church.

“LAST WORDS” will be our theme today and the next two Sundays. We will be looking at three “LAST WORDS” which we read regarding the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Today we will look at one of the “LAST WORDS”, “It is finished” (John 1:30), that Jesus spoke while on the cross.

These words can meant different things to different people. For our soon-to-be-graduating seniors, those words speak of great relief and joy. However when Jesus uttered those words on the cross, there were different responses. For His disciples, at that moment, it meant that all their hopes and dreams were over; it was the end of all their plans and a return to the old, defeated way of life. For the Pharisees it meant that the threat was over: the troublemaker would bother them no more, and life would return to normal. To Satan and his host of demons, it mean he had won.

Very few people, if any that day, thought those words meant more than a man dying in defeat. Little did anyone–except for the Father and the Son of God Himself–know that Jesus was saying “My work on earth has been accomplished.” In the plan of God, “It is finished,” was an eternal word of defeat for Satan and an eternal word of forgiveness and freedom.