Welcome back to the podcast on this fine Monday. We start the week with a question that

reached us from 10,000 miles away from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and from a listener

named Kyle. Hello, Pastor John, I've enjoyed listening to APJ for a few months now. My

question is this, what did Jesus actually accomplish? Every time I ask this question,

believers, the answer is always an enthusiastic everything. And while that answer is nice,

it always felt like the equivalent of asking a chef after having eaten an exquisite dish,

what the ingredients are. And is in fact a response being everything? And are there a core group

of Christ accomplishments that we should focus on more than others? On the flip side,

is there anything that Christ didn't accomplish that we have somehow tricked ourselves into

believing he did? I'm thinking of wealth, comfort, and the good life today. Can we go too far

by promising things Christ did not accomplish for us today? As with many questions we are asked,

the first task is to clarify terms. So crucial, in fact, most questions answer themselves

to understand the terms. Until we do this, we can't even know what is being asked. And this question,

in particular, is fraught with ambiguities. First, the ambiguity of definition. What does the word

accomplish mean? And then the ambiguity of timing accomplished by when? And then the ambiguity

beneficiaries accomplished for whom? And then the ambiguity of act, like which act of Jesus,

are you asking about accomplished by his miracles accomplished by his sinless obedience accomplished

by his death accomplished by his resurrection accomplished by his intercession. Oh my,

so we got lots of work to do. So let me suggest four clarifications. And I think

in the very clarifying, we'll address every one of Kyle's questions. So number one, I'm going to assume

that the act of Jesus that Kyle has in mind when he asks this is his death and resurrection.

That is, what did Jesus accomplish in dying for us and rising again? That's my assumption

...