MEN WHO FINISH WELL
OR
ONE LAP FROM THE FINISH
By
Jerry Falwell
A. INTRODUCTION
Last week I used a phrase in a sermon and it got me thinking about this sermon, “One Lap From The Finish.”
1. Indianapolis racer that ran out of gas in the last lap.
2. Last week a golfer lost a major championship because he three-putted on the last two holes. He couldn’t finish.
3. A team that should win a championship but choked in the final quarter.
4. This sermon answers the question: “What Does It Mean To finish Well?”
B. FIVE KINDS OF FINISHES ARE SEEN OF MEN IN THE BIBLE.
1. Disqualified runners, i.e. a sprinter who jumps the gun.
2. Finished out of the running, i.e. they went down hill in the last part of life and embarrassed themselves, i.e. a phenom is signed for millions but never lives up to his billing.
3. So-so: Wasn’t among the leaders and wasn’t among the losers. They finished in the middle, i.e. those who are average.
4. Suspended for breaking the rules, i.e. The New York Knicks were eliminated from the NBA championship because their stars were suspended for clearing the bench in a fight.
5. Finished well, i.e. not always the winner but:
• Play the game well.
• Play above their ability.
• Personify sportsmanship in the game they play.
C. MEN IN THE BIBLE WHO DISQUALIFIED THEMSELVES.
But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway”
(I Cor. 9:27). To be a castaway is to be suspended.
Sports Example:
1. Pete Rose has a lifetime ban from baseball because he bet on sports.
2. The Chicago Black Sox took a bribe.
3. A wrestler took steroids.
4. Eric Green, one of our football players was fined and suspended for three games because he tested positive for drugs.
Biblical Example:
1. Samson because of the temptation of a woman.
2. Absalom because of the temptation of pride and power.
3. Ananias and Sapphira because of the temptation of money.
D. THOSE WHO FINISH THE RACE POORLY.
1. Definition - This meant that they might have started strong but gave out and finished poorly. They began serving God, but compromised later in life. This meant that they compromised their personal relationship with God, their ministry for God or their character.
2. Examples of some people who finished poorly.
a. Gideon won a great battle for God. His first battle with 300 warriors defeated 120,000 Midianites. Toward the end of his life he compromised for money and power and was rejected.
b. Noah was greatly used of God to save the world through the flood. Later in life he got drunk, and his sons had to cover his nakedness.
c. Eli was the last of the judges. Toward the end of his life compromised and wouldn’t correct his sons. The Bible calls him fat, lazy because he was always sitting down, blind probably from diabetes, and out of touch with God because he didn’t understand God speaking to young Samuel and Hannah.
d. Solomon was used greatly as a young man to build the temple, unify the kingdom and God gave him great wisdom because he didn’t ask for money or power, but he asked for wisdom. In the end he had multiple wives and concubine, was drunk on riches and power, and he didn’t properly train his children, they split the kingdom.
E. A SO-SO FINISH
1. Definition - This means some people did not live up to their potential. They did not do what they COULD have done, or SHOULD have done. They did not complete their task.
2. Examples -
a. A hotshot rookie who has a great year, but never does it again.
b. An Olympic athlete wins the gold at the Olympics but never makes it in sports.
c. Biblical examples:
(1) Isaac - supernaturally born of Abraham and Sarah in their old age, was heir to the Messianic line, but accomplished very little in his life. He is known for his famous father Abraham and for his famous son, Jacob. He is called a “well-digger,” because every time he dug a well, someone contested it, he gave it to them and moved on. He wasn’t a fighter.
(2) Barnabas - was a leader in the early church. He was sent to established the church at Antioch. He brought in Paul to build up the church. He began as the leader of the First Missionary Journey but when the journey was completed Paul was the leader. He got in an argument with Paul, and ended up his ministry in Cypress where we don’t hear of him again. I don’t think Barnabas did wrong, or turned against God, he ended up his ministry “so-so.”
F. FINISH WELL
1. Scripture - “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death . . . not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which things are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:10-14).
2. Examples - Ted Williams played the game well, even though he took off time to fight our country’s battles in the military. He played until old age, and hit a homerun at his last time at bat. Joe DiMaggio played all of his life for the Yankees and still holds the record for hitting in the most consecutive games. Larry Byrd personified the game of basketball, loved the game of basketball, and excelled in the game of basketball. Terry Bradshaw excelled at football, won numerous Super Bowls, and has been loyal to the game of football (even though I don’t like him chewing tobacco).
3. Definition -
a. To finish well means to (walk with God personally to the end of your life).
b. Make a contribution to God’s work with your time, talent and treasure.
c. Leave a heritage and children who will continue the work of God.
4. Biblical example -
a. Job - underwent every type of personal suffering possible. When Job’s wife told him to “curse God and die,” (Job 2:9) he told her, “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips” (Job 2:9,10).
b. Joshua - conquered the Promise Land for Israel, and at the last of his life he challenged everyone to live for God and testified at the very last: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). It is said of him, “There came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-serah which is in mount Ephraim . . . And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua” (Joshua 24:29-31).
c. Caleb - When the twelve spies returned, ten brought back a wrong report of their unbelief, but not Caleb. He and Joshua believed they could conquer the land. The 80 year old man Caleb said, “Behold, the Lord hath kept me alive as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses . . . As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, where the Lord spake in that day, . . . if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord has said” (Joshua 14:10-12).
d. Daniel - as a young man he was tempted to eat from the king’s table but stood true to God. He did not bow down to foreign gods, but bowed down to Jehovah and was thrown in the lion’s den for it. He is one of the few people in the Bible that there was no sin recorded for him. I don’t believe that he was sinless, there was no sin in his life worth mentioning.
e. Paul - we all know his life story with his trials, physical sufferings, and strong discipline. At the end of his life he said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them that love his appearing” (II Tim. 4:7,8).
5. Dr. J. Robert Clinton, professor at Fuller Seminar did a study of male leadership in the Bible and determined that only 30% of them finished well. How many of you here today want to finish well? How many of you will commit yourself to finishing well?
G. BARRIERS TO FINISHING WELL.
There seems to be temptations, trials, and just plain personal problems to keep people from finishing well. They stop one lap before the finish line.
1. Money - We are all faced with the prospect of greed and selfishness when we don’t discipline our desire for money, we eventually fall and compromise our principles. Example - Ananias and Sapphira, Gideon’s golden ephod.
2. Power - Many people want power. They always want to be the boss. There is a right use of power and there is an abusive power.
a. Jim Bakker abused the power that was his.
b. Billy Graham rightly used the power that was his. Those with true character (habitually doing the right things in the right way according to Dr. Towns in his book, Habits of the Heart).
Illustrations - Saul became neurotic over his power, when David got recognition. When the women said, “Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousand” Saul tried to kill David. Saul should have gone out and killed twenty thousand.
3. Pride - Is being selfish, egotistical, we say in today’s world, “watch out for number one.” While every man must have a healthy respect for himself, he must also recognize “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippines 1:21).
4. Things - It is possible for the “lust of the eyes” to get to anybody. People want a bigger car, a bigger house, a bigger everything. Because Esau was the firstborn, he was in line for the inheritance of his father Isaac. But he gave up his birthright for a mess of pottage, he let physical desires get between him and God’s will.
5. Sex - Illicit sex has been the downfall of many in the Bible.
a. David - sinned with Bathsheba, and for the rest of his life the results of this sin became an ongoing problem. One of his sons murdered another, one of his sons raped David’s daughter, he temporarily lost his kingdom and they fought right up until David’s deathbed when Adonijah and Solomon fought over the kingdom.
6. Maintenance/cruising/no growth - Many men reach a high level early in life, and then quit growing. They try to hang rather than continue growing throughout life. Any team knows that when you hang on to a lead, you lose momentum. John Maxwell calls momentum, “Big Mo.” When a team looses Big Mo, it usually looses the game.
Men who finish well continue to growth until the end of their life. They continue to go to the end, continue to trust God to the end. They don’t level off.
I think this was Solomon’s problem. He had great wisdom, great wealth, built the temple, built his own palace and had nothing else to do. He had no battles to win because the Philistines had been conquered. With nothing to do, Solomon lost momentum, he set it on “cruise,” and planned to sail peaceably into the sunset. But he destroyed his life after he was forty years old with women, and then he worshipped their foreign gods. Finally corruption set in.
H. FIVE THINGS TO MAKE SURE YOU FINISH WELL.
1. Life-long vision - Early, find out what God wants you to do, and never turn back. “No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).
2. Discipline - It is good for a young man to bear his burdens when he is young. It is good to learn the discipline of your business, this means disciplining your time, disciplining your money, and disciplining your management of people. It means to discipline your temper, your lust, and your laziness.
“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1,2).
They say that a horse that has been taught to run “flat out” in practice, when you get him into the race, gets into a “zone” and runs “flat out” without prompting from the jockey. That is what we need, we need to run “flat out” without prompting because we are in a race.
3. Continual learning - The third way to finish well is to continually learn right up to the very end. I read earlier, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:13). This meant to Paul, “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
4. Mentors - Those who finish well in the Olympics have a coach to continually challenge them, correct them and help them.
I remember seeing that Polish coach who helped those little girls in the Olympics. Those little girls did things that I thought were humanly impossible. The coach pushed them to accomplish more than they thought they could accomplish. The same is true in football, baseball and golf. Young people need a coach or a mentor to keep them from quitting.
Mentors in my life are: B. R. Lakin, Francis Schaeffer, John R. Rice, John Rawlings, Bill Dowell, Holland London, and Reg Woodworth.
5. Revival - The one thing we must constantly do throughout life is to keep our spirits revived week by week.
a. Worshipping God in church.
b. Daily devotions of Bible reading and prayer.
c. In those special epics or times when we go to the altar, take our car to the top of Liberty Mountain, or other times when we meet God personally . . . alone . . . privately . . . meaningfully.
(I want to continue this sermon. As I study the Bible I want to preach on the pivotal points to help a man to finish well. I want to examine that more. Also, I want to try to determine what are the characteristics of those who finish well. What were their guiding principles. But that is for another sermon.)
If you have never really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, would you do it right now? Do not delay or put it off. If you would like to receive Christ by faith, pray this simple prayer in your heart:
Dear Lord,
I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and rose again the third day. I repent of my sins. By faith I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior. You promised to save me, and I believe You, because You are God and cannot lie. I believe right now that the Lord Jesus is my personal Savior, and that all my sins are forgiven through His precious blood. I thank You, dear Lord, for saving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, God heard you and saved you. I personally want to welcome you to the family of God and rejoice with you.
For more information on the TRBC Pastor’s Bible Class, log on to the Internet for TRBC Home page at www.trbc.org/pbc.
