Steps along Life’s Journey
Steps to Finishing Well
2 Timothy 4:6-8
Hebrews 12:1-3
What are the steps that lead us to Finishing Well?
Finishing well requires…
Fighting the Good Fight (2 Timothy 4:7a; Hebrews 12:1b)
Finishing your work (2 Timothy 4:7b)
Faithfulness to Christ (2 Timothy 4:7c)
Slide
We are finishing up talking about Life’s Journey this week.
We have been talking about the various steps we encounter along Life’s Journey.
When we look in the Bible, we often see this Journey illustrated as a race.
This race is not so much to finish first as it is to finishing well, to Step across the Finish Line hearing the words “Well done good and faithful servant.”
I want to show you a video of a race from the 2006 Olympics that illustrates how we can run a text book race and finish poorly and all we will be remembered for is the poor finish.
Video
Slide after video
Things can go so well and then go so wrong. In that race the snowboarder lost focus.
If we are going to finish well, it is imperative that we keep our focus.
When we look at the people in the Bible who are part of the story God uses to reveal Himself to us, we see people who
start well and yet finish poorly, (Lot)
who run well and who stumble along the way, (Asaph)
who start poor but finish well (Paul)
Maybe you are here today and have made some poor decisions in your journey or stumbled along the way. I want to encourage you that no matter how you have been doing along life’s journey, it is not too late to finish well.
And for those who have been running the race of life well, I want to encourage you to keep focused on Christ, because you do not want to slip up now and finish poorly.
We just saw in the video how easy it is to run well the whole way and then finish poorly.
Don’t let that be you.
Unfortunately for this snowboarder, this finish will haunt her for the rest of her life.
Transition
This morning, we are going to look at one person in the Bible who is a great example of finishing well in Life’s Journey, and that is Paul.
Paul did not start out so well.
He was a persecutor of Christians.
He was even there at the stoning of Stephen, giving his approval to his death.
But the Lord gave him the opportunity to step into Hope and he became a believer in Jesus Christ.
He then took the next steps of faith and continued on in the journey.
He took steps that stood firm when he was arrested and beaten and stoned and
He finished well.
When I was in High School, I was in drama and we had a saying that said, you were only as good as your last act. That is what everyone remembers no matter how poorly or how well you did before.
Paul’s last act was one of faithfulness even as he faced execution from a Roman prison.
He finished well.
Let’s see what we can learn from Paul so we too, might finish well.
Turn with me to 2 Timothy 4:6-8
Slide
I want you to hear what Paul says to Timothy as he approached his death. Now I want to read starting in verse 1 so you get a sense of Paul’s priorities and his focus before he talks about the end of his own journey.
2 Timothy 4:1-5
4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
And then he goes on to talk about himself and the end of his Life’s journey and he says,
2 Timothy 4:6-8
6 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day-and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
Pray
Paul, nearing the time of his death, and what is he concerned about?
He is concerned for others to come to salvation and
He encourages Timothy to “discharge the duties” of his ministry.
How is it that Paul is able to face what he is facing and yet come to the end of the race, the end of his life’s journey and still be focused on others coming to Christ?
It is because Paul is focused on the eternal, not the temporary. He understands that our hope is not found in this life or in anything in it.
If we are going to finish well, we need to keep our focus as well.
Keeping our focus on the eternal is what is going to enable us to take the steps that are required for finishing well.
What are those things? Well, Paul tells us in these verses.
First,
Taking Steps to Finish Well requires
…Fighting the good fight
Slide
2 Timothy 4:7a - I have fought the good fight
What does it mean to fight the good fight?
In Scripture, we see a lot of sporting or race analogies used.
Even as Paul talks about finishing the race in these verses, listen to what the author of Hebrews says about the race we are running.
Hebrews 12:1
Slide
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
In the word perseverance, there is the picture of battling through, of fighting the urge to quit. We persevere, we endure.
If you haven’t discovered this already, the Christian life is not a walk in the park.
I want you to clearly know that becoming a Christian is not going to
make you rich or
necessarily heal you physically or
bring some great earthly reward.
In fact, becoming a Christian and living the Christian life may make your physical life harder, But it will provide the ability for you to be more joyful in the midst of whatever is going on in your life.
But you must persevere.
You must fight the good fight.
So in this good fight, what are we fighting for?
There are two things that go hand in hand in this fight and the author of Hebrews outlines them for us in Hebrews 12:1-2
Slide
We just read the first one and that is
throwing “off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”
The other thing comes in verse 2. It says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith”
Now these 2 things are not nearly as easy as they sound.
This is why it is a fight. It is difficult and requires that we battle.
Armor of God
But the battle is not against flesh and blood, as Paul tells us in Ephesians, where he outlines the armor that is used in this battle.
All of the pieces of Armor ultimately have to do with our faith.
We need to keep our faith strong.
How do we keep our faith strong?
Spending time with God in prayer and devotions, reading his word and meditating on it.
Doing Bible study as a group
Being connected and accountable to other Christians
Doing these things will help us fight the good fight by
being strengthened to resist temptation and
keep our eyes on Jesus
so we can walk worthy of the calling he has given us.
These are the things that are going to keep you running well on your journey and bring you to the point of being able to finish well.
Taking Steps to Finish Well not only requires fighting the good fight, but it requires
… Finishing your work
Slide
Paul tells Timothy
In 2 Timothy 4:7b - “I have finished the race”
Does that mean just getting to the end and dying?
No.
We see some further explanation of what Paul means by finishing the race in Acts 20:22-24
He is talking to the elders from the church at Ephesus and says,
Acts 20:22-24
Slide
22 "And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. 24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.
We see here that Paul is not only fighting his natural instinct for self-preservation, (He is fighting the good fight), but he further explains finishing the race means completing the task the Lord Jesus had given him, testifying to the gospel of grace.
Now as we study Paul’s calling and work, we see that he had a special calling, testifying to the gospel of God’s grace – this was his life’s work he was called to.
Not all of us have been given the specialized task Pau has been given, although we are all called to be witnesses for Christ.
But what is the task we are to complete?
What is the task we have been assigned by the Lord?
We all desire to know what our purpose is, what our special calling is, so that we can fulfill it.
I would argue that for many of us, our major purpose in life is found in being godly examples of what many of us consider normal life.
Be a husband who loves his wife
Be a wife who respects her husband
We should be a child who obeys their parents
We should raise our kids in a godly manner
We need to live our life in a way that is a testimony to God’s grace.
Without completing and finishing these tasks, any other tasks or work given to you by the Lord, will be marred.
Illustration – Bob Pierce, World Vision
Bob Pierce was the founder of World Vision and a leader of Samaritan’s Purse, putting it on the map.
While Bob did a lot of good things for the Lord, he did not finish well.
His uncontrolled temper led to his departure from World Vision
His own passions and desires led him to focus on the visible things and he paid little attention to his family responsibilities.
On his final trip to Asia, his daughter called and asked him to come home. He refused and in fact extended his trip. His wife went home. By the time she got there, the daughter had attempted suicide. A year later she tried again and succeeded. Pierce was in the hospital in Switzerland at that time suffering from a nervous breakdown.
He ended up separated from his wife and estranged from his whole family up until 4 days before his death.
Imperfect Instrument, Christianity Today accessed 2/24/2012 at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/march/19.56.html
Don’t forgo the tasks that God gives you that seem small to you, that may be less visible to people, but are so important and visible to the Lord, like your family.
Finishing well in the long term, requires that we finish well repeatedly in the short term. We are often faced with things that we need to finish to be able to move on, especially when we are younger.
For the kids and students out here. You need to work hard at finishing school. To be able to finish high school or college well, requires that you finish the year you are in well. Those years build on one another.
For those who are working, finish your project well, don’t just get it done but do it well.
The Scripture tells us that whatever work we are doing, that we should “work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men…It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
(Colossians 3:23-24)
Whatever you are doing, finish well.
It is when we are faithful with those things, that God often gives us more that we can be faithful with.
And that leads to the last step I want to talk about that is required if we want to finish well and that is
… Faithfulness to Christ
Slide
2 Timothy 4:7c
7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
We must continue to trust Christ and be following Him.
We must keep the faith.
How do we remain faithful and keep the faith?
Hebrews 11:1
11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
If we are going to remain faithful, there are times, even as we talked about a couple weeks ago, that we are going to have to step out on faith, even when we don’t see how the Lord is possibly going to work things out.
When we believe we know what He wants us to do and we have prayed about it and sought wisdom through His word and from other godly men and women, we need to step out and be faithful to Him.
There are so many times, when Satan will come and whisper lies to us that we will believe.
“Quit being a godly spouse. Your husband or wife is not being godly, why should you?”
“Why should you be honest to your clients when nobody else is and they are getting all the business?”
“Why do I need to do well in school when I am not going to use this stuff anyway? I should just quit and do what I want.”
“Why should I wait to be with my girlfriend or boyfriend until marriage? We love each other, so that should make it ok.”
We walk by faith, not by site.
Trust the God of the universe, the one who created you and me and all that we can see, that He knows what is best for us, even when we don’t understand, even when what He is calling us to is hard.
God calls us to the best, not the easy.
The best is often more costly in the near term, but living faithfully provides a return that is far more than you can anticipate.
Being faithful now does not guarantee that we finish well, but it puts us in the position to be able to do it. When we are not faithful now, finishing well becomes much harder for us later.
We started out with a video of Lindsey Jacobellis not finishing well.
I want to show you another video of someone finishing well. Remember though, it is not about coming in first, but about finishing well.
Video – Heather Dorniden - 2008 Big Ten 600m championships
Slide after video
Unbelievable is right. I will tell you that while it appears that this race was won as she stepped across the finish line, and that was the “glory moment,” but the reality is that she would have never been in a position to with this race after a fall like that if not for her faithfulness in training, her perseverance to get back up even after she fell, and all the steps that occurred before she even stepped onto the track on that day.
If she hadn’t trained hard and kept focus in her training she would have not been able to recover from that fall.
If she had fallen and just quit and not persevered, she would have not finished well.
She fought to the end, she was faithful to all of the training she put in, and she finished well.
What are the steps in front of you that will help you finish well?
“What can you do now that can put you in the position of finishing well?”
Slide
For some it is baptism. We have a number of people getting baptized today.
Do you need to be baptized?
You can do it today if you have believed in and received Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Maybe you need to be more faithfully working at your job.
Ask the Lord to help you to work at your job as if we are working for Him.
Do you need to be more faithfully raising your kids in the Lord?
Do you need to trust God more and be a godly spouse, even if your spouse is not deserving of it?
Do you need to be sharing what God has done in your life with someone else?
Maybe you think God hasn’t done much in your life.
Maybe that is because you are stuck in neutral unwilling to take the step of faith that God has placed in front of you.
On the back of your outline are a couple of lines.
I want you to write on it what God is laying on your heart that you need to do now that will help you move in the direction of finishing well.
It is only by God’s grace that we can finish well.
We are not going to be able to finish well in our own strength.
That is why we need to seek the Lord’s strength and help. It is only as He works in our life that we will be able to bring glory to Him and truly finish well.
Let’s pray.
Worship team come up.
Jesus is the one who finished very well. He perfectly accomplished what the Father gave him to do and He paid the price for your sins. He paid it all.
If we are going to finish well, and hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant” then we have got to recognize our need for Jesus and the fact that He paid it all.
We are going to close worshiping the Lord in song as we sing, Jesus Paid it all.
Let’s worship.
