A Starter Or A Finisher
Scriptures: Genesis 19:17,24-26; Philippians 3:13; Matthew 24:5-13
Two weeks ago, before the ice storm last week, I told you that I was pressing on. I was pressing on regardless of my past failures and missed opportunities. I told you that once Jesus laid a hold on me I held back, like a drowning man who was being saved, I was not letting go of my Savior. The title of my message this morning is “A Starter or A Finisher” and we will reexamine Philippians 3:13 that we discussed briefly two weeks ago.
Before I go there though, I want to give you a reference point through an example so that you can visualize the overall point of the message. As many of you know I watch boxing. On March 8, 2003 heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko lost a title fight against Corrie Sanders. This fight was Ring Magazine’s upset fight of the year because by all counts Klitschko was the heavy favorite and should have won. At the time he had won many of his fights by early round knockouts. He was bigger, stronger and faster than Sanders and most other heavyweight boxers at the time. However, Sanders appeared to know something about Klitschko that others did not know – he was a strong starter but he could be a poor finisher. If he went toe to toe with Klitschko chances were slim that he would win the fight. However, if he let him swing away and he dodged and took minimal damage, Klitschko would tire himself out pretty quick because he was a big muscular guy. So that’s what Sanders did – he let Klitschko swing away and tire himself out and then once he was tired, Sanders beat him – badly. After that fight Klitschko hired the late Emanuel Steward as his trainer and he focused on increasing Klitschko’s stamina. After several months of working with Emanuel Stewart, Klitschko was undefeated in all of his fights while Stewart was alive. Klitschko was a starter, but if you got him into the late rounds, he was not a finisher.
In my last message I talked about how we establish New Year resolutions and oftentimes fail to achieve them. I talked about how our past failures impact the decisions we make today about our present and our future. Our past failures motivate us to start strong but also allow us to feel okay when we do not finish what we start. This morning I want you to think about what you have going on in your life both spiritually and in the natural and ask yourself are you a starter or a finisher. Now you may think that you cannot be finisher unless you are a starter so everyone starts out as a starter. Well I would disagree. Many people plan to do something but never take the first step to do it. Being a planner with no action is not the same as starting and not finishing and that is a totally separate issue and sermon for later. As you think about you, I also want you to think about the people in your life – do you associate with people who finish what they start?
Please turn to Philippians 3:13 and let’s reacquaint ourselves with verse thirteen. It reads, “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” (Philippians 3:13) As I shared with you previously, Paul said that while he had not laid hold of it yet (that final prize) he willfully decided to forget what was behind and reached for what laid ahead. Remember, the word “forgetting” in the Greek portrayed the idea of something you should “turn away from and forget” or when used in the passive sense, “something put aside, deliberately ignored, purposefully disregarded, and completely forgotten.” It denotes something that may have been true in the past but was no longer applicable today. Paul was saying that in order for him to reach forward he had to forget about what was behind. This reaching forward while forgetting what was behind is not a onetime thing, it’s a continual choice that is made daily.
I want you to see what Paul was seeing. When Paul used the term “reaching forward” he used the Greek word epekteino. It is a word that was used to picture runners in a foot race. This word portrays a runner who is running with all his might towards the finish line before him. If you have ever watched a track race, what happens when the runner gets to the finish line? As they approach the finish line they either lean forward or stick out their chest to be the first to cross. This is because the rules say that the torso, the chest area, (not the hands, legs, head, etc) must cross the finish line. If you watched the 2016 Summer Olympics you saw the runners doing just what I described. They kept their eyes on the finished line and they ran towards that goal. If the runner is to win the prize, they must give it their best and complete the race. What Paul describes in verse thirteen is the image of someone running a sprint race, not a relay. If you get nothing else from this message, I want you to leave here understanding the difference between running a sprint and running a relay. I will reference the natural before I translate it to the spiritual.
Sprint: If you are running a sprint race, it’s just you. When the gun sounds, you immediately start running at your fastest towards the goal. While you may notice competitors in your peripherals, you are not focusing on anyone else. It’s you, your stride and the goal line that is before you. Your focus is on finishing the race and finishing it strong. You are trying to win. You are not looking back at what is behind, you total focus is on what is before you.
Relay: In a relay race, you are running as a team. If you run the first leg, you run it like a sprinter. The person who runs the first leg is the only one who truly can run it like a sprinter start to finish. If you run the 2nd, 3rd or 4th leg of the race, you must be mindful of the person who will be handing you the baton. So what do you do? You look behind and wait until they are closing in on you before you start. When they are close you start running, but you still must be mindful that they are behind you so you can’t really run your race until they place the baton in your hand and then you can give it your all. This goes for the runners of the 3rd and 4th legs also.
In the natural, if you are running a sprint it’s all about you. You are not dependent on anyone else – it’s just you, your conditioning and your running abilities. However, if you are running in a relay, your overall efforts are also dependent on the person who is handing the baton to you and the person you’ll be handing the baton to. The only way you can win a relay is that each person involved does their job flawlessly. Can you see this?
Now let me shift to the spiritual. Many Christians are running in a sprint race with the mentality that they are running in relay. They start the race and then start looking behind them at others or what they left behind and take their eyes off the goal line. Or, they start the race and forget that it is just them as they begin to look to see who is going to help them so they can pass the baton off to someone else. In a Church setting we are running individual sprints while at the same time running relays when it comes to the functional aspects of getting things accomplished as a group. However, the sprint race that we run individually is most important because it is that race that is ran alone which equips us to run the relay with others. Do you see this? We cannot run our sprints while looking at what we left behind or what is behind us! What Paul said in verse thirteen is about finishing the race. When we accept Christ we start, but we must finish it.
Do you remember the story of Lot as recorded in Genesis chapter nineteen? When the angels of the Lord arrived in Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy those cities, it was Lot who took them in to protect them. The next morning the angels escorted Lot, his wife and two daughters out of the city. Listen to the command that the angel gave to Lot and his family: “When they had brought them outside, one said, "Escape for your life! Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley; escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away.” (Genesis 19:17) The angel told them specifically to leave and escape for their lives and not to stay anywhere within the valley. But the angels also told them “do not look behind you….” They were told to leave and to focus on what was ahead of them. They were told not to look back. We are not told why they were told not to look back but we know had they spent their time looking back they would not have made it to where they were going. They were to focus on what was ahead of them and not what was being destroyed behind them. But what happened? After they arrived to the city of Zoar, Lot’s wife looked behind her. Maybe she was curious about what was happening to the cities. Maybe she looked because they had left other daughters with their son-in-laws in the city as they refused to leave (vss. 14-15). We do not know why she looked, but she disobeyed the angel’s command and looked behind her. Genesis 19:24-26 records, “Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” (Genesis 19:17, 24-26) When Lot’s wife looked behind her to see what was happening she turned to a pillar of salt. Let me make this clear. They had arrived to a city where they could be safe so they were no longer in danger to being caught up in the destruction. Based on the city’s location, she could probably see the smoke rising from the destruction of the two cities and if she did it was the last sight she saw. This was not a case of her turning to a pillar salt because she saw the smoke as we know that Abraham too witnessed the destruction and lived. She turned to a pillar of salt because she looked behind her after being commanded not to. She made it to the finish line but did not cross it out of disobedience. How many of us are so close to our finish lines but we cannot cross it because we cannot stop looking at what is behind us, what we left behind or in the process of leaving behind. We cannot finish the race that we faithfully started because we are tied to something in our past. Lot’s wife could not keep her eyes forward and looked back on what was happening to Sodom and Gomorrah. What are you looking back at in your life? What is stopping you from finishing whatever it is that you have started? We need to become finishers!
Jesus was talking with His disciples about the last days He told them the following: “For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” (Matthew 24:5-13)
In these verses Jesus describes the times in which we are currently living. Remember, each of us is running in our sprints but as a group we are running relays. How I run in my personal race directly impacts how I run in this relay race with you. Jesus said in verse ten that “At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.” These are individuals who start the race but will not finish it. Not only will they not finish the race, but they will turn on others who are trying to finish it. This is what Jesus was saying when He said they will betray one another and hate one another. We all know people who make a decision about something and then try to get others to believe how they believe and then get angry with them when they do not. We are living in a time today when Christianity is not popular, is coming under attack and some are walking away from it to a religion that is more acceptable for them. Don’t get me wrong, Christianity is not perfect, only the One we serve is. We individually are not perfect but the One we worship is perfect! It’s not about me and it’s not about you, it’s about Christ. Jesus said many will fall away. Now look at verse thirteen. He said, “But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” We must finish the race!
Let me bring this home. Have you ever witnessed anyone stopping short of the finish line in any race and were declared the victor? Have you ever seen anyone compete at anything and did not finish and was declared the winner? It does not happen!!! In order for us to win, we have to finish. Sometimes we may not finish first and we still win because the first place winner gets disqualified for some reason. However, even in that case we still must finish the race. I want to make this very clear – unlike some things, when we walk with Christ we must finish. Starting does not get us credit, finishing does.
As each of us look at our lives, we have all started things that we did not finish. Some of us have thought about and planned to start some things and did not do it (again, a message for another time.) We want credit for starting something even if we do not finish it. We hand in unfinished work because we should get credit for what we do whether it’s finished or now. We go to our jobs and half do it because we know we know we can get away with it. However, if our employers only gave us half our pay we would be filing lawsuits because we gave them eight hours of our presence and we should be paid accordingly.
In 2017 I hope that each of us will make the decision to finish what we start, both in the natural and especially spiritually. No more half-stepping. No more settling. No more enabling others to half do something. We should demand that a job is done to completion – whatever that job is. If someone says they will do something do not accept them not doing it. We must hold one another accountable for what we say we will do. As a Church that is part of our relay. If I am depending on you and you do not do your part, then that hinders me from doing something that I was supposed to do because now I have to make up for what you did not do. Let each of us let our yea be yea and or nay be nay. When you agree to do something, above all else, let your word be true and finish it. Let your life from this day forward be defined as a finisher, not a starter. Today is the first day of the rest of your life where you can choose to start finishing what you start. Stop quitting before your finish!!!
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
