Finishing Well

That's largely because football season is here. For me, this is just the best time of the entire year. And speaking of that, I learned something this week that this year, the Super Bowl is on Valentine's Day. So, yeah, true story. I already hear some groanings in the room, especially if you were a woman who was dating or is married to someone who likes football, you might be a little saddened by that. That's the bad news. Here's the good news for you. If you are dating someone or you're married to a Cowboys fan, they will have nothing going on on Valentine's Day. After what I saw on Sunday, you can make any reservation you want and they'll have plenty of time to be there because they ain't going. But next year, next year, though, I do want to start with an illustration from football. A couple of years ago, there was a game between Utah and Oregon, a college football game. It was in Utah, and Utah was ahead 7-0, and then there was this play that we're about to watch. You need to watch it closely. Because if you don't watch it closely, you might miss what Kaelin Clay does. He's the wide receiver, and just see what happens in this play. The knee injury, Travis Wilson to pass on third down and five a lot of time, looking down the field. It's got a man open. Down the field, it's caught. At the 30-5, at the 30-25, 20-15. Get by. It's a touchdown. Kaelin Clay. The play is still alive. Oregon's running the play back.

Wait a minute. They said he fumbled it going across the goal line. Oregon's running into the end zone, and they're saying it's a touchdown back the other way. Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? That is the most insane thing I have ever seen. Oh my goodness. It wasn't a fumble. Oh my goodness. It was a drop, one yard from the goal line. I mean, how do you do that? There's nobody near you. All you got to do is just cross the finish line. You're just a yard away. But before he enters in, he just gets overconfident. He starts to celebrate. Like, all he's focused on is the dance he's going to do in the end zone. So he drops the ball, and as he's dancing, as he's going like this, look at me, look at me, the other teams putting points on the board. You see, while this was going to be a 78-yard touchdown, nobody will remember the 77 yards he did run, they just remember the one yard he didn't, because he didn't finish his race. He didn't cross the goal line. And I start there today, because the most dangerous place to be in your relationship with Jesus is in a wide open field, no defenders around, you're going, look at what I'm doing. I'm doing great in my faith. I'm growing. I'm serving. Look at me. Look at what I'm doing, and you start to take your foot off the gas, and all of a sudden you realize the enemy is putting points on the board in your life.

You're going, how am I back into that sin again? How am I still feeling bitterness towards my dad again? Why am I still so impatient with my spouse again? And it's because you didn't run through the tape. You started celebrating too soon. You started to get over-confident, and over-confidence will always lead to chaos in your life, because we want to run through the tape still following Jesus. We want to finish well. That's really the subject of today's message, how to finish well. As we are finishing our sermon series called How to Be Well, we've been going through the 12 steps of a regen. Every single week taking three steps at a time, and today is the finish, so we're going to talk about how to finish well. And if you went through regen yourself, or you know someone here who went through regen, they have to go through some really difficult things in the regen process. You've got to take inventory of your sin, you've got to confess sin, you've got to ask for forgiveness, you need to forgive people that have harmed you some really hard, difficult things. And once you go through those things, it's easy to think, "I'm done, I did it." Because whenever you finish regen, there's this regen graduation ceremony. They're bullied because it's not called regen graduation, it's not the end of the process, it's actually the beginning of the process, it's called regen commencement. You are starting a life, thank you, there we go, you're starting a life of freedom and faithfulness to Jesus, you're not finishing it because the finish line, the tape that we want to make sure we run through is our last breath. Or is the day Jesus comes back, that's the tape that we've got to run through. So we're gonna talk about how to do that today. But just to recap this series, for any of you who may have missed, need a reminder, I know we've got Baylor Family Weekend,

so we may have a lot of new guests today. Here's where we've been. The 12 Steps of Regen are this. Week one, we talked about the first three steps. Admit, believe, trust. Admit you are powerless over your sin. Believe that God is all powerful, so we trust him with everything. Our JP said, "I can't, but God can, so I trust him," with everything. Then we went through the next three, which was inventory, confess, and repent. Inventory is, take inventory of harms that have been done to you. Take inventory of your sin, your fears, your addictions, and then once you have that inventory, you confess those things and you turn 180 degrees and you repent of those things. And then last week, we looked at the next three, which are follow, forgive, and amends. We follow the Holy Spirit's lead in everything. We don't wanna do this on our own, but we follow him because we're gonna have to do some really hard things like forgive those who have wronged us and like making amends and asking for forgiveness for things that we have done. And then we're gonna finish out with these last three things, which are really things that will help us finish the race well. These last three things are helping us run this race well, not just to finish out a regen process,

but to finish out our life still following Jesus, and that is to continue. To continue in the practices that we have learned and then next is intimacy. We must prioritize our intimacy with Jesus, or our relationship with Jesus. And then finally, the last step of regen is to regenerate, or in other words, to make disciples. Because the goal of regen isn't just so that you would be free, but so that you'd use your free to help others get free as well. That you'd pass it on to other people that it wouldn't just stay with you. So we're gonna look at those last three things, three ways how to finish well in your life. We're gonna do that by getting in God's word. We're gonna be in First Timothy chapter four this morning. So if you have your Bibles, open them up to First Timothy chapter four. If you don't know where it is in your Bible, find Second Timothy and it's right before that. And it's gonna be First Timothy chapter four. Works every time. And so the reason why we picked First Timothy is because First Timothy was written by Paul, not Timothy, to Timothy. Timothy was a younger pastor, younger minister of the gospel. Paul had been following Jesus for a long time. So he had really greater insight and wisdom in how to finish well.

And he writes this letter to Timothy to give him some guidelines on how to lead the church that he's pastoring. Timothy's leading the church in Ephesus, which was one of the most influential cities in the Roman Empire at that time. So he's leading a large group of people. So Paul writes, hey, put these people in leadership. They need to have these characteristics. Here's how you should run the God's church in Ephesus. And then, chapter 14, he starts to talk about how Timothy can finish this race well. Paul's been following Jesus longer. So he gives him some insight. And this chapter's all about, hey, here's what you can do to finish well. And he starts the chapter by saying this in verse one, he says this. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. So he starts this chapter by saying, hey, I'm writing to you because I've seen far too many people not finish well. They've departed from the faith. They've gotten distracted by other things. They've believed different things. And I've seen that happen in other people. And I just don't want that happen to you, Timothy. And I don't want that to happen to you, Harris Creek.

Don't depart from the faith. I wanna make sure you finish well. And then the rest of chapter four, he's just kind of listing out, hey, do these things so that you might finish well. And then we're gonna look at the final two verses in this chapter. We're just gonna zoom in on them, verses 15. Paul writes this to Timothy. He says this, practice these things. Immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. So chapter four, he lays out what he expects him to do, and he says, don't just do it once, but again and again and again, practice these things and immerse yourself in these things. Well, that begs the question, what are these things that we must practice? Well, here's what Paul lays out in between verse one and verse 15. Here's four different things. Verse seven, he says, have nothing to do with cultural myths. People are gonna believe all sorts of wild things. There's gonna be a different theology flavor of the week. Pay no attention to those differing beliefs. Don't pay attention to what culture believes. Don't even put up with it. Then he tells him this in verse 12, a really famous verse. He says, set an example for the believers in speech. devote yourself to reading scripture and preaching the scriptures. Make sure the scriptures are the

authority and guide in your life. And then lastly, he says, make sure you're using the gifts of the spirit that God has given you. Really what he's saying is, be a Christian, like devote yourself to Jesus every single day in season and out of season, in every way, in every day. Practice your faith. Read the Bible, but don't just read the Bible. Live the Bible and don't just live the Bible, but teach others the Bible. Then use your gifts to help others follow him and don't put up with what the world is talking about. Just be all in in your relationship with Jesus and do it every single day. Practice these things. This is what Paul says here in Step 10 in Regen is to continue. In other words, practice to not just do what we've learned once, but to do it again and again and again. As I already mentioned, it's easy to do these really difficult things once and think you're done. Like forgiving your dad what he has done to you or asking for forgiveness or confessing certain sin. It's easy to do those things and think, "Okay, I did it. I made it." But those things are not one-time things in your life. We must continue in them. We must practice them. That's the only way we don't just get free, but we stay free. This is point number one. First thing we need to learn from this text is this, to finish what we practice our faith. We read what the Bible says, we live what the Bible says, we teach others what the Bible says, and we do this day in and day out. That's how you grow in maturity because your practicing of your faith will make you proficient in your faith. Practice makes proficient. I'm actually originally from Minnesota. I came down from Minnesota to go to school at Baylor, and I met my now wife while we were in school at Baylor. She's from Dallas. We started dating, and earlier on in our dating relationship, she was like, "Nate, I've got this idea. I want to take you on a date to the Dallas area. I want to take you to the Galleria," which is a mall in Dallas. I haven't been there since, but at the time there was an ice skating rink in it. I don't know if there always is or not, but there was at this time. She's like, "Since you're from Minnesota, you're going to love this. Here's what you need to know about me. I'm the worst Minnesota you're ever going to meet. I have never ice-fished. I don't like hockey. I don't ski." And what she didn't know is, "I can't skate. I had no idea how to skate." So as we're walking into the Galleria, I see the ice rink. I'm like, "My hands are just sweating." And then as I'm lacing up my skates, my rented skates, I'm just praying, "Lord, don't let me embarrass myself in front of her." That prayer was not answered. Because I was asking her about it this week. I was like, "Remind me, how did that go?" She's like,

"Nate, you were trying to walk in your skates. You weren't even trying to slide because I didn't know how to skate. There's five-year-olds just going past me, and I'm clinging to the rail." Like, "Lord, just please don't let her break up with me." Importantly, that prayer was answered still together, 11 years later. That was way more important. Now, now why couldn't I skate? It's because I had skated one time in my life. One time, my parents took me skating one time. I was falling all over the place, and I just hated it. I'm like, "I'm not going to play hockey. I'm all in on basketball. I never want to wear these again." So why can't I skate? I never practiced it. What's the difference between me and an Olympic figure skater? Practice, and a weird outfit, and maybe body type and a couple of other things, but mainly practice, because you get proficient by practice again, and again, and again, and again. What's the difference between you and the godliest person that you know? Who is that for you? Get a picture of someone in your mind. Maybe for you, that's your grandpa. Maybe for you, it's your dad. Maybe it's your spouse. Maybe it's a pastor or a friend, someone in your life. Who's the godliest person that you know? God, yeah. God is godly. What's the difference between you and the godliest person that you know? Practice. They have put in days and days and days and days of work living out their faith. They've gotten in God's word every single day, but they haven't just read God's word, they've lived out. And they've likely taught other people how to follow Jesus. They've been using their gifts. They haven't put up with cultural narratives or cultural beliefs because they've been so ingrained with what God has said. They believe it to be true. So they're living it out day in and day out. And as you practice, you become proficient in that thing. The reason why they are so godly is because they have put in the work, they've practiced their faith. So my question to you is, are you practicing yours? It's really easy to know if you are or not.

I mean, if you've got kids on a sports team, like you know if they're practicing or not 'cause it's on the schedule. If they're on the Midway football team, it's like 6 a.m. every morning. They've got football practice. It's on the schedule. Is your practice on the schedule? Like I've got time with Jesus at this time. Every single day, I'm getting in God's word. I'm spending time in prayer. Of course I know that I'm practicing 'cause it's on the schedule. Are you actually putting in the work? Or are you not? Are you just kind of showing up to church once a week? Are you reading whenever you don't sleep in? Are you just kind of lolligagging in your faith? If that's you, you will not see progress in your faith because practice makes progress. In fact, really the best way to know if you have been practicing is this. Look again at the text, it says this. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. How do you know if you've been practicing? Do others see you progressing? So if you're wondering, man, am I practicing well? This week, ask your wife, ask your lifer. Ask some of your closest friends, your roommates.

Hey, have you seen any progression in my faith? Like five years ago, until now, have I been growing? Have I been progressing? Am I finding victory and sin over my life? Am I becoming more patient or less? Am I becoming more gracious or less? And if their answer is, you know, I really haven't seen a ton of movement. That's actually a kindness to you to realize, okay, I have let my foot off the gas. I've dropped the ball before the one-yard line, but no longer. I'm gonna get back in the game, 'cause I wanna finish this race well, so I'm gonna put my practice on the calendar, on the schedule, I'm gonna get after it because I don't just want to survive in my faith, I want to thrive in my faith, I want to grow and progress, and the only way you progress is if you practice. So point number one, the first thing that we need to learn from this text is this, to finish well, we practice our faith. To Paul tells Timothy here, hey, practice these things, immerse yourself in them, and then he says this next, verse 16, we're just gonna zoom in on this first sentence. He says this, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Timothy was a teacher of God's word,

the pastor over the church in Ephesus. So Paul is saying, hey, keep a close watch on what you teach, 'cause what he warned him earlier in verse seven was, pay no attention to the world's hollow and empty philosophies. It's easy to get drawn into those things, but don't teach what the world thinks, teach what the word says. You want to make sure that you're teaching and God's word is aligned. So keep a close watch on your teaching, but then he also says, keep a close watch on yourself. Because one of the most dangerous things for a preacher of the word of God is you can start telling other people about a God whom you are not intimately following yourself. So he's saying, don't just watch what you're teaching, he's saying, watch how you're living. Who are you off the stage? Who are you behind closed doors? Like, do you still love Jesus? Does Jesus still have your hearts or have you drifted? In step 11 of the regent process is intimacy. Pay close attention to your intimacy with Jesus because you can do all the practices, you can go to church, you can read the Bible, you can confess and you can go to life group. But if you don't have an intimate relationship with Jesus, you're really missing the whole point because this relationship with Jesus,

it's not about the things you do, it's about the person that you love. So Paul says here, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching, make sure that you still love who you're teaching about. And this is point number two second thing we can learn from this text is this, to finish well, we pay attention to our intimacy with Jesus. 'Cause you see, I don't just wanna be a Christian, I wanna be a lover of Jesus. But I don't just wanna be a church attender, I wanna be a lover of Jesus. So this verse says, hey, keep a magnifying glass on yourself. I mean, the verse specifically says, My question is, why? Why do we need to keep a close watch on yourself? Well, here's why. You only need to keep a close watch on something that's prone to move. A couple of weeks ago, I was single parenting. My wife was gone that weekend with some friends, those parenting are three girls by myself. They're five, almost three, and one year old, and it's probably the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life, going to full 48 hours by myself. We've got some single parents in our church. You guys are my heroes. I don't know how you do it. I really don't, because it's so difficult. I'm with my kids, just trying to make sure that everyone's napping at the right time. Make sure they're eating the right food at the right time, just trying to keep all the trains running, and at one point, I'm at my house with my three girls, but I'm playing with my two oldest, my five-year-old and my three-year-old, and then I look up and

I'm like, "I don't know where Annie is, or our one-year-old." I'm like, "I don't know where she is." I went in the other room, I'm like, "Annie, where are you at? Annie!" She was in that room, so I go over to the kitchen, and I'm like, "Annie, are you in the kitchen? Where are you at?" She was in the kitchen, so I go to our bedroom. She was in our bedroom. I go to my closet. She's not in the closet. At this point, I'm like, "I just lost my kid in my house, and I can't call Adley." I can't call my wife and be like, "Hey, I lost Annie. That's not going to go well for me." I've got to find her. I keep looking. Eventually, I open up the garage door, and she's just chilling in the garage in the dark. I'm like, "What are you doing? I didn't even know she could open up doors. I couldn't. She's just growing all the time." From that moment, I'm like, "I'm not keeping my eyes off you. I'm going to be paying close attention to you because if I don't, you're going to fall asleep in the garage by yourself. You're going to put a fork in the electrical outlet. You are going to do the worst possible thing for you. I've got to keep close to watch on you because if I'm not watching you closely, you will get yourself into a world of trouble. If you're not watching yourself closely, you will get yourself into a world of trouble

because your flesh is just like a toddler. You will choose to do the worst possible thing for you. On your own, you will put the fork in the proverbial electrical outlet. On your own, following your flesh, you will start to text your married coworker. On your own, in your flesh, you will start to steal from your work. On your own, in your flesh, you'll walk into a room thinking you're the most important person in that room. And most importantly, on your own, in your flesh, you will fade away from your love for Jesus." Paul is saying here, "Keep a close watch on yourself because you're prone to wander." He knew this intimately himself. He wrote this in Romans 7. "I do not understand what I do. What I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do." It's true for him, true for me, true for you. Since we are prone to wander, we need to keep a close watch on ourselves. How am I doing? Am I still in love with Jesus? Am I still walking closely with Him? Do I love Him more than when I first came to know Him? In reality, as we just got to know, it's easy to wander off in relationships specifically. You think about a dating or eventually a married relationship, it's easy for your feelings to kind of wander in seasons. It's easy for those feelings to even die off in seasons. What's important to understand in relationships is you become close based off of feelings, but you stay close based off of intentionality. You get close based off of feelings. You're stay close based off of intentionality. It's the same thing in your relationship with Jesus. With my wife, I have to decide, "Hey, I'm going to make time for her.

We're going to go on a date. I'm going to put my phone away so we can talk. I'm going to bring home some flowers. I'm going to pursue her with intentionality, which creates intimacy in the same way with your relationship with Jesus. If you want to have an intimate relationship with Him, you must be intentional in your pursuits of Him." Because if you're sitting there thinking, "Man, I do feel like I've strayed. I do feel like I've lacked in love for Him." What you need to do is you need to pursue Him with intentionality. You will not wander into a greater relationship with Him. You have to pursue a greater relationship with Him. You have to get time with Him on the calendar. You have to figure out what are some things that you can do that make you love Jesus more. I don't know what those things are for you, but you need to know what those things are for you. Then you need to do a lot of it. Maybe for you it's reading the Bible in the morning, maybe for you it's like the cup of coffee on your front porch and you're spending some time in prayer thanking Him for what He's doing. Maybe you love to journal, maybe you love to go on a walk with a close friend talking I don't know what that is for you, but you need to figure out what's that thing or what are those things that make me love Jesus more. And then you do it again and again and again and again because this is the most important thing in your life. A close, intimate relationship with Jesus and it will not happen by chance because intimacy only happens through intentionality. So keep a close watch on yourself.

Where are you at with him? And if you've drifted, start pursuing him. Start going back to the things you did at first because intimacy takes intentionality. And that's point number two. Second thing we must understand is to finish well, we pay attention to our intimacy with Jesus. Paul concludes this verse in verse 16 by saying this, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. And then finally, persist in this. For by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers. He says, keep up in this because if you do these things, you'll love Jesus more and you will be saved. You will finish the race still following Jesus, but it's not actually just about you because if you follow Jesus faithfully, if you love him more, you'll not just save yourself, but also your hearers. Like if you live your faith well, if you practice it out, if you have an intimate relationship with Jesus, it's not just you that will be saved, but God will use you to take people from death to life. Here he says, you will save your hearers. He assumed that Timothy was a man of influence because he was, as I mentioned before, he was the pastor of the church in Ephesus. He had many hearers in the way that he taught and the way that he led could literally impact people's eternity. He assumed that Timothy had influence.

You need to assume that you have influence as well. You also have hearers, people who are listening to you. Sure, you may not be a pastor of a mega church, but you've got people who listen to you. Maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your neighbors, maybe it's your coworkers, maybe it's your close friends, like who are your hearers? And you just got to know, based on this text, how you live and what you say about Jesus can take them from death to life. They can go from lost to found, like maybe God has placed them in your life so that you could share the gospel with them so that they could be saved. There wouldn't be a better use of your life than that, that not just you would be saved, but God would use you to bring salvation in their life as well. And this is the final step of regen is to regenerate, to take what you've learned and to pass it on, that you wouldn't just be free, but you'd learn how you got free and you'd help others get free as well. In other words, you would then go and make disciples, which is not just the last command in regen, it's the greatest command, really the great commission from Jesus that we would go and make disciples. And this is the point number three, third thing we need to learn from this text is this,

to finish what we persist in making disciples. We know that we've got people in our midst who are under our influence who are going to be impacted by the things that we say we have hearers. So my question is, what do they hear in from you? What are they hearing from you? Here's how I think you can know how you're doing in this, hear me here, imagine I'm sitting at a table. So you walk into a room there, there's this round table I'm sitting at a chair and there's five other chairs around this table. You've got to pick five people to be in this room with me, only catches you, you can't be there. So pick five of the people that you are most influencing in your life, maybe it's your kids, maybe it's your close friends, maybe it's your spouse, like think who are the people that know me the best? Just kind of get those names and they're gonna be the people who fill those five chairs. At this table with me. Maybe you're thinking, what is this? What is this meeting? Well, what you need to know is that meeting right there is going to happen. Because one day, you're gonna breathe your last, you're gonna die and someone from your family is gonna pick a pastor to do your funeral. And whenever that happens, I've been in that room multiple times where as the pastor, you wanna get together with the people who knew them best

because you wanna speak to them as to who they actually were in the funeral. You wanna honor them, so who they were. So I'm gonna sit down in that room with the people who knew you best. I'm gonna say, hey, tell me about him. Tell me about her. pastor, you've got to know he loved the cowboys, like he loved them. He never missed a game." Like he knew the roster backwards and forwards. You don't want the first person to speak up and say, "Oh, you've got to know about this." "I bought my mom. She loved shoes." She had this amazing shoe collection, different shoes for every season. In fact, you've got to see her closet, it's just this spectacular array of shoes or you got to tell me, I got to tell you about my dad. He loved his job. He just poured his life into his career. He traveled often and I didn't know him the way I wished I would have, but he loved what he did. That's not what you want. You want me to say, "Hey, tell me about this person and you want your kids to speak up and say, "Let me tell you about my mom. I love Jesus because my mom loved Jesus." She kept telling me what Jesus was teaching her in God's Word. She'd read me Bible stories every single day growing up. She frequently wouldn't just say she was praying for me, but she just prayed over me all the time. Let me tell you about my dad.

My dad, he loved God. Like I'd wake up in the morning, early in the morning and he'd be at the lamp side table. He'd be at the table just with a lamp on. He'd be reading God's Word, he wouldn't just read God's Word, but he faithfully lived it out. He wasn't a perfect dad, but he asked for forgiveness frequently because he didn't just love God's Word, but he lived out God's Word. And since I saw a man of God love Jesus, I am now a man of God who loves Jesus. That's what you want that meeting to be. You see, in that meeting, they're going to tell me what you have said. They're going to tell me what you have loved. They're going to tell me how you have influenced them. So how are you influencing the people in your life? I just know that for me, in that meeting, when I die, I want my three daughters to fight over each other, saying, "I love Jesus because my dad loved Jesus." He didn't just talk about God on a stage. He talked about God on the dinner table, and I saw a man who loved Jesus, so I follow him faithfully because I saw my dad follow him faithfully. That's how I want to use my influence. How do you want to use yours? Because you do have influence. How are you using it? Are you using it in a way that can save your hearers? Or are they just hearing about Baylor football or the stock market or your shoes? What has your heart and what are you sharing with the people under your influence? If you're sitting there thinking, "Man, I don't have a bunch of people to influence in my life," we can give you some. Right now, we've got a bunch of kids over there that would love to hear about Jesus from you. On Tuesday nights, we've got college students that would love to hear about Jesus from you.

They meet right here in this room. Wednesday nights, we've got youth that meet right here in this room, 300 some of them who love Jesus like crazy, but they would love to hear about Jesus from you. Thursday nights, we've got young adults that meet right here in this room. They love for you to pray over them. We've got regen on Monday nights. We've got men's ministry. We've got sisterhood ministry. We've got people that are ready to be influenced by you. Are you using your gifts and abilities to tell other people about Jesus? Here's what I've learned. As you teach others how to follow Jesus, the easier it is for yourself to follow Jesus. This is really why it's the last step of the regen processes. As you help others get free, it's way more likely for you to stay free as well. In summary, point number one, to finish well, we practice our faith. Point number two, to finish well, we pay attention to our intimacy with Jesus, and point three, to finish well, we persist in making disciples. We started this message talking about Kaitlyn Clay and how he did not cross the finish line. Well, I want to end by talking about someone else. I want to tell you about a guy named John Stephen Akwari. He was from Tanzania, and he was a marathon runner who had qualified for the Olympics in 1968. The Olympics that year was in Mexico City, which was problematic because it's one of the most elevated cities on Earth. As he's running, he's realizing that he had not trained for such altitudes. He's having a difficult time. About halfway through this marathon, as he's running alongside everyone else, he trips and falls and badly hurts his knee. It's just a huge gaping wound.

So he had to seek medical treatment and they bandaged him up, and most people, when that happens, they kind of take themselves out of the race because he was already a long way behind, but not him. He got up and got back on the path, but at this point he's not running his race. He's really limping along until he gets into the stage. here, but because look at the stadium. Like when he got into the stadium, everybody had left because the race was over. The other people had finished over an hour ago. I found this fascinating. The metal ceremony had already taken place. They had already given out all the awards and yet here he comes limping to the finish line. All the reporters that even left the stadium, they packed up all their things, but there was one who was just watching this guy finish this race. We took a picture of him and then he ran over to talk to him and he's like, "Man, I've just got a question for you." He asked him, "Why did you keep running when you couldn't possibly win?" He replied by saying this, "My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race." They didn't send me this far. They didn't have me cross an ocean to finish, to start the race, but to finish the race. What you and I need to understand is your God did not send Jesus from heaven to enter into earth to live 33 perfect years for filling the wall that you and I never could, only to be arrested, tortured, tried, abused, whipped, mocked, and ultimately crucified upon a tree. He did not bleed out upon the cross. He did not die upon the cross. He did not rise again three days later so that you'd kind of start following him, but he bled and died and rose again so that you'd finish your life following him. He didn't go all out so you could be kind of in. He went all out so you could be all the way in so that you would finish the race he has for you. You wouldn't drop the ball too soon, but instead you'd be found finishing your race. No matter what comes your way, no matter what injury happens to you, you're going to be found finishing your race because he finished his. Let me pray that we would. Heavenly Father, thank you so much that we don't have to run this race on our own. That the lesson from this message is, okay, I haven't been running fast enough. I haven't been doing a good enough job. I got to fix myself. I got to figure this out. But instead we have the Holy Spirit, our helper, who desires to give us the energy and the efforts and the ability to run our race well. So may we not be found self-confident but spirit confident that I can finish this race because I know my God is with me. I know he's for me.

I got to pray that every single one of us would cross the finish line of our life, still following Jesus. I pray that this room would be full of people who practice our faith daily, who prioritize our intimacy with you and who are persistent in making disciples. I pray that we use our life well and that we'd be found faithful just as your Son wants. And God, the reason why we're here today is we're so grateful for the fact that Jesus is alive and with us and for us. We want to worship him now. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.