Faith To The Finish
Sermon
Together In Christ
Sermons and Prayers For the Christian Year
In our first text for this morning, Jesus asks, "For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether [you] have enough to complete it?"
Incredibly enough, we saw this parable being acted out not too long ago right before our eyes in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by none other than Oral Roberts!
You see, Oral announced one day that Jesus came to him as a vision 600 feet tall and told him to build a hospital tower. It was going to be a massive and glorious hospital - one of the largest in the world.
Some civic leaders in Tulsa said, "Please, Oral, don't build this tower. We've already got too many hospital beds; we don't need any more." But Oral has a lot of clout in Tulsa. He got his way with the local authorities and he started to build.
The project soon went bankrupt, and even now, it sits half-finished. There just weren't enough patients to make it profitable. Oral tried everything. He even went on television with his statement that "God will call me home" if you and I don't send in money to help him finish the tower he had begun building before counting the cost.
It's funny how Jesus' ancient parable can live so vividly today. I mean, here is a man who seems literally, to be acting it out before our eyes. And see how the rest of what Jesus said in our text is also coming true: "[and] all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'He started to build, and is not able to finish.' "
But we needn't be so grandiose to fail to finish what we've started. Suppose the tower we set out to build is simply our Christian calling; how many people have left that spiritual tower half-built? Or, in the language of our text from Paul, suppose the race we set out to run is the living of a faithful life? How many people have entered that race and failed to finish?
Certainly, many people in Scripture lack a faith to the finish, as in the rich young man who said to Jesus, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Now, he was able to say to Jesus, "Yes, I have kept all the commandments since my youth," so he had at least gotten off to a good start in his quest for faith.
But then Jesus said, "One thing you still lack. Sell all you have and give it to the poor, and come, follow Me." The young man grew sad and walked away. He didn't want to go that far. He started to reach out to Jesus but failed to finish what he started and the result - for him - was disastrous.
Perhaps the most tragic figure in all of Scripture is Saul. As a child, he grew up in the faith and as a young man, he had it all: he was king of Israel and a national hero. He was praised and surrounded by friends. But as he grew older, he lost faith, and then he lost favor. By the time he died, Saul was a pathetic, paranoid and lonely old man. He started his life's race with a bang, but ended it with a whimper.
But of all the people of the Bible who started to live a faithful life and failed to finish, perhaps the most intriguing is an obscure man named Demas. Most people have never heard of him, and indeed, he is mentioned only three times in all of Scripture. But see how he is mentioned and see how Demas represents all of us who fail in spiritual terms to finish the race towards faith!
First, in Philemon, Paul sends greetings to "Demas and Luke, my fellow workers" (1:24). Then, in Colossians 4:14, Paul again says that "Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you." But later on, in 2 Timothy, Paul says, "Demas, [who is] in love with this present world, has deserted me ..." (4:10)
From "fellow worker" to "Demas has deserted me." Demas had "starting power" but no "staying power." Measured on the scales of eternity, the result was Demas' loss.
You know, we worry a great deal about getting a good start, when we ought to worry about how we finish.
Consider the rigors of marriage and the ritual we call "the wedding." Most families worry all too much about how the marriage starts. They worry about how things will look at the wedding, what kind of flowers the bridesmaids will carry and whether that drunken Uncle Ed should be invited to the reception.
As for the bride and the groom themselves, they spend more time with the caterer talking about the cake than they spend with the minister talking about marriage! It's easy to plan a glorious wedding day and every marriage has good starting power, but how many have staying power? How many will see it through, "in sickness and in health, till death do us part?"
That's what I'm wondering, and that's what I'm praying for as I'm up there performing the wedding service. I'm praying that the young couple standing before me with their nervous smiles and trembling hands will have staying power. We worry too much about how we start and not enough about how we finish.
Sometimes, mind you, the course we run isn't smooth at all, in marriage or in life. Sometimes it seems more like a marathon race run all uphill, with obstacles put before us at every turn.
That certainly must be how a certain medical missionary felt in China. He had spent thirty-four years building up a medical center there, and he saw it wiped out in twenty-four hours by a bombing mission in World War II. Thirty-four years of work down the drain, for something as stupid and as useless as war!
The man was surely crushed and he knew he could never see the hospital rebuilt in his lifetime. But he started over again, anyway. When the new hospital was eventually finished, it bore an inscription which said: "The winds of hate and storms of war could not root out the seeds that love had planted. Verily," it said, "some things endure." Now, there was someone who could say he finished the race and kept the faith!
When we are young and middle-aged, we have a certain set of questions to ask: "How can I run the race for faith when I have a family to feed, or overtime to work, or a promotion to win? Why should I fight the good fight for Christ when all around me, people are just looking out for themselves?" That is the time to keep the faith and to resist "the love of this present world," and to remember, like Paul, what it is we are living for.
But I am convinced that the hardest part of the race comes when we are very old, when we have a whole different set of questions to face: "How can I fight the good fight when my bones ache and my eyes can hardly see? How can I run the race when I can barely get up in the morning and then I need a cane the rest of the day?" And perhaps most crippling of all: "How can I keep the faith now when God knows I kept it so badly in my youth?"
The answer to that last question is to forget the past! Pray with the Psalmist, "Lord, remember not the sins of my youth" (25:7)! None of us here today could possibly have sinned more than Paul, who spent his younger years persecuting Christians and putting them to death. He had more than just your run-of-the-mill sins on his hands; Paul had innocent blood on his hands!
The greater the sin, the fuller God's grace. Remember how we sometimes worry too much about how we begin and not enough about how we finish. Paul got a very late start in his life's race to eternity, but that doesn't matter now. What matters now is that he is finishing the race. He is fighting the good fight and keeping the faith all the day long, even to the very end.
Paul is writing in 2 Timothy as a man who is looking into the face of death. "I am already at the point of being sacrificed," he says; "the time of my departure has come." And look at what he has endured in the years leading up to the end! He had a painful physical affliction, which he called his "thorn in the flesh." He suffered beatings, jailings, shipwrects and stonings. He had more enemies than he could count and he could only look forward to a terrifying, painful death in Rome.
How does he do it? How does Paul fight the good fight to the final round, run the race to the finish line and keep the faith all the way to the end? How does he avoid the temptation of just giving up in bitterness - and saying, in effect, "I'm not what I used to be, Lord, so I don't care any more what I still might be. Lord, I can't do what I used to do, so I don't care about doing what I still might do today."
Paul does it by looking beyond himself. He looks beyond where he is, to where he wants to be. Here he says, "There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will ... award to me on that Day." Elsewhere he said, "I press onward toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14). The language is different but the meaning is the same. Why does the marathon runner press onward, even in the midst of mounting pain and shortness of breath? Because she sees in her mind's eye the prize that awaits her by finishing the race.
I once knew two men who were put into the same nursing home at the same time. Both hated being there and both were filled with anger at this decision imposed on them against their will, but both needed more help than they could possibly get at home.
One man remained angry and soon went downhill. He withdrew into himself until he couldn't do anything for himself. If there ever was a chance he could return home, it was gone now.
The other man eventually decided to make the best of it. He began talking with the other patients to cheer them up. He started feeding the ones who couldn't eat and reading to the ones who couldn't see. He did everything I imagine Jesus Christ would do if Christ were in a nursing home today.
Now, both had been men of the church and men of faith all their lives. But one man fought the good fight all the way to the end, while the other quit fighting just before the final round. One man ran the race through to the finish line; the other ran all those miles and stopped a few yards short.
I'm sure God has judged both of them mercifully, but which is the better way to live? Which gives more happiness and meaning and which helps us lighten our burdens just a bit as we pass through late afternoon and come to the end of the day?
No matter how far along we are in life, it is never too late to find ourselves by losing ourselves in Christ. If it is at all within our power - if, physically and mentally, we are at all able to do it - it is always best to live by imitating Him.
Then we can look back on all the years, count up all the bumps and bruises we've picked up along the way and measure our triumphs and joys against all our disappointments, yet still say with Paul: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, all the way to the end." Amen
Pastoral Prayer
Gracious and Ever-faithful Lord, we pray today for a faith which lasts all the day long: not just in the morning when faith comes easy, but in the twilight and even into the darkness of night, when faith alone can drive away every fear. Keep us believing and keep us hoping. When we are weary, quicken us with Your Spirit. When we are weak, rejuvenate us with Your strength. When we are emptied by our doubts, fill us again with the certain knowledge of Your love in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Teach us, Precious Lord, to live each day as it comes, in thankful remembrance of You. Teach us with heart and hands and voices to "Thank We All Our God," in perfect faith from start to finish. Cheer us with Your blessed peace and keep us in Your grace. Guide us when perplexed, 0 God, and free us from all ills ... in this world and the next. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen
Incredibly enough, we saw this parable being acted out not too long ago right before our eyes in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by none other than Oral Roberts!
You see, Oral announced one day that Jesus came to him as a vision 600 feet tall and told him to build a hospital tower. It was going to be a massive and glorious hospital - one of the largest in the world.
Some civic leaders in Tulsa said, "Please, Oral, don't build this tower. We've already got too many hospital beds; we don't need any more." But Oral has a lot of clout in Tulsa. He got his way with the local authorities and he started to build.
The project soon went bankrupt, and even now, it sits half-finished. There just weren't enough patients to make it profitable. Oral tried everything. He even went on television with his statement that "God will call me home" if you and I don't send in money to help him finish the tower he had begun building before counting the cost.
It's funny how Jesus' ancient parable can live so vividly today. I mean, here is a man who seems literally, to be acting it out before our eyes. And see how the rest of what Jesus said in our text is also coming true: "[and] all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'He started to build, and is not able to finish.' "
But we needn't be so grandiose to fail to finish what we've started. Suppose the tower we set out to build is simply our Christian calling; how many people have left that spiritual tower half-built? Or, in the language of our text from Paul, suppose the race we set out to run is the living of a faithful life? How many people have entered that race and failed to finish?
Certainly, many people in Scripture lack a faith to the finish, as in the rich young man who said to Jesus, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Now, he was able to say to Jesus, "Yes, I have kept all the commandments since my youth," so he had at least gotten off to a good start in his quest for faith.
But then Jesus said, "One thing you still lack. Sell all you have and give it to the poor, and come, follow Me." The young man grew sad and walked away. He didn't want to go that far. He started to reach out to Jesus but failed to finish what he started and the result - for him - was disastrous.
Perhaps the most tragic figure in all of Scripture is Saul. As a child, he grew up in the faith and as a young man, he had it all: he was king of Israel and a national hero. He was praised and surrounded by friends. But as he grew older, he lost faith, and then he lost favor. By the time he died, Saul was a pathetic, paranoid and lonely old man. He started his life's race with a bang, but ended it with a whimper.
But of all the people of the Bible who started to live a faithful life and failed to finish, perhaps the most intriguing is an obscure man named Demas. Most people have never heard of him, and indeed, he is mentioned only three times in all of Scripture. But see how he is mentioned and see how Demas represents all of us who fail in spiritual terms to finish the race towards faith!
First, in Philemon, Paul sends greetings to "Demas and Luke, my fellow workers" (1:24). Then, in Colossians 4:14, Paul again says that "Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you." But later on, in 2 Timothy, Paul says, "Demas, [who is] in love with this present world, has deserted me ..." (4:10)
From "fellow worker" to "Demas has deserted me." Demas had "starting power" but no "staying power." Measured on the scales of eternity, the result was Demas' loss.
You know, we worry a great deal about getting a good start, when we ought to worry about how we finish.
Consider the rigors of marriage and the ritual we call "the wedding." Most families worry all too much about how the marriage starts. They worry about how things will look at the wedding, what kind of flowers the bridesmaids will carry and whether that drunken Uncle Ed should be invited to the reception.
As for the bride and the groom themselves, they spend more time with the caterer talking about the cake than they spend with the minister talking about marriage! It's easy to plan a glorious wedding day and every marriage has good starting power, but how many have staying power? How many will see it through, "in sickness and in health, till death do us part?"
That's what I'm wondering, and that's what I'm praying for as I'm up there performing the wedding service. I'm praying that the young couple standing before me with their nervous smiles and trembling hands will have staying power. We worry too much about how we start and not enough about how we finish.
Sometimes, mind you, the course we run isn't smooth at all, in marriage or in life. Sometimes it seems more like a marathon race run all uphill, with obstacles put before us at every turn.
That certainly must be how a certain medical missionary felt in China. He had spent thirty-four years building up a medical center there, and he saw it wiped out in twenty-four hours by a bombing mission in World War II. Thirty-four years of work down the drain, for something as stupid and as useless as war!
The man was surely crushed and he knew he could never see the hospital rebuilt in his lifetime. But he started over again, anyway. When the new hospital was eventually finished, it bore an inscription which said: "The winds of hate and storms of war could not root out the seeds that love had planted. Verily," it said, "some things endure." Now, there was someone who could say he finished the race and kept the faith!
When we are young and middle-aged, we have a certain set of questions to ask: "How can I run the race for faith when I have a family to feed, or overtime to work, or a promotion to win? Why should I fight the good fight for Christ when all around me, people are just looking out for themselves?" That is the time to keep the faith and to resist "the love of this present world," and to remember, like Paul, what it is we are living for.
But I am convinced that the hardest part of the race comes when we are very old, when we have a whole different set of questions to face: "How can I fight the good fight when my bones ache and my eyes can hardly see? How can I run the race when I can barely get up in the morning and then I need a cane the rest of the day?" And perhaps most crippling of all: "How can I keep the faith now when God knows I kept it so badly in my youth?"
The answer to that last question is to forget the past! Pray with the Psalmist, "Lord, remember not the sins of my youth" (25:7)! None of us here today could possibly have sinned more than Paul, who spent his younger years persecuting Christians and putting them to death. He had more than just your run-of-the-mill sins on his hands; Paul had innocent blood on his hands!
The greater the sin, the fuller God's grace. Remember how we sometimes worry too much about how we begin and not enough about how we finish. Paul got a very late start in his life's race to eternity, but that doesn't matter now. What matters now is that he is finishing the race. He is fighting the good fight and keeping the faith all the day long, even to the very end.
Paul is writing in 2 Timothy as a man who is looking into the face of death. "I am already at the point of being sacrificed," he says; "the time of my departure has come." And look at what he has endured in the years leading up to the end! He had a painful physical affliction, which he called his "thorn in the flesh." He suffered beatings, jailings, shipwrects and stonings. He had more enemies than he could count and he could only look forward to a terrifying, painful death in Rome.
How does he do it? How does Paul fight the good fight to the final round, run the race to the finish line and keep the faith all the way to the end? How does he avoid the temptation of just giving up in bitterness - and saying, in effect, "I'm not what I used to be, Lord, so I don't care any more what I still might be. Lord, I can't do what I used to do, so I don't care about doing what I still might do today."
Paul does it by looking beyond himself. He looks beyond where he is, to where he wants to be. Here he says, "There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will ... award to me on that Day." Elsewhere he said, "I press onward toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14). The language is different but the meaning is the same. Why does the marathon runner press onward, even in the midst of mounting pain and shortness of breath? Because she sees in her mind's eye the prize that awaits her by finishing the race.
I once knew two men who were put into the same nursing home at the same time. Both hated being there and both were filled with anger at this decision imposed on them against their will, but both needed more help than they could possibly get at home.
One man remained angry and soon went downhill. He withdrew into himself until he couldn't do anything for himself. If there ever was a chance he could return home, it was gone now.
The other man eventually decided to make the best of it. He began talking with the other patients to cheer them up. He started feeding the ones who couldn't eat and reading to the ones who couldn't see. He did everything I imagine Jesus Christ would do if Christ were in a nursing home today.
Now, both had been men of the church and men of faith all their lives. But one man fought the good fight all the way to the end, while the other quit fighting just before the final round. One man ran the race through to the finish line; the other ran all those miles and stopped a few yards short.
I'm sure God has judged both of them mercifully, but which is the better way to live? Which gives more happiness and meaning and which helps us lighten our burdens just a bit as we pass through late afternoon and come to the end of the day?
No matter how far along we are in life, it is never too late to find ourselves by losing ourselves in Christ. If it is at all within our power - if, physically and mentally, we are at all able to do it - it is always best to live by imitating Him.
Then we can look back on all the years, count up all the bumps and bruises we've picked up along the way and measure our triumphs and joys against all our disappointments, yet still say with Paul: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, all the way to the end." Amen
Pastoral Prayer
Gracious and Ever-faithful Lord, we pray today for a faith which lasts all the day long: not just in the morning when faith comes easy, but in the twilight and even into the darkness of night, when faith alone can drive away every fear. Keep us believing and keep us hoping. When we are weary, quicken us with Your Spirit. When we are weak, rejuvenate us with Your strength. When we are emptied by our doubts, fill us again with the certain knowledge of Your love in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Teach us, Precious Lord, to live each day as it comes, in thankful remembrance of You. Teach us with heart and hands and voices to "Thank We All Our God," in perfect faith from start to finish. Cheer us with Your blessed peace and keep us in Your grace. Guide us when perplexed, 0 God, and free us from all ills ... in this world and the next. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen
