Finish Strong

00:00 Just stand. You can also pass that basket while you're standing up. Don't have to be seated to take an offering. So take that opportunity to share and stretch just a moment. We're not going to keep you long, but we do want to just draw some attention to the Scriptures this morning. And turn around and greet someone behind you, 00:19 beside you, and tell them you're glad you're here. A lot of visitors here this morning. A lot of young people. We're glad for all the young people that are here this morning. Okay. 00:30 I guess maybe it is a little bit hard to pass the basket while you're shaking hands, but you could just put your offering in somebody else's hands and they could give it. And you may be seated. But no, we're glad for the presence of each one this morning, and we're glad for the young people that are here from various places. I understand to help with this volleyball tournament yesterday. 00:51 And you're blessing us with your presence this morning, so thank you so much. And for those from the community here that have also blessed us with your presence, we want you to feel that you are very welcome here this morning. If you have a copy of the Scriptures with you this morning, I'd like to bring your attention to 1 Timothy 6. I want to give you four words to part with this morning. 01:12 Four words. It would be a four-point message, but that could take a half hour, 45 minutes. You could make it into an hour, but we won't do that. We're going to leave these words with you this morning. We gave them up at the prison yesterday as we had a freedom rally up there at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. And we're there all day long. 01:32 And so we gave these words up there and gave them to the men. From 1 Timothy and 1 verse and 2 Timothy. 1 Timothy 11. And I'm going to read this passage 11 to 16 and give you those four words. 01:49 "But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called, and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 02:10 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things and before Christ Jesus, who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ appearing, which He will manifest in His own time. 02:28 He who is the blessed and only potentate or sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality dwelling in unapproachable light, which no man can see or has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. 02:46 Amen." We see three words in this passage that I want you to remember. "You, O man of God, flee these things. Flee." And secondly, follow. Pursue. The King James version, the old King James, this is New King. It says, it says, "Pursue." The old King says, 03:06 "Follow after righteousness." So you were to flee, to follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. And then we're to fight, verse 12, fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life. That's your calling. You heard about it this morning. 03:26 To see the Lord. To be in that new city, that new community, that new land that they sang about there in the end. And in order to do that, then we'll have to finish. Finish 1 Timothy 4:7. "I have fought the good fight. 03:47 I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." So those four words this morning are flee, follow, fight, and finish. Say it with me. Flee, follow, fight, and finish. And what we want to do is we want to finish well. 04:07 We want to finish strong. You see, it's not how well you start a race. It's as the tortoise in the hair. It's not how well even you run the race. It's how well you finish the race. Now I remember going back singing as we have many times like this group here this morning. And one night we were, 04:27 one afternoon, well, it was an evening service, I guess. It really doesn't matter. But we were singing an a cappella service. And we were used to singing with instruments, with Gospel Echoes team. And so we kind of, you know, you can hide, you can cheat a few things that way. But we had an a cappella service. And I remember that evening it went okay. 04:47 It didn't go real well. But we did something we shouldn't have done. And that was we tried a fairly unfamiliar song at the end of the service. 04:57 And the last note of the last song of the last time we were in that church... 05:10 It just fell apart. It just fell apart. It was a total embarrassment. And I don't know what anybody else remembers about that service, but I remember total failure, Brother Tom. And so I would tell my team members after that, no matter what you do, no matter what you do, 05:31 get the last note right. You may fail. You may fumble. You may falter. You may struggle. You may stumble. But get the last note right. And the way you do that, brothers and sisters, is by doing these four things. To flee ungodliness. 05:52 To follow after righteousness. To fight the good fight of faith and to finish well. That has to be on the radar. That has to be on the agenda. The finish. The finish. And so what are we to flee here? Well, he talks in the verses ahead of that, he talks about fleeing pride, verse 4. 06:13 You see, there was a lot of disputing and arguing going on here in Timothy's ministry. Not by Timothy, but by those he was trying to minister to. Those people who substituted ungodliness for godliness in their life and pursuits. They were proud knowing nothing. 06:32 Obsessed with disputes and arguments over words. And that brought about envy and strife or quarreling and reviling, slander and evil suspicions. Useless wranglings. Constant disagreements of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth. 06:51 Depraved in mind and destitute of the truth. Who supposed that godliness is a means of gain. And the bottom line of this crowd was they were guilty of covetousness. They were guilty of seeking after material things. You heard about that this morning about the temporal versus the eternal. 07:10 And he said we should be content with those things that we have and flee from the roots of evil. Who those who have strayed, verse 10, from the faith in their greediness have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. He said you want to flee away from that stuff. 07:28 Put it away, all of this nonsense when it comes to focusing on things that are of little or no importance and arguing. Arguing and suspicion and envy and strife and all that. Put that away. But God never tells us to put something away, but what he tells us to put something into our lives. 07:49 And that is the next one. To follow after. To pursue righteousness. Godliness. Righteousness. Right standing before God through the person and finished work of Jesus Christ. And right living. Right standing and right living before God. Godliness. 08:06 Taking on the qualities of godliness and righteousness and imitating our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ out of that power of the Holy Spirit that flows within us and creates the life of Christ in us. Be men and women of faith. Of love. Of patience. 08:26 Perseverance. Endurance. And gentleness. Gentleness. Then he says, fight that good fight of faith. We know that we're not talking about fighting with physical weapons. We're not talking about duking it out. I remember driving down the road one day and we were traveling, I think it was maybe through Virginia it might have been. 08:46 No, I think it was South Carolina. But anyway, driving down the road and all of a sudden in front of us was this couple of cars. They come around us and they had their feet out of the window. It was a bunch of young people had their feet out of the window there. Helms out of the window. Carrying on having a great time. Pulled in front of us in one car in one lane and one in the other lane. They sideswiped each other. 09:06 Looked like it was done on purpose, but I don't know. Next thing I know, they both pulled over to the side of the road and get out and start duking it out. Punching each other alongside the road. So it got out of hand, whatever it was they were doing. And that's not the weapons of our warfare. Weapons of our warfare are not carnal. It's not flesh and blood that we're fighting against. 09:26 It's spiritual weapons. It's a spiritual fight. It's a fight of faith. A fight to the finish line. A fight to stay true and faithful to God in the midst of this changing world, which unfortunately isn't changing for the better. It's changing for the worse. 09:45 Right around us, at our very eyes. How do you fight that fight of faith? You fight that fight of faith with prayer. You fight that fight of faith with the Scriptures. The Word of God. They overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb and by the Word of their testimony. You fight that fight of faith by fellowship. 10:01 You fight that fight of faith by being in the presence of God and going out and sharing the Gospel with others. And that good confession. He says, you have confessed and called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. And then, then you come to the end of the race. 10:22 You may have faltered. You may have stumbled. You may have done it imperfectly. But by the grace of God, with our eyes on the prize and on the finish line, we can say at the end... We don't know where the end will be. Don't know at what point the Lord comes back and says, "That's it. It's done. We're finished. You've completed the task." We don't know when that's going to happen. 10:44 But may we be able to say that I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. And I am ready to receive the crown of righteousness by the grace of God alone. And so I remember hearing the story a number of years ago that I think is rather fitting when it comes to finishing well. When it comes to finishing well. 11:05 And that was this story was told many years ago when this country was being mapped out and being explored. And there was an expedition, an exploration expedition that went down the Colorado River to explore the Grand Canyon. And no man had charted it. 11:23 And there had not been any record that men had made it from one end to the other. And so they got their supplies together and they went down the Colorado River and down into the Grand Canyon. And day after day after day, they were trying to fight their way through the rapids and through the hot days and the cold nights down in the bottom of that canyon. 11:43 And not knowing what was at the other end. Not knowing where to get more supplies. I mean, there was not a McDonald's up on the rim of the canyon that they could hike up to. There was nothing around. They were getting tired. They were getting discouraged. And about half of the group wanted to quit and hike up out of that canyon and say, "That's it. We're done." The other half said, 12:03 "No, we got to keep on going. We got to keep on going. We don't know where the end of this thing is, but we got to keep on going." So one morning they got up and that half of that group decided, "This is the day. We're out of here. We're done. We're done. We're finished. This is too hard." They hiked themselves out of that canyon. 12:19 And that was the day that the group that kept on going came out of the gorge into the beautiful landscape of the Colorado River. And things leveled out for them and things stabilized for them. And they found their way to their destination. 12:38 They made their way to the destination because they wanted to finish well. The other group who aborted the plan in the middle of the journey said, "We're out of here. We're never seen from or seen or heard from again." Matter of historical record. Let's finish well. Say it with me. Flee. 12:58 Follow. Fight. Finish. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for this day. Thank You for this group of men that have faithfully proclaimed the Word to us this morning. Let us in worship wonderful words. Beautiful words. Wonderful words of life. 13:13 Set to music, harmony, with a heart that we're desiring to serve God and to present the message in purity. Lord, let us flee from the things of this world. Let us follow after righteousness and godliness, Christ-likeness. Let us fight the good fight. 13:33 Content with nothing until we have won. And then may we finish well. Lord, if there be someone here this morning that's tempted to get out of the race. They're tempted to get out of the race. They're tempted to just say, "You know what? This is not what I signed up for. This is too much. Too high of a cost." Lord, 13:51 I pray that they would be encouraged right now, today, to be faithful to the finish and do whatever they need to do to recapture that vision and that goal of hearing the words of our Lord Jesus. Well done. 14:10 Good faithful servant enter in to that New Jerusalem where we might see You and experience You in all of Your glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.