Good morning Church family,
Most of you did not make it to our Church service this past Sunday because you attended the Susquehanna Old Fashioned Field Days service. I enjoyed both services and was happy that I could preach for our service.
I expanded on John 19:30 when Jesus says “it is finished” on the Cross as His last words. I found that statement packed with meaning and therefore wanted to elaborate on it Biblically. In this letter, I want to share some thoughts from Christ’s words “it is finished” on the Cross that have penetrated my heart this week and deeply motivated, moved and even convicted me of the way that I fall short of them!
First of all, Christ’s words “it is finished” serve as an example for how we are to finish our life race well.
In Hebrews 12:1-2, we are told to run a race like Jesus and specifically by looking at how He finished His life on the Cross (that would be like His finish line):
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
There are two primary ways that we are to live our life like the way that Jesus finished His life race:
(a) We are to finish our faith race by continuing to publicly and verbally testifying to the Gospel of Christ.
When Jesus said, ‘it is finished’ on the Cross, it meant finishing His obedient work to the Father (Philippians 2:8 says that Jesus “obeyed by dyeing on a Cross”). Specifically, Jesus’ primary act of obedience to the Father that He came to accomplish was dying for our sins on the cross to save us.
In John 4:34 & 5:36, Jesus says that He came to “accomplish the works that the Father gave Him to do.” “Accomplish” is the same word that Jesus uses on the Cross, “it is finished.” Therefore, when Jesus utters “it is finished,” in John 19:30 while breathing His last, He is saying that He has accomplished the greatest act of obedience that His Father has given Him to do, to save sinners by giving up His life for them.
Fast forward to the Apostle Paul’s life. He apparently viewed the way that Jesus ended His life with self sacrificing & soul saving obedience as the same way that he, Paul, was called to finish his life like a race.
In Acts 20:24, Paul says, “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself (that’s a cross statement), if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.“
Paul is saying that his life is like Christ, “giving up his love of self in replacement for a love of Jesus and love for His mission: to save souls for the Kingdom of God (via His personal testimony of life with Jesus).”
Paul actually uses the same word that Jesus used on the Cross when He uttered “it is finished.” Paul says, “if only I may finish my course and ministry…”
How did Paul envision ‘finishing’ his course and ministry? First, like a race (a ‘course’) and second, just like Jesus: “by testifying to the Gospel of the grace of God.”
That is to say that the Apostle Paul wanted to finish his life still concerned with sharing the Gospel of Jesus with dyeing souls so that they would know Jesus, be forgiven from their dreadful sin debt and be able to experience an eternity of reward in Heaven with Christ.
That was how Paul envisioned finishing his life here on earth: just like Jesus on the Cross where Christ’s last efforts were to save condemned sinners.
In 2 Timothy 4:7, Paul says, “I have finished the race.” That is to say, He finished with a continued drive to tell other people about Jesus.
My WOL Chapel family, I pray that this currently is your mission and that it will continue to be your mission until the day that you die. Don’t coast. Don’t turn out of the course God has mapped out for your life. It’s a Gospel course. It’s really quite simple, it’s a “straight and narrow road” as Jesus said, that marks our course for Jesus. Just go straight and don’t turn to the left or to the right from a focus on the Gospel.
The Christian race is primarily focused on focusing on Christ’s mission: to save sinners. It must be our mission, plan & strategy, to get to know our neighbors, coworkers, friends, relatives, business partners, etc…for the purpose of telling them about Jesus and showing them the loving service of Jesus.
This is what it meant for Paul to finish his race well who finished like Jesus, and it is what it means for us to finish our race well, concerned more for the eternal comfort of people around us than the temporary conveniences of ourselves.
Truly, what it means for us to “take up our cross and follow Jesus” (Matt. 16:24) is to die to our own desires for the sake of focusing our attention, money, and time on saving folks with the good news of the Gospel of Jesus.
I’ve been challenged this week to continue my walk with Christ with a desire to accomplish that particular mission. In John 4:34, Jesus calls God obedient ‘evangelism’ a type of ‘food’ meaning that if you want to experience more excitement, flavor and energy in your Christian life, strive for having Gospel conversations with lost people. It’s invigorating and energizing like food!
In 1 Corinthians 9, the Apostle Paul describes his mission to win people to Jesus by taking an interest in their background and hobbies as a way of perusing their salvation and then finishes by describing it like an athletic competition where he deprives himself of certain comforts in order to run a better ‘soul saving race.’
That should be the cross that we bear, Church…one where we sacrifice, perhaps our busy schedule, to make room for inviting unsaved people over to our house, forming relationships and sharing Jesus with them. Or maybe it involves staying busy with what you do, but making an effort to insert a bold tongue for Jesus & actions of service like Jesus into your business.
However we sacrifice, Jesus and Paul make it clear that our Christian life is a race, and in that race, the most fundamental way that we should live as Christians, form our habits as Christians (little Christ’s), and think as Christians, is by laying some kind of benefit aside that could be ours so that we can make an extra effort to pursue the unsaved.
That was how Jesus finished ran His race here on earth and that is how He finished. And that is how Paul envisioned He live His life too, the one who said, “follow me as I follow Christ (1 Cor. 11:1).
For us, this could mean sacrificing an evening watching tv & instead pray for unsaved folks. But this is what marked Paul and Jesus “finishing their course and ministry in a cross fashioned way:”
Jesus laid aside heaven and lived on earth. Jesus became identified with sinners in order to save them. He was humiliated. Paul did not count his life as precious to himself (Acts 20:24) and replaced that self-denial with an others focus & effort to win people to Jesus out of obedience toward God.
Here’s the point: we must bear up our crosses and sacrifice something in order to bear witness to the Gospel. You can’t have it both ways.
I personally look at the Church tithe like this. You can give up a portion of your income that would make you that much richer each year by instead giving it to eternally focused missions.
(b) The last way that we are to finish well like Jesus & Paul is:
We are to finish our faith race in Christ by living not for this world, but by investing our time, energy & recourses in the Kingdom of God, for life beyond the finish line.
There are two places in Scripture that speaks of ending our life well by focusing, investing and sacrificing for the sake of perusing God’s Kingdom to come: Hebrews 12:1-2 & 1 Timothy 6:11-14.
Again, as previously quoted, Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
If you look behind our race and in front of our faith race, you’ll notice two similar mentalities of the folks we are called to emulate in our faith race.
Behind us: Hebrews 11 describes the “great cloud of witnesses” that are meant to inspire our everyday routines, schedules, walks of life and ultimately, a life run:
Hebrews 11 describes champions of the Old Testament who walked by faith. But 11:39 gives a summary of them: “And all these, though commended through their faith, did NOT receive what was promised.”
Abraham, as an example of that, in Hebrews 11:10 says that “he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Vv13-16 expands on this by explaining how these all died in faith NOT receiving what was promised them (I’m paraphrasing) “but they proved by the way that they lived that they were not living for the best possible life on this earth, but they were living their life for the next.”
Now with that as context, Hebrews 12 tells us to run our race of faith just like they did on planet earth.
And Hebrews 12 will say that we run this race by throwing off weight and sin that so easily entangles us. What is that weight and sin specifically referring to? It’s referring to anything that would make us think that this is our home here on earth. The sin is sin that idolizes the good things of this world, economy, job, financial goals, hobbies, etc… And when these things aid in causing us to lose track of our citizenship in heaven and efforts made towards that day, we’ve sinned.
I believe the weight that we throw off is anything that hinders us from contributing towards God’s Kingdom (the heavenly city that lies on the other side of the finish line). The weights are anything that would add additional baggage that hinders us from our eternal goals.
What’s so hard about this is that you can live a moral good Christian life by doing all of the right things but create a lifestyle or routine that has choked out of your time and money and mind opportunities to intentionally pursue eternal interests.
In other words, you can live a good moral life that keeps God’s rules while not participating in a heaven bound eternal mission. The Christian life, if we are going to adopt the eternal racing mentality, must NOT think merely in the here and now, we must be focused on the future AFTER death. This is quite hard because my mind naturally invests (which involves sacrificing) for life after retirement before I die instead of life after death when I fully live!
Before us: Finally, we are told to run our race of faith with Jesus in mind (Heb. 12:2), “the author and perfector of our faith who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despised it’s shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Now the Cross is described as the best representative for how we continue our Christian race. Jesus is our model and His Cross as an example of how we live our Christian life as a race.
Here’s how Jesus ran His race and finished well: He denied natural desires (who wants the shame and pain of the Cross!?) because He saw joy up ahead beyond the finish line.
So Jesus, like the faith runners who came before Him, ran His race living on earth but not living for the earth. He lived in such a way where His reward and joy would come after the finish line (for the joy that was set before Him).
And for us, if we are going to finish well like Jesus, we must be able to say, “I don’t feel maximum happiness now, but I know that full joy is up ahead.”
There is this notorious notion that Christians need to always be happy. Quite the opposite, although we will continue rejoicing in the Lord, to bear up our cross in this life can make life very hard and depressing, but our joy is in hope! We have great anticipation that it will get better after we finish this race. In fact, we’ve made intentional self-sacrificing efforts in this life that will not be ‘cashed in’ and experienced until AFTER we finish our race (Heb. 11:39).
And that should be how we live, “to store up treasures in heaven,” as Jesus said.
Like any racer, we enter this race because we heartily believe that the race is worth the reward on the other side.
So back to the main purpose of finishing well like Jesus: if we will do it, it means we will make decisions that sacrifice some privileges that we have here on earth because we want to make room for investing extra time and recourses into eternity beyond the grave. That was Jesus.
It should also be us!
And finally, for a Scripture that drives this point home, look at 1 Timothy 6:12-14:
“ 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”
V12 is saying, “Timothy, you started well with a ‘good confession’ before many witnesses (baptism or ordination).
V13 is saying, “now look to Jesus who finished well with a ‘good confession’ before Pontious Pilate.”
V14 is saying, “finish like that” with an understand that you don’t know when your finish line will be! (because you don’t know when Jesus will return, (“until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”).
Now here’s the question for us, how is it that Jesus finished well before His confession before Pontious Pilate that becomes an example for how we finish well?
Answer: Jesus stayed true to His mission to live for the Kingdom of God instead of the Kingdom of this world.
In John 18:36 Jesus confesses to Pontious Pilate, “my Kingdom is not of this world, if it was then my servants would be fighting.”
The point is that Jesus refused to yield to the mentality that He must make His life the best that it can feel according to the here and now. He refused to live according to the normal standards of this world too, hence, “otherwise, my servants would be fighting.” He lived for the invisible Kingdom of God and joy after the finish line. He lived by faith.
And for us, how easy is it to NOT run our race like this? How easy is it to fall prey to the mentality of investing for our future, retirement, and we tuck away money for those investments, but we don’t tuck away investments, self-sacrificing efforts, that will only be seen and experienced AFTER the grave?
That’s hard to do. It’s very hard to do, but that’s racing mentality and that describes what is means to “finish the race,” to finish the course that God has given us to run, to run the race marked out for us with our eyes focused on Jesus: it means that we sacrifice things NOW (bear our Cross) because we know that it will lead to joy after the grave.
And remember, ultimately, our Kingdom centered living is meant for soul saving purpose. Christ’s Kingdom that He confessed was not of this world meant for Him an effort to bring people into that Kingdom through death on the Cross. Such was the way that Jesus ended His life and such is the way that we should end ours too.
And such is the emphasis that Paul gives Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:12-14 – the paraphrase would be this:
“Don’t stop living for the Kingdom of God (and not the Kingdom of this world), don’t stop confessing that you are an ambassador of Jesus’s Kingdom just as Jesus was an ambassador of His Father’s Kingdom, don’t stop trying to make your life effort transforming people’s eternal future. “lay ahold of the eternal life that you’ve been called” (6:12)…remember eternal goals and start diminishing the temporal goals! And act like everyday could be the last day you get to invest in your eternal future; it could be your finish line tomorrow, because you don’t know when Jesus is returning!”
Therefore, for us, don’t stop living your life with the mission of sharing the Gospel with people. End your life with the Gospel mission! And in that way, don’t stop diminishing the distracting entertainment driven culture that we live in but rather, pursue salvation serious goals:
Don’t just share the Gospel with people, plan to make sacrifices along the way that help you BETTER participate in God’s mission. Bear a Cross of salvation for others. Finish with the Kingdom in sight and with this world as a fading reality. (Phil. 3:12-21).
(And if you just finished reading this letter, then your eyes just endured running through a long course! Well done, you finished!)
With love in Christ,
Aaron
