Hope in the End Zone

You may not know this, but during the Super bowl, there’s another type of football game going on. It’s a football game of between big animals and small animals.

The big animals were crushing the small animals. At half-time the coach made an impassioned speech to rally the little animals.

At the start of the second half, the big animals had the ball.

On the first play, an elephant got stopped for no gain.

On the second play, the rhino was stopped for no gain.

On the third down, the hippo was thrown for a five-yard loss.

The defense huddled around the coach, who asked excitedly, “Who stopped the elephant?”

“I did,” said the centipede.

“Who stopped the rhino?”

“Uh, that was me, too,” said the centipede.

“And how about the hippo? Who hit him for a five-yard loss?”

“Well, that was me as well,” said the centipede.

“So where were you during the first half?” demanded the coach.

“Well,” said the centipede, “I was having my ankles taped.”

I wish that was a real football game. It would be so cool to see a centipede take down an elephant. That might be worth $5,000 a ticket!

Today is super bowl Sunday. You may or may not care about the football game, and I promise that just because I’m wearing a jersey and the theme of the presentation is football related, that this sermon is not going to be about football.

Well, it might be a little about football. I enjoy watching football. But you know what else I like? I like the interviews after the game. You know what I’m talking about?

They will interview players and coaches from both the winning and the losing teams.

The winners always say something like this: “Well, it was a good day for football. We were able to execute our game plan and everything just came together for us.”

The losers sometimes say things like: “Well, it just wasn’t a good day for us. We weren’t able to execute and our game plan never came together like we thought it would. Those other guys just had a better day.”

Almost every post game interview is the same. Tonight will be like all the others. One team will win and the other will lose.

You know what each and every one of us will do after the game, no matter who wins or loses? We will go to bed. Ultimately, the game has no long term affect on our lives.

I was thinking about how it’s much easier to call the game when you’re standing in the end zone with only a few seconds left on the clock. You can look back on the game and see what you did right and what you’ve done wrong.

Every team comes to the field to win, but there will always be one team who walks away the loser.

This might sound like a depressing way to start a message of Hope, but I promise you it’s really not because what I want to tell you today is that you’re on the winning team.

It might not seem like it right now, but you should have hope because Christ has already won the game. It’s in the bag. And if you believe in Him then you’re on the team.

Our scripture today reminds us that we have a hope for the future. I’ve been talking a lot about our churches vision to be a church where people find a home, family, and acceptance. We can only accomplish that vision if we activate faith, hope, and love in our lives.

What is hope?

Hope is knowing that God will keep His promises. Hope is trusting God with the Past, Present, and Future.

Hope is when we trust that what God has done in the past to redeem us is enough to help is in the present and that we can look forward to a future where will will experience the fullness of God’s goodness in a place called heaven.

Hope is our motivation. It’s what keeps us going in this life.

Life can be a little like football. We get all geared up, go to battle, we fight to win, but along the way we get bruised up, sometimes the score isn’t in our favor. But our hope is that if we keep going that we can make it to the end zone.

The scripture we are going to read was written by the Apostle Paul. He’s standing at in the end zone of his life and he is looking back over the game that he has played. These verses are as close as we will get to an after the game interview with Paul.

His physical ministry on earth is almost over. He is sitting in a Roman prison, with nothing to look forward to but his execution at the hands of the Roman government. Paul knows his time is up, but he wants to give us an interview before he leaves.

I for one am very glad he did because his words give us HOPE. This world needs hope. We can reach this town if we go around speaking faith, hope, and love to all that we meet.

Paul is a man who lived a life rooted in hope. He didn’t fumble the ball. He had not been tackled and taken out by the enemy. He may have stumbled a few times, but he had reached the end zone with his testimony intact. Let’s read his words today.

2 Timothy 4:1–8 NKJV

1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

It’s like he was writing his own epitaph. You know what an epitaph is right? It’s the words that are carved on your headstone.

I wish I had a cool name to use in my epitaph. Probably my favorite epitaph is this one:

“Here lies Lester Moore. Four slugs from a forty-four. No Les. No Moore.”

Did you know that back in the 1700’s they used to carve hands on the grave stones with fingers pointing up or down depending on where they thought the person was going?

On Pauls headstone I think it would read the words of verse 7:

2 Timothy 4:7 NKJV

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

There are three components in this verse that neatly break down the Christian life and give us hope. What was important to Paul as he stood in the end zone of his life?

Hope in the War

2 Timothy 4:7 (NKJV)

7 I have fought the good fight...

The words “fought” and “fight” both come from the same word that gives us our English word “agony”. They were used in Paul’s day when they were talking about ancient Greek games where the contestants would wrestle against each other. These wrestling matches were very popular back then. They were brutal and could end in death.

Paul is reminding us that, as believers, we are not on as playground, or a football field, we are on a battlefield! Christians are engaged in a battle and the best way for us to describe the battle, at times, is the same word that Paul uses: Agony.

It’s not always going to be easy in the battles we face, but here’s the truth: we have HOPE.

We have hope because we are Born Again. That’s actually when we join the battle. When we are saved by grace we become spiritually alive in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17 CEV

17 Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new.

But before we are a new person in Christ we were dead in our sins and dead to the things of God. We weren’t in the battle for the Lord that Paul was talking about because we were working for the enemy. We were willing participants in the works of the devil. When we come to Christ we become alive to God and His work and we enter the battle against the enemy of our souls.

Here’s the problem. We are converted and we are trusting Christ for our salvation, but we are still sinful! This creates a massive spiritual conflict in the life of all believers.

Galatians 5:16–17 CEV

16 If you are guided by the Spirit, you won’t obey your selfish desires. 17 The Spirit and your desires are enemies of each other. They are always fighting each other and keeping you from doing what you feel you should.

See, the war we are in originates in our spirit. Our old nature still wants to live in sin. The new part of us wants to please the Lord.

Satan will do everything in his power to cause us to stumble and fail.

1 Peter 5:8 CEV

8 Be on your guard and stay awake. Your enemy, the devil, is like a roaring lion, sneaking around to find someone to attack.

As long as we live, we are going to face struggles and battles. Our faith will be tested in anyway it can be tested.

Remember to focus on the right enemy in your battles. PEOPLE are not our enemies. People can be USED by the enemy, but they aren’t our enemy.

Ephesians 6:12 CEV

12 We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world.

If we have any HOPE of winning the battle for Christ in our community we must learn to LOVE them, forgive them, show them who Christ is in us! We need to pray for our community above all else.

So, where’s the hope in our war? How can we trust what God has done in the past to help is in the present so that we can look to the future?

Paul says, “I have fought the good fight”. He isn’t taking credit here. Look at something else he said in Galatians:

Galatians 2:20 CEV

20 I have died, but Christ lives in me. And I now live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.

We don’t fight our spiritual battles in our own power. We can place our hope in the Lord to work in our lives.

Ephesians 6:10 CEV

10 Finally, let the mighty strength of the Lord make you strong.

How do we do this? We must KNOW Him. Spend time in His word, in prayer, and in worship. When the battles come our way, we need to bow our knees. Our hope comes from the Lord.

We need spiritual weapons to fight these battles. Our battles are in the spirit, the mind, and are not fleshly in nature.

People come at us with the weapons for gossip, personal attacks, sharp words, and threatening words.

Ephesians 6:11-18 tell us that we have weapons against these attacks that give us hope in the battles we face. I will tell you that all of the weapons are defensive except for the Word of God and prayer! We must stand on His word and pray if we are going to effectively have hope in the battles we have.

Paul reminds us that we can have hope in the war and that we can have...

Hope in the Walk

2 Timothy 4:7 NKJV

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

He says that he fought the good fight, but then he changes to talking about a race. Why?

Keep in mind the context of the Greek games. Some in those games entered the contest of running. They were required to run massive distances with the hope of winning.

Paul is telling us that just as he had a path to walk with the Lord, you and I do too.

The problem with running a race is that they can be very long, difficult, and it’s hard not to focus on the journey.

Sometimes we look at others path and wish ours was more like theirs. Here’s the truth: our walk in life in individual.

We aren’t in a competition. God wants each and every person to focus on His plan for their lives. Jealousy have no place in our walk.

The truth is that we can’t walk in another's shoes and they can’t walk in ours. Our lives have been planned by the Lord for reasons we might not understand until the day enter heaven.

In our lives we must remember that our focus needs to be on Christ. It’s so easy to look to the right of the left, but we need to look up to the one who matters.

Our hope is that one day this walk we are on will end at the feet of Jesus. While we are walking we need to remember that there are things that are trying to hold us back from finishing strong.

Hebrews 12:1–2 CEV

1 Such a large crowd of witnesses is all around us! So we must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially the sin that just won’t let go. And we must be determined to run the race that is ahead of us. 2 We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete. He endured the shame of being nailed to a cross, because he knew that later on he would be glad he did. Now he is seated at the right side of God’s throne!

We must focus on what matters most.

Now, Paul mentions that there is a reward for running well.

2 Timothy 4:8 (CEV)

8 So a crown will be given to me for pleasing the Lord.

In Greece, they would compete for these little crowns made of either oak leaves or laurel leaves. Those little crowns didn’t last long because they were made from plants.

Tonight, they are playing for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. It’s pretty, but it won’t last either. They will have to give it away next year.

Paul is looking past such earthly treasures and he can see a time when he is standing with the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus will give him a crown that will never fade away!

We must keep running our race because we have a hope waiting for us in Heaven! We can’t be waiting around for people to reward us, cheer us on, or praise our efforts. No way! The Lord himself is watching our lives. He sees all that we say, do, and think. Paul calls Him the “righteous judge”.

Jesus is our hope. He will reward those who walk with Him.

So we can have hope in the war, hope in the walk, and finally today we can have...

Hope in the Word

2 Timothy 4:7 NKJV

7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Pauls ends this verse saying that he’s kept the faith. What does that mean?

He’s pointing to how he has handled the Word of God. Paul was a preacher. He was a teacher. He’s referring to the fact that he had delivered the truth of God to everyone he met.

When he says that he “kept the faith” be means that it was like a precious treasure to him. The gospel of Christ was so important to him that he made sure to speak the truth of the gospel to bring as many to Christ as he could.

His hope was that others would pick up where he left off and continue the work of the Lord.

2 Timothy 2:2 CEV

2 You have often heard me teach. Now I want you to tell these same things to followers who can be trusted to tell others.

Our job is to speak the truth in love to our world. We have the precious gift of salvation. Our primary focus in our daily living should be to share this wonderful truth to everyone we know.

We have a hope that compels us to proclaim the Word of God. No matter the cost to our lives!

God’s truth is the most valuable thing ever because it means that we hold the key to salvation. The problem is that we treat it like it’s only for us!

Once we went to the Tower of London. We tours all the crown jewels. They were beautiful, but we couldn’t touch them or take them home with us. They were all behind bullet proof glass. It wasn’t for us to own.

Here’t the truth of God’s good news: it’s a treasure meant to be given away! It’s the only treasure in the world that becomes more valuable as we give it away!

Here’s Pauls testimony:

2 Corinthians 4:5 CEV

5 We are not preaching about ourselves. Our message is that Jesus Christ is Lord. He also sent us to be your servants.

He had an encounter with Christ that changed his life. He couldn’t help but to serve others by faithfully sharing the good news that Jesus was the Lord who took away the sins of the world.

How should we have hope in the Word? We should proclaim it and give it away freely so that others will find the truth that can set them free.

Notice that Paul says, “I have kept the faith”. Here is a man who has reached the end of the journey and he is still clutching the message, not just with his hands, but with his heart. Through all the battles he has fought, through all the lonely valleys he has traveled, Paul never fell out of love with Jesus! Despite the fact that he was lonely, v. 9–12, discouraged and facing death, he still held on to his relationship with the Lord.

What is he saying?

As you go through life, you are going to face some difficulties. You are going to get hurt. There will be times when you will be misunderstood and misrepresented. There will be days when you must walk all alone. However, in spite of what you may be called upon to face in this life, you keep your faith in Him! If you can keep your eyes on the Lord while you run the race of life, you will reach your end zone and be able to say “I have kept the faith!” Not everyone is going to be able to say that, but you can if you will run for Him and Him alone!

Friends, man will fail you, but I assure you that the Lord Jesus Christ will never fail you!

You will reach the end of your course and find that you are still in possession of the ball!

I want to be able to say “I have kept the faith” don’t you?

Where is your hope today?

What kind of epitaph will men place on your headstone?

Regardless of what you and I may say about our lives, or what others may write about us when we are no more, God has the final word!

When you stand in the end zone of your life, will you be able to look back and say, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:”

You can! Maybe you need to adjust where you’re placing your hope. You can have hope in the war, the walk, and the Word.

There will be a post game interview, let’s be able to give a good one that is honoring to the Lord!

Perhaps you wandered in here and you are lost today. Let me just remind you that you can only get to Heaven if you know Jesus Christ.

If you have never been saved, please come to the Lord today and call upon Him by faith. He will save your soul if you will come to Him.

Let’s just mind the Lord today and let Him have His way in this invitation!