Finish Well
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
I’m honored to be here with you this evening. 21 years ago this Fall, I stepped onto campus here at UWA as a Freshman. I spent two years here before moving on to the University of Mobile. I’ve got a lot of great memories from my time here. Eating lunch at the Mennonite Bakery. Seeing movies at Smitty’s (I don’t even know if that’s still open). Funny story—the lady who used to be the ministry assistant at the BCM used to hide in a closet and watch soap operas.
21 years ago seems like yesterday. I don’t consider myself too old. I’m 39. You’ll be my age before you know it. Your time in college will be over before you know it.
As a follower of Christ, don’t waste your time here. These years in college can be the best years of your life…or you can look back on them years from now with regret. There are things that I look back on from this time in my life and wish I could go back and change. We all do. That’s part of growing up. That’s part of being human. But, there’s a difference between wishing there were things you would have done differently and regretting the way you ran your race.
Your college years are part of your Christian life. Not separate from it.
It’s easy to start well. It’s hard to finish well. Everyone starts off strong. Many don’t end well.
Tonight, I want us to look at a passage in 2 Timothy chapter 4.
>>>EXPLAIN WHAT’S GOING ON WITH PAUL<<<
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
Paul finished well. Paul had no regrets. I’m sure there are things he wishes he had done differently (explain). Now, yes, Paul is ending his ministry and is near the end of his life. You’re just in college. But…let me ask you—will you be able to say this when you leave this chapter of your life?
“While I was in college—at the University of West Alabama—I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith.”
A) Fought the good fight
B) Kept the faith
Stayed faithful
C) Finished the race
Did everything that God set before me.
Man. That’s how we should want to finish.
But, there’s another person in this text.
For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.
He fell in love with this present world and deserted Paul. What an extremely sad statement. We don’t really know a lot about Demas. He’s only mentioned twice by Paul in greetings (Colossians 4:14 & Philemon 24).
Two very different outcomes in two very different lives.
One (Paul) stayed falling in love with Jesus and the other fell in love with the present world. One’s love for Jesus led him to pursuing Jesus even more deeply and passionately and faithfully and the other’s love for the world led him to pursue the things the world has to offer.
So…how can you make the most of these years/this season of your life? I want to share four things with you that…to be honest…I’m sure were shared with me but I didn’t always listen to.
How do we end up like Paul rather than Demas?
A) Daily Abide in Jesus
Cultivate your personal walk with the Lord
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
This semester is almost over—how did you grow spiritually? The four years (or however long) you spend here at UWA can be the most spiritually fruitful of your life.
Everybody’s heard of the “Freshman 15,” right?
You should not look the same (spiritually) when you leave here as a senior as you did when you got here as a freshman. You’re not going to if you’re not abiding.
Loving Jesus > Loving the World
B) Get in and stay plugged into a local church
66% // 2 out of 3 regularly attending teenagers drop out of church for AT LEAST a year.
Be discipled
Serve
C) See this campus as your mission field
God has you here for a reason
You may or may not be aware of what God is doing on college campuses all around the U.S. for the last year or so. HE WANTS TO DO THAT HERE. Why not here?
D) Live with a Long-Range View
Paul is looking backward. You’re going to be looking backward one day. How do you look backward with no regrets? You live in the present with the future in mind.
Let me say that again just so you hear it. One day you’re going to look backward. You can look backward with little regret if you live now—in the present—with that day in mind. Ultimately, though, you need to live with THE DAY in mind.
This was Paul—he was looking forward to the Day when Jesus returned. Demas was just looking out for today.
Little compromises lead to big drifts
THE NY TIMES CONTAINED AN ARTICLE JUST A FEW WEEKS AGO ASKING THE QUESTION, “WHAT COULD HAVE CAUSED THIS?” I WANT YOU TO HEAR WHAT THIS ARTICLE SAID:
Some engineers looking at the failure of a 13-story condo tower in Florida said the collapse appeared to have begun somewhere near the bottom of the building.
The investigation into what may be the deadliest accidental building collapse in American history has just begun, but experts who have examined video footage of the disaster outside Miami are focusing on a spot in the lowest part of the condominium complex — possibly in or below the underground parking garage — where an initial failure could have set off a structural avalanche.
Called “progressive collapse,” the gradual spread of failures could have occurred for a variety of reasons, including design flaws or the less robust construction allowed under the building codes of four decades ago, when the complex was built. But that progression could not have occurred without some critical first failure, and close inspections of a grainy surveillance video that emerged in the initial hours after the disaster have given the first hints of where that might have been.
Three years before the deadly collapse, a consultant found alarming evidence of “major structural damage” to the concrete slab below the pool deck and “abundant” cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage under the building.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
