Don’t Just Start. Finish!

Chris Butler

The Journey Ahead: Making A Missional People • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

Exodus 39:32–43

Finish

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If God has called us to start, then it is very likely that God also wants us to finish.

Notes

Transcript

Exodus 39:32–43 (ESV)

Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished, and the people of Israel did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses; so they did.

Then they brought the tabernacle to Moses, the tent and all its utensils, its hooks, its frames, its bars, its pillars, and its bases;

the covering of tanned rams’ skins and goatskins, and the veil of the screen;

the ark of the testimony with its poles and the mercy seat;

the table with all its utensils, and the bread of the Presence;

the lampstand of pure gold and its lamps with the lamps set and all its utensils, and the oil for the light;

the golden altar, the anointing oil and the fragrant incense, and the screen for the entrance of the tent;

the bronze altar, and its grating of bronze, its poles, and all its utensils; the basin and its stand;

the hangings of the court, its pillars, and its bases, and the screen for the gate of the court, its cords, and its pegs; and all the utensils for the service of the tabernacle, for the tent of meeting;

the finely worked garments for ministering in the Holy Place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons for their service as priests.

According to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work.

And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the Lord had commanded, so had they done it. Then Moses blessed them.

There is a hard fact that we ought to confront before next week when we start the journey of being Ambassador Church: Very often, people start, but don’t finish.

According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics: 40% of people who start a degree program don’t finish.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that around 20% of small businesses fail within their first year, and approximately 50% fail within five years.

A study by the University of Scranton suggests that only 8% of people complete their New Year’s resolutions, with the vast majority giving up by mid-February.

Starting is not easy. But, finishing is a lot harder.

Next week, we’re going to start something new. We will become Ambassador Church.

And we are going to celebrate the start. But, starting is not the goal.

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 that end of the thing is better than the beginning.

The text before us demonstrates that the blessing is not so much in the starting, but in the finishing.

And this is not just about the Relaunch

Some of y’all are in school (or thinking about it)

New businesses launched or in the conception phase

This is for marriages

All of us are on this pilgrim journey called the Christian life

AND IN ALL THESE CASES, WE ARE NOT CALLED JUST TO START. GOD WANTS YOU TO FINISH AND FINISH WELL.

So the title of my sermon today is a prophetic exhortation: Don’t Just Start. Finish.

PRAY

If You Want To Finish, You Have To Remember the Vision

The text says that they did the work ACCORDING TO all that the Lord had commanded Moses.

Over and over it is repeated and serves as a key marker of obedience to God’s commands

Moses had gone up into the mountain of the Lord tor receive the divine blueprint…AND THEY KEPT LOOKING BACK AT THE PLAN

The episode with the golden calf, if you remember, took place before they received the vision from God.

Moses was 40 days in the mountain

They people had no prophetic revelation or guidance

And the wisdom of the proverbs is made plain: “Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint;” (Proverbs 29:18).

Beloved, if you are going to finish a thing, you must have a vision that you can return to over and over again, so that throughout the process, you can live according to that vision.

That’s why I tell people not to start a thing until you have a mountaintop experience.

You ought not get married because you got the hots for each other today. Don’t get married until you catch a vision of the life you can build together.

You can’t start a business because you have 15 customers today. Start a business when God shows you where it will be in 10 years and 20 years and when you hand it off to the next generation.

Beloved even you walk with Jesus will not be sustained by a simple decision you made to follow Jesus. No, you’ve got receive from the Lord that rapturous miracle of personal transformation that causes the heart burst into song, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!”

Often when there is no vision, we settle for nostalgia or imitation.

I wish this could be like it was.

I wish this could be like that over there.

But, true vision does not want it to be like it was or like is somewhere else. Because true vision is completely locked in on how God said it will be.

If we are going to finish, we have to constantly be reminding ourselves of what God said and what God has shown us.

If You Want To Finish, You Have To Be Diligent in the Work

We didn’t read it all in the sanctuary for the sake of time.

But the plans for the tabernacle are restated almost exactly in chapters 36-39 from when God gave it to Moses in the mountain.

And the record of the giving is so precise that you get a fairly comprehensive summary of the whole project in the accounting.

This all speaks to one thing that was a hallmark of this project: attention to detail.

These were serious people doing serious work

They were not cutting corners, slacking off, or lollygagging around.

They understood that the curtains, and the tables, and the utensils, and garments for the priest were not going to make themselves.

And beloved, understand that this was not arts and crafts time at the third grade. This was work!

They were fashioning metals, and carving wood, and making fabrics.

This was sweat on the brow, aching in the hands, pain in the back labor.

But, they did it unto God’s glory and according to God’s plan.

Beloved, if we want to finish, we have to put in the work.

Do I have any workers in the house?

Jesus said, the harvest is ready, but the workers are few. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest that He would send workers.

And that is what we must pray.

One request that God assure you that God will not grant is a request for God to do something that God told you to do.

We have to be diligent in the work.

If you’re going go to school, you have to study.

If you’re going to be married, you have to listen. (and that is work)

If you’re going to run a business, you have to sale.

And if you’re going to launch a dinner church, you have to Join teams, and make calls, and set up chairs, and build stuff, and make food, and greet people.

But, let me rush to the next point. Because this one is the most important of the three.

If You Want To Finish, You Have To Trust the Finisher

We make a critical error in Bible interpretation, the moment we begin to read the Bible as a story about people.

The Bible is not a story about people.

The Bible is a story about God.

Exodus is not about what Moses and the people of Israel did.

Exodus is a story about what God did through Moses and through the people of Israel.

If you go back over the narrative, you will see the hand of God in all of it.

Who watched over baby Moses in the waters?

Who heard the cry of the Israelites and called Moses out of the bush?

Who sent the plagues in Egypt?

Who caused the winds to drive a path through the Red Sea?

Who fed the people in the desert?

Who restored them after their idolatry?

Who spoke the vision of the tabernacle to Moses in the mountain?

Who stirred the hearts of the people to give and work?

Who put the skill in the craftsmen to lead the project?

Beloved, if we are going to finish the assignment that God has given us…as a church and as individual people, it will not be just because we worked hard at it and never gave up.

It will be because the Lord led us and guided us.

It will be because the Lord kept us and sustained us.

We cannot do this by might or by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord.

Oh beloved, we have to recognize that

There will be days when we don’t know what to do. But, we can trust that we will hear a voice behind us saying, “this is the way, walk thou in it”.

There will be days when the work is too hard and the journey too long. But, we can trust that “those wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength”.

There will be days when it seems like the enemy has us surrounded. But, we can trust that “when the enemy comes in, like a flood the Lord will lift up a standard against him”

There will be those who do not believe in what God is doing; and they might even criticize your name. But, we can trust that “God for us is more than the world against us.”

There will be days when we don’t know if we’re going to make it. But, we can trust that “He who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it”.