The Finish Line

Theme                 Preparing for mission means putting our house in order.

Prelude

Welcome

Call to Worship

One: All of you, clap your hands and shout joyful praises to God,

All:    The Lord Most High is the ruler of all the earth.

One:           Sing praises to God our King,

All:    Praise God with songs.

– Adapted from Psalm 47

*Hymn of Praise          # 62          “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”

*Invocation        (the Lord’s Prayer)      

*Gloria Patri               # 575

Right hand of fellowship

Just for Kids               Hold up a memo pad, the kind with a magnet for attaching the pad to a refrigerator. Ask the children if their parents ever write them notes, with lists of what they are supposed to do. Suggest that such a pad might include the jobs, “Clear breakfast table. Make bed. Clean room. Don’t fight with brother. Don’t tease sister.” See if the children can name some other chores that might go on such a list. Then let them know that King David, the greatest of all the kings of Israel, left a similar list of jobs for his son Solomon, right before David died. Point out that David’s list said to Solomon, Be strong. Be courageous. Walk in God’s ways. Keep God’s commandments (1 Kings 2:2-3). Ask the children if this list is one that we should follow as well. Then find out if their parents ever give them prizes for finishing all the jobs on their list. Let them know that David promised Solomon a prize if he completed all his chores — he said that God would keep Solomon’s family on the throne of Israel forever (v. 4). Stress that God still wants us to be strong and courageous, and he promises to give us help and support if we walk in God’s ways and keep his commandments.

Our  Offering to God               To belong to our God is a serious responsibility. It inevitably means that we are sometimes in situations where we challenge the prevailing views - reminding people that there is a larger cause than that of self-interest, or even national interest. God's cause is always focused on love and justice and we are sent to live that out. Perhaps one of the best things about belonging to God is that you know you are not God - not ever.  ///  Those who are sent on behalf of Jesus Christ go with hands full of love and justice. What will we offer in practical gifts today?

*Doxology                  #572

*Prayer of Dedication  

Scripture Reading                John 17:6–19

During his High Priestly Prayer, Jesus affirms to God the work he has done among the disciples, and asks God’s protection for them once he has left them.

*Hymn of Prayer          # 318        “Trust and Obey”

Pastoral Prayer          

*Hymn of Praise          # 417        Leaning On the Everlasting Arms

Scripture Reading                1 Kings 2:1-11 

Message                    The Finish Line

Be strong. Be courageous. Walk in God’s ways. Keep God’s commandments.

The Indy 500 — the 90th version of it — runs today.
The first race ran in 1912 and it’s been a Memorial Day feature ever since, except for some wartime years.
A race like this has produced many memorable moments. If you are a race car fan you probably can bring some of those moments to mind. But perhaps the most memorable, or at least inspiring, Indy event occurred during the second running at the Brickyard in 1912. Something happened in that race that caught the public’s imagination and helped to make the Indianapolis 500 the great race it is today.
What happened didn’t even involve the winner.
The pacesetter for the 1912 speedway event set a blistering tempo. One driver, Ralph DePalma, immediately took the lead and led the pack of wheel twisters for 198 laps, breaking every existing speedway record for 450 miles.
With victory within his grasp and an eight-lap lead, DePalma was a sure winner.
His car went dead on the backstretch, becalmed like a clipper in the Pacific, and the fortune he had been assured now vanished into thin air with less than a mile to go.
Undaunted, DePalma and riding mechanic Rupert Jeffkins climbed out of the car and pushed it for over a mile until they managed to shove it across the finish line. Meanwhile, Joe Dawson passed them to win the race.
DePalma was disqualified. Didn’t matter. The crowd gave him a standing ovation, and the story of DePalma pushing his car across the finish line swept across the nation and captured the fancy of the people. The Indianapolis 500 became an American tradition.
This weekend, we remember those who have crossed the finish line. And although the intent of this holiday, originally proclaimed in 1868 when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, was to honor our military dead, the weekend has become a time when we remember all of our loved ones who have passed on or who have, in the words of David in the text before us, gone “the way of all the earth.”
What we propose to consider is what those who have fallen would say to us if they could rise from the grave for a few brief moments. What’s their advice? What perspective would they share?
Of course, the answers would vary and be highly speculative. But our text gives us the advice of someone who knew he was about to pass beyond the vale. David was dying — “When David’s time to die drew near ...” (2:1). He knew he was dying — “I am about to go the way of all the earth” (2:2).
David’s advice to his son Solomon was four-fold: Be strong, be courageous, be faithful, and take care of business.
Be strong. Ralph DePalma could not have imagined that to finish the Indy 500, he would need to get out of his Mercedes and push the dead-weight vehicle of nuts and bolts, pistons and struts across the finish line himself, using his own power and strength.
The car was supposed to provide forward progress on its own — that was the whole idea of this invention less than 15 years old. It is an auto-mobile. Self-propelled.
This is often how we approach life. We expect life to carry us along. We think that life is a stream upon which we flow and go. We think that life carries us, we don’t carry life.
How surprised we are when sometimes things break down and we have to climb out of our expectations, clamber over our dreams, and step out onto the rough brick road of experience and start pushing.
“Be strong,” David says. It’s a familiar biblical expression. It’s the same word of exhortation that God gives to Joshua as he assumes the leadership of Israel: “Be strong” (Joshua 1:6). Again, in the next sentence, “Only be strong” (1:7). Then, again in verse 9: “Be strong.”
In both the case of Joshua and the ease of Solomon, the counsel to be strong comes to those who are about to assume positions of leadership, places of great power and responsibility.
Leadership requires strength. It is not for the faint of heart. But leadership is for everyone, because at some level in our lives, we are leaders.
Our sphere of influence may be in the home where we are raising the next generation. It may be in the community where we volunteer to make the world a better place. It may be in the office, or at school. But all of us are in positions, some great, some small, of leadership, and leadership requires strength—which is another way of saying that it requires resolve.  It requires character.   It requires certainty.  It requires integrity.
It requires the ability to listen.   It requires the willingness to admit mistakes.   It requires believing in something.  Such a person is a strong person.
Be courageous. Can you imagine how DePalma felt as his car came to a grinding halt on the speedway. He had been leading the race for 450 miles. He had an eight-lap lead. He’s not just a lame duck, but a dead duck. No two ways about it.
How did the crowd respond when they saw him begin to push the car? Did they laugh? Point fingers? We don’t know.
We only know that when he crossed the finish line, they erupted with a thunderous ovation.
The guy had courage. The man had chutzpah.
David’s word to his son is: “Have courage.”
God’s word to Joshua was: “Be courageous, be very courageous, be courageous” (Joshua 1:6, 7, 9).
We live in a risk-averse culture. As one observer noted, we dress up our kids like knights in armor — face pads, knee pads, helmets, goggles — just to go out bicycling.
David says to his son, “Be courageous.” He didn’t say, “Don’t be afraid,” because as Mark Twain has famously observed, “Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it.”
He didn’t say, “Act only when the way is clear before you,” because, as another sage has noted, “Courage can’t see around corners, but goes around them anyway.”
He didn’t say, “Stand up and make sure your voice is heard,” because as Churchill noted, that although “courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
And David’s advice is couched in the imperative mood: “Be strong. Be courageous.” It’s a choice. Don’t say you can’t be strong, or you can’t be courageous. You can. Just do it.
So DePalma gets behind the Mercedes and starts to push, even though the crowd may ridicule him, even though there is no chance he can still win the race.
Be faithful. David’s last advice to his son is that he “keep the charge of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies (2:3). The word of God is to be Solomon’s North Star, or guiding light.
God said something similar to Joshua when he began his leadership of the house of Israel: “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful” (Joshua 1:8).
Being strong and courageous without being faithful to the word of God only means that our strength and courage are likely to be misplaced and misdirected or, to come as something that’s too little and too late.
DePalma — and we can’t know this for sure — may have been wise to pay more attention to the manual, to the care and upkeep of the car, although to be fair, the stress of an Indy 500 race on a car is enormous. Still, David’s point to his son is that his strength and courage should be fortified by the word of God.
Take care of business. David has some practical advice for his son in which he sounds more like Don Corleone than a man who wrote scores of sensitive songs and poems. See the commentary below for an understanding of what David means when he asks his son to act according “to his wisdom” and to “deal loyally” with some, while bringing down “the gray head” of others “with blood to Sheol.”
David had unfinished business. Loose ends to tie up. Point is that life is lived in the real world. God’s call to Joshua, David’s advice to Solomon and our mandate as followers of Jesus Christ are not experienced in a poofy land of make-believe, but in a nitty-gritty, R-rated 24/7 fast-paced world of unbelief, hostility and anger.
Be strong in such a world. Be courageous in such a life. Be faithful in such a context.
If you are, you will make it to the finish line, you will cross the finish line, and there’s a “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) who will rise up in thunderous applause.

*Hymn of Response     # 85          “Crown Him with Many Crowns”

*Sending forth         We belong to Jesus Christ, chosen to go as God's agents in the world. Let us go in faith and peace.

Let your hearts be filled with peace. Christ lives triumphant.
Let your hearts be filled with joy. Christ lives triumphant.
Let your hearts be filled with hope. Christ lives triumphant.
Let your hearts be filled with love. Christ lives triumphant.
Let your hearts be filled with thanks. Christ lives triumphant.

*Postlude

Thought for the Day            Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject – the actual enemy is the unknown.

– Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain