It's Now How We Start, but How We Finish
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 7 viewsNotes
Transcript
Intro:
Today we are gathered to celebrate the life of Ed Kmiecik. On behalf of the family, I would like to thank you for your kindness, cards, food, and most importantly for your prayers at this time.
I feel honored to have the privilege to celebrate his life with you.
When Rosemary asked me to preach his funeral, I began to pray about what passage of scripture the Lord would have me to share.
The title of my message is, [It's Now How We Start, but How We Finish], coming from:
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.
Let’s pray
I am always impressed how God’s word speaks to us at just the right time. I have read this passage before, but it caught my attention as I thought of Ed.
Life is full of starts and finishes. Truthfully, we pay more attention to starts.
Last year, 3.7 million babies were born, starting a new life.
But when something starts, it has to finish at some point.
Last year, there we 2.8 million deaths, people finished their life on earth.
We celebrate the start of life. We also celebrate the finish of a life.
At the start, parents and friends beam with pride and hope for their baby’s life.
At the finish, we look back and reflect on the life well lived.
The start of life is filled with showers, excitement, and hope.
The finish of life is filled with sadness, mourning, and tears.
Both the start and finish are important. But in our text, we read from the writings of the Apostle Paul. He explains a profound truth about life: when it is all over, it is not about how we start, but how we finish.
I was fortunate to meet Ed and Rosemary nearly five years ago. I had recently moved to Vulcan and they had just retired to Vulcan. The first time I met Ed, at the start, he was somewhat reserved.
He didn’t say as much, he wasn’t as talkative, but as the conversations went on, something humorous was said, and he had a little grin and twinkle in his eye, and I thought, he probably has a good sense of humor.
I discerned, the longer someone was around Ed, the more they got see how full of life he was. As I have learned more about him, through conversations and hearing stories, I learned of the starts in his life, and some seemed a little bit late.
At the start of his life, he was the youngest child, and I am sure the cutest.
By the time he started his tenure as a marine, he started just late enough to where he did not go to Vietnam. And in sheer frustration, he was forced to go to Hawaii, when he wanted to start off with the action overseas.
He started a job after an honorable discharge from the Marines, where he moved car parts… some that were heavy… and at some point he started showing off how he could lift those heavy car parts!
At the age of forty-one, many assumed he would stay a bachelor the rest of his life. But a love story started one night on a blind date.
Upon seeing Rosemary, he knew IMMEDIATELY she was the one for him. She was not convinced that night, but made up her mind within in six months as she walked down the aisle.
When he met the love of his life, he actually met the LOVES of his life, as he started a twenty-eight year role as devoted father to Emmy and Chris.
Together, the four of them started many memories, conversations, laughs, vacations, stories, and times together.
Though on paper, it may seem that Ed started some parts of his life a little later than others, it’s not we start, but how we finish.
Let’s take a moment and look at some finishes:
He finished his time in the service successfully.
After years a devoted father, we could say he finished that role just a little to extend his title to Papa!
And once he became a Papa, he was ready to finish working so he could retire to keep the road hot from St. Louis to wherever his grandchildren were.
When Rosemary finished her job, they retired to Vulcan, where he spent his time between St. Louis seeing family, and Springfield seeing grandchildren, making Vulcan his headquarters.
I thought back to some of the stories I have heard about Ed, specifically from Rosemary, via Facebook. She could have a successful career as a writer of short stories between Grandbaby Funnies and Hubby Funnies:
Ed was good a finishing a conversation, with humor and wit:
Once Rosemary told her computer and internet, “You are a pain.” Ed finished with, What did I do?
When Rosemary told Ed, “get back on the road” after crossing the line. He told her, you do not have to tell me that. A while later, he crossed over the yellow line, only to be met with silence. Finally, he said, “get back on the road Ed” with a grin and an explanation that someone needed to correct him.
Ed would finish projects around the farm:
getting his garage set up perfectly
even recently he finished a project of getting his flag pole from their home Cahokia set up in front of the garage.
Ed had good starts, but it’s not about how we start, but how we finish.
And sadly, on Saturday, his life on earth was finished. Today we celebrate his life. And tomorrow we honor him at Jefferson Baracks, fulfilling a dream of his to be buried with military honors.
From a natural perspective, the finishes seem much sadder than the starts. But from a scriptural perspective, God is more interested in how we finish than how we start.
Rosemary explained, “Ed was a simple man, so we will have a simple service.” I decided to keep this simple, and I think he would appreciate me to finish the message I have started before too long!
I want to look at two points briefly. [Everyone has a Start] and [Everyone has a Finish].
1. Everyone has a Start
1. Everyone has a Start
7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
I have fought the good fight. It intrigues me that Paul compared life to a good fight. However, when we study scripture, we will find there are not an overabundance of passages on birth, or our start.
The reason is simple, we all start in innocence. Every baby is cute, perfect, and beaming with possibilities.
Over time, however, innocence turns into sin. Every person was born into sin. That is our start in life. There is something that separates us from God.
When we think of sin, we can attempt to create a list of dos and don’ts. But in reality, a sin is anything Jesus wouldn’t do.
As we start life, at some point, we begin to do things we know are not right. There is a pull that drags us away from what God wants us to do.
Then God starts a process of drawing us to Him. There is a void and vacancy in our lives and we can’t quite figure out what it is at first.
That is when we have to decide to move from our start, and everyone has one, to realize...
2. Everyone has a Finish
2. Everyone has a Finish
7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
At some point, we become aware that this life we live now will one day finish. Our days on earth will come to a close. We will finish the race.
When this life is finished, we will stand before God and He will have one question, how did we finish?
Paul explained, when I finish my race, I want everyone to know that I have kept the faith.
What is faith?
It is simply believing in God and trusting Him to forgive us of our sins and to help us!
Here is the beauty of our finish. Remember, God is not as interested in our start, as He is our finish.
When our life on earth is over, will we have the faith in God that the love of His Son and the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross will be enough to forgive our sins?
When we do, we have hope for the future. When we finish this life on earth, we will start a new life that will last forever.
Close:
When I spoke to Rosemary on Saturday, I realized Ed would finish his race on earth very soon. I began to pray for Ed and his family.
On Sunday, my wife and I went to see Rosemary and her family. We listened to stories and shared some memories. Then Rosemary began to recount something Ed did before he finished his race on earth.
Rosemary prayed with Ed for his surgery, but asked him to do something. She asked Ed to pray and ask God to forgive him of his sins. After praying, she questioned Ed if he asked God for forgiveness. He answered yes.
At the time, no one knew his finish was impending. We all thought he would rebound like he had so many times. But God knew.
Rosemary’s greatest act of love for her husband was asking a simple question, will you ask God to forgive your sins.
Why is that so important?
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Something so simple, yet so profound changes everything.
When we say it’s not about how we start, but how we finish, we mean this:
God doesn’t care what we have done
It doesn’t matter the mistakes we made
He is not concerned about the sins we’ve committed.
God wants one thing from us: let Him help us finish strong. Keep the faith!
For Ed, he prayed that prayer about three days before his life on earth was finished.
But when it ended here, he started a new one there!
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.
Today, there are many good lessons we have learned and will learn from the life of Ed Kmiecik. But the one I want us to remember is, it’s not how we start, but how we finish.
And this afternoon, we can START OUR FINISH.
One day our life on earth will finish. And we can start now preparing for that day.
It is as simple as asking Jesus to forgive us of our sins. And from this day forward, as everyone starts a new life, we have hope that God will help us.
For Ed’s family, I believe God can help as each of you start a journey of navigating through the sadness of loss with the help of His grace.
And when we are finished on earth, let it be said of us, it didn’t matter how they started, but when it was finished, they were ready to see God.