Hebrews 3:12-13
Finishing Well
The writer of this book was concerned that some of his readers were
not going to finish at all for Christ. You see it not only here, but
throughout this book. \\#Hebrews 2:1, 3, 12:15\\
Heb 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in
any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in
departing from the living God.
Understand that if Christians do not finish well, it will not be
Christ who fails His people, but His people who fail Christ. God
offers to us all that is necessary for us to not only finish but to
finish well. We must simply reach out and take it.
I was called to preach 45 1/2 years ago have now been your pastor for
35 years. In that time, I have seen some who walked away and some who
fell away from Christ. Whether it was their own doing or whether
there were forces exerted on them to do so, they went back into the
world and are now as though that were never His.
I for one want to make it. I want to finish my race, my ministry, and
my life as right with Christ as I can. I hope you do as well. The
question for this morning is, "How do we do that? Three thoughts:
I. We must realize there is a course to run.
A. Every Christian must realize that he is here for something
greater than his own good, his own desires, and his own goals.
1. God calls upon Christians to put Him first in all things.
2. This was spirit John the Baptist had.
John 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
3. This was the way Paul the Apostle lived.
Acts 20:24…neither count I my life dear unto
myself, so that I might finish my course .
4. This is the way it is to be with us.
a. Years ago, I read of the true story of a missionary
doctor who came out of the jungle to marry his
beloved. While the wedding ceremony was being
conducted, a runner came asking for the missionary
doctor’s help. The finished a shorten wedding and the
doctor left, not returning for months to his new
bride.
b. All Christians have been called to serve.
c. Each must simply decide to do so.
B. To finish our race, we will have to grow in some areas. I
will only mention three:
1. Spiritual Discernment
Phi 1:9 And this I pray, that your love may
abound yet more and more in knowledge and in
all judgment;
10 That ye may approve things that are
excellent; that ye may be sincere and without
offence till the day of Christ;
a. The Bible speaks in several places about the race we
Christians are called to run:
\\#1Cor 9:24, Heb 12:1\\.
b. But it will do no good to show you those verses unless
you can understand there are ways better than this
world offer.
c. That is what spiritual discernment does. Discernment
helps us to…
(1) "abound more and more in spiritual knowledge"
(2) "abound more and more in spiritual judgment,"
that means to make better and better decisions.
(3) So that we can choose the excellent things.
d. Many Christians feel about their spiritual course the
same that the unsaved feel about salvation.
(1) They just don’t get it.
(2) Most lost people think salvation is okay for you
but it is no big deal to them.
(3) That is exactly how many Christians look at
running God’s race, which is just another way of
saying, living for Jesus.
(a) They just do not get it.
(b) They think it is alright for us preacher
types but it is no big deal for them.
(4) Friend, like the lost will wake up at the Great
White Throne and understand salvation was for
everyone, so many Christians will wake up at the
Bema Seat to learn that every Christian had a
race God wanted them to run.
e. Spiritual discernment is the ability to know today
what we will know at the judgment.
f. If we are going to finish well, we are going to need
to grow in spiritual discernment.
2. Worship
a. You should be a little surprised by that one.
(1) Most people think worship is a choice for Sunday
only.
(a) Church is at 11.
(b) If you miss it, you missed worship for the
day.
(2) It is not.
b. Worship is enjoying the presence of God and being
strengthened by it. Please get both halves of that
statement.
(1) Worship is enjoying the presence of God.
(2) Worship strengthens us to serve God.
c. How important is it that Christians enter joyfully
into God’s presence?
(1) It is so important that all the commands of the
Bible are intended to bring us to it.
(2) All of the commands, and there are many.
(a) The command to pray…
(b) to study the Bible…
(c) to give…
(d) to forgive…
(e) to live holy…
(f) to praise…
(g) to love…
(h) to help…
(i) to witness…
(j) to assemble.
(3) Worship is the end of them all. It is the goal,
the end of all of those means.
(4) How does keeping God’s commands get us to
worship?
(a) Obeying each of those commands requires us
to surrender a little bit more of
ourselves.
(b) We cannot worship God unless we surrender.
(c) So as we come to each of those commands and
surrender to it, our ability to worship God
get better and better.
(5) Now there is another way—a better way.
(a) Instead of having to find, understand, and
surrender to each command God gave, we can
just completely surrender to God right now
and settle it.
(b) Then no matter what command we find in the
Bible or feel like God wants us to do, we
have already settled the issue.
(c) That kind of surrender gives the Christian
complete access to God, and he will find
his worship is glorious.
d. Now we need to go back to the second part of the
statement I made earlier.
(1) Worship is enjoying the presence of God and being
strengthened by it..
(2) Worship strengthens us so that we can finish our
race!
(a) Worship charges our spirits with joy, peace,
power, encouragement, and satisfaction.
(b) You say, "I’ve never experience that!"
(c) It is because you are not worshipping!
i. My biggest danger is that I get so
wrapped up in preaching and teaching
the Word of God that I fail to
worship.
ii. Sitting inside a church is no more
worshipping than sitting inside a
doctor’s office is getting a cure for
a disease.
iii. Those kinds of things may happen at a
doctor’s office, but it takes more
than just going for it to happen.
(3) Worship gives us many things but note these
three:
(a) Worship is our pleasure. It may take some
discipline to get into worship, but it
should become a joy to be with God.
(b) Worship is our reward. It is God meeting
with us because we have surrendered to
Him.
(c) Worship charges our spirits. It gives us the
strength and ability to continue our race.
e. If we never learn the blessedness of worship, then we
will not receive any positive reinforcements needed
to complete our race!
3. Training
a. There are two courses of study for the Christian.
(1) There are some "how"s to be learned.
(a) how to pray
(b) how to use faith
(c) how to soul win
(d) how to study
(e) how to build strong marriages
(f) how to rear children
(2) But the real training is learning the "be"s.
(a) to BE dependent
(b) to BE faithful
(c) to BE humble
(d) to BE a servant
(e) to BE kind
b. As the commands of God are the means to bring us to
place of surrender, so the "how "s are the means
to make us into the ""to be"s.
c. Some will never learn the "how"s or the "be"s.
(1) They will not finish the race.
(2) They probably won’t ever even know there is a
race.
d. Some learn the "how"s but never learn to "be"s.
(1) They may finish but they will not finish well.
(2) They will bog down in rules and duties and
obligations, always doing the work but never
enjoying the ride.
II. We must realize there is service to perform.
A. If I have said it once, I have said a thousand times, WE WERE
CREATED FOR A PURPOSE.
1. God did not create mistakes, failures, extras, fill-ins,
temps, part-timers, or “used-to-be”s.
a. There is no exemption from the service of God or
retirement out of it.
b. It does matter whether you are pastor a construction
worker, a missionary or Christian doctor, a Christian
secretary or housewife.
2. There is simply too much to be done and the time is
slipping away.
a. Lost souls need to be told about Jesus.
b. Saved souls need to be taught, grown, and encouraged
in Jesus.
c. And in the midst of all of that, hurting souls need to
be helped.
B. Facts about our world:
1. 3.14 billion people have never even heard the name Jesus.
(That’s almost half the population.)
2. 70% of the world’s evangelical Christians are never told
about the 3.14 billion.
3. 70,000 people die every day without Jesus. (That is 48.6
people every minute.)
https://bethanygu.edu/blog/guidance/7-missions-statistics-that-will-
motivate-you-to-go/
4. In North America, 20% of non-Christians do not even KNOW a
Christian.
5. World-wide, 80% of non-Christians do not even know a
Christian.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/august-web-only/non-
christians-who-dont-know-christians.html
6. In the United States, 44% have no idea where they will go
when they die. (That number includes Christians who
should have said "Heaven," atheists who should have said
"Nowhere," and the unsaved who should have said, "Hell."
American Worldview Inventory, Arizona Christian University & Barna,
2020
7. A person attending EVERY service in an evangelical church
for 2 months STRAIGHT, would have less than a 10% chance
of even hearing the words "hell" or "redemption."
The Digital Pulpit: A Nationwide Analysis of Online Sermons, Pew
Research Center, 2019
8. More than 20% of Evangelicals are not sure that heaven
is a real place.
Baylor Religion Surveys, Baylor University, 2011
9. 57% of regular churchgoers say they have never had a
religious experience that changed their life.
General Social Survey, 2010
10. Only 8% of regular church attenders believe that sharing
their faith is “very important.”
What America Really Believes, Baylor Religion Surveys, Baylor
University, 2007.
11. Almost 50% of Christians think that most non-Christians
have no interest in hearing about Jesus, but…
Spiritual Conversations in the Digital Age, Barna Group, 2018
12. 78% of the unchurched said they would listen to someone
who shared what they believed about Christianity.
LifeWay Research
https://www.rotw.com/this-weeks-shocking-stat?mwm_id=313625897994
&gclid=Cj0KCQiAmfmABhCHARIsACwPRABGv5tBo4dnizuDUi6a2Eb-ec3rSb5xlS
CDaRYack0O4Bnim9vb27oaAmgsEALw_wcB
C. Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning.
1. Christians have two:
a. Our heavenly reason is Jesus.
b. Our earthly reason is others.
2. OTHERS, LORD, YES OTHERS,
LET THIS MY MOTTO BE,
HELP ME TO LIVE FOR OTHERS
THAT I MAY LIVE LIKE THEE.
D. If we are going to finish well, we must realize that we have a
service to perform and give ourselves to it.
III. We must realize there is a testimony to preserve.
A. One of the greatest sins today is the sin of ruining our
testimonies.
B. It takes a whole life to make a reputation, but only a moment
to destroy it.
C. If you have ever been hurt, broken, bruised, or crushed, by a
Christian who soiled the mantle of Christ passed to them,
then you know what it would do to others if you did the same.
1. The fact that you may have…
a. walked further with Christ…
b. served longer than others…
c. been more visible than most…
2. …only means that the hurt you cause to the cause of
Christ would be more severe than others.
3. When you soil the mantle of the Lord, you build a wall
for the lost and lay a stumbling block for the saved.
D. When the devil comes knocking at your door, remember these
four truths:
1. In the day you ruin your testimony, you will make it
easier for other Christians to do so too. (You will
become someone’s stumbling block.)
Romans 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one
another any more: but judge this rather, that no
man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall
in his brother’s way.
2. In the day you ruin your testimony, you will dim the
light of salvation to a lost world.
3. In the day you ruin your testimony, you hurt your children
and grandchildren.
a. If your children are lost, you just put up another
roadblock to their salvation.
b. If you are children are saved, you just set a
stumbling block in their path.
4. In the day you ruin your testimony, you bring judgment to
yourself.
We are looking at the end time clock and wondering when Jesus will
return—as ever generation of Christians should. But it really does
not matter. It does not matter if Jesus comes in our lifetimes, if
America rises or falls, or if a sickness sends civilization back to
the Dark Ages. Those things will just influence the course we run.
What matters is that we will finish the course.
With 45 years in the ministry and 35 years as your pastor, I have
desire to make it. I believe we all can. Will you?
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