Finishing the Course

My own heart, but I want it just as my own broken heart. I’m going to talk about me and about us, and Acts 7 is the context for that. You can turn now in your Bible. I’m going to lay some groundwork for you from the Scripture, and I’m going to end the message with some important personal insights.

This study in Acts has mattered to me. I have felt, on numerous occasions during this series, that we have reached out and touched some holy principles—principles of Christ’s church that are still alive and well, waiting to be rediscovered and used. We’ve talked about ministry to the Lord, ministry to the church, and ministry to the world.

Then, in the last message two Sundays ago, we spoke about the sacred calling of true deacons. A blood-bathed first principle of dedicated lay leadership. Every man and woman in God’s kingdom is a minister. That principle became very dramatic and unforgettable to us because it was personalized in the life of Stephen.

Frankly, I have felt several times during this series, as I did one gray December day in Rome, Italy, when Alfred Printer, our missionary, and I entered a seldom-viewed catacomb far off the beaten tourist trail. With just a lantern held in the hands of an aged monk, we journeyed down slanting, dank corridors where the early Christians had hurriedly buried their tortured dead. Some of the clay facings were partially broken, and the body remains, the skeletons, could be seen. Above all the graves were rudely scratched symbols: the anchor, the branch, the cup, and many of them had scrawled Latin inscriptions: “Died a victor,” “Jesus Christ Lord.”

Those corridors led to a small central hall where the believers gathered, worshiping and praising God as they buried their dead. In that moment, standing there, I felt continuity. I belonged. That was my family. I live in and by choice.

My lines, my fires may seem to be less obvious than theirs, but they’re no less real in their personal pressure on my life. My faith also has to be lived out in an omnipotent Lord who rules in spite of my blundering weaknesses, a Lord who is the victor. Some of you will think what I’m going to say now is obnoxious or sacrilege, but I tell you that I reached out and, several times, walking down those corridors, touched the bones of my Latin-speaking first-century brothers and sisters. I belonged. I was one.

Acts is like that to those who treasure it. It’s not just a history book, something to be pedantically read by many people. But for those who understand and treasure it, it’s like reaching out and grabbing hold of the nerve core of that vital church. Stephen is as real to me as the latest football hero is to most men in this culture.

I realize that the principle of apostolic priorities which had birthed Stephen and Philip out of the travail of a church division and problem, that sense of priorities is something Rick Howard has to learn. I see Stephen as a type of the man or woman wedded totally to take their moment of destiny, confident, studious, committed, ready.

In fact, Stephen’s testimony is like a brilliant comet or a nova. Short-lived but timeless, limited but brilliant, and we all have such a moment of destiny. There is such a moment of career for each of us. And if you believe at all in predestination and the election of almighty God, as my friend says, “God don’t make no junk.”

The God who has chosen and redeemed you has brought you into the kingdom for a unique and special moment. It may be infinitely long, it may be tremendously wrapped up in a day or two, as was Stephen’s life, but a person prepares for that moment. That’s what Paul meant when he declared to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day. And not to me only, but to all those who love his appearing.” The word Paul uses here for “course” is “I have finished my course.”

Dromos in Greek means a career or a race. The word “finished” here means I have filled it up; it’s been fulfilled. I have fulfilled my career; I finished my course. I’ve completed my race. What a concept. Friends, I have pages of notes, and I have enough of a racehorse spirit within me that I’d love to get on into Acts chapter 8.

But I believe I’ve been checked by the Holy Spirit at Acts 7. And there are some fundamental places of ministry the Holy Spirit has for us today. And I want to read, first of all, some portions of Stephen’s message. We kind of skipped over it in the first message on Stephen, and went immediately to the end of this section, but I want to read from Acts 7.

Will you stand with me, please, as we read from God’s Word? Acts chapter 7.

Stephen’s message begins in verse 2. “Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken. The God and Father of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said unto him, ‘Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.'”

“Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran, and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein you now dwell, and he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. Yet he promised that he would give it to him for possession, and to seek after him when as yet he had no child.”

“And God spoke on this wise that his seed should sojourn in a strange land and they should bring them into bondage and treat them evil. 400 years. Now this, no, the patriarchs removed with moved with envy soul, Joseph to Egypt, but God was with him and delivered him out of all the afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him governor.”

“Over Egypt and his house. Verse 17, In the time of the promise drew nigh, when God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied, till another king arose, which knew not Joseph, and dealt subtly with our kindred and evil, and treated our fathers so that they cast out their young children. To the end they might not live, at which time Moses was born.”

“And it was exceeding fair, and nourished up to his father’s house three months. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deed. And when he was full forty years, he came into his heart.”

“It came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. So far, skipping on down now to verse thirty. And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord and a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight, and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abram, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'”

“And Moses trembled and durst not behold. Then said the Lord to him, ‘Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground.’ May God add his blessing to his word. You may be seated. Remember, friends, this is the longest sermon as such that is recorded in the Bible. It is meant to be studied.”

“Here is a layman. The whole focus of the spirit focuses on what he is saying. Stephen saw some important things. He saw that God works progressively through transitions. He saw that the temple would pass away, that the law was but a stage toward the gospel, that Christianity ultimately would be a message to the whole wide world.”

“In fact, he had a world vision. Though his career was as short as it is, he was the first to see that Christianity was not the prerequisite of just the Jew. But that it was the offer of God’s salvation to all men of every culture, to the whole world. But above that, Stephen saw that God progressively revealed himself to mankind, and that only the observant and the ready man or woman would see the next step and would move.”

“In fact, were you to give careful study to this message, and I know some of you are doing that as we move through the Book of Acts, you’ll realize that Stephen here presented a rehearsal of the entire church history, or the history of God with his people, in five stages, the last of which was the stage in which he was living.”

“And he saw this! That if you were to really review the dramatic moments of history, you would see it as moments of change, as moments of transition, as moments of great, immense change in God’s revelation. And furthermore, Stephen saw that there was always one person who was typical of that, a man through whom God could give credence and substance and direction to the period of change and transition that was going on.”

Let’s quickly review it and see what he did and what he showed us here. In verses 2 through 8, he speaks about the 400-year period of God’s people from Chaldea, from Mesopotamia to Canaan, with the central figure being Abraham. In verses 9 through 19, he discusses the period of about 215 years from Canaan into Egypt, with Joseph as the central figure. Then, of course, in verses 20 through 43, he addresses the Egypt to Canaan period, with Moses as the central figure. In verses 44 through 50, the fourth transition from the tabernacle to the temple is covered, with Solomon as the central figure. His speech was cut short because the next logical step was to speak about Jesus, the greatest and most important transition—the period in which Stephen, the speaker, was living with the issues of God’s revelation. He was cut short in the midst of his speech.

Stephen saw certain truths emerging from this panorama of history. The first thing he saw, which is the focus of this morning’s discussion, was that the key figures in the history of Israel were always the ones who heard God’s command to venture into the new, forsaking the traditions that bound them, to see what God was doing in the present. These individuals possessed a sense of adventurous faith, and they entered into God’s new.

Stephen also observed that these individuals worshipped God, and it had nothing to do with temple rituals. Even the things God had commanded had become overly ritualistic and had lost their meaning for the people. The real essence of worship lay in worshipping God in spirit.

Additionally, Stephen noticed that, like religious people of all eras, these Jews had a built-in prejudice against the messengers who brought them God’s message. Upon hearing Stephen’s message, they gnashed their teeth, were deeply affected, cried out loudly, stopped their ears, ran upon him in unison, cast him out, and stoned him. This, Stephen referred to as the reaction to a message.

Stephen shared a favorite cartoon where people carried their minister out on their shoulders, celebrating him, while a bystander wondered about the content of his sermon. In Stephen’s case, there was no doubt about the sermon’s impact.

Stephen argued that in every God-directed change and transition, most religious people resisted the change, opposed the transition, and even persecuted the bearers of God’s revelation. In their most critical moments of destiny, most of God’s people were found lacking.

Stephen boldly declared, “You have received the revelation, but you haven’t kept it.” He reminded the congregation that their ancestors had persecuted and killed the prophets who foretold the coming of Christ. This was a paradox, as their entire lives revolved around the concept of the Messiah’s arrival.

Stephen noted that they talked, sang, and read about the coming kingdom, yet they were entirely unprepared and unready when he actually arrived. In fact, they were the betrayers and murderers of the righteous one when he came. Stephen questioned how people who studied the Scriptures, believing they contained the keys to eternal life, could miss the essence of the Revelation.

Stephen also drew a parallel to Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins, emphasizing the importance of being prepared for one’s destiny. It didn’t matter how one started or how impressively they performed in the beginning; what counted was finishing the race. Stephen highlighted the significance of being a finisher.

In conclusion, Stephen urged the audience to remember the question posed by Jesus: “Which one did the will of the Father?”

He’s talking about two sons. The father said to one of the sons, “I want you to do something.” The son said, “Yes, sir, Dad, right away, sir,” and didn’t do it. The other boy, when the father commanded him, said, “I don’t want to do it,” but he changed his mind and did it anyway. And Jesus said, “Hey, the point is, which one did it?”

That’s the issue. This is what they said to the father: Who did it? Who did the will of the Father? In fact, Jesus spoke about the cost of building a tower in Luke 14, and He said, “See whether you have enough to finish it.” Three times this summer, speakers totally unrelated to us or to each other, and I don’t know if you’ve heard this or not.

But three separate speakers have brought to us Matthew chapter 10, verse 22: “to the end shall be saved.” And the interesting phrase there, the word endure in the Greek is hypomeno. It means “he who stays under.” That’s the literal translation. “He who stays under, he who remains, he who bears up with courageous fortitude, he will be the delivered one.”

He will be the saved one. I want to set the stage for this finisher concept. This concept of being ready to run your career. This concept is real.

And when you come right down to it, there ain’t a whole lot in this club. And yet these are the people out of whom history is made, in reference to God’s purpose. Let me set that stage with another image. Last Sunday morning, I got up early, and though there was a communion service in the convention center.

Many of the people visited the local churches, and I had determined to do that. I always do it during the general council. And I traveled quite a distance out of St. Louis down one of the major freeways to a rapidly growing young church called People’s Church. About 900 people worship there in a town that couldn’t have too many more than that.

And it’s numbers, but I had gone specifically to hear a dark-skinned, handsome football coach speak, a young man who is like a son to me; he has been in our pulpit. Vinnie Doran is now the head football coach at Evangel College. In college, he was the most outstanding quarterback in the history of Louisiana Tech.

His record still stands, and that’s really something when you consider that his immediate predecessor was Terry Bradshaw. Vinnie Doran had walked into Coach George Allen’s office, uh, office in Washington and resigned what was one of the most phenomenal football contracts anyone could hope for with the Washington Redskins.

He had resigned that contract in order to become coach of a football team that didn’t exist. In this little college in the middle of Missouri, a college at which I was a faculty member for two years. I first met Denny when he was a footloose teenager during a horribly hot and dusty Louisiana youth camp.

There were thousands. At that camp, literally in the evening services, we all about 900 or so registered. It was one of those horrible experiences. And out of the hundreds who mingled about in that camp? Denny was a young man who responded to principles about Christian experience, and I had the privilege of pouring my life and my soul into him.

And over the years, I’ve continued, and I’ve watched Denny succeed better than I at living out some of the principles that I shared with him. Last Sunday, Denny grinned at the five or six hundred people that were there in the early nine o’clock service. And he spoke about the disastrous football season last year.

It was ten and one, as you didn’t hear. In fact, Denny said, “We are the only team in football history that ran onto the field enthusiastically singing ‘Victory in Jesus’ and came off singing ‘We Surrendered All.'”

But then Benny spoke about some changes in his own perception and some things that were happening in his team. And he made one statement that lit up for me. He said, “We have decided to become a great fourth-quarter football team.” And he added, “If football only had two quarters, we’d have won two-thirds of our games.”

What a revelation!

The brilliant sprinters of the first quarter. My mind goes back to friends I have seen here in ten years, who when they took off from the starting line, at the sound of the gun, one would have thought the rest of the church could have retired. For they looked so outstanding, so promising, so bright. In those first moments, I have seen many brilliant football teams in the first half, but games aren’t won in the first half.

Denny read this very passage; I suggest you turn with me to it—2 Timothy chapter 4. It’s the passage I’ve already quoted to you, verses 7 and 8, but I think it would be good for you to see it. “I have finished, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my career, my course. I have kept the faith. And henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.”

Then he went on to say, “We began researching, what makes a fourth-quarter victory in a football team? What makes a fourth-quarter team?” And he said, “We came to find out there are only three elements that are imperative: conditioning, concentration, and commitment. A team or a church or an individual Christian can look very impressive in the first quarter.

But to win the game in the fourth quarter demands being in shape, and there’s a price that you pay for conditioning.” One of the things I have said to you about the Stephen experience and about the whole passage from Acts is that so many Christians have the idea that when God calls them, when the moment comes, somehow magically the qualities, characteristics, and strength are going to come from God to do that work. My experience is that the character is built into the person, and when the call of God comes, they are ready. I eventually embodied the great Green Bay Packer coach whose life I have long been fascinated by. In the early years of my ministry, I used to have about as many Vince Lombardi slogans around as most football coaches.

Lombardi used to say, “The pig makes a coward of us all.” And then he would say, “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” One reason most Christians have such a laissez-faire attitude— if it works, fine; if it doesn’t, I’ll go somewhere else, blah—is that they have no investment in it.

It’s when you’ve poured your guts out that it’s hard to surrender. Finishers are people who are ready when the career comes. They’re ready when the door opens. It may be a brilliant flash, as in Stephen’s case, on the stage for two days and buried the next, but they’re ready. And finishers are always the people who have paid the price for conditioning. I want to tell you something about conditioning: Conditioning is a lonely, often seemingly useless, rigorous experience. There’s no grandstand in conditioning. It might be neat if there were, I mean, some of us would do better at the health studio if there were pom-pom girls saying, “One more! One more! Hurrah!” You know. Or if every time you pushed up an additional weight, a whole grandstand came up. “Yay, Rick!” You know. Some of us would do better at Dennis Nelson’s if we had that kind of a club. It’s not the way it works. Conditioning goes on, um, no grandstand, often no knowledge of whether it will ever be used or not.

But in that arena of conditioning is where the fourth-quarter victors are made. And that’s exactly what Stephen is saying. Then he had just come from the preseason training camp, and I know him to be a man of sparse words and to be very accurate about what he says. And then he said it was the most exhaustive camp, the most exhaustive training session he had ever participated in all of his years in sports.

In fact, he said one of the things they did was to line the entire team up on the goal line and blow the whistle, and have them run the full 100 yards at full speed to the other goal. They would blow the whistle and have them run back again. And he spoke of how, when they first began, how keyed up and enthusiastic the team was, and when they blew the whistle, how they sprinted off. When they got to the end, they blew the whistle again, and they raced back, and they blew the whistle again, and they raced back, and again, and again, and again.

In fact, he said facetiously, “They got so tired of the whistle, I don’t think those guys will ever let their kids even own a whistle.”

But as they went back again and again and again, the faces of the men became ashen and brown, and every muscle was screaming. And then he said he had already made up his mind, this was the last time, judge, he was going to ask. He blew the whistle again, and they started back down the field, and he said he was watching one young man, the son of an Assemblies of God minister, so exhausted, so torn in physical exertion, that he began to vomit.

And then he said, he had the whistle to his mouth, ready to blow it and say, “That’s enough,” when he said, out of that young man’s… Now, between his teeth came a roar. And he said, “Roar!” And he began to sprint, as though it was the first hundred yards. And then he said, when that young man took off sprinting, the rest of the team followed him, though they were at the end. And they sprinted their final 80 yards across the red line. And then he said, rather than doing what normally would happen, where everybody just falling out, knowing that particular exercise was over, something happened which he said he had never seen in all of his career before.

They began to cheer and scream, and they began to pound each other on the back. One very large, rotund front linebacker, who was still struggling to get over the 50-yard line, suddenly, the whole team of guys who had already gone across went back to the 50-yard line and ran the last 50 yards with this rather rotund guy, cheering him on.

Together, they crossed the yard line. Their objective made the price of conditioning worthwhile, and paying the price of conditioning brought them infinite satisfaction and joy.

This charismatic movement wants the joy and satisfaction without the price of conditioning, while another group of us on the legalistic side want to talk about the conditioning without understanding the objective. Prayer is an easy, daily place for the Word of God. That means discipline. Holiness and separation in your life are crippling to your lifestyle.

But these are the only ways you condition your spirit, and the fourth quarter will not be won because you’re wearing a pretty uniform or you have an exciting cheer. In fact, I don’t believe the fourth quarter is as much about heart as it is about guts. It isn’t about prima donnas; it’s about preparation. Normally, I’m a finisher. In fact, I usually get my second wind when the battle heats up. But I’m weirder, I think, than I’ve ever been in my life.

Ten years in Redwood City, the last six of which have been doubled with teaching at the college and ICI and all the other things thrown in, have gotten me to the place where I am definitely ready to be benched. I keep thinking that the coach surely has some fresh, young recruit with vim and vigor to wrap up this game. And I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Some of you are like me. I needed to hear Black Sunday’s message. I needed to go back into Stephen’s message and understand what he was saying about the man of God who’s ready. In fact, for a week now, I’ve had a chorus in my heart. Some of you have never heard it. It’s as old as I am, getting older. “Keep me true, Lord Jesus. Keep me true. There’s a race that I must run. There are victories to be won. Give me power every hour to be true.”

Don’t get me wrong; I think there’s a time to pull out the veteran and let him rest. After all, there’s a bench full of eager rookies, in most cases, who have never gotten their uniform dirty. And I’ve already fielded several teams that God has used me to raise up. So I think maybe coasting into glory at some point might be acceptable. After all, even thoroughbreds get sent to pasture. Maybe it’s time for me to watch the action from the sideline. Perhaps God has a nice job for me as a commentator so I can make comments about other people’s grinding ordeal.

Monday morning quarterbacks are always so smug. Those on the bench never have their uniforms sewn, and they take such pretty pictures. Former quarterbacks always sound so knowledgeable when they’re commentators. Well, that’s probably wishful thinking. If God is saying anything to me, it’s in the image of that young avanzo player whose whole body is screaming, “Stop!” But who suddenly finds the fortitude to sprint to the finish line. In fact, if you hear a roar around here, it isn’t an escapee from African USA. It’s Richard the Lionheart who’s testing his lungs and trying to get up for the fourth quarter.

Forgive me. Now listen. If Stephen saw history, it was made by a certain kind of man, finishers, fourth-quarter persons, men and women who are ready in life for the challenge of any moment. I’d like you to look at this passage with me, just quickly. I’m not going to try to explain it this morning.

But there are characteristics that are shared with you and me. First is Stephen himself; look at chapter 6. The Holy Spirit says about Stephen, there were five qualities in his life. First, in verse 3 of chapter 6, he had an honest report. He was full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, which is God-ordained common sense. In verse 5, he was a man full of faith. In verse 8, he was full of what King James says is faith, but the better translation there is the word grace and power. Look at the character: grace, power, faith, wisdom, honest integrity in character and report. Five characteristics built into his life in the conditioning process, if you will.

Then take those five characteristics and see how they were all imperative in his moment of trial. How could he stand in front of men gnashing their teeth at him? Because there was wisdom and faith, good integrity, full character and rapport, and yet grace, so that when they saw his face, it was as though it were the face of an angel.

When Stephen goes on to speak about Abraham in verses 2 through 8, he sees three qualities. One, Abraham was the man who was always willing to answer the summons to get out, to leave where he was, to step out into the uncertain. He was a man with an adventurous spirit. Secondly, Stephen saw that he was a man of faith.

He believed that under the worst conditions, whatever God said would happen. And even when birth seemed impossible, he believed in the Son. He was a man of hope, Stephen said. In fact, it’s Stephen who says he never got a square foot in his lifetime of what God promised. I might add a parenthesis.

He really did. He bought a piece of land. It’s where he buried his wife. That’s the only part of the promise he ever saw. But Stephen said he had full hope, believing that what God had said was going to be his possession. In fact, for Stephen, the man of God was the man who obeyed God’s command, even when he had no idea what the consequences would be in his life. That’s the spirit of a finisher. I may interrupt days without saying what’s the conditions. This is not true of one single staff member we’ve ever hired, but I will share that the experience of most of my minister friends is that young men and women choosing ministerial careers come first with the questions, How many days off are there? What are the fringe benefits? What’s the salary? How many weeks of vacation? The furniture is the man who by spirit has heard the call to obey the command, without regard to the consequences. The name of God lives an adventurous life, always ready to answer the call. And then he goes on to talk about Joseph.

And what does he see about Joseph? That Joseph was a man of such character who was able to say when they had done the worst to him. And his brothers finally finding out, “Oh no! Joseph’s now coming to this position of power! What’s he going to do to us?” And Joseph could say, “As for you, you meant evil against me.”

Oh God!

The man who finishes is the man who has this ultimate faith in the long view of things. I tell you, history isn’t written by contemporaries. And this crowd of people who want to analyze the way the dust is made in the moment of an event are just foolish. Joseph had enough sense to understand whether it was being enslaved in a prison, whether it was being misunderstood because he had taken a stand for character even by people who loved him.

He understood that the long view was the thing. The two characteristics, by the way, that Stephen sees in Joseph as a finisher, are grace and wisdom. Two characteristics that were most present in Stephen’s own life. Grace here is a word we’d better describe as charm. Not only physical beauty but the kind of character that all men are attracted to.

And wisdom here is that very understanding of being able to have a long view, not short-sighted persons. When he comes to Moses, he sees Moses as a man who had the literal kingdom before him. He was beautiful and brilliant. He had the very crown of Pharaoh upon his head. But he saw something of greater value. And he was decisive. He evaluated. The great man is not the man who, like the Jews, is tied to the past and jealous of privilege, but is a man who is ready to answer the summons to the one, to God’s eternal name. We’ll run down these characteristics in Stephen, in Abram, in Moses, and in Joseph. They are conditioning characteristics.

I believe with all of my heart that some people spend forty years conditioning for six months of a career or, instead, an entire lifetime of conditioning for moments of a career, but they’re brilliant and they finish the course. William Barklay in the Daily Study Bible says the whole lesson of history is that the man who follows Christ the whole way will find strength to do things which seem humanly impossible to do. Again, the whole lesson of history is that the man who follows Christ the whole way will find strength to do things which seem humanly impossible to do. The thing that most of us have lost is the objective.

Most Christians, in the transitions of the church, in transitions, they get so turned around that they’ve forgotten where this is all going. They still remember to do the spiritual push-ups, backbends, and pull-ups, but they’ve forgotten why!

The objective is gone. Conditioning never makes sense as an end in itself. It’s still the objective. Paul says in Romans 8, “We are predestined, We are predestined to be confused,” of his son.

Do you hear that? In this church, like every other group of religious people, there are more of the slayers and persecutors, if it came right down to the issue, than there are the finishers. We are generally crowd followers. We are good standards. We are more comfortable cheering and criticizing than running and calling, but we are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son.

That’s the only thing that makes sense out of the conditioning, the price. That’s the only thing that…

Here’s my life: king, victorious general, friend of men, leader of men, lover of women.

But David said, “this one thing I desire, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord.” Paul said, “This one thing I do, forgetting all that is in the past, reaching for that which is before, I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

I think the only Christian that I really feel sorry for is the Christian who hasn’t got that strength. Who’s in the Dennis Nelson experience without knowing where it’s going. Who’s being told to pray and read the Bible and live holy lives. But I am understanding that there’s a career, a course, a race, and a fourth quarter.

I understood something that he was saying. I wasn’t surprised by knowing who he is and what he had done with his team. After they had finished the grueling conditioning, they could cheer!

It didn’t surprise me because this reward in conditioning and price paying, when the objective is clear and unfogged, and discernible, and the goal is notable.

And that objective is to be God’s man in God’s place at God’s time. It may be to be benched. It may be to be sent out when everything’s so messed up that all you can do is look bad.

But whatever it is, it’s to be ready for that moment. I believe the church says, “All right, Howard. Patch you in the free and send you out, but you’re ready.”

And somewhere at the end of it all, you grab ahold of Paul’s hand in eternity, and you say, “Hey, we’re not the only finishers. I have kept the faith. I have finished my course. I have won my race. I conditioned myself to be ready for the fourth quarter. I want before God this people to be a fourth quarter people.

I’m really not excited about the world’s standards of growth or success. Okay.

But I am vitally concerned that there be at least a nucleus of people in this framework who know the objective, who pay the price of conditioning, and like Stephen, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Solomon, and Jesus, when their moment comes and the tap is on the shoulder, “Get in the game.” They’re ready. That’s what I want for you. Let’s pray together. Father, we are so taken with Babus.

And I’m so excited by things that bring no satisfaction.

That it is really hard for us, Father, to see eternity and to live with eternal values in view. And we confess that to you, Father. The world is too much with us.

But thank you for Stephen. He’s like a great magnifying glass that you’ve given us, Holy Spirit, who focuses for us the objective of being ready for that moment to which you have ordained us. Oh God, some of us are just in the conditioning process. And we’re tired of the pull-ups and the push-ups and the work and the running.

And our bodies scream and stop.

But we want to finish. Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters in this regard.

In Jesus’ name. Would you stand with me, friends?

The Apostle Paul – We love to meet him in the field of athletics for his illustrations.

And I think the most stern section of scripture, to me personally, is 1 Corinthians 9. Paul races to the Isthmian games in his mind. Those games, young Greek boys spent their lifetime preparing for a brief moment in the arena, a chance.

And using that imagery, he said, “They do that for a crown of laurel leaves?” He said, “Listen, I’m not shadow boxing.” And then in the original language, he does something incredible. He says, “I turn the boxing gloves in on my body and I beat my eyes out.” The word is, “I buffet myself.”

I bring my body into subjection. Lest, having preached to others, I myself become, but do not so, disqualified.

Oh, sir, man, how wrong you are. How totally insane it is for you to sit in a place like this and apply this message to somebody else. Yes.

Well, that’s for Phil and so on. That’s for this one, and that’s for that one, and now it isn’t. It’s for you. And

God’s just asking for the quality to be there, the commitment to be there. I believe in commitment, buddy. You can laugh about altercations and say, “How much does that mean?” And after they get up, no, it’s not true. Well, it is true for some people. Respond to every altercation, but there is a moment beyond recall in all of our lives when the bottom line is reached, and the line is drawn.

And we sign our life to the contract. It can happen in a pew, it can happen in a front, it can happen in a probe, but it’s irretrievable and irrevocable.

It’s the moment at which we’ve decided what the priority is and where we’re going. Now there’s a probe here to my left, we have that for a special reason, because we think you need a place where there’s not a lot of noise and stuff going on, and if you… You are a Christian, you want to receive communion, there’s communion there, the elders will serve it to you.

But, beyond that, if you’re dealing with some of this stuff, don’t follow the crowd! If God’s bringing conviction, if God’s bringing commitment… Get alone to a place like that. Make it your own personal arena of change and commitment. Let’s pray. Thank you for today, Father. Your word, your spirit, your faithfulness, your longsuffering, your mercy, your grace.

Help us to be ready. For the moment you tell us. Get in the game.

How, Lord, may we be finished. Fourth quarter Christians. Vectors.

Be with us this afternoon and again as we gather in your house tonight. In Jesus’ name. Amen. God bless you. You are dismissed.