If we want to live well and finish well, we must keep the finish line in mind at all times.
Chadron Bible Church Podcast
Keeping the Finish Line in Mind - Selected Scriptures (The Journey of Life)
(soft music) - Welcome to Shadron Burian Church, where we wanna have deep roots in Christ and in God's Word so that we will bear fruit for God. Helping others to follow Jesus as well. Find us at Shadron Burian.org or on other platforms under Shadron Burian. Thanks for joining us. (soft music) (soft music) So I wanna get started this morning on the message with a quote from Tim Bulky. Some of you guys don't know this, but if you're new or you're visiting this morning, we've been looking at the journey of life this year, this summer, and this is our final message on the journey of life, and we're looking at finishing well. But I've been quoting Tim Bulky a lot too, because he's one of the pastors in the Burian Fellowship, but he talks a lot about this in his books, but he says, what marks the people in your life who seem to run this race well? What are the people who live life with a sense of rhythm, balance, and purpose have in common? When you think of those who are having a deep impact on others over the long haul, what comes to mind? When I think of what it takes to finish, I think about the classic middle school track meet that often happens like it did in every one of my track meets in middle school, a group of teenage boys approach the start line, adrenaline is pumping, people are watching, the boys are ready to impress the crowd. The gun fires and the race begins. They only have a few goals at the beginning, start strong, run fast, and impress somebody. After half a lap, the vast majority of those who burst out of the gate at full speed are now starting to suck wind. And he says in parentheses, that would be me in my brief track career. Early youthful energy always helped me to start, yet start fast yet fade halfway through the race. At the three quarter lap mark, they start to fall behind, and those with the most passion and discipline to run the race properly start to take the lead. And the ones who pull ahead at the three quarter lap mark are the ones who have truly thought about the end result. So life is a journey, it's not a destination, right? But there is a destination. There is a finish line coming for every single one of us. And if we wanna live well and we wanna finish well, we need to keep that finish line in mind at all times. If you wanna live well and finish well, you have to keep the finish line in mind. And we're gonna look at eight positive effects of keeping the finish line in mind today. So eight positive effects, that's a lot of effects. So you might wanna strap your seat belts on as we flip to different verses and scripture. You might wanna rub your fingers together and sort of get them warmed up to turn pages. 'Cause we're gonna look at a lot, but it's been my prayer that God would just sort of point out one or two things that you need for your journey. We are all at different points in our journey. And I know that not all of these points are gonna necessarily land like they should, but I'm just praying that God would just pick one or two things maybe to encourage you where you are at today. All right, so you're ready? Let's turn to Acts chapter 20 verse 24 to begin. Acts chapter 20 verses 24, verse 24. Okay, we're gonna see how keeping the finish line in mind gives us purpose. That's the first positive effect. Keeping the finish in mind gives us purpose. Some you need to think about, right? Go through life without a finish line in mind. They don't think about the end and they leave behind them in their wake, a mediocre life, maybe a life where they've lived for the here and now and they did not live for the things that mattered. So the finish line, keeping the finish line in mind is incredibly important as Paul says here in this emotionally charged verse. Remember, Paul, when he says what he says here, he is getting ready to give his life, right? He thinks that from here he's meeting with the Ephesian elders and he thinks that he's on his way to Jerusalem where he is gonna give his life. Now he's not gonna, God's gonna extend his life a couple few more years and he's gonna go to Rome and he's gonna get released and then go back to Rome. So he's got a lot of time ahead of him but he is under the impression that when he arrives in Jerusalem in the next week or so, probably he could give his life for Jesus and this is what he says, "Take this with the weight of last words." He says, "I do not consider my life of any account "as dear to myself so that I may finish my course "and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus "to testify solemnly to the gospel of the grace of God." So here is a man who has these, basically these could be considered some last words. He's not gonna see these Ephesians. Again, he's got tears probably rolling down his face as they meet together and this is what he says. This is his secret to finishing well. He said, "I made it my only aim to finish the race "and complete the task Jesus gave me." That was my aim, that was my goal in life. What was Paul's secret? How did he finish well? He kept the finish line in mind at all times. He knew what God called him to do and he was bent on doing it. I mean, he didn't let that ever leave the bull's eye. He didn't let himself get distracted with other things, even other good things. It's worth pointing out. You know, one of the, I've said this before, but one of the saddest verses in scripture, I think is 2 Timothy 4, 10, where Paul says, you know, Demas, having loved this present world has gone to Thessalonica. He talks about this friend, this co-worker, and the Lord, Demas, who loved Jesus, who traveled with Paul, who was in on the mission, because of a love for the world, dropped out of the race. He quit running the race. God, that to me is a painful verse to read every time because I know that same thing can happen to me. I know what it's like to get caught up in life with all of the distractions and just all of the decisions that we can make in life, all the different directions we can go. Sometimes I don't know about you, but the needle on my compass starts to spin and I just get disoriented and I forget that fundamental aim right there to finish the task, to make disciples. You cannot let that leave its, you gotta keep that at the center of the bullseye at all times if you wanna live well, even if you wanna die well. I shared an illustration a few weeks ago about those racing dogs, greyhounds, I think they usually are and they race around the track. Well, they chase on a mechanical rabbit. Have you ever watched that? It's kinda funny, there's a mechanical rabbit and they chase it around the track and it's kinda like the carrot in front of the nose type of thing, they'll never catch it, but one day the rabbit just broke and it stopped moving. Well, what did the dogs do? The dogs quit moving. If you're kinda feeling a little disoriented, a little stuck, not sure what to do, remember the goal, remember the goal, remember the aim, bring it back to what is most important and that is make in disciples. I think keeping the finish line in mind helps us prioritize, it helps us make wise day to day decisions. We're not just living for the here now, we're living for eternity and that day we meet with Jesus. So secondly, keeping the finish line in mind gives us perspective. Second Corinthians, 4, 16 and 17. Second Corinthians, 4, if you wanna turn there with me, see if I can find it myself. Now I get lost in all my tabs over here. Keeping the finish in mind gives us perspective. He says in verse 16, "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, though these bodies are breaking down yet, our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison." Well, we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal. And so when Paul's comparing the hardships, the afflictions, the difficulties of this life with eternal glory, he actually considers them light affliction. I don't know about you, but when I'm sitting in the doctor's office and I'm waiting on the diagnosis, I do not consider it light affliction. I consider it a big, deep, dark, heavy cloud that wants to drag me down, you know? Like you go through things in life, they don't feel like that. But perspective, think about it, from if you drew a line from that wall to the other wall, or to the other wall, and you just had a line that represented eternity, that line went on forever in both directions, what would your life look like on that line? Just a little dash. This life, and compared with eternity, Paul says like nothing can be compared, anything we go through in this life, it just doesn't even compare with the eternal glory that we're gonna experience. For those who have trusted in Jesus Christ. So in a very real way, I think, guys, this is... This is my own words, my own thoughts, but you know, we really can live larger than life in our difficulties. We don't have to let some of the things that we go through in this life just drag us down, and beat us down. You can live above your circumstances a little bit. You don't have to let your circumstances dominate your attitude. Think about eternity. Live for what's eternal. The things that we go through in this life, the difficulties that we go through in this life, they wanna put a lid on our faith, on our joy, on our hope. They wanna pop the balloon of hope in our lives, don't they? And we don't have to let them. Keeping the finish line gives us that perspective that, man, there is gonna be a massive celebration when Jesus returns. What difference does it make in your trial today to know that Jesus Christ is coming back? Makes a world a difference, doesn't it? Unbelievable difference. There's gonna be great celebration. There's gonna be rest from these trials and troubles that we're facing. But secondly, we know that God's actually working in them and through them. So, God doesn't work in spite of our circumstances. He works in them and through them, not just in spite of them. He uses them for ministry and for growing us in Christ. God wants us to cash in on our difficulties. You ever think about that? The junk that we go through, cash in on it. Learn from it and then let God redeem it and use it for ministry to other people. Our greatest ministry, ladies and gentlemen, comes through our pain, comes through our greatest hurts. And you gotta let God redeem it. Let him use it. Pain is inevitable in this life, misery is not. You don't have to stay miserable. Let the Spirit of God use it in your life. Trust him with it. You have eternal glory waiting for you. Don't let it crush your attitude this morning. Thirdly, the finish line gives us prudence. I know it's not the most popular word these days, but it fit my P word thing I got going on here. Keeping the finish line helps us, gives us prudence is what I meant to say. Or it gives us wisdom. It's another word for prudence. Psalm 90 verse 12, if you wanna turn there. There goes a note paper out of my Bible, but Psalm 90 verse 12. Again, oldest Psalm in the Psalms, Moses wrote this Psalm. And here's what he said, he said, teach us to number our days so that we might present to you a heart of wisdom. So there's wisdom in thinking about the finish line, thinking about our life from start to finish. You know, Moses in this context is thinking about all of those Israelites in the wilderness who rebelled against God. You know, Moses watched a lot of them be born and he watched a lot of them die. The generation that went out in the wilderness, they all perished in the wilderness 'cause they rebelled against God. And so what he's saying here is, you need to understand like you're gonna perish too. You're going to die if the Lord terries. And so he's saying in this context to live with the Lord in mind. You're gonna meet the Lord. You're gonna come face to face with him. You need to fear the Lord. You need to live with him in mind 'cause you're gonna meet him. Moses saw a lot of people live poorly in the wilderness. They did not submit their lives to God. And so living well requires thinking about the brevity of life. The finish line is coming. What does James say? Your life is like what? To what should we compare your life to a vapor? A smoke that appears for a little while and it's gone. It's like the mist on your coffee mug. It's here and it's gone the next day. Any time the Bible talks about our lives like as far as the span, it's very short and brief. Like grass that comes up in the morning and it's scorched in the evening. It withers and dies. Our lives are so short. And if we want to live well, we've got to think about that finish line. Help us live wise lives. So in this movie, theological thriller I think called City Slickers, Mitch Robbins passes on some real wisdom to young ends. He says, value this time in your life, kids. Because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices. And it goes by so quickly. When you're a teenager, you think you can do anything and you do. Your 20s are a blur. Your 30s, you raise a family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, what happened to my 20s? Your 40s, you grow a little pot belly. You grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Your 50s, you have a minor surgery. You'll call it a procedure, but it's a surgery. Your 60s, you have a major surgery. The music is still loud, but it doesn't matter because you can't hear it anyway. The 70s, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale. You start eating dinner at two, lunch around 10, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around the malls looking for the ultimate and soft yogurt, muttering how come the kids don't call. And by your 80s, you have a major stroke. You end up babbling to a Jamaican nurse who your wife can't stand, but whom you call mama. Any questions? There it is, guys, life in a nutshell. (laughing) Oh man, it's not the most helpful advice I admit, but it is helpful to think about the seasons of life and to prepare for them and to make mid-course corrections when we need them. As you go through getting ready for the next season, think about the things you need to change in order to prepare for the next season. And for the next season, the next stage of life that you're in, the Theodore Lids guy said, the process of maturing is not like climbing up a hill and down the other side, but more akin to a Himalayan expedition during which camps must be made at varying altitudes. So you're still always climbing and you make camp at varying altitudes, guides found, terrain explored, skills acquired, and rest taken before moving up to the next level. So I thought that was a helpful picture to think about. Maybe it's time to set up camp and think about the next stage of life. Think about the next season. What skills do I need to acquire? Are there some guides that I need to seek out to help guide me through this next season? Do I need to rest before the next season? Is there a busy season coming up and I need to actually take some time to rest before I enter that? It's just something worth thinking about. So that is number three. Let's keep moving here to the next one. Keeping the finish in mind keeps us pure. 1 Corinthians chapter nine. Keeping the finish line in mind keeps us pure. Paul says, I do all things for the sake of the gospel so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize. Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games, exercises self-control in all things, they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way as not without aim. I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and I make it a slave, make it my slave so that after I've preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. So he's talking about self-control, God-honoring decisions. If you keep reading on in that passage, he goes back to the wilderness. He goes back to the Israelites and the wilderness and how they win after evil desires and immorality. He's saying, run in such a way that you may win. What does that look like? It means running according to the rules, keeping your life pure, making God-honoring decisions. Self-control through the power of the Holy Spirit. He compares life in this passage with the Ismian games, like Corinth was who he's writing to, the Corinthians was located on an isthmus, a little narrow stretch of land, and they had the Ismian games, a lot like the Olympic games, and people would give their lives just to get that medal. Everything they did, just like today, the Olympics are going on right now. You know how hard they have worked to get to where they are? They have been living. Some of them today are gonna be competing for a medal and they have been preparing for their lives for years of their lives. Maybe eight, 12, 16 years. They've been working at this. They've been making every little decision with that gold medal in mind. The dieting, the training, the putting up with the injuries, you name it, everything they do in life, they do it with that medal in mind, that reward in mind and policy and you do the same. Everything you do, do with that gold in mind. Don't lose sight of the reward because even in the Olympics, if you cheat, if you take a shortcut, you take steroids, you lose that reward, right? Paul's saying we're gonna stand before a heavenly judge, the judgment seat of Christ, and we can lose some rewards too. If we're not running our races according to the rules, we've got to keep that in mind at all times. (mouse clicking) Not talking about losing our salvation, but just losing some rewards. There are gonna be varying rewards. God is more concerned, not about where we're going, but about how we're running it, right? Not just where we're going about, but about who we're becoming. He cares far more about our character than he does our finish line, the finish line itself. So we've got to stay focused on that. You know, I don't, Lance Armstrong, that name was touted. It was everywhere when I was growing up, Lance Armstrong, Lance Armstrong won this race, won that race, two or De France here or that. Everybody thought he was the greatest racer in the world until years later, what happened? Scandal, right? They found out he cheated. And so it's tainted, right? Paul's saying, "Look, everything's gonna be brought to light, "so you need to run well, run well, "because it will be revealed if you're not." He also talks about boxing. He says, "I'm gonna box when I'm not shadowboxing, "I'm not boxing the air here." He says, "I'm gonna make sure my punches land." Like, "I'm gonna aim." Like, so with my decisions in life, we need to make sure that we are being intentional with them. We need to box in such a way that we'll hear well-done, good and faithful servant if we can put it that way, okay? We live with that in mind. So fifth, we need to keep the finish line in mind because it'll help us stay passionate. It's number five. Keeping the finish in mind keeps us passionate. Second Timothy, four, seven, this time. I'm gonna back up to verse five. He says, "You be sober in all things. "Endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, "fulfill your ministry." This is the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy, some of his last words he'll ever pen. He says, "For I am already being poured out "as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. "I have fought the good fight. "I finished the course. "I have kept the faith. "And the future there is laid up for me, "the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, "the righteous judge will award to me on that day. "And not only to me, but also to all who have loved "his appearing." So here Paul is now at the end of his life, not Acts chapter 20 when it could have been near, but he's penning his last letter and he says, "At the end of his race, I have fought the fight." I have finished, I've kept the faith. I have loved Jesus until my dying breath. What a testimony, because not all people can say that, can they? We have, I think, a problem, where we, as we grow, as we get older, we lose our zeal. Right, you start out on fire for the Lord and then you get hit, right. You take a punch here or there and then you lose your zeal, you start to lose your passion for the things of the Lord. One of the things that just sucks the passion out of me is routine, routine and boredom. Like, it just sucks the life out of me. I tell you what, you know what else will suck? The life out of you is attaching a paycheck to your faith. That is one dangerous business, because I can be up here doing this for the paycheck and not because I actually love Jesus or actually love you guys, but I do, okay? So don't get that in your mind. But it's really tempting to just keep doing it for the paycheck. 'Cause I don't wanna go flip burgers, you know, at the fast food restaurant, sort of thing. Tim Bulke wrote, "The enemies of passion are familiarity, boredom, routine and repetition. There is a need to keep certain routines and predictability, but too much can dull our passion." I don't know about you, but if you're here this morning, your passion for the Lord just isn't where you think it should be. Man, fight to keep it fresh, do something different. Find a different place to have your devotional that morning or something like that. Break up your, you know, I'm reading three chapters a day. I gotta get my three chapters in. No, like break it up, turn somewhere different. Study a different passage. That you just want to study. Like have fun, enjoy scripture. Study scripture for fun. When have you done that last? This is, I think it's just part of life. I think I'll always wrestle with this myself personally. I think it comes with eight foot ceilings and a six foot cubicle. I think it comes from going from the home to the car, to the office, to the car, to home. All climate controlled environments. Okay, it gets so boring, so monotonous day after day, week after week, month after month. As a guy, man, I need to get out and I need to have some adventure. I've talked a lot enough about that this year, but do what you need to do to keep it fresh. Get out of your own little world. Remember, you're part of a larger story. Number six is keeping the finish in mind. Helps us remember the promises. Helps us remember the promises. Philippians three is where we're gonna go for this one, Philippians three, verse 13. He says, "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead." I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And he goes on to talk about how our citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly wait for a savior. The Lord Jesus Christ. So forgetting what lies behind and pressing on. Forgetting what's behind and pressing on. I had this reminder this week of a NASCAR driver's name with Carl Edwards, he's on his way to the finish line. It's like the last lap and the car behind him kinda does a pit maneuver on him and he starts to spin and he flies up in the air and there's all this wreckage and carnage and he obviously doesn't win. But it's kind of a famous video clip or photo because he climbs out of the wreckage and he just runs physically to the finish line when his arms above his head and he finishes the race. He doesn't care about his car anymore. He just wants to finish the race. And so here's the thought, right? We, none of us are gonna have run a perfect race. None of us are gonna have a perfect race. We're gonna wreck at times. We're going to, we're gonna crash, we're gonna burn. And what do you do when that happens? You just sit in the wreckage and weep and moan and pout about it, go into self-pity mode or do you climb out of the wreckage and run to the finish line anyway? I don't know about you, but when I blow it, when I wreck, right, I'm a perfectionist. So when I do something wrong, like it gets to me and it wants to drag me down and I can sit there and I can soak and wallow in that mud and mire and the self-pity and I can think about how God's done with me or I can think about the promises of God that he'll never leave me, he'll never forsake me, I'm his child no matter what happens and I can get out of that wreckage and I can run to the finish line. I can keep going. Scripture is loaded with individuals, the most important individuals, Abraham, Moses, David, men who blew it and who had the tenacity to get out of that wreckage and run anyway to the finish line because they knew God wasn't done with them, that God could still use them even though they screwed up. I know none of you here have probably committed adultery and then murdered the other individual. David did and yet he was a man after God's own heart. It was said after that. David blew it. Peter denied Christ. Peter denied Christ after Jesus, he denied the gospel in a sense in Galatians. Paul had to confront him because he was misconstruing, I don't know how else to say it, the gospel. Paul had to get in his face about it. He screwed up there too even after Jesus had recommissioned him. There's story after story in the scriptures of people who did that and you can let your failures keep you down or you can remember the promises of God and keep moving on. It's our decision. If you're in the wreckage this morning, I remind you there's grace for you, there's mercy for you and you are still a child of God and you can get up and you can keep running. Anyone's gonna happen. This Friday morning I was sitting in a waiting room in the doctor's office, 6.40 a.m., me and a handful of other people and all of us thought the same thing, we would much rather be somewhere else than in a waiting room ready to get our CAT scan or our MRI or whatever it is, I've been having issues with my kidney and it didn't help that one of my family members that I came from called me the day before said they had kidney disease and now I'm sitting in the waiting room waiting to get my kidney scan. And so can you imagine what the thoughts that are running through my head? Is it kidney disease? Is it this? Is it that, like where's God in all of this, right? The thoughts just start to flow. And I knew better but it's hard to stop him, right? There's a thousand other places I'd rather be mentally and physically but there was this old man in there. He had to be 80 plus 90, I don't know. And he had a smile on his face. You know, he's worse off than the rest of us. But he's in there with a smile on his face and he's going around to everybody in the room and he's pulling out this picture, physical real pictures of his grandchildren. He's saying, look at my grandchild. This is him at Thanksgiving. This is my grandchild at Christmas. He doesn't have a phone where he's showing pictures of his kids. You know, he's actually got physical pictures that he carries around with him of his grandchild. Grandchildren. And I guess God used that to rescue me that morning because I thought that's gotta be how God feels about me. I'm going through the junk right now but God carries around a picture of me saying, check out my child. Let me tell you about this child. Let me tell you about how he trusted me in this crazy circumstance when he didn't have the answers that he wanted. That's how much he loves us. I wonder if he just grabs one of the angels every now and then and says, hey, have you seen this child of mine? Let me tell you about him. He cares about us that much. He loves us. Seventh, keeping the finish line in mind helps us persevere. And we're just going to turn to Hebrews 12, one and two for these last two. I'll try to make it quick here. But Hebrews 12, remember the audience here, the Hebrews are tempted to quit to be frank with you. They've experienced a lot of opposition for their faith. They're tempted to quit and Paul says, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance in the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart so that you won't grow weary and lose heart. So Steve Ferrar, he described that Christian life as a long race and he said, long races don't require speed. They require grit, determination and finishing power. Grit, determination and finishing power. I think maybe we can apply that to this verse and say that we have to have a grit about us, a determination to finish well. Like a determination to cut off anything in our lives that is hindering us from finishing well and just dig our heels in and get after it. Put your cleats on. Get after it when you feel like quitting. I mean, a race, you've all ran a race probably. You get three quarters of the way in and your body wants to shut down. It's telling you to quit, your emotions are swelling you to quit and you have to use your willpower to keep going and keep pressing on. Especially as you get into, I don't know, the last seasons of life. When you become a seasoned saint. And I'll say this. One of our common problems as we age, as we grow older, is it's really easy to become hardened by life and to become cynical and to become angry. And if I have talked to you about this week, I just want you to know if you're listening, that I had all of this in my sermon before I talked to you or communicated with you, okay? But, and I'm also not gonna speak for myself, but I'm gonna let someone else do the speaking for me. 'Cause I'm not at that age yet, but I ran into a guy last week, he's a 70 year old and he has 50 years of pastoral ministry experience. And I asked him for his take on the retirement season of life. This is what he said. He says there's a tendency when we reach this age to respond negatively with feelings of uselessness, guilt over past failure, self pity, fear of the future and loneliness for those who are widows or widowers. But be reminded that pessimism, despair and hopelessness are killers. They kill joy, initiative, purpose and hope. He says to adjust to this stage of life positively with grace and strength rather than negatively with bitterness. Tasks of this season include adjusting to retirement and a reduced income, adjusting to decreased physical strength and health, adjusting to the loss of a spouse and affiliating yourself with others of your own age group. Many adjustments are required of us at this age when change comes difficult, but it must be accepted nonetheless. At this stage, you must learn to appreciate the underappreciated. Birthdays are good for you, he says. Our one study concluded that the common denominators among 100 year olds were ability to suffer loss of younger family members and spouses. That's a number one factor. Connection to community, humor and faith in God. So the ability to suffer loss, to be connected to community, find some humor in life and retain faith in God. If you want to finish well, that's what he suggested. His words are not mine. I would also encourage you if you're a seasoned saint this morning to think about me. Think about us, younger people who are following you. Think about the witnesses that you are surrounded by. 'Cause we're all learning from you what it looks like to finish well. Some of you have gone through some terrible things in the past few years. Hard things. You've lost loved ones, spouses, maybe, health. Whenever I see one of our seasoned saints going through something, they're hard. I always put a mental note in my own head and think, Justin, remember that because someday that's gonna be you. Guys, we, younger, need generation, need you to live your faith well. And we need you to finish well. Where are your witnesses? Lastly, I would say just keep pursuing Jesus. Keeping the finish in mind keeps us pursuing, pursuing what, just pursue Jesus. What does the author of Hebrews say? He says, "Fix your eyes on Jesus, consider him." Don't worry about the length of your days. Worry about the depth of your days. The depth of your relationship with Jesus. Every single person I know who has finished well has done that. They've kept their relationship with Jesus where it belongs. The number one priority, right? So as an application or an exercise, I would encourage you just to think about, take a moment to think about maybe one or two people who are on track to finish well. One or two people who you admire. Go right down those names and then go take 'em out for coffee or take 'em out for a meal and just learn from 'em and say hey, what do I need to prepare for in this next stage of life? And just listen, let 'em talk. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)