Finishing Well
Passage: Psalm 71:9, 17-18; 92:12-15; II Timothy 4:6-7
Let me give you a little glimpse into how I approach sermon planning. I generally preach through books of the Bible or significant texts like the Ten Commandments or the Lord’s Prayer as we have been doing in the evenings and will resume this evening.
Throughout the year when am preaching a long series on a book of the Bible I will come across topics I think are important for us to consider, but don’t want to break up the flow. So I collect these topics in a Word document and save them for when I have a break.
The beginning of the year is often a natural time to take a break after our brief Advent series. And it is my practice to start the New Year with the two most important topics of Prayer and reading God’s Word. On my study leave I spent much of the time working on several more topics which I will start this morning.
Two things about these topics. I am grouping them under the general heading of the stewardship of God’s gifts. All that we have and are comes from God, God is the giver of every good thing that we have. These gifts are God’s grace to us, and He gives them to us with the expectation that we will be good stewards of His gifts; that we will not use them selfishly as if they are ours to do with whatever we please, but that we will use them for His glory and our benefit. These gifts He has given us include retirement, marriage, children, sex, money, and suffering.
But as happens with all of God’s good gifts, Satan and the world try to pollute or destroy them. Satan has been attacking Christianity for so long and we have become worn down and even given in and compromised on many points of truth along the way. Just think about how many Christians have caved in on the abortion issue or all manner of sexual immorality.
My responsibility as your pastor is to present the teaching of the Word of God as it confronts our world and our own hearts, and call us to submit to the conviction and leading of the Holy Spirit. I hope along the way we will be uncomfortable because all of us have been drinking from the cultural fire hydrant for so long we have lost our ability to discern where we have departed from Biblical Christianity.
As we come to this morning’s topic of finishing well, I want to address a little rumor I am told has been floating around the church.
You have perhaps heard of the famous remark of Mark Twain when he addressed a crowd saying the rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated. Well the rumors of my retirement are greatly exaggerated.
I have not made any plan or decision to retire. I am leaving that in God’s hands, He has always made very clear the timing of every other transition in my ministry, and I trust Him to show when I should step down from Senior Pastor to some other pastoral role.
The plan to call an Associate Pastor is just that, for the purpose of sharing the work of shepherd, and especially focused on the work Dan Houston did and more recently Mike Brummel.
This morning I want to take this opportunity to explore what Scripture says about retirement.