Well, good morning again. So glad that you guys are here. What a good, what a good start to the day, right? That's just something I love worshiping with you guys. Well, today we're gonna we're gonna finish up a series that we started two months ago. I don't know about you, but in my experience, it's always a lot harder to finish than it is to start. Like it's about to be be New Year's, right? 2016 is right around the corner. And if you're like me, you're gonna make some aggressive New Year's resolutions. I am I am good at making resolutions. I'm really good at it. Every year I start, and I start with passion and I start with enthusiasm and resolve. It's just that when December rolls around, usually the list of things I've accomplished is very different than the list I had at the beginning of the year. Starting is easy. I'm an excellent starter. I have mastered the art of starting, but finishing is hard. It really is. And so it's funny, coming into this week, knowing that this was the last, the last one, I'll be honest, I really didn't know what to talk about. Um, and so I didn't want to do it. I tried to get a hold of Ken Kington and other people, be like, hey man, are you in town? And he's like, No, I'm like, ah, I guess I should just finish it. Um I just don't want to. I don't like to I started it. I don't know if I want to finish it. God, what am I supposed to talk about? And and he he gave me what to talk about. I'm excited because uh because we're gonna talk about finishing this morning. The decision to finish. We've been talking about the fact that our lives are defined by our decisions. Our lives are not defined by our circumstances, they are defined by our choices, by the things that we decide to do. Our circumstances just give us opportunities to respond, to choose the way we want our lives to be. And this morning we're gonna finish this conversation by talking about the decision to finish. A few weeks ago we focused on focus. This morning we're gonna finish on finishing. So just a lot of alliteration and words that begin with F. It's gonna be really good. Okay, just trust me. But finishing is hard. I mean, I thought about this week. I thought about that a lot this week. I walked around my house with a very specific filter in my mind. I wanted to go room by room and find out which things in my house I have started but not finished. It's a pretty long list. For example, I'll show you a picture of this. It's a mirror that I need to hang. Um it's been sitting, it's been sitting there for like six months. It needs to go on the wall that it's on. I need to lift it up three feet and hang it on a wall. I have screws, I have anchors, I have a level, I'm okay at using it. I'll probably have to readjust two or three times. That's just me. But I know how to hang it. I've started it, I moved it to the wall with the intent of hanging it. It's just I haven't finished by hanging it, which is the whole point. Starting is easy, finishing is hard. Um, Matt, will you help me out for a second? Um, Matt's back here. He's gonna bring a bunch of books that I found at my house that I have started but not finished. I love to read. I buy books very often, okay? Reading is one of my favorite things to do. It's just that getting past chapter three is so hard. I mean, movies are good at that. You ever watch a movie and it's kind of slow and you're like, oh, come on, but you know it's only two more hours, so you're like, I'll get I've given it 20 minutes, I can give it 10 more. But if it's a book and the first three chapters are are you it needs to pick up. I'm like, come on, I'm looking at how many pages are left, and we've all done that. One of those books is Wild at Heart. Anyone ever read that book? Wild at Heart? No? Okay, three people. It's a classic, so I'm told. Um I've I've bought it three times. I have paid full price for that book three separate times, never finished it. This one book, though, I want to show you this one, this is my favorite in the stack. This is the most helpful book, other than the Bible, that I have uh that I've ever had in my life. I've never read a word. But here's why it's helpful. I have a couch in my house, and it's missing a leg. And this book, I'm not joking, I have to take this home with me, otherwise, I can't sit on my couch. This this book is the exact width of the leg of my couch, and so it's it's very helpful. Every time I sit down, I use this book, and it's it's works like a charm. I don't have to buy a new couch. It's awesome. I'm very good at starting things, it's finishing. It takes some work. But you know, it's it's interesting because I do believe our lives are in many ways defined by what we finish, by what we're willing to see through to completion. They really are. When we're at the end of our of our days, we'll look back on our lives and we'll we'll look at the things that we not only started, but the things that we started and we carried it through to the end. It's the things that we see through to completion that tend to define us. So finishing is very important, no matter how challenging it might be. Jesus was a finisher. He really was. We we looked at this scripture a few weeks back. I'm gonna look at it again. It's John chapter 19, verses 28 through 30. This is Jesus on the cross. It says, Jesus knew that his mission was now finished, and to fulfill the scripture, he said, I am thirsty. And a jar of sour wine was sitting there. They soaked a sponge in it, they put it on a hyssop branch and held it up to his lips. That was actually a prophecy that was being fulfilled at that time. It's really interesting. And when Jesus had tasted it, he said, It is finished. It is finished. He says, I've done it, I've done what I set out to do, and then he bowed his head and he released his spirit. Jesus was able at the end of his life, before he died on the cross, and yes, he did raise again, but before he died on the cross, Jesus was able to look at the scope of his life. He was able to look back at the last 33 years and say, It is finished, I've done it, I have accomplished what I set out to do. Now, that's not saying there wasn't a little bit of unfinished business. Sure. There always is. There was this thing called the church that hadn't really started yet. In fact, Jesus didn't leave very specific instructions on how to get this whole thing started. He picked out some fishermen, you know, the exact kind of people you would find if you wanted to start a worldwide organization that was gonna change the world, get some fishermen. And he picked out the right people and he invested in those people, which is actually the right thing. I have a friend that always says it's not about what, it's about who. And Jesus picked the right who, for sure. But he didn't really get the church started. That was gonna happen afterwards. That's why he left the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew that his message needed to go to the ends of the earth, but when he died on the cross, no one outside of a very small area in Palestine knew who Jesus was. That was gonna be accomplished by the church, that thing that hadn't started yet. So, how is it that Jesus on the cross, having had a great impact, but in a very small part of the world, how could he say it is finished and mean it? And the answer is this Jesus had a lot of things he was going to accomplish. Sometimes the best things we accomplish in life is simply starting something that another generation will carry through to completion, yes. But but Jesus said it is finished because there was a primary purpose in his life that he fulfilled on the cross. There was this mission that he was living for, this one thing that Jesus had in his sights, and even though he had a lot of things he was going to accomplish, there was one thing that mattered more than anything else, and that was you. It was me, it was it was humanity, it was all of us, it was reconciling us to God. See, our relationship with God gets kind of complicated. And we all know that because many of us have had these experiences in life where we're mad at God. In fact, maybe the fact that you're mad at God is what convinced you that God is real, because you can't be mad at something that doesn't exist. That doesn't make any sense. But when we're kids, we have a very, a very sweet, innocent relationship with God if we're taught about God and believe in Him. He's there. I watch my children. Their relationship with God is very simple. As we get older, it gets complicated. It gets complicated sometimes because we we think God has failed us, and so we like to look at God and say, You weren't here and you didn't do this, and why did you let this happen? And then when we get really honest and we look in the mirror with humility and truth, we go, I've kind of complicated it a little bit too. Like in that 10-year period where I just said nope and I went this way. I went as far away from you as I could. I knew what you wanted, I knew what was right, but I said nah, and I did my own thing. And that complicated things a little bit. There's this thing called sin in the Bible, and sin just means missing the mark, it means not hitting the bullseye. So anytime we choose something other than God's will for our life, we sin. And people may have told you growing up that sin broke your relationship with God, and that's not really true because you can't keep God from loving people. It just doesn't happen. But sin does complicate the relationship greatly. See, when we sin, when we choose something other than what God has for us, whether that's selfishness or greed or lust or you name it, when we choose to sin, we we make sin our master. And sin is a really bad master. Love is a really good master. The Bible says that God's love, real love, keeps no record of wrongs. Sin keeps a very detailed list of every mistake you've ever made. The Bible teaches us that Satan, who's the enemy, he is both the tempter and the accuser. So he's the one that tempts us. He's the one who says, Hey, do this. Yeah, it might be a shortcut. Yeah, maybe it's selfish, sure it doesn't take into account the other people that it will affect, but it'll be good for you, it'll feel good now. And when we choose that, when we give in to his temptation, Satan turns right around and he points the finger at us and says, You have failed. You are a failure, you are a sinner. And when he says it, he has a good case. Because we have. We have wrung up a pretty big tab in the sin department humanity has. And it's a tab way too big for any of us to pay, but it wasn't too big for Jesus to pay. And Jesus knew that his perfection could cover our imperfection. And so he came and he made it his primary purpose in life to give his life for us, to pay a price that he did not owe, but a price so precious that it purchased our right standing with God. That was the primary purpose of Jesus' life, and that is why on the cross Jesus could look at his life and say, it is finished. He said, in other words, I have accomplished my primary mission in life, and that mission is you. And so I look at Jesus on the cross, and I'll be honest, I want that in my life. I want the ability to say, I have, I have done it. I have run the race I was supposed to run. If you read scripture, you'll find that that metaphor used often running a race. I have run the race. I have finished it. I've done it. I've done exactly what I set out to do. I want that because that's a life with no regret. And a life with no regret is a very powerful thing. It's something all of us can have. I think death is most scary because of regret. It's not the physical aspect of death, I think, that that scares most people. It's the idea that there's no more time to fix what's broken. It's the idea that we can't make up for that thing we've been trying to make up for. We can't mend a broken relationship. There's regret. But if you live a life without regret, you don't fear death. Jesus lived life with no regret because he had a primary mission in life. And so today I want to ask, what is yours? What is your mission? What is your purpose? Why are you here? Because I believe you're here for a reason. I believe you exist in this time, in this country, in this state, in this city, in this church for a reason. You are the parent of your children for a reason. Children, you are the children of your parents for a reason. I know you don't believe that. I know it doesn't feel like that sometimes. You look at them and say, These are not my parents, this something went wrong. But one day you're gonna act a lot like them and you'll freak out too. But we're here for a reason. We have we have a purpose in life. So what is it? We have to find that. We don't want to live aimless lives. We want to live life where we can go forward, where we have an objective, where we know the direction that we're going. And when we find out what that is, we have to decide to keep on that path until it's done. We have to decide to finish. And you may be here this morning and you don't know what your mission is. You're kind of freaking out right now, going, I don't know. That's kind of a big question. That's like a what's the meaning of life question. You're not supposed to ask that and then ask for an answer. The good news is you don't have to know exactly what it is right now. God will show that to you. It's always good when we desire what God wants. Because God is God and He gets what He wants. So if you want what God wants, you're gonna get what you want. Does that make sense? And if you want to know what your purpose in life is, God wants you to know that, so you're gonna find out. He's gonna make that clear. So this morning, your takeaway might be just to zero in on what your purpose in life is, but once you find that, you have to decide to finish. You have to make a conscious choice to say, I will stay on this path, I will run this race until I cross the finish line. Finishing is hard. If all it took to finish was resolution, we would all be world-class sprinters. We would all, we could all run a marathon, right? And so we say, hey, let's decide to finish, and that's great. We gotta do that. It is a conscious choice, but how then do we finish? Because like I said earlier, I have decided to finish a lot of resolutions. And I've stopped short. So how? How do we actually stay moving forward? How do we actually get to that finish line? The great news is that scripture tells us. It's what I love about the Bible. This is the amazing thing about the Bible, is that you name it, no matter the problem you're in, no matter the situation you're facing, you name it, it's in there. It's crazy. How in the world could a book that was written 2,000 years ago, that's the newest part, by the way, the oldest part is much older than that. How could a book written thousands of years ago by people in a different culture using a different language in a whole different era of the world, how could they write about every single problem that we face? And that's the truth. It's in there. So if you ever face anything, if you have a situation, you don't know what to do, you may need some help finding it in the Bible, and there's great tools to help you with that. There's this thing called Google, it's really effective. But but it's in there. So just know that it's in there. And when it comes to finishing, when it comes to getting to that finish line in your life, it's in there. Normally I'm not really like a three-point kind of guy. I don't usually come up and say, here's the three golden keys to, you know, whatever. I'd probably be able to sell books if I could get good at that. But I like to just like have one point and then just drive it home to the point that you're like, we we get it. You can finish, you know. But this morning, I have three things. Three keys to getting past chapter three, if you want to think about it that way. Because as I was studying this week and preparing for the message, and I looked at all these different scriptures that talk about finishing, there were these three principles that just leapt off the page. I didn't have to seek these out, I didn't have to look very hard. It was just like me reading, going, oh, okay, that makes a lot of sense. That is clear, that is, that is perfect. So we're just gonna look at three steps to finishing. Number one, count the cost. Count the cost. If you want to finish a race, you need to know how long you're supposed to run. I mean, if I come up to you and say, hey, do you want to run with me? You need to ask me how far are we going? Thankfully, if it's me asking, you know we're not going far. That's good. So you can pretty much say yes and not worry about it. But I have friends who are in really good shape. Like, they're at that point where you just want to say, you're done. You've you can't get in any better shape than you are. Like, you're just stop. You're making us all look bad. I have friends like that. I got a few of them that like to ride, they do mountain biking. If they ever came to me and said, Hey, you want to ride? I know their definition of ride is very different than mine. They're not saying, hey, let's let's take a stroll around the neighborhood on our bikes and go, hey, look, I've never seen that house before. That's cute. Yeah, I like that. No, what they mean is let's go 27.2 miles uphill. That's how we're supposed we'll spend our Saturday. And I'm like, no, I'm not gonna do that. I don't care if it's gonna make me live longer. I'd I'd rather die and say it is finished than ride 27 miles. We invented cars, so we didn't have to do that anymore. So you gotta count the cost, you gotta know how far you need to go. Jesus talks about this actually. In Luke chapter 14, Jesus says this: Do not begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. Doesn't matter if we're 30 or in the first grade, we don't want people laughing at us. They would say, There's the person who started that building and couldn't afford to finish it. Jesus says, Hey, count the cost. If you want to finish, count the cost. Have you ever had a moment of intense sticker shock? Because you you agreed to purchase something before knowing how much it really cost? That's the worst. A few years ago, I was going to a birthday party for a friend of mine named Jeff. Uh, Jeff is my sister's, no, sorry, my wife's sister's husband. That's weird. Um, so what does that make him? He's not my brother-in-law, he's my wife's brother-in-law, so I technically don't owe him a thing, okay? Basically. That's just one, that that's the one-step remover. It's like, you're on your own, man. But but I like Jeff a lot. Jeff's a great guy. He's a very talented musician. He lives in Nashville, he's doing some really cool stuff with music. Um, he loves God very much. He can grow a beard better than any man I've ever seen. I mean, I'm not joking. Two days of Jeff not shaving is the equivalent of like seven months for me. In fact, in our family, he's just associated with facial hair. So Lily, who's not quite two, she's at that stage as a baby where she just points at people and says things about them, right? Because that kids do that, there's no filter. But right now it's pretty safe. If it's a woman, she says mommy. She thinks all women are mommies. So Megan, or Megan's the mommy. I'm tired. Lily just goes, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy. And if it's a man, it's a daddy. So she'll be in a store and she'll say, Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy. But if it's a man with a beard, it's a Jeff. I'm not joking. She'll point to any man with a beard and she'll be like, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. In fact, the other day we were in a store and she saw a Santa Claus and she pointed at it and said, Jeff, because it has a beard. That's how she, all men with beards are Jeff's. So Jeff's this great, wonderful, talented, bearded man that just so happened to marry my wife's sister, and now I gotta buy him a birthday present. Okay? It's life. So we're on the way to the party and we haven't bought we haven't bought anything yet. And Megan said, Hey, no worries. I told my mom that we'll get the cake. So I said, okay, and I like, I do like Jeff. He's a good man, so let's get him a nice cake. So I said, hey, let's go to Marietta Diner and get a cake. Anyone ever had a cake at Marietta Diner? Oh my goodness. That's effective. Like everyone just said yes. Well done, Marietta Diner. So we go by Marietta Diner, the kids are in the car, Megan's in the car, I run in real quick to get the cake. I see one, I'm like, it's perfect. I say, hey, we'll take that. I need it to go. We're kind of in a hurry. So the lady takes it, cuts it, pre-cuts the cake. That's great. And uh, and then she puts it in a box and she says, that'll be $80. Now maybe you're at a point in life where you can eat an $80 cake and enjoy it and be like, yeah, no biggie. I am not there. I'm not there. And I have this crisis. I'm trying to like call him, like, sure, I knew it cost that much, but but I'm thinking in my head, like, I like Jeff. But do I $80 cake like Jeff? Because that's a whole different category. You think about the people in your life and ask that question, do I like them or do I $80 cake like them? I don't even know if I have $80 cake like my kids most days, okay? So I'm sitting there going, $80 for Jeff's cake, but it was too late. The cake has been cut, it's in the box, it's a done deal, and I have to pay $80 because I did not count the cost. I have never cared so greatly that a person enjoyed their cake as I cared that day. I just looked at Jeff's like, is it good? Do you like it? Because you got a little on your beard and you're gonna eat it. All right, you're gonna eat that every crumb of that cake. Jeff, I love Jeff. I do $80 cake like Jeff, I guess. I've already crossed that line, you can't go back. See, if you want to finish in life, you gotta count the cost. And there might be goals that you have, there might be dreams that you have, and they may be the right dream for you. They may, they may be the right, the right purpose, the right goal to get to, but have you counted the cost? Maybe it's a career goal. You want to get to a level that few people get in your industry, in your business, you want to be an executive, you want to run the company. And that's great. That that might be something you need to do. That may be what God created you to do. But have you counted the cost? Because there is a cost, how much time is that gonna take away from your family? Is that gonna mean that there are certain events you just can't be at? There's vacations you can't go on, because your responsibility level is it's just higher than most people's. And those costs should not dissuade you from pursuing the goal, but you should know them up front. Because halfway through that goal, when you're on the way and you're having regrets and it's hard, you want to know that you have counted the cost. You don't want to be surprised by the toll that it's taking. In fact, I'll take it a step further. If that's your goal, if it's something like that, that's gonna take considerable time, considerable resources. You need to talk with your spouse or with the people in your family that it affects and see if they're on the same page. Because it's not just a cost for you, it's a cost for them. You want to have moments where years in, when it's getting hard and frustrating, you don't have to be fighting their frustration and their disappointment and their anger and resentment because. Because you didn't run the cost by them. But if you can have agreement together, if you can decide, yes, we're gonna go here, but it's gonna take a lot, and two, three years in, when you come up against those costs, you don't have to stop because you've already decided. You've counted the cost and you've decided it's worth it. So count the cost. Number two, you have to eliminate dead weight. Get rid of dead weight. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1 says this. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We've got to get rid of dead weight. When I was in college, I was still in decent shape, and I was playing a lot of basketball. I played all through high school, and then I got married, and I gained 30 pounds my first year of marriage. Thank you. And I remember going and playing basketball one day, and there was a ball and it was in the air. And I can't like dunk or anything like that, but but I could jump, you know, okay. And so I see the ball, I know I can get to it, I know it. I've done it before. And I jumped and I just didn't quite get as high as I usually did. That 30 pounds was starting to affect me in like a gravitational way. And I was kind of confused. Like I came back down and I was like, whoa, what is going on? Like, I just don't have that extra kick today. And then a few minutes later, I figured it out because I was running this way and I made a really hard cut to go this way, and I felt my stomach like a second behind me. It was like, it was like inertia kicked in. And I just said, Oh no, this is bad. This is dead weight. I gotta get rid of this. I've been trying ever since. But but sometimes we make life harder than it needs to be because we we decide to carry weight we're not supposed to carry. And so we're running our race and we're heading toward that goal, and it's hard, but it's harder than it needs to be. Because maybe it's it's guilt or shame. Maybe it's an issue, self-destructive behavior, a bad habit. Hebrews says sin. Maybe it's a behavior that we know is not right, we know it's not what God wants, and we can just call it what it is. It's dead weight in our lives. Maybe it's not the greatest sin in the world, maybe it's not some sin that's gonna absolutely derail your future or your life, but it's just dead weight. And if you want to get where you're going, you've got to get rid of it. I heard a pastor say recently, if you want to fly, cut the anchors. And I at first I was like, yeah. And then I was going, what analogy is he using? His planes aren't anchored. I think it's a hot air balloon, is what I'm guessing. If you want to fly a hot air balloon, cut the anchors. But it makes sense. How do you do that? How do you get rid of the dead weight? Because I think most of the time the issue is not identifying it. Most of us are very aware of our sin and our issues. Even if you don't want to call it sin, you just want to call it your baggage or whatever. Most of us are very aware of that. And even if we're not, thankfully, there are these people in the world who will gladly point it out for us. And there's a plethora of them, some of them call themselves Christians, but whatever. They will come and they will say, Hey, look at that in your life, and you say, Oh yeah, I never noticed. Thanks. So, how do we get rid of it once we know it's there? And in my experience, the the most effective thing is it's people. It's not running alone. It's when you have other people come alongside you in life, people that give you healthy accountability, people that love you, people that encourage you, people that love you enough not to let you go slower than you need to. That's the most effective thing I've ever experienced. I was in addiction for 10 years. And what really turned that around for me was when I started going to counseling. And I stopped running alone. And I brought someone else in, someone that could help me, someone that could counsel me and work with me. Listen to what Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verses 9 and 10 say. This is the message version. It's better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth. And if one falls down, the other helps, but if there's no one to help, tough. See, we don't have to live alone. We don't have to go it alone. We don't have to try to run our race by ourselves. There are people in this room right now who would love to come alongside you and help you, who would love to help take some of that weight off of your shoulders. People who will even take some of that weight onto their shoulders with you as you work through whatever it is you have to work through. That's why it's so important that we're part of the church. People will sometimes say, hey, can't I just stay at home and worship God? Yeah, if you want to have a miserable time and not really grow, you can because God did not design us to go it alone. We're really bad at that. We don't really realize it in our culture because we don't have to interact with the people that keep us alive. But there are farmers and people that make food and provide all the resources for us that we actually need to survive. We just never have to say hello to them. So we kind of believe that we're on our own and we're doing fine. But we are 100% interdependent on the people in this world. That's how we we live, that's how we thrive, that's how we grow spiritually. That's what makes the church strong. It's us, the church is people. That's why we have the prayer team. Because they love to help take weight off your shoulders. They will pray with you, they will help you ease that burden. That's why we have home groups. That's why we have amazing people who open their homes and say, Yes, we don't know you, but be our friend. Because we want to help you. We want to support you. We want to help you get through the trials that you're going through. In our home group, this last week, and I didn't ask these people if I could share this, so if you're in our home group, just forgive me. Um, we have two amazing couples that both expressed early in this session that they they've been trying to get pregnant and they can't. And it was very tearful. You could tell this is a long-running issue for them. And they they just shared that. And so we prayed for them. And this last week we had our kind of final home group session. We're gonna take a break during the holidays, get back in in January, and they both shared that they're pregnant. And that's awesome, right? And what's what's really cool is they both found out the same hour on the same day that they're pregnant. And they've been praying for each other. And see, both of them are ecstatic personally, but they're really excited for each other as well. And so not only has the burden of what they've been going through been eased by having each other, but the joy, the joy of getting to the finish line is better because they have each other. That's why we have the church. If you're a student, that's why we have a high school group, that's why we have a college group, that's why we have junior high students, because it's a unique phase of life that brings new burdens you're not used to, and you want to have people around you to help. I mentioned addiction just a few moments ago. Here in a few weeks, we have an addiction group that's starting up at his hands. It's gonna meet every single week. And if that's something you need in your life, go sign up today at the Connect Us. Say, hey, I want information about the addiction group. And you'll have that because you don't have to go it alone. We've got to count the cost, we have to eliminate dead weight, people help with that. The right people help with that. Number three, you've got to keep your eye on the prize. You've got to keep your eye on the prize. I'm not very good at running on treadmills. And I can do it physically. I know how to do it. You know, I don't have to put one foot in front of the other. I got that down. It's just so boring. It's awful. Every time I get on a treadmill, I say, I'm gonna run three miles. I'm aggressive. And and then by the time I start going, I start looking at the stupid clock that just is counting down how much time you've wasted, you know what I mean? I'm running on it going, like, what in the world? I've only gone a mile. This is awful. There's nothing good on TV, you know. I try to listen to something on my phone, but it's just hard. But once or twice a year when I run outside, I mean, I'm being honest. I am so much more effective because here's what I've never done. I've never run a mile away from my house and then turned around and looked at where my house is, or at least the street that it's on, and been like, nah, I'm just gonna stay here. You know, I'll get on a treadmill and I'll stop halfway all the time. I'll be like, I'm going three miles, one point two. That's pretty much three. So I'll just I'll stop there. But when I'm running outside, there's never been a moment where I can see my house and it's in my eyes and it's just there, and I'm in this neighbor's yard that I've never met, but I'm I'm I can see my house and I just go, you know, I love my family. I just, I'm gonna stay here. I'm gonna meet these neighbors. It's never happened. See, if you have your eyes on where you're going, you tend to get there. That's why running on a treadmill is hard because you can't see it. You have to have your eye on the prize. If we read the second verse in Hebrews chapter 12, we just read verse 1, verse 2 says, We do this, after it says, Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us, we do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne. Now this says the prize is Jesus. And some of us here, maybe we're at different places, some of us might just be kind of open to God, we're not really sure where we are, and Jesus may not seem like a prize you want. You're like, I'll take a million dollars. Jesus, I don't know if Jesus is the prize. I will say this though. There have been times in my life where Jesus is not the prize. There's still times in life where I'm going for something that isn't in any way related to Jesus, at least not the way I think. But when I really stop and I reflect on my life and what I want my life to be, Jesus is absolutely the prize. Because there's nothing I can imagine that's better than one day looking him in the eye and hearing him say, Well done, my good and faithful servant, you did what I created you to do. See, every single one of us can hear God say that to us. Every single one of us has the ability to look our Maker in the eyes and hear him say, You did what I created you to do. And there is a reward in that that is greater than any reward we get on this earth because whatever we get on this earth, it fades. But the reward that we get through Jesus when when he is the prize, when coming to a complete and a full relationship with him is the prize, and that's something that takes time. It's a process. In fact, Paul, who wrote so much of the New Testament, he wrote that we should work out our salvation. In other words, don't stop short. Don't stall in your relationship with God. Keep going, keep moving, work it out till it's complete, till you're mature in your relationship with God. But when you get there, you have a prize. You have something that has eternal value. Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verses 24 and 25. He says, Don't you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize. So run to win, live to win, is what he's saying. All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. And when you read Paul write this, you can tell that he has this desire, he has this hope to one day be able to say about his life, I did it. I ran my race. I crossed the finish line. I did what I set out to do. I lived with no regrets. I don't have to look back on my life and say, Oh, I wish I had gone this direction instead of the other. Oh, I chased something that was worthless. I allowed something that fades to become my idol, and I gave everything for that, but now it's gone. You can see that Paul desires to run his race, and Jesus is his prize, and he knows that the glory and the reward for that is something that will never fade. It will never go away. And he got there. In 2 Timothy, Paul is very close to death. He's about to be executed, but it's really interesting because his perspective on death is so right because he's lived for Jesus. He already sees his life as being offered to God. He's already poured it out. And so for him, death is just like the final thing. He's already given everything he has. And so he writes to Timothy, his young protege. As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. And listen to this. Listen to this, and as we read this together, just ask yourself is this what you want to be able to say about your life? Do you desire to be able in confidence to say this? I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me, the crown of righteousness with the Lord, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me, but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearance. We desire to be people like Paul who can say, I have fought the good fight. I have finished my race. And now the prize. The prize is within sight. Our lives have meaning. Our lives have have purpose. Your life has purpose, and you can finish your race. And you know, we're all in different places. Some of us might be here today, and maybe we feel like our race is done. We feel like we've already blown it. We started running years ago, but then we just quit, turned around, ran the other way, fell down. You can finish your race. You will finish this race with Jesus. Count the cost. Be committed to getting rid of the dead weight. Keep your eye on your prize, and you will finish the race. That race may be your marriage. You got married and it was wonderful. There was a cake that cost way more than $80. That's good. That's a good start. People cheered for you, maybe. They threw rice at you, which is really weird. Maybe your wedding day wasn't this huge celebratory thing, but there was still an excitement and just knowing that this person, you were gonna spend your life with this person, and you had that romantic idea, and then two years later you realize I'm married to this person. Because romantic comedies always end with the wedding for a reason. Like you don't see three years later when he's bald and like Matthew McConaughey's lost all his hair. You don't see that. Matthew McConaughey. Whatever. You know, this is totally not planned, and just as an aside, romantic comedies, as men, they're like insulting because there's no way that rich 40-year-old Matthew McConaughey is still single. Like, what world is that? Or this woman's like, I just he's never been married, he's really wealthy, he's gorgeous, he's really strong and muscular, he's in great shape. I can't believe he's never been married. He's a killer. That's the only thing that explains why he's still single. Do not date 40-year-old single Matthew McConaughey. It's just advice. Okay. Now that that's out of the way. Marriage might be your race. And and and you started running, and now you're not sure. Because marriage is like a three-legged race, and those are way less fun. And so you you feel like quitting. And maybe you have maybe you have some really good reasons to quit. I know there are certain situations where it's necessary. There absolutely are. But the whole irreconcilable differences thing, Jesus reconciled us to God. Jesus paid the price for sin. Like if Jesus can reconcile humanity to God, I don't believe in irreconcilable differences. You can finish the race. You may need help. You absolutely might need help. You may need a lot of help, but help is available. We have great marriage counselors that are part of this church. We have amazing couples groups that you can go and be part of and people that will come around you and help you have a healthy marriage. You can finish the race. It may not be your marriage, it may be another another relationship that's estranged. Maybe your relationship with your parents is not there. And maybe you have really good reason for that. They were not the parents you needed. Maybe they're out of the picture. And you don't have the ability to reconcile with them, but you have children. And you have the ability to change the momentum of your family. I know a young man who told me that his family has always been very poor, and he wants his children to have a different life. He wants them to live without the constant pressure, the financial strain. I know another person that wants to be the first man in his family to not have an affair on his wife. He hasn't known a man in multiple generations in his family that has remained faithful to his spouse. And he wants his last name to be associated with integrity and faithfulness. He wants to change the momentum of the men in his family for his son and for the generations to come. You can win the race. You can finish the race. Because when you run with Jesus, when you run with Jesus, you never run alone. He will pick you up at times, he will drag you at times. He's very committed. But he will make sure that you get to that finish line. So just keep running. Just keep running. We're going to finish with worship. The song we're going to sing is healer. We sing this often. I believe that you're my healer. When you think about healing, healing is a race in its own, right? Whether it's physical, whether it's emotional, or you name it, it's brokenness being fixed. It's something being completed in us so that we're healthy and we're good. See, there's an internal race that all of us are running that only God can bring to completion in us. And it begins with surrender. It begins with us saying, Jesus, I'm yours. Finish what you started. I will not stand in your way. I will let you finish what you started, because if we let God finish what He has started in us, we will finish the things that we start. And so I encourage you as we as we pray together, as we sing together, I encourage you to hang here for a few minutes. And let this worship song, let it be a prayer for you and a commitment for you to say, God, I decide to finish. You finish what's in me and I'll finish whatever you tell me to do. That's a life without regret. And that's a life that's for all of us. Please pray with me. Jesus, thank you so much for the love you have for us. Thank you so much, Jesus, for being committed and dedicated to finishing the race. You didn't stop short of the cross. You didn't get to that hill carrying that cross and look at the people who were who were yelling at you, who were humiliating you, who demanded your crucifixion. You didn't stop and look at them and say, No, I'm not I'm not gonna finish this. Not for them. You went the distance. And Jesus, we believe that you empower us to do the same. We believe that through you and in you, we can be people who finish what we start. So, God, we are we're coming together right now to say to you, finish. Heal what needs to be healed, fix what's broken. Make us complete and whole so we can go and we can run to completion the race that you have created us to run, Lord Jesus. We pray this in your name. We love you. Amen.