In this enlightening episode of Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope, we delve into ‘The Key to Hope’ series, exploring the profound parallels between the Christian life and running a race. Pastor Rick shares compelling stories, including a memorable endurance race in Alaska, to illustrate the crucial importance of perseverance and focus in one’s spiritual journey. Through personal anecdotes and scriptural teachings, Pastor Rick emphasizes endurance as a vital quality in maintaining a strong faith amid life’s challenges.
Hey everyone, this is Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope, and we are so glad that you’re here today. You know, you can lose your money, your health, and even the people you love, but you can never lose God’s love for you. Stay tuned today as Rick continues his new series called The Key to Hope. All right, well now let’s get right to Rick with part one of a message called How to Finish Well.
SPEAKER 03 :
Every year in Alaska, they have an endurance race called the Idita Sport, not the Idita Rod with the dogs, but this is actually a skiing race. It’s a grueling 170 mile race through ice and sleet and snow and sub-zero temperatures. Now, a few years back, Jim Jaggers, the professional skier, was actually leading that race for most of the race until he got about 50 miles out from the end. He had already gone 120 miles, and he was two hours ahead of the nearest competitor. I mean, way out in front. But then he got discouraged. He got tired. He started to slow down. And with only 30 miles left in the race, after being ahead that far, he was passed by another skier. That so crushed Jim’s spirit that he took out his sleeping bag, stopped in the middle of the race, went over to the side of the trail, and curled up in the sleeping bag for over an hour before finishing the race. He said, it just undid me. Have you ever felt like that? I know I’ve got a lot of things to do today, but I think I’m just gonna curl up in the sleeping bag on the side. I know I’ve got a lot of things left and I’m not through and I’ve got a lot more to do. I’m just gonna curl up on the side. I’m gonna take myself out of the race for a while. Now the Bible often compares the Christian life to a race. We started talking about that last week. And this race is not a 100-yard dash. It’s a marathon. It begins the moment you accept Jesus Christ into your life, and it ends here on earth the moment you die. Now this race that God plans for you, his plan and purpose for your life, is not a flat terrain. It has hills, and it has valleys, and it has bumps, and it has curves, and it has lonely stretches through the desert. It’s a tough race. To finish the race of life, you don’t have to have speed. It’s not who can get there first. But you do have to have endurance. Endurance is a key quality of the Christian life. The Bible says this in Hebrews 12.1. We started looking at this verse last week. It says, let us run with endurance. Circle the word endurance. The race that God has set before us. Now, again, this word is very important in your spiritual life, endurance. In fact, God uses the word in two different Greek forms over 70 times in the New Testament. Now, anytime God says something 70 times, he’s saying, this is important. And the reason why endurance is important is because very few people run consistently and finish well in the race of life. As a pastor, I have been at the dying bedside of many, many people. And I would have to be honest with you to say most people do not finish life well. They do not. What happens? They get sidetracked. They get tripped up. they get sidelined, or they drop out of the race before it ends. Just like in a marathon where it’s very crowded at the beginning of the race, a lot of people to start, but as the race goes on and on, the crowd thins out. And in the Christian life, there are so many people who start the Christian life all really great guns. I mean, they are on fire, they’re full of God, they love God, they wanna learn, they wanna grow, they wanna be used by God. But somewhere along the line, as years go by, they get distracted. or they get sidelined, or they get tripped up by somebody else. And most people do not finish life well the way God intended for them to do it. Now there are some exceptions. This week I was talking to Hank, and he told me about the story of his father and his dying words. He brought it like a patriarch. He brought all of the family into the room as he was laying there dying in bed and prayed an individual prayer of blessing over each person in the family, then picked up the phone and called each of the grandkids and prayed for each of them individually. And as he finished the last phone call of prayer of blessing, he hung up, took his last breath, and died. Now, he finished well. He finished well. My goal in life is I want to finish well. I want to stand before Jesus Christ one day and hear him say, you did it. You did a good job. Well done, good and faithful servant. And not only that, it’s my goal for you. As your pastor, I want you to know my number one goal in life is in this church is to help you finish well. Not just to start well, not just to grow a little bit spiritually. I want you to understand the applause of heaven one day and be welcomed into heaven and have God say, good job, well done. You finished the race that I put you on earth to do. Now probably the best example of finishing well is the Apostle Paul. And in 2 Timothy 4, 7, he says, I have finished the race. And I have remained faithful. Now, how did he do it? How did he keep from getting tripped up and sidelined in life and distracted by things that weren’t important? Well, fortunately, Paul tells us. And in the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he gives us the seven secrets of finishing well. Now, we don’t have time to go into all seven of them. I hope you’ll go home and read this passage later on. But today, we’re going to look at four of them. Four ways to finish well. And as we go through this list, I want you to, in each point, write either an okay or an NW. Okay means I’m doing all right in this. NW means needs work. Needs work. Tom’s gonna come and talk about the first quality.
SPEAKER 01 :
First secret to finishing well is refuse to compromise your integrity. Refuse to compromise your integrity. We all know what integrity is. It’s when your private life is consistent with your public image. And integrity is very important to the Apostle Paul. Listen to what he had to say in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 2. We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display. Paul is saying, I steadfastly refuse to fake it. I steadfastly choose integrity in my life. This quality, integrity, it’s one of the most admired qualities in any person’s life. For these last 30 years, when any survey has been done on the most admired men in America, there’s one name that’s almost always appeared at the top of that survey. It’s the name Billy Graham. Why? Because we appreciate his integrity. Billy Graham is an example of the three qualities that integrity has built on in anybody’s life. What does it mean to have integrity? It means telling the truth. It means keeping your word. It means practicing your beliefs. You do what you say. That’s what integrity is all about. I think we all want to have integrity. I don’t think anybody wakes up one morning and says, I’m going to live a life without any integrity. We all want it in our lives. So how do we get in trouble? Well, you dig a hole for yourself, not with a backhoe, but with a teaspoon. You do it one little decision at a time. In fact, I would guess that some of you this week are facing a decision where you’re tempted to do something that’s wrong. You know it’s a lack of integrity, but the payoff seems so great. And so you think, well, just this one little time, you start to dig a hole for yourself. What is it that keeps you on track with integrity? What is it that keeps you keeping on with integrity, even in the little decisions of life? Let me give you three reasons to have integrity, especially if you’re facing a decision this next week. I hope it’ll help you. What maintains your integrity? Number one, you realize you are being watched. You’re being watched. You’re not just being watched by others. You’re being watched by God. God sees everything you do. God sees everything that you think. You see, whenever I’m tempted, whenever you’re tempted to not have integrity, there is this phrase that Satan uses with us to get us to take that step into a lack of integrity in our lives. And you know the phrase. He comes to us and he says, No one will ever know. You know this phrase? You’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it. And when you listen to that, you’re going to have a lack of integrity. The truth is, God does know. He does see. We’ve all heard that saying that integrity is what you are when no one is watching. And I guess that’s true, but a deeper truth is integrity is what you are when you realize that God is watching. When you realize there is never a time in your life when no one is watching. Everything you do, everything you say is important to Him. And every decision of integrity, even if no one else ever knows, makes a difference with him. So you realize that you’re being watched. What keeps you determined with integrity? Number two, you realize you reap whatever you sow. That keeps integrity in your life. It’s a law of life. Every farmer knows this. If you sow corn, what are you going to get? Not a hard question, let’s do it. If you sow corn, what are you going to get? That’s an easy answer. And yet with integrity, you sow lies, guess what you get? You’re going to get lies. If you sow cheating others, if you cheat others, guess what happens? You end up getting cheated yourself. It’s just a law of life. Integrity just makes sense logically for no other reason. And a third reason to maintain integrity is the fact that dishonesty damages your character. It hurts you at the very core. Remember life is a test. We’ve been talking about these last several weeks that God is preparing for us for eternity. And your rewards in heaven are based much on your character here on this earth. Integrity has eternal implications. The decisions you’re making now aren’t just gonna last for a few years, they’re gonna last for an eternity. That’s why this is so important. I hope you know the name of Coach Cleveland Stroud. Not a famous basketball coach, but he coached a boys basketball team in Georgia that won the state championships one year. And then they found out that there was a player on his team that played for 45 seconds in one game during the year that was ineligible. And he let the state know, and they took away the trophy. And some people say, why’d you do that? I mean, you should have just kept quiet. He didn’t make any impact. He just played for 45 seconds. But here’s what the coach said he said to his boys. I told my team that people forget the scores of basketball games, but they never forget what you’re made of. That’s someone who understood the importance of integrity, what’s gonna last in life. If you wanna finish well, you have to refuse to compromise your integrity. The Bible talks about the value of that in Proverbs 11 three. Would you read this verse with me? The integrity of the honest keeps them on track. You want to stay on track in life? It takes integrity. So how would you rate yourself on this one? On telling the truth, on keeping your word, on practicing your beliefs, on integrity in life. Is it an okay or is it an NW, needs work? Now, don’t lie on this one. It’s about integrity. Okay, don’t lie even to yourself on this one.
SPEAKER 03 :
The second secret of finishing well is resolve to live with humility. First, you refuse to compromise your integrity. Second, you resolve to live with humility. Humility. The Bible says in Proverbs 18, proud people will be ruined, but the humble will be honored. If you get on an ego trip, you’re going to get off track in the race of life. The Bible says proud people will be ruined. That means stay humble or you’ll stumble. Remember the lesson of the whale. When you get to the top and you’re ready to blow, that’s when you get harpooned. Okay? The person who gets too big for his britches will inevitably be exposed in the end. Stay humble or you’ll stumble. The proud person will be ruined. You’re not gonna make it to the end. You’re not gonna finish well. But the humble will be honored. Now I intentionally chose this word resolve. Circle that word resolve. Because that means humility is a choice. It’s something you choose to do. A lot of people think humility is something that God does to you. He doesn’t do it to you. You don’t ever need to pray, God please humble me. Don’t ever pray that really. Okay, okay. You don’t need to pray, God. Humility is not something God does to you. It’s not something your husband or your wife does to you. It’s something you do to yourself. Humility is a choice. Humility is an attitude. Jesus said this. You might write this verse down, Matthew 22, 13. It says this, it’s on the screen here. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Now, it says it’s something you do to yourself. You humble yourself. Now, how do you do that? How do you humble yourself so you can finish well in life? Well, there’s a couple ways. First is be honest about your humanity. Be honest about your weaknesses, your limitations, your imperfections. I hate to let you in on a secret, but everybody already knows you’re not perfect. Okay, big surprise. So you can quit pretending like you’ve got it all together because you don’t. In fact, nobody has it all together. Nobody. And so I don’t know why we go around pretending like we’re perfect, pretending like we’ve got it all together, when everybody knows none of us have it all together. You admit your perfections. You see, humility is not low self-esteem. It’s not running around putting yourself down. I’m no good, I’m worthless, I’m junk, I’m just a worm. Jesus did not die for worms. He died for people. That shows your great value. If you weren’t valuable, Jesus wouldn’t have died for you. Humility is not putting yourself down. Humility is not denying your strengths. It’s being honest about your weaknesses. You see, all of us are a bundle of strengths and weaknesses. I have some great strengths. I also have some great weaknesses. And so do you. You have some strengths and you have weaknesses. And humility is just being honest about both. Now part of it means being able to laugh at yourself. Did you know that humor and humility come from the same word? And if you can laugh at yourself, it’s a good sign you’re not on an ego trip. Notice what this verse says, 2 Corinthians 4, 7. Let’s read it aloud together. Paul says, we carry this precious message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. Those of you who’ve heard of the rock group Jars of Clay, they got their name from this verse. The Bible says God puts his glory, his power, his life in us, and we’re just jars of clay. We’re common clay pots. Now, clay pots break easily, and the fact is we’re all a little cracked. Okay? All of us are. And we don’t need to hide the cracks. The fact is we’re all just a little cracked. And you need to learn to laugh at your limitations. If you can do that, you’re going to have plenty of comic material the rest of your life. because there’s plenty to laugh at. One of the rules we say to our Saddleback staff is take God seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously. That’s the secret, by the way, of stress management. Take God seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously. If you’re under stress, it’s because you’re doing the opposite. You’re taking yourself way too seriously, and you’re not taking God seriously enough. It’s a lot less stressful when you can relax and admit your humanity and laugh about it because we all make mistakes. We all do blunders. Yes, even pastors. I know some of you think pastors are on pedestals, that we’re perfect. Just talk to my wife. You’ll know that we’re not. You know, part of humility is just being able to laugh at yourself, having a good time, and not take yourself seriously. Another way, look at this next verse at the bottom of the page. It says, our message is not about ourselves. It’s about Jesus Christ as Lord, and we are your servants for his sake. Now circle Jesus Christ and circle the word servants. Because the other way to be humble is to focus on God and on serving others. If you focus on loving God and you focus on serving others, you don’t have time to get on an ego trip. You don’t have time to get prideful. You see, humble people don’t think less of themselves. They think of themselves less. Does that make sense? They’re just too busy thinking about God and other people. They’re not self-conscious people. They don’t think bad of themselves. They just don’t think of themselves at all because they’re always either thinking about God or they’re thinking about how can I help you? How can I serve you? And you’re too busy and you forget yourself. He says our message is not about ourselves. The first line in the Purpose Driven Life book is, it’s not about you. Our message is not about ourselves. By the way, this week somebody asked me, how come, Rick, you share the preaching with other pastors? You know, you don’t just do it all yourself. Well, one of the reasons is I want you to focus on God, not me. Our message is not about me. And it really shouldn’t matter who’s doing the teaching because it’s about God, not about the speaker. So I honestly think it’s healthy for you to hear God’s word through multiple personalities. And of course, I have several. Which one you wanna hear? Elvis? Because you need to realize no matter who’s teaching or who’s speaking or who’s doing a point, it’s about God, it’s not about us. He says it’s about Jesus Christ as Lord and we are your servants.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, did you know that experts have discovered that gratitude is the healthiest human emotion? Yeah. It makes you more resistant to stress and increases your overall happiness and satisfaction. And in fact, studies show that the more grateful a person is, the happier they are. That’s the power of gratitude. You know, the Bible tells us to rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances. So it’s really very clear that God wants us to develop an attitude of gratitude. But we all know that it’s not always easy to feel grateful. So Pastor Rick developed a Bible study called The Power of Gratitude. This innovative study is filled with scripture, teaching, exercises, quotes, prayers, and journal pages. And as you go through this study, you’ll discover the many and often unique things that you have to be grateful for every day. You’ll develop the lifelong habit of expressing gratitude to God, a habit that leads to true happiness and satisfaction. And we’ll send you Pastor Rick’s Power of Gratitude Bible Study to say thanks when you give a gift to help Daily Hope take the Word of God to people around the world. Just go to PastorRick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That’s PastorRick.com. Or you can just text the word HOPE to 70309. And again, that’s the word HOPE to 70309. And we thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope helps us share the hope of Christ with people all around the world. Please join us next time as we look into God’s Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
