At The End

Man, what a joy it is to be with you guys this morning.

I just want to say, as we kind of enter into the sermon in this passage, this message really weighed heavy on me all week long.

You know, I've wrestled my entire life with a fear of death.

When I was six years old, it was the first time that I went to go see a counselor.

I would have these gripping panic attacks that would overwhelm my entire being around the very notion of dying.

And here this morning, what we're doing is we're reading a dying man's last words.

And there's this reality where we have to contemplate and consider what it looks like to end.

How do we, as God's people, finish well?

If we're honest with ourselves, we don't like thinking about this.

It seems morbid, it seems empty, it seems vain, it seems terrifying.

But the Bible actually shows us that there's wisdom in contemplating the end.

Many men go through life without ever thinking about how they will finish.

And they run the race of life in utter catastrophe and misery, not accomplishing what they hoped to, not becoming what they desired to.

Many men will go to the grave regretting the man that they were at the end of their life.

The Bible teaches us to contemplate the end that we might finish well.

I think throughout his life and ministry, it seemed as if Paul always had one foot on earth and one foot in heaven.

He often would write of being with Jesus and seeing him face to face, departing this world to obtain the fullness of salvation's joy.

In many ways, Paul spent his life contemplating death.

He saw death not as an end, but as the beginning of the life that his soul truly longed for.

Ecclesiastes 7:1 says this a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of birth.

Ecclesiastes 7:1

I think this is a very curious statement.

It's obviously very countercultural.

We spend our whole life celebrating our birthday, and we do not desire to ever have to celebrate the day of death.

How can the scripture say that the day of death is actually better than the day of birth?

Well, only we see that on the day of birth the person's future is very uncertain.

Who they will become, we don't know if they're going to carry a good name all the way to the end or what their life will ever accumulate to, but on the day of death, we do.

We know the person they were.

We do the name that they established for themselves.

You see, our day of birth is a mystery.

What are we going to become?

But our day of death is a reckoning of what we have become.

Ecclesiastes 7 2 carries on this same thinking.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

What I think the scripture shows that there's both wisdom and grace.

Even for the young, vibrant and strong in considering the end, to reflect on what we want it to look like.

And there's diversity in this room.

As far as where you're at in this stage of life and how many days and months and years you have before you, I understand, but even the youngest person in this room, if you have ears to hear what is being said in the scripture, it is good for you to contemplate the end.

Because it directs who you become.

You see, to lay this to heart, that one day I won't be at the beginning, I will be at the end, and to consider what I want that end to look like.

The Bible says there's wisdom in that.

Wisdom being the effectual application of the knowledge that we gain.

I have this information of who I am and what I desire and what God has called me to, and I need to apply that knowledge to my life.

That's wisdom, that I might be what God has called me to be.

This passage, 2 Timothy 4, 9 through 22, helps us do that because these are the final words in the final letter of the Apostle Paul.

This is Paul at the end.

And through the passage, it's filled with these mundane details like greetings and requests.

But it's not just this list of administrative work to skip over.

Bring me my cloak and my books, right?

If we look closer, Paul actually models how to finish well, providing us with this picture of what it might look like or what we might desire our own end to be.

And so as we close out the letter of 2 Timothy this morning, let's pause a moment to reflect and learn from Paul on how to finish well.

This passage is personal, and I want us to receive it personally.

And so we're going to explore four aspects that we see in the text of finishing well: the purpose, the people, the perspective, and the presence.

That as I've meditated on this and I've studied this out, I desire to have at the end of my own life.

The first is the purpose in the end.

The purpose in the end.

Look, the Apostle Paul, he's about to die.

As he declared in 2 Timothy 4, 6 through 8, and one of the most beautiful farewells of the Bible, right?

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.

This farewell seems like the perfect place to end 2 Timothy.

But Paul keeps going.

Instead of resting, right?

This apostle remains as busy as ever in verses 9 through 22.

Paul was not content to simply lie down on the frigid floor of his prison cell and die.

No, he was going to die working, laboring for the gospel, contending for the faith, being active in mission.

John Leland, a Baptist preacher and abolitionist, would call him the busy little apostle.

He never stopped working.

Even in the very shadow of death, Paul is strategizing for the gospel's advance.

He's mapping the Roman world in his mind, deploying men to new cities to start new works, to plant churches.

He's warning Timothy of opponents of the gospel, and he's sending for partners to come to him like Mark, who he says is useful for me in ministry.

He's days away from his neck, resting on the executioner's chopping block, and he still has purpose in the gospel.

He requests books and parchments, eager to read and learn and grow Paul's purpose.

Serving and living for the Lord Jesus is as strong at the end as it is on any page that we see in the book of Acts.

He wants to see the light of the gospel shine forth.

Over his 30 plus years of gospel ministry, the fire within him has never even begun to be extinguished.

Paul says, I'm about to depart.

The ropes of the ship are loosened from the dock, but it hasn't sailed yet.

For me, living is still for Christ.

My life, he says, is a drink offering poured out for the Lord Jesus, and there are still, even in this moment, a few drops left.

I want Jesus to have every last one.

You know, you can see in full view the reality of his declaration to the church in Philippi.

For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Paul labors to his final breath.

His purpose shines bright as he holds the tension of the two worlds that are calling for him, keeping his eyes on Jesus and his hand firmly gripped on the plow, he labors.

He's enduring in the very way that he's encouraging Timothy to.

Don't give up, don't quit, keep fighting.

And I love that.

I I think that that should sober us in many ways.

Because Paul also names others who have drifted from their purpose, who ran, but not for the gospel, not toward Jesus.

No, they ran headlong into this world when they heard its call.

Demas.

Demas was once Paul's trusted co-worker.

He now finds himself as in Paul words in love with this present world and has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

You see, in Paul's letter to the Colossians, he actually includes Demas in the closing of his letter there also.

But it's as one who sends greetings to the saints there alongside Luke.

But here, just a handful of years later, Demas is off in Thessalonica in love with the world.

Others in 2 Timothy are distracted by the world, deceived by false teaching, disqualified by immoral living.

This should sober us.

You see, serving Jesus with purpose now is no guarantee that you will finish with purpose.

The reality is, many in this room will be demises.

Who fell in love with the world, who didn't see the fight worth fighting.

We must persevere.

We got to build rhythms to keep our hearts warm toward Jesus and focused on his work as Paul urges Timothy, endure, continue, fulfill your ministry.

By God's grace, I want this purpose at the end.

My life poured out as an offering of worship to the Lord until the very last drop, not just dying slowly in a recliner, numbed by the glow of a television.

No.

I want to labor to the end.

Are you serving Jesus with purpose now?

Have you built rhythms and relationships to help you persevere in passionate, white hot ministry for Jesus' glory to the end?

Are you willing to have every last drop of your life poured out for the sake of the gospel?

The second thing we see here in the text is the people at the end.

At the end, Paul has almost nothing.

He has very little.

No books, no writing materials, not even a cloak.

Man, he's asking Timothy, Timothy, can you just bring me a coat before the winter sets in?

But he does have one thing.

Even in the midst of those who have deserted him and abandoned him, Paul still has people.

And these verses are crowded with names like Luke and Mark, Timothy, Prisca, Aquila, Onesaphorus, and others.

These aren't just a list to skip over.

You see, they represent people filling Paul's very mind and heart, people who occupy his prayers, testifying to a life that Paul spent loving, serving, and making disciples for Jesus.

You see, I'm not sure about you, but at the end of my life, I want people at the end.

I want friends like Luke, who stays with Paul when others leave.

He says, Luke, the physician, he alone is with me.

Proverbs 17, 17.

This speaks of their friendship.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

He's there for the fight.

He's not gonna leave you isolated and abandoned on the battlefield.

No, a brother is with you.

I want friends who stand by me through thick and thin, and united by the only thing that needs to unite us the blood of Christ.

I want youthful people in the generations before me, like Crescens, Titus, and Tychicus, whom Paul invested in.

I want to be surrounded by young men who knew that I loved them and who I worked to raise up and equip and build into that they might love Jesus and serve their families and lay their lives down for the flourishing of their wife and children.

But this takes time, takes patience to invest in the younger generations around us because they slow you down.

They require significant and often tiring work, but after you're gone, here's the reality.

The young people in our congregation will go places that we never will.

They'll go and do work that we can't.

They'll reach people that we are unable to, and they will serve Jesus far beyond our reach.

We're not here at Sacred Mission working for us, for our comfortability, for our own sense of security.

No, we are working for the generations to come that the light of the gospel of Jesus would push back all of the darkness with inside of this area.

That's what we're laboring for.

Work that continues even after we are buried.

Because God buries men, but the devil cannot bury God's work.

I want partners like Prisca and Aquila who Paul says in Romans 16, they risk their necks for Paul.

Now I want people who suffered and sacrificed with me in ministry with an abundance of stories to prove it.

People who believe in me and are willing to take risks because they know that if we go down, we're going down together.

We're a community of faith, of people bonded together by the love of Christ, and we're going to take big risks for the kingdom.

Because we're not here to die in a recliner.

We're here to see the name of Christ be glorified among the people.

I want the multiplication of local churches that's filled with just ordinary, faithful believers who love Jesus and serve him faithfully.

Paul talks about those in Onessa Forest's household.

They know God and they love his word because of Paul's imperfect but sincere ministry.

I want that.

Your elders here at Sacred Mission are far beyond perfect, but I can tell you this: we love you.

We love you and we want to serve you and lay our lives down for your flourishing and good to see you mature in all that Christ has called you to be.

But we're gonna do it in the messiest possible way imaginable.

Not like too messy, right?

Like, not to where we disqualify ourselves.

I feel like I'm walking this back at this point, but I can tell you genuinely, we're gonna need grace.

We're gonna need forgiveness.

We're gonna need the love of Christ to cover us.

You see, I want to be committed to gospel mission, like these people were.

Twice Paul urges young Timothy, just come see me.

Before my eyes close in death, I want them to behold your face one last time, Timothy.

It's as if he's saying, we're gonna meet in a better world.

But but before I travel there, I want to see you.

I want to share my heart with you one last time.

Timothy knew Paul's life, not just his public ministry.

I want these people who, despite my own sin and weakness and shortcomings, know that I love Jesus and I love them.

On the day of my funeral, they'll read God's word publicly.

They'll sing to the Lord, they'll preach the gospel, they will lay me to rest.

They'll probably affectionately make fun of me and laugh at me.

And then they'll turn and they'll keep serving Jesus.

I've told my wife for years now, I want to be mourned by my widow and carried by my elders, and I want to be buried and forgotten.

And let the gospel keep going.

You see, to have people at the end.

Here's what we see in this text.

To have people at the end, we need to invest in people now.

Adrian Rogers, who was a Baptist preacher and went home to be with Jesus in 2005, he said this the world's smallest package is a man wrapped up in himself.

I can't live for myself and expect people to rise up and call me blessed.

I can't prioritize a crowd of virtual connections over real people that God has placed in my life.

I cannot be so work focused and career driven and task oriented.

That I don't let people interrupt me.

And I can't write off people who frustrate me.

I can't write off people who hurt me and wound me.

Like Mark.

Mark, who's named among this list.

What we have to understand is Mark disappointed Paul.

Mark wounded Paul because he withdrew himself from gospel work.

It actually caused Paul to split with Barnabas over Mark's behavior and choices.

In Acts 15, we see this yet.

He was discipled by Peter.

He was softened by God's grace.

And Mark becomes, as Paul says here in the text, useful to Paul.

If I want people at the end, I gotta extend grace now.

I have to be willing to be hurt.

I have to be willing to be wounded and I have to be willing to repair by a bold and courageous love and extension of grace so that we might build resilience.

You see, in the end, we may be very surprised by who's there.

You see, I've been to a lot of funerals in my work, and I've been to funerals so full of people that you actually had to hunt down spaces large enough to fit them into.

And I've been to funerals where you felt awkward and sad, where it wasn't your fault, but you felt ashamed.

Because you could have fit every single person who came into a small bedroom.

And I can tell you this the key difference is who they lived for.

Did they live a life for others or did they live a life for themselves?

I want at the end of my life a good perspective.

Let's look at the perspective of the end.

The perspective of the end.

There's a really dark side to this text.

Because what we see throughout it is that living with gospel purpose and loving people in Jesus' name, it causes deep wounds that eventually remain in us as scars.

Ask anyone in ministry, they'll confirm it.

And Paul reviews his scars like an old champion fighter with stories to tell here.

He talks about desertion.

Demas once trusted, he deserted me for the world.

Paul expected Demas to be one of the men who was reading scripture at his own funeral, who would carry him as he was laid to rest.

But no, Demas left when times got tough.

Demas left when the world looked more beautiful and attractive than the work of the gospel laid before him.

Demas left.

In life and ministry, what we understand and know and have experienced far too often is that some of the people that you invest the most into will be the very ones who break your heart and desert you.

Paul talks about a great disappointment.

At his trial in Rome, he says that no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me.

You can imagine, try to put yourself in Paul's shoes to the best of our ability here.

He's on trial, standing before one of the most powerful governments in all creation, right?

Who has no problem putting to death anyone who opposes them in their power?

And he's standing before them, and I can imagine him looking back at the door over and over again.

Is there anybody who's gonna come?

Is anybody at any time gonna bust through these doors to stand by me while I'm here on trial by myself, expecting the Roman Christians who he had written this lengthiest letter to to love them and shepherd them and pastor them, right?

None of them showed up.

Now, maybe they were scared, I can imagine.

Maybe they were busy that day, maybe they were prevented by Roman authority.

We don't know.

But what we do know is that that moment was very painful, it was very lonely.

You see, in life and ministry, the the people that you show up for, time and time again, may not show up for you when you need it most.

Some people despise Paul.

He talks about Alexander the coppersmith.

He did me great harm and strongly opposed our message, Paul says.

There's gonna be people in this life and in your ministry that will dislike you.

They're gonna see you as a threat, they're gonna criticize you, they're gonna slander you, they're gonna make your life difficult.

You see, we need this biblical category of enemies.

It is healthy for us in our perspective to understand this.

There will be people who outright want to see you fail.

But pay attention to Paul's perspective.

I love that he's able to be honest about his hurts.

I come from this really unhealthy neighbing and claimant, word of faith, gospel, garbage.

And what you were never allowed to do is just to be honest with how you felt.

Everything had to be up and to the right, everything had to be positive, everything had to be going highly favored and blessed.

And if it wasn't going in that direction, then something must be wrong with you.

No, Paul's able to say, I'm so established and confident in the gospel of Christ the Son that I can be honest about how I'm feeling right now.

And you know what?

In the midst of that hurt, he's not bitter, he's not vengeful, he's not wallowing in self-pity, he's not laboring to try and protect himself.

Paul is still softened and open to being cut by the very people he loves most again.

Because it's not about them, he's remarkably free.

If I can say anything about Paul, he's free because no one is able to take his joy, and because he entrusts every single one of his scars to Jesus.

For Alexander, he says, the Lord will repay him according to his deeds.

It's not my problem, it's not my issue, it's not my concern to see that Alexander the coppersmith is repaid his wickedness.

No, no.

The Lord sees him, the Lord will repay him.

For the no-show Romans, may it not be charged against them.

May it not be held against their account, may they be forgiven.

Paul would say that being wounded in service to Jesus is inevitable, but it's worth it.

It's temporary.

These light momentary afflictions, he writes in 2 Corinthians, prepare us for an eternal weight of glory.

That's the perspective I want at the end.

Every painful moment, worth it, every wound that I incur, worth it, every scar I bear, worth it, that I might find a trust and a treasure in Jesus more and more as he's preparing me for this eternal weight of glory.

Because when I depart from this world, I may carry scars from serving Jesus, but I know this that with full confidence they will be healed by the very scars he bears in himself.

I don't have to make it my concern here and now.

Go ahead, wound me.

I've got something better coming.

You see, Paul, in all of this, he had a great confidence in a presence that carried him through the end.

This is the last point, the presence through the end.

Here's the reality: Timothy's probably not going to make it by winter.

Paul doesn't make it to winter.

From what we understand historically, just days after finishing this letter, Paul is beheaded for preaching the gospel.

The Roman Christians may have never showed up to support him and care for him and be with him.

Even faithful Luke, who alone is with him, cannot make the final homecoming journey with Paul.

But Paul has one friend who can.

He feels a presence in the end, who can carry him through wherever he goes.

In that soul-crushing trial that we read about earlier, when no one appeared, Paul sensed a presence.

He says in verse 17, the Lord stood by me and strengthened me.

You see, Jesus took that lonely, painful moment and he used it for good, enabling Paul to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles.

Look at the confidence Paul has in Jesus.

But not just a confidence.

Where does that confidence come from?

Paul knows Jesus.

You see, for us in our camp, we pride ourselves a lot on knowing about Jesus.

But can I tell you, in the painful realities of this life, in the loneliness of ministry, in the wounds that you will bear, knowing about Jesus will not carry you through.

You have to know him as a friend.

Know him as the true and better older brother.

Know him as the Savior.

Know him as the one who desires to be with you and commune with you and speak to you and minister to you.

Know him, not know about him.

Jesus wasn't words on a parchment scroll to Paul.

There was a presence that he felt as he stood before the most powerful force in the world.

He knew that there was someone stronger standing next to him.

He felt Jesus.

Reflecting on this, Paul sees countless times that Jesus was his true and better friend.

In Corinth, when he was ready to quit, Jesus said, Keep preaching, Paul.

I'm with you.

I understand you just got stoned to the point of death.

They assumed you were dead and they drug your body out of the city.

But Paul, let me tell you something.

Get up, go back in the city, keep preaching the gospel.

I'm with you.

Through every difficult assignment, through every celebratory victory, Paul knew and was aware that Jesus was there.

This is the wildness about this letter.

At the very end of his life, he knows that he's about to be put to death.

He knows he is legitimately standing in the shadow of death itself.

He's facing its cold waters.

Paul has no fear.

Second Timothy 4 18.

The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.

Paul's not a fool.

Paul's not speaking some positive health and wealth, prosperity, utterance into existence.

Paul's not denying reality.

Paul is sitting there in the darkness of a cold prison cell, and he says this: Jesus will be with me.

Jesus will deliver me.

He will bring me into the fullness of his kingdom.

Let him come.

This man's facing death in a matter of days, but he knows his savior so intimately.

He trusts him so confidently that he can write something so seemingly absurd as this.

Paul's either a lunatic, lost his mind in the solitude of this prison, or Paul is deeply in love with Jesus.

You see.

Paul longs to be with his friend.

Paul longs to see his Savior, Jesus, face to face, to be in the fullness of his presence, of the one whom he has felt with him all along.

Paul says, I know whom I have believed.

2 Timothy 1 12.

I know him.

Not just what I believe, Paul knows whom he has believed.

The living Lord Jesus who loved him and gave himself for him.

You see, ministry will end for Paul soon.

Life will end.

And one day it's going to end for us too.

But fellowship with Jesus is eternal.

Church, if I want his presence at the end, nothing is more important than cultivating friendship with him now.

It's more important than studying theology.

It's more important than the ministry opportunities that come before us.

It's more important than anything else that I would cultivate friendship with Jesus to know and to be known by him.

You see, Jesus knows disappointment from friends.

Jesus knows very well the wounds that mar him, the scars that he carries, friends who have abandoned him, being despised by those who should have loved him, being deserted by all, to bear in total isolation and loneliness our sin on the cross.

Yet Jesus rose to be our never failing friend, promising, I will never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you.

You see, above everything else, at the end of my life, I want to have been a man who knew and walked with Jesus.

I want to be faithful to the gospel.

I want to serve him to the very end.

I want to finish well.

And my prayer and hope for you is that you also want to.

To finish well, to be poured out to the last drop.

For the glory of his name.

Amen.

Let's pray.