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CHAPTER 1

Four Essentials for Finishing Well

Jerry Bridges

As we think of the endurance of the saints, of enduring to the end and finishing well, there is no better example in Scripture than that of the apostle Paul. As he sat chained in a Roman prison, anticipating an imminent execution, he wrote to Timothy:

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Tim. 4:6–8)

Paul was confident he had endured to the end and had finished well. Sadly, however, just a few sentences later he had to write of one of his coworkers: "Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica" (2 Tim. 4:10).

Here were two men who had ministered together — Paul and Demas — mentor and mentoree. One endured and finished the race and looked forward to the crown of righteousness. The other man peeled off, deserted his mentor, and was never heard from again. We don't know what finally happened to Demas. We don't know whether he ever repented or not, but the Scripture ends with the fact that "Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me." In Philemon 24 Paul calls Demas a fellow worker along with Mark and Aristarchus and Luke. Demas was apparently a promising young man with a promising future; yet as far as we know he did not make it to the end.

This is a sobering thought because many readers of this book are young, committed followers of Jesus Christ. In God's gracious providence you have many years ahead of you, and you expect to finish the race, to stand firm, to endure to the end. But there was a time when Demas also thought that way. He didn't initially join Paul's team with the intention that he would later desert Paul when the going got tough. No, he undoubtedly expected to also stand firm and finish well.

This is a sobering thought even for those of us who are older because, as the famous baseball player Yogi Berra once said, "It ain't over till it's over." So we cannot presume that even at our age we will finish well. We never finish until the day we die. And so all of us, young or old, need to heed the warning that comes to us from the example of Demas.

Four Essential Elements for Finishing Well

Over the last few years I have given a lot of thought to how one finishes well. Although a number of things could be said, I have come to the conclusion that there are four fundamental actions we can take to help us finish well. There may be other issues that are important, but I believe these four are fundamental. They are:

• daily time of focused personal communion with God

• daily appropriation of the gospel

• daily commitment to God as a living sacrifice

• firm belief in the sovereignty and love of God

Now these four essentials are viewed from our perspective; that is, these are things we must and should do or believe. But standing over all of them is the grace of God. The same apostle who said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" also said in another context, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). Paul attributed all of his endurance, all of his faithfulness, to the grace of God. And so as we look at our responsibility, keep in mind that we are enabled to fulfill that responsibility only by the grace of God.

Now the grace of God is often misunderstood. I think one of the most common misunderstandings of the grace of God is, "God's cutting me some slack. Grace is God's letting me get away with a few things." That's the furthest thought from the grace of God. The grace of God comes to us through Jesus Christ as a result of his sinless life and sin-bearing death for us, but that grace is more than just God's kindness and benevolent feeling toward us. The grace of God is dynamic. The grace of God is God in action for our good. And so when the apostle Paul said, "By the grace of God I am what I am," he was speaking about the empowering of the Holy Spirit that God in his grace supplies to each of us as we seek to live for him. So keep in mind as we look at our responsibilities that we can carry out those responsibilities only by the grace of God. In the words of John Newton in his beloved hymn "Amazing Grace," "'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home." At the end of the day when all is said and done, we attribute our faithfulness to the grace of God. So as we consider these four essentials, keep in mind that we practice them only by his grace. Now let's look at them one by one.

A Daily Time of Focused Communion with God

The first essential is a daily time of focused personal communion with God. Many readers are familiar with the old classic Practicing the Presence of God, and that is an excellent habit to cultivate. But the foundation of that has to be a time of focused personal communion with God, and it needs to be daily. Demas didn't just wake up one day and make a 90degree turn. That doesn't happen. Demas drifted little by little toward the attractions of the world. And if you and I do not practice this daily focused time of communion with God, we will find ourselves also drifting in the wrong direction.

In my Navy days before we had global positioning satellites we used a sexton to get our navigational position twice each day. At dawn and at dusk we would "shoot the stars" and get a position. And invariably after having done that, we had to make a minor course correction. Obviously if we didn't do that, not only daily but in our case twice a day, we would soon find that we were way off course.

You and I also need that daily course correction, and we do this as we have this focused time with God. Demas was in love with this present world. Each of us, whether believer or unbeliever, is in love with something. Demas was in love with the world. The apostle John said, "Do not love the world" (1 John 2:15). But we cannot just "not love the world" and have a vacuum in our hearts. In order to not love the world we have to love God. And our time of daily focused communion with God is a time when that love of God and his love for us is refreshed in our hearts.

Consider the words of the psalmist. In Psalm 63:1 he says, "O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." Notice the intensity of those words, Earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you. This is far more than just a daily Bible reading and going over a few prayer requests, our "quiet time" or our "morning devotions" or something like that. While I'm not negating those terms, keep in mind the fact that the purpose of that quiet time is not just to read a chapter in the Bible and go over a few prayer requests. Rather it should be a time of personal communion with God. Obviously we need a plan. We don't just open our Bible and point our finger at a passage of Scripture and say, this is my passage for today. But communion with God is far, far more than a plan. Communion with God is meeting with him. It is asking God to speak to us. It is speaking to him as we read his Word, as we interact with his Word in prayer, as we pray over what God is saying to us in his Word.

Psalm 42:1–2 says something similar: "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?"

Or again David in Psalm 27:4 said: "One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." The beauty of the Lord is not a physical beauty. It's the beauty of his attributes. It's the beauty of the cross. It's the beauty of what he has done for us in Christ. And the psalmist said, I just want to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord; I want to have communion with God. This is what the focused time is all about. All of these Scriptures speak of an intense desire to have that personal communion with God.

Now it's helpful to have a plan, but the plan must direct you to God himself. Do we spend time with God or do we just read a chapter in the Bible? Spending time with God certainly involves the reading of a chapter or three verses or three chapters or whatever. But the object of that is to meet with God, to have God speak to us and to respond to him. As I open my Bible each day, I ask, "Lord, may I today spend time with you. Would you speak to me from your Word? Would you encourage me? Would you teach me? Would you rebuke me if I need it? Lord, whatever you see that I need today, I come to spend time with you." Then as I begin to read the passage I respond to God over what I'm reading. I pray back to him whatever is appropriate in that passage.

If you read through the Psalms, you will notice that in most of them the psalmist is either speaking to God or speaking about God. But usually he is speaking to God. Sometimes he's rejoicing, and sometimes he's lamenting. He says, for example, "O God, why do you hide your face from me?" (cf. Ps. 88:4). He is interacting with God. This is what we want to do. And as we daily seek to have that personal communion with God, God will give us that navigational fix, so to speak, and he will show us what course corrections we need to make in our lives so that we do not drift off course. And so if you and I are going to endure to the end, we must make it a practice — a discipline, if you please — to have that focused, daily communion with God.

In 1988 my first wife was dying of cancer after a long illness. One morning as I was struggling with the reality of her approaching death, there came to my mind, "Psalm 116:15, 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.'" With that came the realization that God himself had an interest in what was happening to my wife. For me I would be losing my sweetheart, but for God, it would be the homecoming of one of his children.

I thought of the time when our fifteen-year-old son went on an eleven-week summer missions program and how we eagerly anticipated his coming home. I realized that as incredible as it seems, God eagerly awaits the homecoming of his children. And then there came to mind a part of Psalm 16:11, "in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." As I prayed over that Scripture, I realized that very soon Eleanor would experience the incredible joy of actually being in the very presence of God.

As I continued to pray back to God, I said something like, "Father, you will gain one of your children coming home, and Eleanor will gain being in your presence forevermore, but what about me?" Quickly there came to mind words from 1 Thessalonians 4:13 in the King James Version, "ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope."

With that assurance from God and his Word, I was able to emotionally release her. Two weeks later she died. In the aftermath of her death I sorrowed, but not as one who has no hope. Meanwhile I was comforted by the assurance that God had joyously welcomed one of his children home and that she was enjoying his presence forevermore.

I never experienced the various stages of grief that so many people go through after the death of a loved one. I never became angry at God or experienced days of depression. Within a week or so I was able to resume my normal responsibilities in my work. All of this because years before I had established the practice of a daily time of personal communion with God.

I should warn against the possibility of becoming legalistic about our time of communion with God. That is, we do not earn blessings from God because we have this time, nor do we forfeit his blessing on a day we miss it. God does not bless because we spend time with him, but he often blesses through that time, as he did when my wife was approaching death.

Nor should we expect to always have God speak to us through his Word in such a dramatic fashion as I experienced that day. As with the navigational course corrections aboard ship, God's spiritual course corrections in our lives are usually incremental and not especially dramatic. But they are necessary.

A Daily Appropriation of the Gospel

The second essential is a daily appropriation of the gospel. I have put personal communion with God first to highlight its priority because that's the absolute basic essential. But in actual practice I put my daily appropriation of the gospel first. That is, I begin my time with God by reviewing and appropriating to myself the gospel. Since the gospel is only for sinners, I come to Christ as a still practicing sinner. In fact, I usually use the words of that tax collector in the temple when he cried out, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13). God has been merciful, and I'm quick to acknowledge his mercy in my life, but I say to him that I come in the attitude of that tax collector. "I need your mercy. I am still a practicing sinner. Even my very best deeds are sinful in your sight, and I am an object of your mercy and your grace."

It's important that we come, first of all, by appropriating the gospel because it's through Christ that we have access to God the Father. Paul says in Ephesians 2:18, "For through him we both [Jew and Gentile] have access in one Spirit to the Father." We cannot come directly to God. We must always come through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But God not only allows us to come; he invites us to come. The writer of Hebrews says, "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Heb. 10:19–22). And so as we appropriate the gospel it gives us the confidence to come into the very presence of God to have communion with him. So we need to learn to live by the gospel every day of our lives.

In the early years of my Christian life and even in my early ministry I regarded the gospel as a message for the unbeliever. Now that I was a Christian I personally no longer needed the gospel except as a message to share with unbelievers. But I learned the hard way many years ago that I need the gospel every day of my life.

At the time I was serving overseas, and I was single and lonely. Additionally I was struggling with some interpersonal relationship issues. Every Monday night I led a Bible study at an American Air Force base about an hour's drive from where I lived. And every Monday night as I drove home, Satan would attack me with accusations of my sin. Out of desperation I began to resort to the gospel. To use an expression I learned years later, I began to "preach the gospel to myself." And I subsequently learned that I continued to need the gospel every day of my life. That is why I list this practice as one of the four essential elements.

Consider Paul's words in Galatians 2:20. The apostle writes, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." The context of this verse is the subject of justification. In verses 15–17 Paul speaks of our being justified four times. He says we're not justified by works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, and he keeps repeating that thought. And then in verse 21 he says, "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." Clearly in this entire passage, verses 15–21, he is talking about the subject of justification. He is going to get to sanctification later, but that's not in this context. The reason I make a point of that is because I want to call your attention particularly to the last sentence of verse 20. "And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Remember, in the context Paul is speaking about justification, not sanctification.

Now this raises an apparent problem or question. That is, we know that justification is a point-in-time past event. At the time you trusted Christ you were at that precise moment declared righteous by God. You were justified. That's why Paul in Romans 5:1 can speak of justification in the past tense when he says, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And yet here in this passage he speaks of it in the present tense. "The life that I now live in the flesh," today. The life that I live today, "I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." So if justification is a point-in-time event that happened in our past, why does Paul speak of it in the present tense? The life that I now live today I live by faith in the Son of God

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