I’m 55, which is old enough to have seen some of my friends not finish well. I used to struggle to understand how someone could fail God in a public way. Now I marvel that God’s grace has kept me so long. The older I get, the more I see my sin.
I see three options before us:
- Coast — No new challenges. No risk. No discomfort. This option hardly seems like a good one, but it’s probably our default.
- Crash — I see this far too often. Commit a serious sin against God, one that brings dishonor to his glory, and that harms others. We’re all closer to this than we think. The more we think we’re not in danger, the greater the danger (1 Corinthians 10:14).
- Finish well — This option aims to echo Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 4:7-8: “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.”
Finishing well means that we remember that we have an enemy who’s a murderer and a liar (John 8:44). It means that we take John Owen’s words seriously: “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” We must realize how dangerous sin is — not just sin in general, but the particular sins that we’re tempted to commit. We must recognize them, confess them, and drag them into the open. In general, if I’m so embarrassed by a sin or temptation that nobody knows about it, I’m in dangerous territory.
But finishing well also has a positive side. It means treasuring God, beholding Christ, and being filled with the Spirit — all deeply satisfying. Growth in godliness is growth in joy.
Finishing well simply means that we keep doing these two things — killing sin and treasuring God — for a long time, recognizing that we’re never far from danger. It means anticipating the day when all of this struggle will have been worth it for the glory that will be revealed.
It also helps to follow others who are finishing well. I spoke to a man, a bit older than me, last week. He’s been faithfully serving in his church for 29 years. I can’t detect an ounce of artifice in his life. The harder things get, his wife comments, the more he’s in.
As we spoke, I asked how he’d stayed faithful this long. His one-word answer: abiding. He can’t imagine a day when he doesn’t depend on Christ’s power for all that he needs. “I wither so fast,” he said. Me too.
It made me think of Robertson McQuilkin, a seminary president who died in 2016. He wrote these words before he died:
It’s sundown, Lord … I fear not death, for that grim foe betrays himself at last, thrusting me forever into life: life with you, unsoiled and free.
But I do fear … That I should end before I finish or finish, but not well. That I should stain your honor, shame your name, grieve your loving heart. Few, they tell me, finish well. . . Lord, let me get home before dark.
McQuilkin feared “the darkness of a spirit grown mean and small, fruit shriveled on the vine, bitter to the taste of my companions … the darkness of tattered gifts, rust-locked, half-spent, or ill-spent, a life that once was used of God now set aside.” He longed for fruit “lush and sweet, a joy to all who taste.” He wanted to burn brighter at the end.
“Of your grace, Father, I humbly ask. . . Let me get home before dark,” he prayed. And to that we say, “Amen.”
