Will You Finish Well

We're in great danger of supposing that true Christianity is a wonderful beginning, and not facing squarely the fact that it really doesn't matter very much how you start in comparison with how you finish. We place this great emphasis upon getting people to make perfections, to act as if they are beginning in the Christian life, and we pretend that if they've made a good start, then all is well. But that is so contrary to the teaching of Scripture, and so absolutely the opposite of the teachings, especially in the book of Hebrews.

Perhaps some of you do not recognize the construction of the book of Hebrews. It's an unusual book, in that it has two major themes running throughout at one and the same time. There's the incredible portions that are doctrinal, in which Christ is being elevated, and in passage after passage throughout Hebrews, Christ is shown to be infinitely above all else.

But at the same time, there are these series of warnings, passages in which it is being made increasingly plain that it isn't how you start that counts, but how you finish. There are not less than six of these profound warnings, but I'd like to read a portion of one of them. This is the warning that is found in the third chapter.

Let me pick it up at verse 5. Now Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things, which were to be spoken later. But Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are. If we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.

And then again in verse 14, for we have become partakers of Christ. If we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. All around us we see the debris of persons who have started but have not finished.

Multitudes of men in ministry who seem to have started well, but somehow got sidetracked. Perhaps by sin, perhaps simply by being weary of the abuse they were suffering from the church. Men, women, boys and girls of every age who somehow had the notion that a decision to accept Christ brought them into the kingdom of God.

And that nothing further was required of them. But consider the brief passages that I have read. Christ was a son over his house.

And we too are his sons. If we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. What is clearly stated in this passage is that we must throughout our lives from beginning to end boldly proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord.

And naturally we must live in a way that is appropriate to our proclamation. What an absurdity it would be to say Christ is Lord and then to live as if he were non-existent or as if he did not matter. We have become partakers of Christ.

If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm until the end. Faith is not a one time thing. Repentance is not a one time thing.

All of us are demanded by God to live in faith day in day out, week after week, month after month, year after year, right up until the time of our call home. Repentance is not something once done forever accomplished. Repentance is a daily task.

Repentance is something that is ever a part of the Christian life. We are constantly without ceasing turning from ourselves, from our sin and in faith turning to Jesus Christ. The world would be radically different if every Christian or at least every person who professed to be a Christian were indeed walking in perpetual faith and repentance.

Have you been clinging to some past event supposing that a proclamation you made or a prayer that you prayed or a decision that you decided has enough weight and power to carry you to the end? If so, abandon that nonsense and live from now on in repentance and in faith.