Finish......Now!

By John Stallings


Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
James 4:17

There are two ways to finish.

One way, & by far the most popular use of the word finish, is to quit; to stop, to cease the activity. To just walk away, dust off our hands & say, I quit. Quitters will say; ---“I’m finished with that endeavor. I’m finished with school; I’m finished with this marriage, I’m finished with musical training, I’m finished with that church or I’m finished with this job.” They haven’t actually finished, what they did was grow tired of the work involved & quit.

Many people have the philosophy that if a job isn’t pleasing them, they’ll just quit, whether or not they have another job. If school starts to get boring or require too much study time, they do the easy thing & quit. I read somewhere that the number of high school dropouts is currently unbelievably high. This doesn’t bode well for America’s future.

If a woman becomes pregnant & the new life she’s carrying is inconvenient, she quits or aborts the birth process. If a marriage becomes less than they think it ought to be or is starting to require some adjustment & hard work, the easy thing to do is walk off, file for divorce & quit.

The other way to finish & the least popular use of the word is, “To bring to perfection; to do all things necessary & required to bring about a successful completion of an enterprise, to bring to excellence.”

When a builder builds a house, when the walls are up, the roof is on, & the rooms are all laid out, a special kind of workman is called in, a “finish carpenter.” This man’s job is to hang the doors, install the door-knobs & see that the doors close smoothly, nail up & paint the molding strips to hide cracks, paint the kitchen cabinets, & in general put the finishing touches on the house. No matter how spacious & comfortably built a house is, no one wants to move into it if it isn’t “finished.”

If a person’s life ambition is to be an educated musician, they don’t just learn a few chords on the piano or guitar; they will learn to master their instrument of choice. Then they’ll study music theory so they can sit down & score a piece of music in four part harmony. I wish I could do that but sadly I never took the time to delve that deeply into the theory of music. I’m just glad for those who did learn it because after I’ve written a song, I call on them to put it all down in a musical score so musicians can pick the music up & play or sing it. These people are called “finished musicians.” A person playing at Carnegie Hall or working as a studio musician would be properly called, a “finished musician.”

When parents want their daughters to learn the social skills it takes to travel in certain strata’s of society they send them to “finishing school.” There they learn the social graces that will allow them to move with ease in the upper echelons of society. The idea is to bring the individual to social excellence in all ways humanly possible.

Just about every bookstore you go in has a large “self-help” section. In that area you’ll find hundreds of books written to motivate people to complete the tasks they’ve started but laid aside for one reason or another. These books offer valuable information that helps people refocus on the fulfillment of their dreams. Many of these books are full of procedural & practical information & they’re very helpful, but I can tell you how to get more inspiration than all these books put together can offer. I can give you one secret that will bring you more fulfillment than reading hundreds of these self-help books.

You probably think I’m going to tell you to pray & read the Bible every day & go to church & let God inspire you. However, I’m assuming you’re already doing that. If you’re not doing those basic things to build yourself up spiritually you’d best go back & touch base with these basics for they are absolutely necessary to any lasting success you can experience.

The one secret I want to share with you that will do more than any advice man could give you is this; ---FINISH SOMETHING! Bring something you’ve been putting off to completion, to excellence & that one thing you finish will do you more good than anything you can imagine or that I could suggest to you. Unfinished projects with their loose ends flailing in the wind are the most depressing, joy killing things in our lives. They sit there staring us in the face mocking us, reminding us that we’ve let things slide & that can do nothing but sap mental & spiritual energy. When we don’t finish we’re a bad example to others. The Bible has much to say about finishing.

Genesis 2:1 tells us,--Thus the heavens & earth were finished…..

Nehemiah.6:15 tells us…..the wall was finished…….

Scholars say that Nehemiah’s work was done in about one-third the time it would normally have taken because God was helping him, to bring to naught the naysayers who tried every conceivable tactic to stop his work.

In 1 Timothy 4:7 Paul said….I have finished the course…

Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus is…..the author & finisher of our faith….

In John 17:4 Jesus said-----I have finished the work thou gavest me to do.

In Luke 14:26---Jesus said—and who of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first & counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it?

Let’s talk a little about why we don’t finish & what are the consequences if we don’t finish.

PROCRASTINATION KEEPS US FROM FINISHING.

It’s not even that we do nothing; it’s that we can’t get ourselves to do the thing we ought to do. It’s like the kamikaze pilot who flew seventeen missions. He was doing something but kept putting off the most important part of his assignment. We’ve all been guilty. When it comes to procrastination, most of us are quick to acknowledge the problem but are slow to do anything about it.

Chores are piling up but somehow we just can’t get the motivation to plow into them one by one. Sometimes procrastination comes & goes but sometimes it moves in to stay. Then my friend you are a slacker or what the Bible calls a sluggard. How can I best put this? You’re just a plain lazy old sloth.

A sloth is a mammal that lives much of his life hanging upside down from tree branches. He spends 23 hours a day hanging out & will come down hunting food for about an hour. Sloth’s won’t even build or seek shelter for their young ones. Romans 12:11 says, ---Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.

Surveys show that out of 100 people, only 67 are likely to have defined goals they can explain, & only 10 have realistic plans to accomplish their goals. And of these 10, only two have the self-discipline to follow through with their plans. 98% of the people you meet each day lack the motivation to live out what they say they believe. They possess no passion or purpose but merely perpetually drift along aimlessly with the crowd. These people will often be heard to say, “Hey, cut me some slack.” And that’s why they’re called slackers.

Here are a few helpful hints I’ve gleaned along the way to beat procrastination.

1. The salami technique. What can you do with a huge stick of salami? Answer; nothing, -- nothing that is unless you cut it up into small pieces. If you’re having trouble getting yourself to make a phone call, at least look the number & put it where you’ll see it the next morning. I went through a time years ago when I was so depressed that I could only get dressed one article of clothing at a time. Then I’d have to sit for a moment & get myself to put on the next article of clothing. Before you let that shock you, don’t forget I’m the man who wrote “learning to lean.” Those feelings didn’t hang around long, they came to pass. I had to work through them but I can say by God’s grace I never spent a day in bed during that time.

2. Do a leading section of work. Work on a desired project for five minutes only. No matter how distasteful it is, purpose in your heart to give it an honest five minutes, and then quit. When you do this leading task enough times you’ll find yourself working longer than five minutes & before long you’ll be feeling so good about what you’re getting done, the feelings of dread will abate & you’ll put those feelings behind you. After a while you’ll be looking up at the clock & will be shocked that it’s five o’clock. You might be saying to yourself that this doesn’t sound too spiritual. But this is the technique God used with the Israelites to bring the walls of Jericho down; a little each day & finally a big push on the last day.

3. Feelings have little to do with anything. They can change overnight for no apparent reason. If we wait until we feel like doing something we’ll never do it. The good feelings will come as we get started & make an effort. To wait for good feelings to come before you’ve done something is like asking your car, “If you’ll take me on a trip, I’ll put some gas in you.” Or telling your fireplace, “If you’ll give me some heat I’ll put some wood in later.” This won’t even work in the spiritual realm. Pastor James said, Draw nigh to God & He’ll draw nigh to you. If you have a house, a car & clothes to wear, I’ll bet you didn’t get them by your feelings, but rather you got them in spite of your feelings. Am I right? I’m right!

Another reason we don’t finish is;

WE GET DRAWN AWAY BY THE DISTRACTIONS OF LIFE.

James says, -- let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth He any man: But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust & enticed.

James’ words here seem to have a sexual connotation & certainly that’s one way Satan can work through our flesh to draw us away. I have known many pastors, evangelists, deacons, Sunday school teachers, choir singers & many once active Christian workers who didn’t finish because they were drawn off course by sin’s enticements. But there are other things that cause people to be drawn off course.

Some people turn back in crisis. Some quit because of depression & defeat. Others quit when things got dark & stayed dark too long & they couldn’t seem to find God anywhere. Some quit because of physical weariness, spiritual weariness & financial pressures. They never learned that a believer must live under control when things around them are out of control. Some quit under enemy fire. Some just can’t make a decision & stick with it until victory comes.

Samson quit because a woman tempted him.
Absalom quit because of the temptation of pride & power.
Ananias & Sapphira quit because of the temptation of money.
Noah was greatly used by God but went on a drunk & his sons had to cover his nakedness.
Eli was the last of the Judges but toward the end of his life wouldn’t correct his sons.
Isaac was born supernaturally & was heir to the Messianic line but accomplished very little in his life & ended up being famous for his famous father Abraham & son Jacob.
Saul became neurotic over his power when David got recognition. Saul should have rejoiced over David’s success & his story would have turned out differently.
David, though he was a man after God’s own heart, sinned with Bathsheba & for the rest of his life the results of his sins became an ongoing problem. One of his sons killed another, one of his sons raped his daughter, and he temporarily lost his kingdom. They fought right up until David’s deathbed as Adonijah & Solomon fought over the kingdom.

Barnabas was a great leader in the early church but because of an argument with Paul he ended up his ministry in Cyprus where we never hear from him again. He didn’t do anything terribly wrong or turn against God but ended up just so-so.

WHERE THERE’S NO FINISH, THERE’S NO REST.

Genesis 2:1 says,--Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them…and on the seventh day God ended the work which He had made and He rested……

People go through their lives haunted by the year of college they never finished, the book they began writing but never finished, the marriage they abandoned & the baby they went into the womb to kill.

People who finish well are people who continue to grow until the end of their lives. Look at Solomon. He had great wisdom, great wealth, built the Temple, built his own palace & had nothing else to do. The Philistines were conquered & with nothing to do he lost momentum, put his life on cruise-control & planned to sail peaceably into the sunset. But Solomon destroyed his life after he was forty years old with women & foreign Gods. Sadly at the end corruption set in.

FINISHING CLOSES THE MOUTH OF SATAN.

What unfinished task is there you need to complete while there is time? None of us are promised tomorrow so we should live each day as if it were our last. Jesus said, -No man having put his hand to the plow & looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Like 9:62.

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1, 2.

Paul said,-- I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Phil.3

Paul also said,--That I may know Him & the power of His resurrection. Philippians 3:10.

ONLY ONE MAN IN HISTORY NEVER LEFT BEHIND ANY UNFINISHED BUSINESS.

His name is Jesus Christ. He’s the only man in history who could come to the end of His life & say with absolute & total truthfulness, “I have finished everything I set out to do.”

It is Friday in Jerusalem & a huge crowd has gathered at the place called Skull Hill. I’ve stood there several times & believe me it’s a rough-hewn, chalky skull-like mount on the north side of the city. The Romans liked to kill people publicly; it had a frightening effect on the masses.

This crucifixion started at 9:A.M. For three hours things proceeded normally & then at 12: o'clock noon the sky went black. Pitch black, so black you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It wasn’t a normal darkness, it seemed to pulse & throb, almost like the darkness was a living thing, an evil mutant creature escaped from some science fiction theater.

Only this was no movie. What happened was real. For three hours darkness fell across the city of Jerusalem. There were screams, hideous cries & moans, & other terrible sounds. Then as quickly as it started the darkness lifted, disappeared, vanished & sanity returned to the earth.

One glance at the middle cross made it clear that this man Jesus would not last much longer. He looked dead already. His body quivered uncontrollably. His chest heaved with every tortured breath. The soldiers knew from long experience that He wouldn’t make it to sundown.

Then something happened. He shouted—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Then as death drew near He whispered “I thirst.” The soldiers put some sour vinegar on a sponge & lifted it to His lips with a stalk of hyssop. He moistened His lips & took a deep breath. If you listened you could hear the death rattle in His throat. He had less than a minute to live.

Then He spoke again. It was a quick shout. Just one word. Then he breathed out another sentence. Then he was dead. The shouted word was a Greek word….Tetelestai….. “It is finished.”

Tetelestai comes from the verb teleo, which means--- “To bring to an end, to complete, to bring to excellence, to accomplish.” Tetelestai is in the perfect tense in the Greek meaning it speaks of an action which has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present. Its not just past tense which looks back to an event & says, “This happened.” The perfect tense carries the idea that “This happened & is still in effect today.”

When Jesus said “It is finished, He meant, “It was finished in the past, it is still finished in the present & it will remain finished in the future.” Note that he didn’t say, I am finished, but “it is finished” meaning He had successfully
completed the work He came to do. Tetelestai was a final cry of victory that He’d left no unfinished business. When he said “It is finished” he was speaking the truth.

When you read these words of Jesus, one question grips the mind---What was finished?

1. The malice of His enemies was finished. By nailing Him to the cross they’d done their worst. Nothing more could they do to the Son of God.
2. The sufferings ordained by God were finished. He often spoke of “the work” & “the hour” of trouble that was coming. God had fit all this into His final plan to save the world through the suffering of His Son but these sufferings were now at an end.
3. All the Old Testament types & prophecies were fulfilled. There are many prophecies surrounding His death & all had been or very soon would be fulfilled.
4. The ceremonial law was abolished. As Paul puts it, ---Christ’s death is the end of the law.”
5. The price of sin was finally paid. John the Baptists called Him,--The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” That “taking away of sin” was finished.
6. His physical sufferings were finished, the storm is over, the worst is past & He is going to paradise entering into --the joy that is set before Him.
7. His life is now finished, at least His sojourn on earth. His mission on earth came to an end at exactly the same moment when He cried Tetelistai.
8. There is now full satisfaction for sin. A final blow has been given to Satan. A fountain of grace & peace had been opened that will last forever.

In historical records the word tetelestai was found & it was used when a debt was paid. It actually meant, “Paid in full.” What Jesus finished on the cross was so awesome, so total so complete that it could never be repeated not even by Jesus Himself.

There is no Plan B because plan A, the finished work of Christ on the cross, was good enough. Praise be unto God for His indescribable gift. Aren’t you glad Jesus stayed on that cross until His work was finished?

Will you & I work while it is yet day? Will we finish the work God has given us to do?

John