Finishing Well: Living and Leaving a Legacy of Faith

September 26, 2026 · 20 min read

Series: Fight the Good Fight

Scripture References

2 Timothy 4:1-8
2 Timothy 4:9
Acts 16:1-3
Hebrews 12:1
Jude 3
Acts 7:58-8:1
2 Corinthians 5:17
Romans 6:4
Galatians 2:20
Acts 8:36-38
Hebrews 3:15
Genesis 8:7

Introduction

Big idea: a life that ends well is lived for an audience of One–anchored in God’s Word, faithful to the ministry He assigns, and unafraid to go public for Jesus.
The final week of the verse-by-verse series through 2 Timothy, on a Baptism Weekend when more than 700 people were scheduled to be baptized across Lake Pointe’s campuses. (“You didn’t walk in knowing you were getting baptized this weekend, but God did.”)
A lighter moment before the gear shift: the Cowboys would beat the Ravens that Sunday because when Noah sent out the raven, it never came back (Genesis 8:7)–“God obviously don’t want anything to do with ravens.”
Pastor Josh opened with the story of Michael Card, who went on to sell more than 4 million albums, record 19 number-one singles, and publish more than 20 books.
- As a student at Western Kentucky University, Card walked into the office of a Christian professor, Bill Lane, with a question about following Jesus. Lane said, “Take a walk with me.” They walked the campus talking about Jesus and the Word every week for the next six years, and that discipleship shaped Card’s life and ministry.
- About 17 years later, Lane, then teaching at Seattle Pacific University, called Card with a terminal cancer diagnosis. Card assumed he was calling to say goodbye. Instead Lane and his wife were moving to Nashville, where Card lived: “We need to finish taking our walks together. Now I will show you how a Christian man dies.”
Paul did the same with Timothy. In Acts 16 a senior saint invited a young man to walk with him, and for about 15 years they walked more than 3,000 miles together, talking about Jesus, the Word, and what it means to pour your life out for something that matters.
Now Paul is in a prison cell with a “terminal diagnosis”–the time of his departure has come (v. 6)–and he writes, “Do your best to come to me soon” (v. 9). In effect: “Now I will show you how a Christian man dies.”
Every Christian man and woman owes it to the great cloud of witnesses watching them to show how a Christian finishes–and that responsibility starts now, because all of us are careening toward the day we meet our Maker.

Key Points / Exposition

1. Live for an Audience of One (v. 1)

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead.” Young people especially are prone to judge their lives by what everyone else thinks; Paul reminds Timothy who his Boss is. There is an audience of One, and He is the only one before whom you will give an account.
There are not 50 ways to live; there are two. You will live either in the fear of God or in the fear of man.
Live in the fear of man and you will reverse-engineer every decision from what people think instead of what your Heavenly Father thinks–and you will waste your life.
The silent question behind a fear-of-man life is always “Do you like me?”
- Do you like my hair long or short? The light jeans, the dark jeans, the mom jeans?
- “I texted you. It’s on read. There were bubbles–what happened to the bubbles?”
- “You don’t like my Christian convictions? I’ll rearrange them. You don’t like that I’m a Christian? I don’t have to be a Christian all the time.”
You will fail at that, because you can’t please everybody. But you can please God–and that truth sets people free.

2. Preach the Word–and Sit Under It (v. 2)

“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”
Paul didn’t say preach opinions, TED Talks, or “one verse, three jokes, four stories, and a poem”–not a TED Talk in Christian karaoke. The command is to preach the whole counsel of God.
Why the sermons run long: people talk longest about what they love. Pastor Josh can talk all day about his kids, his Bengals, and bass fishing–and he loves the Bible more than any of them.
God has a plan to bless your life, and it is in His Word; Satan has a plan to curse your life, and it is in the world. You choose which plan you’re on.
“God doesn’t bless people; He blesses a place, and that place is under the Word of God.” Put yourself and your family under the authority and preaching of the Word and you are in the place of blessing; step out from under it and you take yourself out of that place.
About 20 years ago he was told that to grow a church he had to stop preaching all the Word and take the edge off anything that might offend. But “the preaching of the Word of God attracts the presence of God, and the presence of God attracts people.”

3. In Season and Out of Season (v. 2)

Perfect soil, a perfect watering schedule, seeds treated like Kardashian sisters–none of it matters in the dead of a Canadian winter. You’re not growing a watermelon, because it’s out of season.
Some cultures and times are “in season” for the clear teaching of God’s Word, with lots of fruit; others are “out of season,” and you can give it all you’ve got with little fruit. Faithfulness, not popularity, is the measure.
The Word is in season at Lake Pointe right now–“It’s not new, it’s just our turn.” The church is reaping what others planted and prayed for when it was out of season:
- Senior saints who have prayed over this region for decades.
- First Baptist Church Rockwall, which planted a church out of their church in 1979.
- Church on the Rock, which occupied the building for ten years and prayed in the 1980s.
- Forty years of faithful pastoring by founding pastor Steve Stroope and the people of Lake Pointe.
A place where the gospel was once in season can become out of season. That is why we must contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

4. Beware Itching Ears (vv. 3-4)

“The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
Illustration: Mr. Bingley, his wife’s 7-pound Yorkie (named after a Pride and Prejudice character), two years old and still not potty trained. When his ear itches, he will rub against anything–even ride a Roomba–to get relief.
In the same way, when the Spirit’s conviction becomes so big we can’t stand the feeling, we will go to any Bible teacher who says what we’re doing is okay. “You don’t care what’s true anymore. You’re just looking for relief from the feeling.”
A baseline that keeps you under God’s blessing: “If you read the Bible and you disagree, you’re wrong.”
J. Vernon McGee: “This is God’s universe, and He does things His way. You may have a different way, but you don’t have a universe.”
Whatever you want to believe, you can find a Bible teacher online “with more degrees than Fahrenheit” who will tell you it’s true. “They’re not prophesying, they’re prophelying.”
The remedy is to get into the Word for yourself and test every teacher against it–including your pastor. Bring a physical Bible to church so you can look up at the preacher and down at the text, and use a journal. The sermon series are moving to verse-by-verse, line-by-line preaching through books of the Bible: “I don’t want your faith in a broken messenger. I want your faith in a perfect message from God Himself.”

5. Fulfill Your Ministry–Not Someone Else’s (v. 5)

“As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
“If the devil can’t destroy you, he will distract you”–by getting you to focus on somebody else’s calling, so you waste your life trying to fulfill theirs and miss what God created you to do.
A vulnerable moment: most weeks Pastor Josh finishes the Saturday sermon feeling embarrassed and goes to prayer. Many of the big-name preachers are his friends, and he is tempted to compare:
- Philip Anthony Mitchell, a guest on that week’s podcast–a Spirit-filled preacher who opens the Word and “just slings.”
- Joby Martin–“imagine if Billy Graham and Larry the Cable Guy had a baby.” Pastor Josh listens to him every Monday by his bass pond with his Bible and coffee, because “every preacher needs a preacher.”
- Craig Groeschel–“if God took a Fortune 500 CEO, saved him, and filled him with His Spirit.”
- Matt Chandler, whom he learned to preach by listening to. When he arrived at Lake Pointe at 34, he had dreams that nobody showed up on a weekend except his wife on the front row–listening to Matt Chandler on her phone.
You don’t need a microphone or a platform to fulfill your ministry. Wherever your feet are planted, that is your ministry:
- At the office, standing with holiness and integrity as a light in a dark place.
- A stay-at-home mom raising a generation that knows and fears the Lord, praying at the kitchen sink for the advance of the gospel and for hundreds to be baptized.
- Homebound senior saints and great-grandmothers who watch every week and pray, winning wars in the spiritual realm–“frail in body, but mighty in spirit.”

6. Finish Like Paul (vv. 6-8)

“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.”
“If we don’t quit, we win.”
“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.”
How can a man who spent years blaspheming and hunting Christians–who watched and approved as stones caved in Stephen’s skull (Acts 7:58-8:1)–say he fought a good fight? Because in the kingdom of God it doesn’t matter how you started; it matters how you finish.
“God is the God of second chances” is well-meaning but not true: if God gave you another chance, you’d blow that one too. Out of the frying pan into the fire–your New Year’s resolution was to lose 20 pounds, and now you’ve got 25 to go.
You don’t need another chance; you need a Substitute who takes the test on your behalf.
- Illustration: his 11-year-old daughter is a math whiz with a 98 in math, but put her in a room with an AP calculus test and she would fail. Giving her another try at the same test wouldn’t help. Her only hope is for someone to take her seat, take the test for her, score a perfect grade, and let her turn in that finished work.
- That is what Jesus has done: He lived the life you could not live and died the death you deserved to die. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Baptism pictures that exchange: buried with Christ, raised to newness of life (Romans 6:4), so “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). No matter what you’ve done or how bad it was, a Spirit-empowered life from here to the end can say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Major Lessons & Revelations

2 Timothy 4 is Paul showing Timothy–and us–how a Christian finishes: faithful to the Word, faithful to his calling, confident of the crown.
There are only two ways to live: in the fear of God or in the fear of man. You can’t please everybody, but you can please God.
“God doesn’t bless people; He blesses a place, and that place is under the Word of God.”
“The preaching of the Word of God attracts the presence of God, and the presence of God attracts people.”
Itching ears look for relief from conviction, not for truth. “If you read the Bible and you disagree, you’re wrong.”
“If the devil can’t destroy you, he will distract you”–often with someone else’s calling.
Your ministry is wherever your feet are planted; you don’t need a platform.
In the kingdom of God it doesn’t matter how you started; it matters how you finish.
We don’t need a second chance; we need a Substitute–and Jesus took the test for us.

Practical Application

The call: step out today–be baptized as a public declaration of faith–and commit to a life measured by God’s approval alone.
Head – Remember that only Christ will judge you; align every belief and decision with His Word.
Heart – Cultivate a love for Scripture so deep that you refuse the comfort of itching-ear teaching.
Hands:
- Place yourself and your family under regular, verse-by-verse Bible preaching.
- Bring a physical Bible and a journal to church and test what you hear against the text.
- Identify one arena this week–workplace, home, campus–where you will “fulfill your ministry.”
- Ask who your “Bill Lane” is, and whom you could invite to take a walk with you in discipleship.
- If you have trusted Christ but never been baptized since your salvation, obey today.

Reflection Questions

Whose opinion most shapes your daily choices–the people around you or the Lord who will judge you?
Where are you tempted to seek teachers who affirm rather than confront?
What unique ministry has God placed right under your feet, and how can you step into it this week?
If your life ended tonight, could you echo Paul’s words about fighting, finishing, and keeping the faith?
Have you publicly declared your allegiance to Jesus through baptism? If not, what holds you back?

Conclusion & Call to Response

Paul finishes his letter–and his life–by showing Timothy how a Christian dies: fixed on an audience of One, faithful to the Word, and confident of the crown of righteousness.
Baptism is Lake Pointe’s altar call: the place people publicly say, “I’m in on Team Jesus.”
Responding to critics who ask why baptism candidates do not take a class first, Pastor Josh argued that New Testament baptisms were spontaneous. He pointed to the Ethiopian eunuch’s question, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36), and answered: nothing.
Two invitations:
- If you realize you have never bent your knee to Jesus, receive His forgiveness, make Him Lord, and be baptized in this service. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:15).
- If you have given your life to Christ but have never been baptized in obedience since your salvation, your Lord has given you a command.
“You might not be ready, but we’re ready”–clothes, T-shirts from a seven-year-old’s size to “a bed sheet,” underwear, towels, and hair nets at every campus.
Pastor Josh asked the church to celebrate those coming out of the water with shouts, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

References & Resources

“Fight the Good Fight” – verse-by-verse sermon series through 2 Timothy
Michael Card and Bill Lane – the mentoring friendship that opened the message; Card tells the story in his book The Walk
J. Vernon McGee – “This is God’s universe…”
Philip Anthony Mitchell, Joby Martin, Craig Groeschel, and Matt Chandler – preachers Pastor Josh named while confessing the pull of comparison

Insights

Living for likes will drain you; live for the Audience of One and breathe real freedom.
You’ll never outshout the crowd, but you can still please the King.
Comparison is Satan’s diversion; eyes on others keep you from fulfilling your assignment.
The Word attracts His presence; His presence attracts people–skip it and you starve your soul.
God doesn’t grade retakes; He sends Jesus to ace the test.
It’s not about starting clean; it’s about finishing fully surrendered.
Stand under Scripture, not culture, and watch God fight your battles.
If you read the Bible and disagree, the text isn’t wrong–check your heart.

Flash Cards

Test your recall of this week’s message–click or tap the button to show the cards, then a card to flip it over.

Show flash cards Hide flash cards 36 cards