The Gospel According to Jim

But the title of today's sermon is, The Gospel According to Jim. The Gospel According to Jim. Each one of us has a gospel. The gospel means good news. We all have something, hopefully, we believe in, we live by, and even teach or show, either by actions or by this tongue. So I want to play today a song by Skip Ewing.

Because a song, Skip Ewing is a songwriter by my age. He's made more money songwriting than he will sing, but he is a very good singer, too. He wrote this song after running across somebody on 8th Avenue that he kind of looked at and put these words together and, as most poets can do, touches your heart in a special way. And I know all of us have had this. So I'll play this song and then I'll come back up and we'll give the gospel according to Jim.

So this song is, The Gospel According to Luke. Do we practice what we preach? How about our gospel? I gave a sermon a couple of weeks ago on kindness. I didn't give that for you, I gave it for me. Because we can all use a little more. We all have a gospel to preach, good news, not only in this life, but the next.

We should take that seriously. So I want to tell you about the gospel according to Jim. Jim was a big proponent of faith. He developed faith through all the years of finding his way through this world. When he started, he had issues. But don't we all? Think about your issues. Think about your issues. I didn't forget my place. This is a dramatic pause.

It's there for a reason because we all have issues. We're all trying, otherwise you wouldn't even be sitting here today. I'll try. I found out about Jim's issues by him confessing them. You might ask, well, he confessed them. What about your confidentiality clause that all ministers are to have? Are you afraid that next week I may start saying something that you've told me? No. I will tell you about them because Jim has since died.

Jim, in his younger years, was very selfish, vindictive. And, as he admitted in more than one time, he had a big mouth. Very opinionated. Don't know if you've ever had that problem. Moi has. Still work on it. Still work in progress. Don't know how much longer.

I'll have to work on it. And some might say Jim wasn't know it all, especially his older brother. I've known anyone like that, intimately. But the good thing was Jim matured. He matured over the years. Because, you see, with all of us, there are different stages in life, isn't there? We may have said something we wish we didn't say. We learn in these different stages of life that we can get better. I know there's different actors, movie stars, they get better over the years. One was Mel Gibson. He changed on a dime for him because of a few words he said. There are so many people affected by social media today that just a few words can change your life.

But isn't life about change changing for the better? I hope so. It was for Jim because Jim matured. Special after he came into the church. You may have known a few Jims in your past. You may know them now. See, Jim got married, had some kids, and for the last 20 years of his life, he was a leader in his congregation. Later in his life, he was very proactive. Had a gospel that he preached because he was a doer and he believed in faith, but he also believed in doing things.

Are we doers? It's questions we have to ask ourselves. Are we proactive? His two favorite things Jim liked to talk about were faith and the tongue. The late starter I call Jim, as known by more his formal name, which you would know him, is James. His name was James. He wrote a book in the New Testament.

He was a half-brother of Jesus Christ. He was martyred and late in his life because of his preaching, because of the way he lived, he was put to death. James had an interesting life, but so do many of you. I've heard your lives. I've seen your lives since I've been here 10 years. It seemed like I've been gone that long, Lindy. It doesn't to me. I was hoping you'd say that and you're like, I didn't know you left.

But the one thing about Jim, James, he finished strong. He finished strong. See, with God, it's not how we start, but it's how we finish. Very evident in Scripture, isn't it? For those of us who read our Bible, we read those stories all the time. Perhaps they come into a clearer picture as we come into the springtime of the year. Brethren, we must finish strong. It doesn't matter how you started. It matters how you finish. It's kind of like a race. It's like that race. You know when they teach runners to run a race and some of you have run track?

You know what they tell you? They don't tell you, just get to the finish line. No. They tell you to break the tape. Break the tape. That means you don't slow down when you get towards the finish line because you think you're going to finish. It means be strong. Finish strong. As one former athlete said, the great. Don't you want to be great?

God wants you to be great. He said the great finish on empty. And give it all. Does that describe us? Would people look at us that way? Are we the one who's known to finish strong? Haven't you known people that way? Maybe people passed on. But they were strong. Take the biblical example of the prodigal son. Everybody knows the story of the prodigal son, don't we? The story of a young man who started out pretty rough. Start out doing things his own way. Started out thinking about me. But you know things changed. He went through some hard times. Have you? How have we all in our lives, especially when we have had a distant relationship with God or even before we had the relationship with God?

Seems there was always something going wrong. There was no peace in our lives. The prodigal son. He had it all, didn't he? A rich father, family estate, wealth. It wasn't good enough. So he took his part. What did he do? Squandered it. Blew it all! Everything you could ever have your heart's desire set on, he did.

But you know the good part of that story, and all of us can relate to it, is when he turned back, Luke 14 and verse 20. He came back home. He came back home.

And as the biblical parable tells us, he came back to God, repented before God, and then he repented before his father, which in the story the father does is used to compare to God. And when he came, repented, and came back, we see the picture of his father. And our mind is such a powerful image of his father running to him, just like God. Just like God does with us. Just like he will continue to do. Why? Because God wants us to finish strong. The young man, he finished strong. It's a story for us. Yes, you see, we too in God's eyes are sometimes young, dumb, and stupid. And we make bad decisions. But God's actually set it up so that we can return to him at any time. But he wants us to return because he has an incredible plan. An incredible plan for us. Another biblical example is Nicodemus. We know in Nicodemus, he was what? A know-it-all. He was a know-it-all. He was a Pharisee. He was a teacher of all the Pharisees. And he came to Christ trying to make a deal. John 3. He wanted him on their side. Except the thing that Nicodemus didn't realize with all of his money as the third richest man in all of Jerusalem, according to history. He was ignorant. You ever been called ignorant? Because you see, we're all ignorant about certain things, aren't we? Because ignorant means lacking knowledge or awareness, uneducated, uninformed. And that's all he was. There was something there in Nicodemus that God wanted. But he had a rough start. Can you imagine? We have two teachers here, more than that. Can you imagine you're a mathematics teacher? You know your stuff and you go in to talk to somebody and guess what? They blow your mind. You're not even in their league. How humbling that must have been. And that's exactly what found out with Nicodemus when he talked to Christ. Because he didn't know in John 3 you read the story. But we see that from John 3, you just kind of left him.

When Nicodemus came back, we find him. Another time when his fellow Pharisees wanted to put Christ to death in the last six months of his life. And it was Nicodemus who questioned them about it. They even made fun of him. What? Are you from Galilee also? Are you one of his followers of uneducated buffoons that follow?

Because you see Nicodemus was there to pick up the pieces at the end, wasn't he? He was there, along with Joseph Herimathea, to claim the body of Christ so it wouldn't be thrown on the garbage pile. That's where it should have been. Should have been thrown in the fires of Hinnom, outside where they burnt the skins of all the animals. That's where it should have been. But it wasn't going to be allowed because he and his friend Joseph claimed the body. So what do we know about Joseph Herimathea? He finished strong, just like God wants us to finish strong. That's why he gives us these examples. How about Paul? Boy, that's one. Saul, that name has changed to Paul. He didn't have a rough start. He had an evil start. He actually enjoyed persecuting people, throwing them in jail, because they didn't think like he did.

He actually held the coats of people of men so that they could take stones, so they could get a better thrill. He was a stone, incredible man of God, Stephen to death. And they were doing it, as you can read from the scriptures, kind of because he was there, overseeing it. A rough start, but how did he finish? 2 Timothy 4 and verse 7. 2 Timothy 4 and verse 7, New King James Version. Paul's about to be taken out and have his head cut off. He knows that. He's in prison. He knows he doesn't have much time. He's writing to his disciples. Now, what does he reflect on now, almost 30 years later? As he knows, death is imminent. He said, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. He broke the tape.

And then what does he say? He says, I have kept the faith. He kept the faith. Wouldn't we all like to say that in our last days and hours? I've kept the faith. It wasn't because he was braggadocious. It was because he endured. What an example to us. We have so many in the scriptures. He fought the good fight. You had any fights lately?

There was another man. Didn't really make sense. Unlikely story from the Bible. His name was Cornelius. You know him as a centurion. Centurion is considered anywhere between in our military a colonel or a general. Somewhere in between the high office. He didn't get there being a nice guy in the Roman army. You don't get to be this. Being a nice guy. What did he do? He had to be an incredible soldier. He had to have killed quite a few men in battle to become such a high-ranked person in the Roman army. So his start was unlike probably any in the New Testament church. But what was amazing? He was the first convert. First Gentile convert in the entire Bible. First! And it was a soldier. It was a man who did things that none of us have even thought about or dreamed about. But God called him. Because he had to be a man of incredible faith. To be able to come where he had to have come. From a Roman citizen in the Roman army. One who had to worship the emperor. Obviously for a few decades. And now God was using him. Now life had changed for Cornelius. He became a man of faith. Maybe he was, as some people have speculated, maybe he was. The man in the centurion Matthew 8 who came to Christ and asked that he would please heal his servant. Christ said, show me where he's at. He said, no, no, no, no. I'm not worthy to even have you under my roof. What Roman citizen would do that much less? A centurion. A high-ranking officer. And do you remember what Christ said? Look around. Look around. I haven't seen such faith in all of his...

Look what he did for his servant. You realize at that time you could exchange a horse, one horse for seven servants. And yet this centurion that we read about in Scripture, he came, had to step out of his comfort zone in front of all the people he was supposed to be over and go to this Jew and say, I'm not worthy to have you enter my house, but I need you to help my servant. Incredible story. Now with God, it says nothing's impossible, so could there be two centurions like that? Or maybe just one that showed up years later? And sent for Peter to come to his house to baptize him and to give him the gift of the Holy Spirit, but not just him. What? His entire household. That wasn't just his honey, his children. It was the servants. He had, because of the way he lived, he had converted, basically with God's help, his entire household. Talk about finishing strong! What an example. Makes me wonder why the book of Acts never seemed to have ended. There was no the end. Is it still being compiled?

About the saints of God. Will it be finished in the kingdom? I don't know, but I think it's so powerful. So very powerful. Matthew 24 and verse 13. Matthew 24 and verse 13 says what? He who endures. He who endures. That's talking perseverance. It's talking a way of life. He who endures to the end, the same can be saved. God, it made. That's the finish line in the kingdom of God. And those inspirational words came from our leader. Our future king tells us, he who endures to the end, what's he saying to us? Break the tape. Break the tape. Finish strong. I can't leave the women out of this, can I? Especially since they probably cooked the majority of the food.

Sorry, Mike. Probably the best food, except for your chili.

I speak from experience. But there was this very unlikely story, and it comes from a woman named Ruth. Here Ruth was a Moabite. If you were Bible study Thursday night, you heard about Moeb. Where he came from. But Ruth was such an incredible example.

All we know, she was probably born in Moab. She lived in Moab, but when a mother and her two sons came, because of a drought that was happening in Jerusalem, she met a man. Married him. Then he died. Or is killed. Two different stories, whatever historical part you want to get. But what's interesting is that when her mother-in-law, Naomi, decided to head back to Jerusalem, I guess the drought was over, she lost her husband and two sons. She decided to go back. And this Ruth said, I'm going with you. Now, think about this. She was a Moabite. The Moabites didn't worship Yahweh. They worship Kimosh. It was a god. And he was a fish god. They worshiped the fish. I mean, it's a good mahi-mahi, but I ain't worshiping. Right? But they worshiped the fish. Kimosh. So this would have been what she was born in, raised up in, and lived in. And if you read from the book of Ruth, which is an incredible story, it's the best 20-30 minute read you'll have this week. When her mother-in-law left, mother-in-law said, I'm going back to my people. And she said, I'm going with you. She even said, your people will be my people, and your god will be my god. What a statement. So did she really know what it was like in Jerusalem? Huh? No. I bet she didn't. It was going to be a big change. And just reading between the lines, you can see the story that all those people were not her people. But their god was going to be her god. Where she started? Definitely not where she ended. Why? She was a pagan, came from a pagan world, but got to know God and lived in his world, which we are to do.

We must live godly. And what's so important to each and every one of us, and you too, is to finish strong. That's what Ruth did. You can see at the end, God blessed her. So it didn't matter where you start. Put God on your side. Jump on his bandwagon. Jump in his car. Go to his house. And you won't regret it. Because she not only married a very wealthy man, she became the great-great-grandmother of King David. Talk about finishing. That's a legendary finish there. But she is also in the lineage of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Someday she will meet him as his great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. What are the seven generations, I think, Jeff, from David to Christ? I remember right. Did any of you ever have a chance to talk to your great-grandmother, or do you have a great-grandmother? How many have a great-grandmother alive? Anybody? Oh, I see. Joshua does. Great-grandmother? Your mother's looking at you like, I don't know her.

How many of you ever had a chance to talk to your great-grandmother? Oh, see, now he was right. Joshua goes, what do I have to do? So, anybody ever remember a conversation with your great-grandmother? No, you do? Okay, as Ford does here. I had one. As a matter of fact, I got to spend about 20 years, or 30 years, around my great-grandmother. She lived to be 100.

And I had one of a kind of a man that a woman could cook. I used to love talking to her, spending time on a farm in Indiana. Oh, Illinois, excuse me. She was right across the line, Illinois. But she was a God-fearing woman. She knew all of God's truth, but she always had a Bible and was always reading it. I remember that as a small kid, seeing her. When I'd spend the night with her a few times, she would, before she went to bed, you would see her. She'd go, well, it's time to get ready to go to bed. And she goes, now go and wash up and this, and then I'll come in, and you'd see her reading her Bible. It makes an impression on a young person. Even though when I was that young, I wasn't even going to church. I didn't know anything about Bible. But I remember it was important to her. Words carry weight, don't they? Now, if I was able to do that, what about David? That was his great-grandmother. What story she could have told him? How inspiring could have those conversations? What do I know existed? No, but the possibility is he could have.

But you see, there's also stories of failure to finish. Those who failed to finish, they're in the scriptures also, aren't they? How about Saul? Man was given a whole kingdom for no reason other than he's tall like Andre Arthur. He was tall, good-looking, and clean like William Brown. So he had it all. God gave him gifts. And what? Oh, that's cold. I need to go back on that kindness sermon, I think there. Neil, but I know you love him. He's your brother. So, yes. But think about it. Saul did not finish strong. He failed to finish at all, didn't he? How about Judas?

Nobody wants to go out, and you don't see a whole bunch of kids. I don't think we have. We have a few kids here. Nobody names a kid Judas much anymore. And Anias and Sapphira in the New Testament church. Failed to finish.

You guys have any? Anyone come to your mind? Because of the story. Yes, Elisa. Moses? Well, he didn't finish strong. You're right. But he didn't cut him out. He'll be in the kingdom. But God was upset because he did what? Had a temper. And also had a problem with the tongue, didn't he? Why do you think that was put in? Because Moses says he was the most humble person on earth at the time. Why do you think that story was put in at the end of what he did? It was for us. It wasn't for Moses. It was for us to realize we need to use that example and realize that we can be weak too. Jeff? Solomon. First 20 years of his kingdom, he reigned righteously, didn't he? As the Scripture says, the last 20 years he believed in and built all kinds of temples from everywhere. I hope he repented. We can hopefully witness. I hope his writings. That's one of the big questions in theology today, didn't he? We'll find out someday. But they all point us to being like the great examples in the Scriptures to finish strong. We must finish strong. A boxer by the name of Tex Cobb. Heavyweight boxer, actor, martial arts expert. During his time as a heavyweight fighter, he fought Ernie Shavers, the great fighters of his time, and also Larry Holmes. He fought Larry Holmes to a unanimous decision. Larry Holmes won after 15 rounds of beating this man to a pulp. You couldn't even tell where his face began and where the blood ended. For 15 rounds, Howard Cosell called the fight, said, I'll never call another fight. This is just so brutal because he would hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him and Tex Cobb just kept standing there going after him, walking forward, walking forward. To where pretty soon I remember the fight and Larry Holmes was like, aren't you gonna stop it? Tex Cobb. Come on. No quit in it. Wouldn't I quit? Matter of fact, he became famous because of it. Ended up on Johnny Carson's show two or three weeks later. His face was a little less welled and a little bit better. Johnny Carson goes, wow, you just, that was, that was, that was quite a fight that you lost. And he goes, I didn't lose. I just lost the first 15 rounds. See, they didn't think that's funny. That's true because he wasn't done. He could have kept on. Why? We need that kind of heart because, hey, we all get beat up and we can't quit. Never quit. Luke 22 and verse 32 as I wrap this up now. Luke 22 and verse 32.

This is scripture after Christ told him, Satan has asked for you. He wants to sift you like wheat that I talked about a few weeks ago. This is scripture afterwards. So, I prayed for you that your face should not fail. When you have returned to me, Christ knew he was going to fail. But he also knew he would return. Why? He knew he would get back up. Get back up. He wanted to finish the race. He had a life for him to do. Will we get back up when we fall? If we follow Peter's example, we will. It was a song quite a few years ago. I get knocked down, but then I get up again. You're never going to take... I can't remember. I can't sing, but I know the words. But it sticks in your mind. I get knocked down. I get up again. This is Peter. This needs to be us. Why? So we can finish strong. Jim's story was a story of reclamation. It was a story of redemption. It's worth looking at all the scriptures of James through the book of the Gospels, also the book of Acts, and then his final book. But I'd like to go there, if we will, in the last scripture. I'd like to go to James. James 1, verse 12. I could hold so many scriptures. James 1 and verse 12 said, Blessed is the man who endures temptation. For when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Endure! Is that part of our character? Do we endure? Because if we do, we're what? Approved. Approved. It means made right with God. And we have to have Christ for that. And it says, then we will receive. What? The crown of life. The crown of life.

Brother, we must not just finish the race. We must finish strong. Really strong. Break that tape. So between now and then, we all have a gospel. We all have a gospel to preach every single day. Will ours be similar to the gospel of Jim? He sets us an example. So this week, let people see and hear your gospel.