Turn your Bibles into 2 Timothy chapter 4, 2 Timothy chapter 4, and while you're waiting, go in there and I want to make a few introductory statements. I appreciate being able to preach with Brother Josh John. He's always an encouragement to me. His preaching has been an encouragement to me. His friendships always sharpen me, and I've always appreciated him serving alongside me there at Victory Baptist Church. And also want to thank Dr. Bill, Dr. Comfort for a chance to allow me to preach. All the faculty and staff who lend me their ears and gave me advice over the years and the encouragement along the way. Brother Stevens, Pastor Stevens, Brother Tony Honeyman over here, keep me in line. Appreciate them so much. My wife, Sarah, who's always there, been there along the way to help me, encourage me, say it's going to be all right. And she'd been praying for a long time, and I think it's her prayers that helps me through each and every day. And so praise the Lord for that. I always wait and see what the Lord is going to do in and through my life, and so do I. All I want to do is to magnify the Lord Jesus Christ within my body, because that's what it's all about. It's all about Him. And so let's do that this morning. I want to preach to you a message that I've entitled, A Rewarding Life, or you could put it this way, A Meaningful Life. Ecclesiastes 3.11 says that God has set the world that is the ages or eternity within the hearts of men. And some people are trying to fill that full of self, or trying to self-satisfaction, or what pleases yourself. But I'm here to tell you this morning that only God can fill a God-sized hole right where it matters the most within your heart. And the majority of these people on earth are looking for one question and one question only. They ask themselves, what is the meaning of my life? What is the whole purpose for me being here? And maybe you've even asked yourself that same question. What is the purpose for me being here at Ambassador Baptist College? And let me just say this one thing. I don't think that Moses could have led a million plus Israelites through the wilderness for 40 years, griping, complaining the whole way, rebelling against God and usurping Moses' own authority without knowing that there's a higher purpose behind it all. I don't think that Joshua, I don't think that even King David would risk their lives as leaders of Israel without being fully persuaded that they were held accountable for what they did with Israel, for being held accountable for seeing what they were doing through. And I don't think that the Apostle Paul here in our text would endanger his life on countless occasions without being able to say to himself, this is going to be worth it all. You know, we need to rekindle an eternal perspective. An eternal perspective. We need that. An awareness to the voice of God. An awareness to the indwelling Holy Spirit who indwells every believer. We need to guard our own hearts. We need to be able to say, as David did, my soul thirsts for God. My flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. And you may say to me this morning, Henry, what is the point? My point is this, 2 Corinthians 5.10 says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in this body according to that He hath done, whether it be good or bad. You see, there's coming a day when God's going to take into account of His servants, that's you and me, every one of us, who are saved by the grace of God. And what you did for Christ is going to be tried by fire to see if your works were pure or not. And what remains will determine your reward for the service that you have done here on earth. But there's some of you that's going to be standing before the Lord, and you're going to stand before Him not having anything there, standing before the Lord ashamed. But there's going to be some people who stand before the Lord with great reward. And my proposition to this, you must live your life in light of the judgment seat of Christ. Let's read 2 Timothy here, chapter 4, verses 5-8. It says, But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, and I have kept the faith, and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, should give me at that day. And not to me only, but unto all of them also love is appearing. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for finding worth in a wretch like me, for using me and enlisting me into the ministry. Lord, I thank you for that, and I don't take it lightly. I just pray that you would have your will and your way in this service this morning. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. The Apostle Paul knew that his time was coming quickly to a close. His life had been one that could be defined as wholly sold out to the Lord, and no doubt about that. Anybody who had examined his life would say that, and Oswald Chambers would aptly put his life this way. He said that he allowed God to make him into broken bread and to pour out wine for the Master's use. Paul was ready to make his desire a reality. Do you remember that verse in Philippians 3.10? That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death. And that's what the Apostle Paul was about ready to do. He was about ready to become a reality in his life. And he was taking up the cross and following the Lord and nobody ever said that that was going to be easy. There was suffering and hardships along the way. And when Paul, on the road to Damascus as a hell-bound sinner, met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face and he saw Him as He truly is, high and lifted up, he saw the Lord in all of His sovereignty and all of His glory, he fell on his face and said, What will Thou have me to do? And that's what me and you have to do. We have to say, Lord, what are You going to have me to do? I don't want to do it my own way and I don't want to fail on my own. Lord, it's all about You and what You'll have me to do. Whether it's to preach or whether it's to pray, whether it's to teach a Sunday school lesson or play an instrument, Lord, what will You have me to do? In Acts 9.15-16, Paul received his meaning and purpose for his life as an apostle. He was commissioned as a sent one to bear the Lord's name, as one who holds high a flag going into war, flying that banner high, says, I'm in the Lord's army. He was an apostle to the Gentiles, an apostle to kings, an apostle to the lost sheep of Israel. And it says this about him there, I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And that's something that you and me don't want to take on our own. Suffering is not a fun thing, but that's what the Lord uses to try us. But the Lord sustained him and helped his ambassador through it all. And he rejoiced in his infirmities because he knew when he was weak, God was strong. Can you see the Apostle Paul as he's getting ready to pour out his life as a drink offering unto the Lord? The pleasure that was set before him because he knew that he was doing it for his God. So let us look at our two main points this morning. I only have two. The consecrated life and the crowning glory. The consecrated life and the crowning glory. Let us look first of all at the consecrated life. The Apostle Paul thought of his life as that which was consecrated to God. A life that was being spent for a holy purpose. It wasn't just for his own self. He uses the word offered here in our text. And you can't offer something that you don't have. There's going to be some of us who's going to be standing before God and we're not going to bring any offering to the Lord because it's going to be burned by fire and there's going to be nothing there. I don't want that to be said about me. because we've turned the holy into the profane, and we've done this demisum, having loved this present world, He forsook all for the world. He was found empty-handed before God. It's not about you, but it's about your service to God. Have you thought about that? The Apostle Paul pictures his life as striving for a crown. He's a contestant getting ready to stand before the beam of seed of Christ and ready to be judged and receive whatever reward was going to come his way. And we see in verse 7 that he states kind of the same thing in three different ways. He sheds a different light on it. It's important for us to see all three things. I'd entitle them the fight, the finish line, and the faith. So let's look at them real quick. The fight. 1 Corinthians 9.27 says, But I keep unto my body, and bring it under subjection, lest by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. It's a picture of an athlete who disciplines himself. He's constantly putting himself under certain constraints to be ready to fight within the battle. If you're a runner, you're disciplining yourself into running, a running pattern. If you're a wrestler, you're disciplining yourself to be able to wrestle. You're anticipating somebody's moves and these things. He disciplines himself to be able to win that fight. He doesn't go out to Dunkin' Donuts and get donuts and coffee and waste his time eating ice cream. That's not what he does. He disciplines himself that he might not be a castaway. That word castaway is there used of a medal or a coin being rejected for not being able to stand the test. It wasn't pure. It wasn't authentic. And the Apostle Paul says, I'm the real deal. I'm in it to win it. When I was studying and I came across this passage in Luke 7, 36-50, the Lord Jesus Christ gives this parable of two debtors. He comes across Simon the Pharisee and he says, one owed 50 pence to his Lord and the other owed 500 pence to his Lord. And which one do you suppose who loved the most? And he says, I would suppose the one who's been forgiven most. The Lord invested everything into our salvation. He gave it all. He didn't hold back. He went to that cross with joy before Him. He endured the suffering and shame. He wept for us. He prayed for us. He's given us all that we could ever hope or ask for. And the Apostle Paul saw himself as the chiefest of sinners. That's how he could love so much and give us so much into the battle because he saw himself as the chiefest of sinners because he had been forgiven of so much. Do you see yourself as the chiefest of sinners or one who doesn't need much forgiving? How do you know the Lord's investment in you? The things that you do shows. It shows how much you see the appreciation for what God has forgiven you of. Let's look at 2 Timothy chapter 2. I'll read it to you. Verses 3-4, it says, Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that woreth and taketh of himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. This is Paul's exhortation to his young son in the faith, Timothy. And he says, I want you to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. This is a man who's been enlisted into the military service. And it doesn't come easily. He's made it through basic training. He's made it through boot camp. And he's out there in the battle line. He's out there with his gun watching and enduring all things. He's ready for the fight. The same word is used there in 2 Timothy 4 in our passage. To fight a good fight means to agonize. The Apostle Paul is agonizing here. And you can't be in a battle without agonizing. Soldier is not distracted because it might cost him his life. You ever think about that? He's not distracted by the things that are around him. And though you may not lose your life, you may lose your reward or purpose for fighting the good fight of faith if you keep your eyes off of the Lord and you put it on the things around you trying to live for yourself. And so we've seen the fight, let's look at the finish line. Acts 20, 24, the Apostle Paul says that he wanted to be able to finish his course with joy in the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a runner on a track with his eyes focused on the line. He's poised, ready to take off for the run, and he's not going to let anything come in his way. He's going to win that prize at all costs. He's very focused. He's very determined. And in 2 Corinthians 4.17 it says, For our light affliction is but for a moment working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. You know, when he's running, he's not thinking about all the muscle cramps that he may have, the strains of the muscles. He's not thinking about the pain that's in your side when you're running and your lungs are hurting. He's not thinking about all the sweat that's pouring off of his face. He's thinking about that prize. If you want the prize bad enough, you'll endure the afflictions. That's if you want it bad enough. And so we need to stop concentrating on our pains and our problems, as we heard on Tuesday, because God cares about every one of us. He's going to have compassion on every one of us, and He's going to be with us to see us through. He says, fear not, I'm with thee, be not dismayed, for I am thy God, I will help thee. He's there, but you've got to learn to depend upon Him. Sometimes we can get disoriented within the fight. Sometimes we can get disoriented within the run, and we lose sight of what's truly important. Kind of like a sailor who's lost out in the sea and the storms are blowing, and you lost all sense of where you are, but he has an instrument panel ahead of him. We have the Bible to keep us focused when we lose sight of what's going on. That's what the coach is there for. He's there to encourage you and push you and show you that you can do it. So we've seen the fight. We've seen the finish line. Let's look at the faith. God wants us to see in this Holy Word that we have a stewardship which is to keep the faith. That you know that God is giving you a stewardship. And we're commanded to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. I think it's a shame that some people act like God's Word is not a big deal, but my friends, you will be held accountable for the book. And it's not God's responsibility to read it to you, it's your responsibility to read it and see what it says, the basic instructions before leaving earth. And when you stand before the beam of seat, God's going to ask you, He says, why didn't you tithe? Why didn't you give the missions? Why didn't you preach to the perishing? Why didn't you listen to the preacher? Wasn't that the indictment against Israel when the Lord says, I've sent you prophets morning by morning to help you to seek the Lord's face and to turn unto Him, but you wouldn't listen? Why did you hold a grudge against your brother? Why didn't you listen to the Holy Spirit of promise? See, we need to count all things but loss for the excellency of Christ. And then we need to lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, which holds us back from winning that race. We need to let go of them and lay them to the side. We need to keep the faith, we need to protect it, and we need to guard it. Are you doing that? The consecrated life, let's look at the crowning delight. I like this quote by Socrates. It says, the life that is unexamined is not worth living. The life that is unexamined is not worth living. Think about that. We see here there's a reward. The apostle Paul says, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness. receiving that crown that Stephanus necessitates that you had to do something to win that prize. I mean, it just doesn't come, it's just not laying there at your feet. The Lord Jesus Christ, it's not like the mentality that we have these days and just everybody's standing there and everybody's wanting to get a prize. Good for you, you came to church, you brought your Bible, you play the piano, good for you. Pat you on the back, here's your award, your little button for the day. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't care about your feelings, but He does care about how you're obedient to Him. I read in the book of Revelations, that if some churches didn't get it right, some churches didn't repent, that God was going to remove their candlestick from them. Ecclesiastes 12, 13 through 14, King Solomon says, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God should bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil. You know, a plane, when it crashes, it has this thing on it, it's called a little black box, and it helps us figure out the reason for that plane coming to a crash. Whether the things that took place, whether it was good or bad or what happened, Me and you have like a little black box within every one of us. It's called the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit who indwells every believer is when we get to heaven and stand before that beam of sea, He knows every secret thing within us. He knows whether our motives were pure or not. He knows why we did what we did. And your obedience will determine if you get a crown or not. But you say, Henry, what about those who love His appearing? He says, Also, those who, let me read it here before I mess it up. Those who, a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them that love is appearing. What about that? Well, may I say to you, not everybody whose parents are coming home when they've given you the commission to clean up the house is excited about the parents coming home. You know, you break something that's special to your parents and you try to hide it and push it away, they're going to find out. Not everybody's going to be excited when Jesus Christ comes back for us. So we see the reward, let's look at the rewarder. The Lord Jesus is the one to whom gives the rewards. It makes all the difference in the world when the one in whom you have been striving to please out of the love of your own heart says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Now, I wanna share this as an illustration. Some of you know that Sarah and I, we went up to Michigan to candidate, and when we got the news that we wouldn't be up there, you know, it hurt our hearts. And I know that it was God's will for us not to be up there, so that's not the issue. But I appreciate so much Pastor Camp when he got the news and he came up to me and he said, Henry, it's going to be okay. It wasn't because of anything you did wrong. And he came up to me and he put his arms around me and he says, just keep your eyes on Jesus. And you don't know how much that meant to me. It was almost like hearing the voice of God Himself, you know, saying, Henry, it's alright, I didn't call you to go out there, but it's good that you've been striving, you're striving to please Me. Because He's the one that gives the rewards and makes it worth it all. If I'm not graduating from a Bachelor of Baptist College to please the Lord Jesus Christ and a diploma doesn't mean anything to me. It's because He gives the reward. Let's look at the return quickly. When we turn, we in turn cast our crowns at Jesus' feet. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And I think it's quite interesting that every crown that we receive is a crown that represents the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a crown of righteousness. Only the Lord is righteous. The shepherd's crown. The Lord is our shepherd and great high priest. The crown of life. The Lord is the resurrection and the life. These crowns represent the Lord. I'm not worthy to hold what represents the Lord. Let's look at verses 17 and 18 there in chapter 4. It says, You see, when we stand before heaven, the thing that I want to say is, Lord, it was You who stood with me. Lord, it was You who strengthened me. I couldn't do it on my own. Lord, it was You who set me free. Lord, it was You who saved me, who delivered me, who preserved me. Lord, it was all You, not me. And I cast my crown at the Savior's feet. So in conclusion, what is the meaning of your life? Where do you want to find a reward for your life? Is your life gonna be one that's rewarding or one that brings shame? Heavenly Father, thank you so much for allowing me to preach this message. Hope you use it in your own will, in your own way, in Jesus' name.