Imagine that you are on a firefighting crew of 10 other members. You have just pulled up to a five-alarm fire engulfing several family homes in a neighborhood. Your hope is that several other crews will arrive, but right now you are the first in. The saving of lives and property all depend on your small unit of fighters. Now, after several hours of battling the blaze, There have been a few lives rescued, a few buildings spared. But the flames are beginning to retake one of the structures. Your people are exhausted. A few have even walked off the site. And to top it all off, your most experienced and courageous crew member has just received a call from the city fire chief. Inexplicably, they are pulling him off the job right in the middle of this inferno and sending him home. What in the world? How will this affect the morale of the crew? Who will provide the expertise and bravery needed in this battle? What will be the outcome of this burning neighborhood now? In the midst of a war, there's rarely a time that seems right for your leader to be pulled away. As Paul wrote this second letter to Timothy, The Ephesian church is under fierce persecution from without and poisonous division from within. It was a difficult, difficult time. It was hard to see your most valuable officer permanently leave the battlefield. Paul knew well the condition of the troops and the status of the spiritual battle. Hendrickson assessed the kingdom warfare this way. It had been a fight against Satan. against the principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this darkness and the heavenlies, against Jewish and pagan vice and violence, against Judaism among the Galatians, against fanaticism among the Thessalonians, against contention, fornication and litigation among the Corinthians. and against incipient Gnosticism among the Ephesians and the Colossians, against fightings without and fears within, and last but not least, against the law of sin and death operating within Paul's own heart. In the midst of this battle, God is retiring Paul from active duty, and He is bringing him home for awards. but the battle doesn't stop. The battle continues. What will spur Timothy on? To be on the alert, to stand firm in the faith, to act like a man and be strong. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you that you have communicated to us through your Son and that you have inspired men, that you have breathed through men to give us your words in what we look at this morning. Father, please speak to us and lead us. Please take our weak minds, the distractions that we have from every angle, Lord, and please draw us near to you and speak to us. Lead us to you. Convict us of our sin. Lift those who are beaten down and discouraged. Bring down those who are lofty and haughty. And Lord, draw us to Christ this morning, please. In Jesus name I pray, Amen. Departure is awaiting and there is a very specific type of departure that Paul describes here. Verse 6 says, For I am already being poured out as a drink offering. A key word right out of the starting gate is the word for. Paul lays out the reason for His strong commands in the verses that Brad preached a few weeks ago. To get us back into the context, I'd like for us to turn to the first verses from chapter 5. Let's read the final instructions that Paul gave to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, verses 1 through 5. I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. And they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you, You, Timothy, be watchful in all things. Endure afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. Timothy, step up to our King's calling. because I am already being poured out as a drink offering. Paul connects here his imminent execution with a perfect analogy to an Old Testament sacrament. It is described in Numbers chapter 15 and it involves what's called the burnt offering. A burnt offering was a sacrifice for sin. It was given by God so that people would recognize the seriousness of sin, that the wages of sin is death. You see, sin earns death and death is required if that sin is to be paid for and forgiven. There is no other way out of the penalty of sin. The burnt offering is an explicit Old Testament type or a shadow of Jesus Christ who would come later to offer his life as a death sacrifice for our sin. In the practice of the burnt offering the entire body of a slain animal was placed on the altar. It is completely completely burned up. During this offering, flour mixed with oil is placed on the burning animal carcass. And this creates what scripture calls a sweet aroma before God. One commentator gave this kind of an appreciative description. I liked it. He said, it would smell like a barbecue with bread baking on top of the meat. And a lot of us like that idea. Like a barbecue with bread baking on meat. The sweet aroma. But there was one more step And in the final step of the burnt offering, a quart or more of wine, depending on the animal offered, was poured out on top of the burning animal and the flour and the oil. This last act was called the drink offering. And it is how Paul sees his fast approaching death. Paul has described his life and urged others to see theirs as an offering to God. In Romans 12.1 we read, Therefore I urge you, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Perhaps prophetically, Paul wrote in Philippians 2.17, Much earlier than this writing, he said, Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and I rejoice with you all. But in this day of sanitized presentations of so many things, we must not shy away from the reality of Paul's description or we will lose the powerful significance. The pouring out of Paul's blood would soon be vividly portrayed by the method of execution. Paul was a Roman and Romans do not crucify Romans. Instead his head would be literally chopped from his body. Paul's blood would literally pour out onto the Roman soil as a sacrifice for his Savior and the gospel he preached. Footnotes in the ESV study Bible point out that Paul's words, I am being poured out, stress that it is God who is acting here, not Paul. God is pouring Paul's blood on the sacrifice of Paul's life given to God. What an incredible portrait Paul has painted. And this is reality. He goes on to say, and the time of my departure is at hand. About six years ago, Kyle and I were relaxing in a Paris, France airport lobby, and we were returning from a journey to Africa and Lebanon. We had several hours layover, so I think I probably caught a nap or I worked on something, or maybe both, and you can ask Kyle for specifics and find out what he was doing at that point. But the point is, we had plenty of time to get to the gate for our flight heading back to the US. Some of you probably are beginning to get the picture here. As the departure time drew nearer, we decided to head to the gate. And that is when it began to dawn on us that our gate was nowhere close to where we were and getting to the gate on time was going to be a race. We had a long way to walk through the main airport, a bus to find, and then to ride on to a completely different location, and then a completely new airport facility to walk through. As we finally located the right concourse and started walking toward our gate, We started to recognize an urgent sounding message that included something that sounded vaguely familiar to our names with a very strong French accent coming over the public address system. The long and short of it was our time of departure was already at hand. It was time to go. The crew graciously kept the door open and hurried us in, rushed us to take our seats, and then to depart from home. As the Apostle Paul neared his departure, he was by no means treated with the kindness and patience that we were shown. However, when you read his announcement in this letter to Timothy, he doesn't seem to be alarmed in the slightest. but rather quite content with his situation. His words are those of a man whose heart is on his destination, not his departure. But he is also plainly telling Timothy, soon I will be dead. Now, if you've had the opportunity to travel by air, you will likely have paid close attention at some point to the large information screens at the airport. There are usually two main screens of data about flights. What are they? Departures and arrivals, exactly. Departures and arrivals. If you are not there to pick someone up, but you're traveling yourselves, you're going somewhere, which one are you studying? The departures. Your flight is up there somewhere. And there are a few different ways to identify it, like the time or the flight number, but what always confirms it to me is the destination, where I am going. My anticipation travel is not where I am coming from, but where I am going to. And when we take off from Wichita in just a few weeks, I will be excited, not because of the place I'm leaving, but because of the destination we are going to, Lebanon. The excitement and departure is where you are going. And at this moment of Paul's departure, it is the destination that dwarfs the reality of the dark, cramped, stinking dungeon of death he has been imprisoned in. His mind is where he is going. And the word Paul uses for departure here is the Greek word analysis. It accurately expresses Paul's heart in these final moments of life. William Barclay offered these three definitions of annulusis. First of all, it is the unyoking of a domestic animal from the shaft of a plow or a cart. Death to Paul was rest from toil. Secondly, it was the loosening of bonds or fetters from a prisoner. Death for Paul, departure, was liberation and release. He was to exchange the confines of a Roman prison for the glorious liberties of the courts of heaven. And a third definition, the loosening of the mooring ropes of a ship as it leaves the dock and moves out into the open sea. Much of Paul's travels throughout Asia Minor, Greece, the Mediterranean region were by ship. Many a time he had watched the ropes loosened and felt the ship move out into the open sea. Now he is to launch out into the greatest deep of all. He is setting sail to cross the waters of death to arrive in the haven of eternity." What an impact Paul's perspective on death must have had on Timothy. Matthew Henry wrote, Paul was an old soldier of Jesus Christ Timothy was but newly enlisted. Come, says Paul, I have found our master kind and the cause good. I can look back on my warfare with a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction and therefore not be afraid of the difficulties thou must meet with. The crown of life is as sure as if it were already upon my head. and therefore endure afflictions, Timothy, and make full proof of your ministry." What an understanding of death. How does Paul's depiction of death impact you? How do you see death, the end? And I challenge you who are eight, nine, 10, to think of that as well. You who are 50, 60, 70. Probably have. But consider what Paul has said, how he has seen it. Do you grasp it in that way? Let's go on here. With death in the background, Paul focuses on his completion of assignment. Verse seven says, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. Each of Paul's three short end-of-life statements is in what we call the perfect tense. And that means these are actions that have been completed and are having an ongoing result. Actions that have been completed and have an ongoing result. And the actual word order Paul employs places the object first and then the verb. In other words, verse 7 would literally read like this, The good fight I have fought. The race I have finished. The faith I have kept. Paul's emphasis is not on himself or what he did, but what God had graciously placed into his life. The first one, the good fight I have fought. The agony. Fought is the word agonizomai and the fight is agon. The English word agony comes from this term. In other words, I have agonized the agony, says Paul. It means to wrestle, to take pains. Another definition is straining every nerve to the uttermost towards the goal. Paul in no way here is complimenting his own successes or expertise in battle. As Doriani noted in his commentary, Paul refers to the excellence of the cause, not his performance. It's not Paul's fighting that is good. It is the war itself that is a worthy cause. It is a perfect, virtuous, intrinsically good fight that Paul is agonizing through. It began with the Damascus Road transformation and has continued on for 30 some years to this moment that he sits in this dungeon of death, the Marmatine prison. One veteran pastor identified with Paul's description saying, this is a war. I don't have a lot of expectations in a war except that it is going to be hard. It's going to be sometimes depressing. It's going to take every effort I have and there are going to be wounds in the process. That's my view of ministry. I do not expect to go flying through comfortable, having a happy time with everything going exactly right. If you take that expectation into the ministry, you will be a casualty because you can't go dawdling around in the middle of a battlefield without getting shot fatally. This is war. In his earlier letter, Paul had commanded Timothy, but you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Secondly, Paul says, I have finished the race. The race I have completed. Finished here does not merely mean to bring something to an end. But it is much more powerful than that. It is to bring it to perfection or to the intended goal. Paul was not filling in ministry check boxes for performance. He had his head up and was straining toward the finish line. Do you know who else used the same word to Leo? Finished. In his last days of life? John 19.30. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished to Leo. It is accomplished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. The race I have finished. the race. It's the word dramas and it means the course or the track. The 1972 Olympic Games were held in the German city of Munich. It was an Olympic event of great victory and if any of you remember, deep, deep sorrow. An American swimmer by the name of Mark Spitz won a record seven gold medals in the swimming events. In a horrifying Olympic tragedy, 11 Israeli athletes and a German police officer were kidnapped from the Olympic athlete village. They were then massacred by the Palestinian Black September terrorist group. In a blow to an American pride, the USA basketball team lost for the first time in the final gold medal game by one point to the Russians after the final seconds were replayed three times. Four years later, as 19-year-old college students, my good friend Byron and I excitedly explored the Munich Olympic Campus. I was excited to be there. It was one of the stops on our trip that I couldn't wait for. At one location, we stepped into a large wooden oval track with deeply banked curves at each end with a circumference of about 250 meters. That's approximately three football field lengths around the track. It was called a velodrome. Anybody familiar with that? Well, up until stepping in there, I had no idea what a velodrome was myself. But velo is the word for bicycle in French and drome or dromas as we are seeing here, is the word for track or course. It was a bicycle course where they held the Olympic races. Paul speaks about being at the finish line of his dromos, his racetrack. The idea of a race was not a sudden revelation to Paul at the end of his life. He had already spoken several years earlier to church elders from Ephesus saying this, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." Early in the course of his life, Paul had his eyes firmly fixed on the finish line of his race. He knew how he wanted to end. He was committed to doing whatever it took to complete the course God had set for him. Each of you has a drama. A course that God has set for you. Some of your tracks are longer than others. Some are more difficult with steeper climbs, perhaps rough rocky surfaces. You will likely hit patches of ice, maybe even large potholes. But God has given each of us a dramas. Not only is it certain that you have one, but it is also certain it will come to the end. There is no doubt. Your dramas will come to an end, maybe this afternoon, maybe in six months, maybe in 60 years. You do not know when, but your dramas will end. However, God knows the course He has set to you. He knows us in the minutest detail. And when it comes to the end, You will not be able to make it one second longer or cut it off a second shorter. When the time is up, you will have run the race. Psalm 90 verse 12 says, So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 139, 16. Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in your book, They all were written, the days fashioned for me. When as yet there were none of them. It would do well for you to often consider the end of your dramas. Not a morbid fascination with death, but a reality. A reality that you only have one opportunity to run this track. Are you running it well? A very faithful elderly saint set the example for Sherry and I soon after we were married. She placed her life, her tongue, her thoughts, her pen, her time, her husband, her children and grandchildren under the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel. She came to Christ later in life at the age of 50. And she often told us she felt she must make up for lost time for Christ. And then she would remind us with this saying, only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done in Christ will last. That woman ran her course for Christ and finished it giving out tracts and sharing the gospel to every visitor, all the residents, then each staff person in her rest home at the age of 80. She organized gospel activities and programs while others assembled jigsaw puzzles and figured out crossword games. She prayed without ceasing. She finished the race. Although my running days were unimpressive, as I've shared in the past, I still would like to offer guaranteed Dramas Racing Advice from Scripture. Guaranteed Dramas Racing Advice. The complete racing strategy is compressed into two verses in Hebrews chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. It reads, therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Let me hit the highlights there, the strategy. Lay aside every weight or encumbrances. You see, the encumbrances may even be good things. They are not necessarily sin. They are things that distract us, that pull us away from Christ, that eat up our time when the day is over, that occupy our minds late at night rather than the Word of God or than prayer for others. It is things that may even be a nice practice for some, But they are encumbrances for you as you run your race. And sin, we know sin destroys. Sin ensnares. Lay those aside. Do away with them. And run with endurance. See, this isn't a 50-yard dash. I don't even think they have those anymore. It's not a 100-meter dash. We're talking about something, in most cases, last year after year after year. Run with endurance. Hold fast. Stay on that track. Move in the direction God has given you. And then most important of it, of this, is that this is the dramos that God has set before you. Trust Him in that. You didn't get off anything that God didn't know about before. You are on God's track. Keep your eyes on Jesus, looking unto Jesus, that will be your key. Look unto Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross for us. As Philippides fought in the battle of Marathon between his mother country Greece versus Persia in late summer 490 BC, He witnessed a Persian vessel changing course towards Athens as the battle neared a victorious end for the Greek army. He interpreted this as an attempt by the defeated Persians to rush into the city to claim a false victory or simply raid to claim authority over Greek land. It is said that he ran nonstop the entire distance to Athens, discarding his weapons and armor along the way in order to eliminate as much weight as possible. He then burst into the assembly at Athens exclaiming, we have won! Before collapsing and dying. Philippides finished the race. He accomplished the goal. He gave his life for the cause. Run strong. Run strong, run faithfully. And finish strong. And finally, the essential, the faith I have kept. To keep is a word that means to guard, to prevent from escaping, keep a close eye on, to preserve. Paul guarded, he preserved, he kept a keen eye on the faith. Now, there could be a couple of ways to look at this, but perhaps Paul intended here the idea of subjective faith, meaning that he continued to believe, never giving up his trust and dependence upon Christ. He kept faith in that way. But I think even more so, Paul is speaking of a very specific and objective faith. Paul held tightly, he held tightly to the faith described and prescribed in God's Word, Scripture. Scripture tells us what faith is. Scripture explains how to live by this faith. Scripture gives us tremendous examples of faith, as well as those who were faithless. And even, we see in the Word of God, examples of those who were faithful at times and were faithless in moments of weakness. Scripture demands that salvation is only through this faith. in the gospel. Paul kept the faith. He kept it in front and center. He rebuked those who perverted the faith. He corrected those who misused the faith. He reminded and exhorted believers about the faith. Then he made decisions and judgments based on the faith. He kept the faith. Why? Because it is priceless. It is perfect and it is eternal. But in order to put your life on the line for this faith, as Paul constantly did, you must know it and it must be precious to you. That is the motivation behind why we are constantly encouraging you from the pulpit to study, meditate, and memorize the Word of God. It is why we encourage parents to teach their children scripture, to have consistent family worship around God's word. It is why we have a women's bible study digging in deep to the glorious gospel. It is why we have young boys and girls being taught how to search out scripture together. Why we have an early Tuesday morning study in defending your faith. It is why we preach week after week, steadily marching through the field of God's Word, trying to harvest wisdom and instruction from the Lord. Each of us here serving the Lord, and that's many of you, have this goal so that when you and I, when we arrive at the dramos, the finish line of that race, we can say, we have kept the faith. But don't assume, don't assume it will happen by osmosis. Just being in the right place and being near others or even by good intentions. What have we read here? There is an agony to agonize over, a fight. There is a race to be run. There is a faith to be kept. Many give up the fight, several ultimately decide to leave the track. If you are simply hoping for the best, the best will not happen. Paul confessed in 1 Corinthians 9 verse 26, he says, Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly, and I do not box, beating the air, no, I strike a blow to my body. And make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." Again, this is a war, this is a battle. One thing is absolutely clear in Paul's closing of this letter. He has no fear of death. For him, death was loosening of the shackles of prison. It was freedom from the yoke of toil. It was untying the ropes that held him to this earth so that he could move on to eternity with the Savior Jesus Christ. Paul was boarding the departing flight home. I know that at the end of May, after just 10, 11 days away, I will be anxiously awaiting the moment when those wheels leave the ground from the Lebanon airport and we are heading home. How much greater, brothers and sisters, how much greater will be that moment if it comes as Paul's did, when we can anticipate heading to our perfect home with our eternal loving Father. Are you afraid of death? Hear what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality, Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. This was not only Paul's source of peace as he faced a bloody execution. It was his moment and his motivation for living every moment of life. Paul goes on and he writes, Therefore, in view of this, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And then finally, There is laid up for me, writes Paul, the crown of righteousness. He is anticipating a war. The gift. Says Timothy, I must conclude with this. There is stored up for me, in reserve, this crown. It's the word Stephano. And it is a wreath of victory. It was placed in safekeeping for me, says Paul, for me before the world was ever created, even while I was an enemy of Christ, before he saved me even. But it is about to be awarded to me. It is a crown given to me, Timothy, but earned and preserved by the giver. It is a victory wreath of righteousness, but not my righteousness, his. and he is giving me this great award that not only could I not earn or ever deserve, but in reality, it cost him the life of his very own son. You see, wrote Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, he, the father, made him the son who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. This wreath of righteousness secures my entrance, my adoption, and eternal fellowship with that giver forever. So who might such a benevolent giver be? Verse eight goes on to say, which the Lord, the righteous judge will give to me. In the early 70s, there was an annual athletic banquet called the Buffalo Barbecue held at a college near the town I grew up in. Each year, they invited a nationally famous celebrity athlete to come and give a speech. He would then give out awards to local athletes from the area. I was very excited as a young man, as a boy one year, my father took me to hear a professional basketball player by the name of Bill Russell. Russell had achieved fabulous success in his career, playing for a team that won 11 NBA championships in 13 years. Because of his status in sports, it was a big honor for the small town athletes to meet Russell, shake his hand, and even receive an award passed on by him. But that celebrity is almost unknown by most contemporary sports fans today. he passed away last year at the age of 88 and at this point his prowess and accomplishments literally mean nothing but what would it be like brothers and sisters to come into the presence of the omnipotent God the sovereign Lord the eternal creator of the universe and have him actually personally give you the highest award any man or woman on earth has ever received. The giver of this wreath of righteousness is himself the righteous judge. If that is truly who he is, Then how will he give an award of righteousness to a chief of sinners like Paul? Let alone men and women like you and me. This sovereign judge is described in Hebrews 4.13 with these characteristics. And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to him to whom we must give an account. How can a truly righteous judge from whom nothing is hidden remain just and give sinners the crown of righteousness? He can give that crown because he earned that crown himself. Titus 3 verses 4 through 7 read, But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. That having been justified, made righteous, made right by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The occasion for such an award is that day. It goes on to read, on that day, the day on which he will return and establish his kingdom forever. The day on which the giver, the righteous judge, will bestow his awards to all his children. But it's hard to grasp this. It really comes to many of us as no surprise that Paul would be one to receive a crown of righteousness. Yes, we know that Paul himself wrote that there are none righteous, no not one, and that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that he was in his own words the chief of sinners. However, he is also quite deserving in our minds since he was an apostle. He wrote a huge portion of scripture. He outlined the gospel over and over again. He gave God-breathed instruction to the church. And he suffered intensely and repeatedly for the sake of the gospel. But us? Could anyone else qualify for such a crown of righteousness? The qualifications. Paul writes, and not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing." These are the recipients. Paul mentions all who have loved his appearing, but he also wrote about another all. In the book of Romans 6.23, he says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And this would seem to seal our doom. What hope is there after a comprehensive statement of condemnation like that? No one escapes that net of failure, or do they? Verse 24 goes on to say, being justified freely as a free gift by His grace through the redemption, the purchasing that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation. God set His Son forth to receive the wrath due to us so that it is taken and it is fully satisfied. He is the propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness. And here's the key that he might be just in his judgment and the justifier of sinners who have faith in Jesus. We qualify as recipients because he qualifies us by his own doing. And the sign is that you will have been qualified by Christ Jesus and it will be shown that you will love his appearing. His appearing will be a sign that you have been qualified. Hebrews 9, 26 through 28, use this word appearing in two situations here. The verse goes on to say, He then would have had to suffer, Jesus, would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. That was His first appearing. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him, who long for it, He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. Do you love that appearing? Do you anticipate it? Is it something you hope to have come soon? Romans 8, verses 35 through 39. Says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword written by the pen of Paul? As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I hope this morning we have been able to taste somehow through the word of God a bit of the flavor of what was going on in the heart of Paul as he faced his final departure from this world and as he looked back on his completion of the assignment and as he looked ahead to the land and the wreath and the righteousness and the presence with God that he anticipated. That should be our hearts too. Don't be afraid to think about your dromos, the end of life. And then where are you going? How are you proceeding? Are you committed to where you could be one like Paul? I don't know if you've ever had that assignment in a class, but we had it in several of them, and it can be sort of odd or morbid, and it would be write your own epitaph. And what would you say about yourself? And I personally will discard that. I want my epitaph and my life to be able to proclaim what Paul did. I have fought the good fight, the good fight I have fought, the race I have run, the faith I have kept. May we pray for each other. May we encourage each other. The battle is hot. The assault's on every corner, every place you look, at every point of life. are struggling. Parents and children are struggling. Coworkers, what we've even heard from Krista this morning, things are a mess. We must pray for each other. We must plead with God to keep us on the Dromos, to keep the faith, to fight the good fight. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the word that you have given us this morning. And Father, where I've erred or spoke too much, please wash that away. And I pray that your word would penetrate into the hearts of all of us this morning. And we would desire to bring honor to you through every moment of our lives. Lord, there are many challenges, many trials from without and from within. Lord, keep us on track so that we can say like Paul did, we have fought the fight, the race we have accomplished, the faith we have kept, so that you may be glorified and we can enjoy the award of the crown of righteousness. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.