UNFINISHED LIVES

PSALMS 102:2

A. "I SAID, O MY GOD, TAKE ME NOT AWAY IN THE MIDST OF MY DAYS"
  1. We are living in a time when we ought to make this prayer:
    1. A part of our morning worship
    2. When we step into an automobile
    3. When we ride on a plane
  2. I need not remind you:
    1. That the daily news papers as well as the hourly broadcast makes mention of the sudden death of a youth or a middle aged man by accident
    2. This writer has seen some heart-breaking accidents that have wiped out the lives of whole families B. A FULL LIFE - WHAT IS IT
  3. This writer cannot visualize a full life:
    1. Without Jesus Christ controlling it
    2. "Moreover, your own completeness is only realized in Him" - Col. 2:10
    3. "For without me, ye can do nothing" - John 15:5
  4. Life aside from Christ:
    1. Is mere existence and that a very poor one - Examples: the story of the prodigal son illustrates this truth - Luke 15:11-32
    2. Paul states this truth in these words, "That at that time ye were without Christ being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" - Eph. 2:12
    3. Visualize, if you can, a man or a woman being without Christ and that means without hope taken out of life in the midst of their days
    4. How glorious it is to be able to say with Paul, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" - Phil. 1:21
  5. Life without being born again, too, is mere existence:
    1. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven" - John 3:3-6
    2. Such a life is a living death - dead in trespass in sin - Eph. 2:1
    3. Paul speaks of that state as "O wretched man that I am" - Rom. 7:24 C. UNFINISHED LIVES
  6. It must have been a glorious feeling for Paul to write to Timothy about his life:
    1. "For I am now ready" - 2 Tim. 4:6
    2. Belshazzar was not ready - Dan. 5:1-22
    3. The rich man was not ready - Luke 12:16-20
    4. Simeon was ready - Luke 2:25-32
  7. Unfinished lives:
    1. They are those who have not completed their course - Hezekiah had not finished his course when he was warned of his death - Is. 38:1-18
    2. Paul, however, could say, I have finished my course" - 2 Tim. 4:6-7
    3. To finish my course means that I have completed what God had given me as my duty to Him and to my fellow men
    4. We think of parental duties - and what a responsibility that is especially in our day
    5. But there are other duties that involve upon those of us who profess to be Christians - to share our faith with others
    6. To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, to visit the sick and give encouragement to the despondent - Matt. 25:31-42
  8. But there is still another side to a full life:
    1. Perfection of character
    2. Peter states it this way - "Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity" - 2 Pet. 1:2-8
  9. Surely we can see by this time:
    1. That the prayer of our opening text is most timely for everyone of us
    2. For none of us knows when our days of pilgrimage come to a sudden end
    3. How wonderful it will be if we are ready for any eventuality
    4. If the loved one that has fallen asleep in Jesus, He will have filled her days and made her life full


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