2 Tim.4:6-8

One day a Christian and an atheist were having a discussion about whether or not God existed. The atheist said, “I don’t know how there could be a God who would allow Hitler to kill 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. To which the Christian replied, “But if there is no God, then what would be wrong with Hitler killing 6 million Jews in the Holocaust?”

If God does not exist, then our existence on this earth is utterly without meaning. If we are merely the products of millions of years of random evolution, then it’s senseless to talk about what is right and what is wrong. There’s no basis for morals.

An Austrian Jew named Viktor Frankl spent several years in one of Hitler’s concentration camps in WW 2. He was a psychologist by profession, so he was a keen observer of human behavior.

As he observed his fellow prisoners, he made a startling discovery. He found that the survival of the prisoners, who labored under the most barbaric treatment, did not seem to depend totally on their physical condition.

He saw prisoners who appeared to be strong and relatively healthy waste away and die inexplicably, while other prisoners, who were physically weak and ill managed somehow to live on. It was only as he looked further into this mystery that Viktor Frankl found the answer.

He found that if a prisoner ceased to have hope - if he somehow had given up hope in his release, or if he could no longer see a reason for living, then that prisoner would die. Regardless of his physical condition, the prisoner who had lost hope and meaning would die.

On the other hand, a prisoner who clung to a reason for surviving—perhaps he hoped one day to be reunited with his family, or perhaps he knew that some of the other prisoners were depending upon him in some way—that prisoner would survive. Regardless of his physical weakness, the man who clung to hope would live.

When we turn to the Bible, we are turning to a book about hope. God’s Word says that our life on this earth does have meaning. In the Bible, we’re given a reason for living, and therefore, a reason for hoping. In fact, hope is one of the characteristics of a follower of Jesus Christ, and we want to look at that today.

Let’s turn to 2 Timothy 4…

2 Timothy 4:6-8 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store 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 longed for his appearing.

When you look at 2 Timothy 4, you are looking at the last few verses of the very last letter that the Apostle Paul ever wrote. And in these verses, Paul is taking stock of his life. He looks at his present in verse 6; he looks back on the past in verse 7; and he looks ahead to his future in verse 8.

In verse 6, he says:

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure.

I want you to get a picture in your head of where Paul is as he writes this. He’s an old man. He’s probably almost blind—we think he had a problem with his eyesight. He’s in a dungeon in Rome, where he is awaiting execution. His case has been tried by Nero, and he’s been condemned to death. Pretty grim set of circumstances! But Paul doesn’t see it that way at all.

He says that he sees himself as being poured out like a drink offering. Now what’s that mean?

Well, in the OT, every day the priest would put the sacrificial lamb on the brazen altar, which was sizzling hot. Then he would pour over the animal a drink offering—a cup of wine.

What’s going to happen to that wine when you pour it onto a sizzling hot piece of meat? It’s going to go up in steam, right? That’s exactly what the Bible says happened. The purpose of the drink offering was to provide a fragrant aroma unto the Lord. The drink offering went up in steam—it was entirely consumed. There was nothing left. It just evaporated and disappeared, leaving behind only a fragrant aroma.

And that’s how Paul saw his life. He saw it as a drink offering poured out on the lamb, who is Christ. He was entirely consumed in his commitment to the Lord. He was holding nothing back. And when his life was over, there would be nothing left behind but the pleasant aroma of a life lived for God.

Placing my hope in Christ enables me to live purposefully today.

What are you living for? Why do you do what you do every day?

Some people are living for the day when they can retire.

Bill Hybels tells the story of how as a young man he had done some traveling. One day, he was in Brazil. He was sitting in a fancy restaurant, and there happened to be a retired American couple sitting at a table next to his. Bill overheard the man say to his wife, “Well, honey, this is it. This is what we worked so hard for, and saved so much for, all those years.”

And Bill thought to himself “Whoa! If that’s what life is all about—saving, and scrimping, and working for years just to be able to sit at a table in a restaurant in Brazil, then that kind of life isn’t worth living.” There’s got to be more to life than that.

And the Bible says that there is. When you become a follower of Jesus Christ, you’re signing up to be part of the greatest cause in history. When you commit your life to him, he gives you a real purpose for living.

Instead of living life just for what you can get out of it for yourself, your life gets totally refocused on “What can I give to others? How can I impact the people around me for Jesus’ sake?” And having that purpose gives you a really satisfying life.

Jesus said “Whoever would seek to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Placing my hope in Christ enables me to live purposefully today.

And placing my hope in Christ enables me to look back without regret on yesterday.

You know, as I look back on my own life, I feel a real sense of regret about the way I spent my teenage years. I didn’t really commit my life to Christ until I was eighteen years old. So that meant that most of my teenage years I spent living for myself.

I remember it being a very frustrating time. No matter how hard I tried to have fun—and I had lots of fun during those years—it still somehow left me feeling empty. The joy didn’t last. And I certainly wasn’t having a positive impact on the people around me—in fact, quite the opposite. I look back on those years as being essentially wasted because I was living them for myself. My life didn’t matter until I gave my life to Jesus.

As Paul looked back on his life in v.7, he said “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. Now as you probably know, Paul wasn’t always a Christian. In fact, for the first part of his life, he was an active opponent of Christianity. But then he met Jesus, and his life was totally transformed.

He began to live purposefully as he gave himself to serving Christ and telling other people about him. And as he looks back on those years, he looks back without regret.

He says “Like a soldier, I have fought the good fight. Like a distance runner, I’ve run the good race. And like a faithful steward, I’ve kept the faith.”

Will you be able to say that when you get to the end of your life? As you look back on all those years that you have lived on God’s green earth? Will you be able to say “My life has counted because I’ve lived it for Jesus?”

How will you be able to say that? By living faithfully for Jesus today. You can’t do anything about all the years that have already gone under the bridge. And you can’t really do anything about tomorrow, because tomorrow may never come. All you can do something about is today. Today is the only day you and I have any control over.

So have a good day today for Jesus. And if you have enough good days for Jesus in a row, you know what? You end up with a good life. A faithful life. A life that matters. A life that makes an impact for eternity.

Placing my hope in Christ enables me to:

- live purposefully today

- look back without regret on yesterday

- look forward with confidence to tomorrow

Look at what Paul says in verse 8…

2 Timothy 4:8 Now there is in store 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 longed for his appearing.

Way back in 1976, the Olympic games were held in my hometown of Montreal, Canada. That was an exciting summer! I was able to attend several events at the great Olympic Stadium, filled with 80,000 people. Flags were waving everywhere. What a tremendous spectacle!

One day I remember quite clearly. It was the final day of competition for the decathlon —the series of ten gruelling events held over three days to determine the best all-around athlete in the world. That day, just before the competition began, a buzz went through the huge crowd, and then applause broke out.

Across the stadium, in the royal box, Queen Elizabeth and her party came in and were seated. It was the only time I had ever seen her in person. As I looked at her through my binoculars, all I can remember about her was that she was wearing a pink dress and a pink hat.

Then the competition began. The final event of the decathlon was the 1500 meter run. Bruce Jenner, the American, finished second in that race, but his overall performance in the decathlon won him the gold medal with a world-record score.

I vividly remember him taking a victory lap around the track. Somebody had handed him an American flag which he carried proudly. We all stood up and cheered for him, no matter what country we were from. He had just completed an amazing performance. He was the victor. He had won the crown.

At that moment, nobody was cheering for Queen Elizabeth. She was forgotten, even though she had a crown. Queen Elizabeth’s royal crown has 2,783 diamonds in it, 277 pearls, 18 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and 5 rubies. But it wasn’t worth a thing in that stadium that day. All the glory went to the victor of the games.

The crown that Paul is talking about in verse 8 is not a royal crown, it is a victor’s crown. In the ancient Olympics, instead of handing out gold medals, they placed a laurel wreath upon the head of the winner. They called it a “stephanos”, a victor’s crown.

The Bible clearly teaches that a faithful Christian will receive crowns in heaven. There are four different kinds of crowns you can get.

There is the crown of righteousness, which Paul talks about here. It is for anyone who longs for His appearing—for the Second Coming of Christ. The Bible calls that great event the Blessed Hope of the Christian.

How do you long for his appearing? Just by loving Him and by living for Him. By living in such a way that when He comes, you’ll be glad to see Him.

Then there’s the crown of life, which we read about in James 1:12 and Revelation 2:10. That’s for a Christian who perseveres under trial and persecution. I think Paul was in line for one of those, too!

Getting back to the 76 Olympics in Montreal, those were the games where Nadia Comaneci, the Romanian gymnast, was such a sensation. Nadia was here in Whitehall last week.

In 1989, Nadia fled from Romania to escape the harsh conditions there. She did that even though she was enjoying the best that Romania had to offer because, as Romania’s most famous citizen, she was one of the elite.

But in 1989, I was in Romania. And I met with Christians who were being brutally persecuted for being followers of Jesus. They were losing their jobs, being arrested, imprisoned, and tortured for daring to follow Jesus. And they couldn’t flee.

The great C.H. Spurgeon said “There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not cross-bearers here below.” These are the people who will receive the crown of life when they get to heaven.

Then there is the crown of glory. We read about it in 1 Peter 5:4. It’s given to spiritual leaders who devote themselves to faithfully caring for God’s people. They will be the ones to get the crown of glory.

Finally there is another a crown that is described in Philippians 4:1 and 1 Thes. 2:19. And I think that this is the best one of all. Let me read you these verses:

Philippians 4:1 Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown…

1 Thessalonians 2:19 For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?

Paul is saying that the Philippians and the Thessalonians themselves were his crown. He had brought them to Jesus Christ.

Anyone who ends up in heaven because of you—anyone you introduce to the Savior—anyone on whose life you make a positive impact for Christ—that person will be your crown on that great day when Jesus Christ returns to reward His people. They will be like living crowns.

At the beginning of the book of Colossians, Paul says that you can boil Christianity down to one simple concept. It is Christ in you—the hope of glory.

If you will let Christ live his life in you and through you today, your life will begin to have real purpose. It will really count, it will really matter. You won’t have any regrets about living that way. And you’ll be able to look forward with confidence toward the future, and the hope of glory that awaits us in heaven.