Finishing Strong

Susan Hunt: I remember when I was a little girl, sitting in my grandmother's living room one day-and I don't know whether I said something to prompt this. . . . I don't know whether I told her that I felt sorry for her because she couldn't go outside and play like I could, but I remember very clearly her saying to me, "There are wonderful things in every time of life, and I love being old because I get to do some things I never was able to do before. Now I can sleep late every morning!" [laughter] And somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to instill that desire to get old into our grandchildren.

One day, when granddaughter Kate was, I think, about four years old, and it was summertime, so I had on short sleeves. I remember I was talking and she was staring at my arms, and I knew what she was looking at. So I decided, "Okay, make the most of the moment." So I said, "Kate, do you see how they jiggle? Kate, I'm so sorry that yours won't do that! You'll have to wait until you get old!" [laughter]

But I let her feel mine. She bought it for about a year, and then the game was over. She realized. [laughter]

Wow, I still cannot believe how many of you are here! Okay, if we can open in prayer, we will begin.

Paula Hendricks: I'm going to pray for Susan Hunt real quick, and then we will get started.

Lord, thank You for all of these beautiful women here who care about finishing well. Thank You for the good work that You've begun in them, that You are carrying on to completion, and I ask that this session would be so helpful and practical to them.

I know Susan has a lot she wants to pack in, so I ask that You would give her focus and help her know just exactly what to say. We love You, and pray these things in Your Name, Jesus. Amen.

Susan: Thank you. I'm sure we won't cover all the material in the handout, but if you'll look at the top of your handout, the verse that I was given when I was asked to do a seminar on this topic . . . and I might say that, when Mike called and asked me, he was a bit apologetic. But what he didn't know was that I have really wanted to do a seminar on this topic, and so I was very grateful for the privilege. The verses they asked me to use are from Psalm 92: "The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him" (vv. 12-15).

Now, I have to tell you, I have never done a seminar on this topic. But about twenty-five years ago, I was in a meeting where a pastor gave a devotional on the topic of finishing well. He told about how that as a pastor, it had saddened him over the years to see how many people in old age began to isolate, to become fearful or bitter, and that they did not finish well.

And it planted a seed in me. I wanted to finish well; I wanted to flourish. And so I began thinking about this topic. So I was really thankful when Revive Our Hearts asked me to do this. But as I said, I've never done it before. Obviously, I haven't finished yet [laughter], so I cannot tell you this is what I've done. But I can only tell you what I'm learning and what I'm praying.

But I have an excellent resource! My mother is ninety-seven (I'm seventy-four, almost seventy-five), and she is still fresh and "green" and she is flourishing, and she lives right next door to me. We've had a live-in caregiver for her for the last year-and-a-half. I keep telling Mama, when you get as old as she is, that means you have a very old woman for a daughter; and here we are, we gotta have help!

But I learn a lot from her. One of the things I've prayed for Mama from the time, I think, that she turned about ninety (and there were a lot of women in our church at that time that were about that same age-now Mama has outlived all but one of them). But at some point I began praying Psalm 103 for them, and for myself. "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits" (vv. 1-2). And then the Psalmist lists some, and then concludes with "so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's" (v. 5).

And it just struck me, I think there is some link between not forgetting His benefits, not forgetting all that He has done for us (not just the material blessings, but the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ). So one day recently-as I said, I've been praying this for years-but as I was preparing for this seminar, I told Mama the topic and I said, "That's what I'm going to be talking about. What are your ideas about finishing strong?"

Now, Mama's life has shrunk. She's of the World War II greatest generation, independent, strong, lived by herself, and took care of her life until a year-and-a-half ago. Now she has to have help getting in and out of bed, bathing her, getting her into her wheelchair, preparing her meals. But her mind is still so strong.

When I told her the topic and I asked her for her thoughts, she thought for a minute and said, "I don't know, but I know that every day I thank the Lord for His goodness to me, His blessings to me." God had answered my prayer. Mama has not forgotten His benefits. And what I see in her is that this very strong woman, who was always in control of everything, now has a childlike wonder to her.

I think that her youth has been renewed like the eagle's, and she's soaring at ninety-seven. So this is what I think we need to begin to see-that sense of awe and wonder at all of His benefits to us, His children. As I've worked on this, it has been very difficult to harness my thoughts-they seem to be all over the place-and to condense them. At one point I thought, It would be easier to write a book on this than to do a seminar on it.

Then I thought, Silly me! The Book has been written! We've got it! Everything that is in the Bible is what we need to know. As Moses said, "Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess" (Deut. 32:46-47).

This is our life; it is not an empty word, and you've heard that over and over and over. Think of everything Joni said; think of Nancy reciting all that Scripture to us; think of the messages this morning-and we could shut down and leave. They're showing you how to live well, that you might finish strong.

As I thought about how to approach this, I thought about reading books and statistics and all of that, but then decided, no, I think the best thing for me to do is just to share with you the things that I'm trying to do to live well and to finish well-to share with you some of the anchors for my soul.

Yours will be different than mine, but my encouragement to you is to have your anchors. Last spring, a dear friend of mine, who was about ten years younger, died very suddenly, and we were a grieving church-a big hole was left in our church.

At her funeral, her husband-who was still in such shock-went to the podium and said, "I really want to honor Georgia, and I thought about what I could do to honor her. And then I remembered her journal and how for years in that journal she has kept a running list of the Scriptures that really helped her-her go-to Scriptures. And what I've decided is that we're going to read those Scriptures to you."

And all of his family came up: his children, their grandchildren, cousins-thirty-five people went to the front of sanctuary and each of them read a passage or a verse that had been one of Georgia's anchors. It was a powerful moment.

Do your children, your grandchildren, your family know your anchors? Do you know them? What I say to you is yours won't be the same as mine, but have them. This Book is our life.

One of the first questions I thought about is, "When do we start finishing strong?" My son is a racer. All of his life, since I can remember, since he was a little boy, he's raced. And the older he gets, there are less ways that he can race (his knees won't work as well and all of that, but he does bike racing now). But I hear him frequently say, "Whatever you do, finish strong."

So that's one of the reasons that I decided to title this talk that. I asked him, "When do you start finishing strong?" He kind of grinned and said, "At the beginning!" [laughter]

And the same with us. We start finishing strong with that first breath-when the Holy Spirit comes in and gives new life. And with that first breath of spiritual life, we trust Jesus for our salvation, and at that point then we begin the race. Now, we are products of our theology, so what we believe about God is going to show up every day in every way-in every relationship and in every situation. Trust me, it will show up at the end as we approach that finish (or rather, that beginning) line. So it's very important for us to be sure that we're understanding this wonderful thing called salvation that has been given to us.

The deeper our understanding of the truths of Scripture, the deeper our walk with Christ will be. The things that we are learning and growing in, we need to be teaching to the next generation-to the little children. And the more that we teach the next generation (our children, our grandchildren, our spiritual children), the more they will be confirmed in our own hearts.

I think we have to go back to that foundational question, "How can I, a sinner, be right with God?" The doctrine of justification is so important! I love to go back to the Westminster Shorter Catechism's answer to the question, "What is justification?" On your handouts: "Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone."

And the older I get, the more I have to keep reminding myself that it is not what I do; it is what Christ has done for me. It is that in the court of heaven, where I will stand one day, God has declared me to be just. As we tell the children, "Just as if I'd never sinned, and just as righteous as Jesus Christ." He loves me just as much as He will ever love me-He sees me covered in the righteousness of Christ. That is my hope; that is my assurance.

But we need to know, then, from that point the journey begins. Justification is an act. God declares it so. Sanctification is a process-from the point of justification to the point of glorification is that journey, that process of God's grace whereby we die to sin and live unto righteousness.

Dying is always hard, dying to sin. Joni talked about it so beautifully last night. But this is the journey that we're on, and it is the power of the gospel that propels us forward. As Hebrews says, "Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (12:1). My race is different than your race. We don't determine the race; God set it before us and we're to run it well: "Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith" (v. 2).

We're told in Philippians we're to work out what God is working within. We are to trust and obey. We don't work for our salvation, but we work out what He's doing, and then we can say with Paul-as he wrote in 2 Timothy: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (4:7). It's not just about doing things for God, it's about becoming like Him.

John Bunyan beautifully pictures this in one of my all-time favorite books Pilgrim's Progress. It depicts the story of Christian going from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. And I even thought at one time, as I working on this, of just picking out passages of that and reading them, in particularly when he crosses the river and enters into the Celestial City.

I decided not to do it that way, but I do want to recommend that book for you. And there's a wonderful new version of it for families, to be read in family devotionals. It's written for children. It's such a great way, if you're not familiar with Pilgrim's Progress, to get into it.

Pilgrim's Progress is a wonderful resource. Another one that I would mention to you is sort of the female version of that, Stepping Heavenward. It was written in the 1800s. You can go on Amazon or anywhere, and find it. It's the journey of a young girl, written in novel form.

The second thing that I think is very important for us to come back to-these foundational truths-(and I have to remind myself over and over) is my purpose and my authority. In every situation, I'm so tempted to supplant God's way with my way, but our purpose is God's glory, and our authority to know how to glorify Him is His Word. That is a foundational truth, and if we stray from that we cease to live well.

We must look at every situation and every relationship and remember, "My purpose in this is to glorify God; it's not about me. And the only rule to tell me how to do that is God's Word." Now again, I'm all about us sharing these truths with children, and in the book Big Truths for Little Kids, we take these catechism questions-the children's versions of them-and tell stories for children.

My point here is we've got to zero in on systematic theology-on these deep questions-and we've got to be intentional in knowing them and in living them out in our lives.

Another way that helps me stay on track is understanding the big story. We hear a lot about our story today, and we're told to tell our stories. I understand what is meant by that, and it's very important. I frequently interview my mother, with our grandchildren sitting there, and get her to tell about her life. But what I'm talking about here is the "big story."

Because you see, my story is one of sin and decay and destruction and death. But by God's grace, I have been brought into the great redemption story. The Lord has brought me in not to be the central character, but to tell the story of the Central Character. The storyline of this big story is God's covenant promise: "I will be your God; you will be My people. I will live among you." That runs all the way through Scripture.

At any time, when you're starting to sink, you're starting to waver, just go through and read those Scriptures. Those are just a few of the places where this promise is repeated. God says, "Despite you, despite what you've done, I will be your God-by sovereign grace, I will live among you." He kept that promise when Jesus came and lived among us.

One of my go-to passages is Ephesians 1, because in this passage we begin to see that this story began before the beginning! I am part of a story so big that it stretches back before creation, when the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

Why did He do such an amazing thing? In Ephesians 1:6, we're told "to the praise of his glorious grace." And then, in the next part of that chapter, we read about the work of Christ-that Christ redeemed us through His blood. And we see it was for the same purpose-to display His glorious grace.

Then we see the work of the Holy Spirit, even before creation, to seal and to apply the purpose of the Father and the work of the Son into our hearts-same reason, to the praise of His glorious grace. God has worked this amazing redemption, this plan that He set in place before the world began-to be our God, and we would be His people. He has accomplished it on the cross and applied it into each of our lives in order to put His glory on display.

Acts brings it right down to us, where we read, "He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him" (Acts 17:26-27).

God determined the exact place on the planet where you live and the exact time in history when you would be here to put His glory on display. That means that every relationship, every situation, the race that He sets before you, is His good purpose for you, for you to display the glory of His story, the glory of Him.

I have to go back and read Ephesians two or three times a week to maintain this gospel focus on life, because I just get caught up in the dailiness-but I have to bring it all back to that, and then I see the dailiness so differently. Mama is able to see the dailiness, even in her wheelchair, from the perspective of this glorious big story that we're part of.

So again, have some Scripture that you go to that helps you maintain the big purpose, the big story, in the midst of it all. One way that the Larger Catechism expresses this is to say that "the Scriptures manifest themselves to be the Word of God, by their majesty and purity; by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God."

I love this "consent and scope" principle. Every part of Scripture agrees with every part of Scripture, because the scope of the whole is to give glory to God. So every part-there's nothing in there that is out of place-everything is telling the story of Jesus, pointing us to Jesus.

That scope and consent principle also applies to our lives. There is nothing in our lives that is random. There is nothing that is luck. It is all designed by our sovereign God. Every piece of life agrees with every other piece of life, and even at seventy-four, I can say that. I can look back and. . .I don't always see how it agrees. Some of it looks random, some of it seems not to fit; but yet I know that it really does. I know that it fits, that it all harmonizes to tell the glorious story of Jesus.

One other thing we see in Ephesians is that Christ is the Head of His Church. Ours is not a solo journey-we have been adopted into a family. We are to be connected to our local church, and that's the place where we live out these implications of being a part of the historical church and the global church. But we live it out locally.

So the application of all of this so far is to study and go deeper and deeper into the Word and to stay connected to your local church.

When I was in my thirties, one of my spiritual mothers was an older lady in our church-Mrs. Johnston. And the time came when Mrs. Johnston could no longer live alone and she was in a nursing home, confined to a bed. I would visit her often; she was such an encouragement to me.

I remember one day when I was there, we were talking about the radio and TV preachers that she enjoyed listening to. And then she said something that surprised me: "But I never listen to them from eleven to twelve on Sunday morning." And I thought, Well, that's odd-that's when church is, in my world. I said, "Why?"

She looked at me and she said, "Because that's when my church is meeting, and so I'm praying for all of you, since I can't be there." She is staying connected to us from her bed in a nursing home. No wonder good things are happening in our church! So I tried to remember that. Lord, if the time ever comes that I can't be there, help me to remember to stay connected to my church.

Back in the spring I read an article in WORLD magazine about Elisabeth Elliott. I did not know that for the last ten years she has suffered from dementia. The interviewer had been to her home and said that she just sat there. The interviewer was talking with her husband and her husband said this: that when Elisabeth realized she was losing her memory, she put into practice what she had always taught. And I thought, That's it.

If we're not learning these things along, we're a vacuum when we come to the finish line. But she is putting into practice now all those things that she had learned from childhood. And this is what she'd always taught, "From acceptance comes peace."

Her husband said that she often turned to her Bible for comfort, especially Isaiah 43:2: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you."

He said that she has handled dementia just as she did the deaths of her first two husbands. She accepted those things, knowing they were no surprise to God. It was something she would have rather not experienced, but she received it. "Hearing these words, Elliott looked up and nodded, her eyes clear and strong. Then she spoke for the first time during the two-hour interview, nodding vigorously: 'Yes.'"

As I read that again the other day, I thought about our friend Rod, who died a couple of months ago. And right at the very end of his life, the pastor and elders took communion to him. His wife told me that he had been unresponsive for several days-he was unresponsive during their visit-until they (the elders and the pastor and his wife) began reciting the Apostle's Creed and The Lord's Prayer. And suddenly, his voice was just as strong and he said every word.

You know, last night, Joni referred to the Book of Common Prayer. Things like these catechism questions, these great creedal statements, passages of Scripture that we hold onto . . . the deeper they are into our hearts, the more they will be there at that critical point when we will need them.

Now the next thing I want us to think about is to look at some women in Scripture who finished strong. God created us as women, and we run this race as women. So it's important for us to understand how do we do this-what difference does it make, as women?

So I want us to look for just a minute at Eve. Genesis 2:18, "Then the LORD God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."' Our design is as a helper. In Scripture that word often refers to God as our Helper. I've listed a few of the verses and the ways God is our Helper. This is not a secondary function!

We see how God is our Helper, and we see that it's a very strong function and a very necessary one. God created the man first and assigned him the position of headship. He created the woman to help him fulfill his purpose of glorifying God.

But then we know that Satan inverted the creation order. He went to the woman, sin came into the world-but because God had written the story before the story began in time and space, God did not end it there. We read in Genesis 3:15 that He promised that the seed of the woman would defeat the enemy. Here is the first promise of a Savior.

Now, what was the man's response to this first gospel message? It's interesting that we read in verse 20 that the man named his wife. Naming is a function of headship, so we see here that manhood was redeemed, but now we're going to see that womanhood was redeemed.

Adam called his wife's name "Eve, because she was the mother of all living." Our creation design is as a helper, regardless of our marital status (whether you're married or not married doesn't really make any difference-we are created with these instincts within us, intrinsic to who we are). Our redemptive calling is to be a life-giver and not a life-taker.

And then, God showed them the gospel. Adam and Eve stood there and watched as an innocent animal's blood was shed. They had heard the word "death," but they had never seen death. Now they saw it; the blood was spilled and the skin was taken to cover them.

Surely, they thought, How He loves us! Not only did this animal have to die, but God killed the substitute to cover us. They left the garden, and you know, you would think sanctification would have been easy. After all, Eve had talked with God; she had lived in the garden with God. You would think she would just regroup and now it would be very easy. But the reality is, sin totally affects us. It is pervasive in every aspect of our being, and so it was with Eve.

You're probably wondering, How do you know she finished well? I want to show you what makes me think that she did. In Genesis 4, we see that she has a child and she makes this statement: "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD" (v. 1). Do you see anything wrong with that statement? It begins with "I."

Her reference point was herself. It reminded me of a very sad sign I saw on a church-one of those little signs out front. It said, "Do your best, and trust God for the rest." I don't have any best! I have to trust God for everything!

But then, as we go on in that chapter, we see Eve suffering. She had another child; the boys grew up. Now not only has she seen death of an animal, she sees one of her sons kill another of her sons. This thing called sin is so brutal! And she sees the reality of what they brought into the world, this growing realization of the horror of sin.

But in this, God clearly sets forth-for Eve and for us-that there are two ways, and the line is not blurred. There's the way of Cain and the way of Christ. When God asked Cain, "Where is your brother?" he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"

You see, the way of Cain is the way of independence. "It's all about me." The way of Christ is the way of interdependence. We have been adopted into a family and we have family privileges and responsibilities. We are our brothers' and sisters' keeper.

And "then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden (Gen. 4:16). Going away from the presence of the Lord meant Cain chose to live under self-rule. The way of Christ is to live under God's authority. We keep coming back to those foundational principles of our purpose and our authority.

Then in Genesis 4:17, "Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch." Building our own cities is living for self-glory; seeking the city of God is living for God's glory. These are the two ways, and every time I drift into the way of Cain, I become a life-taker.

It is only as I'm living in the way and in the power of Christ that I can be a life-giver-that I can give out the life of Christ into relationships and situations, and that is our redemptive calling. Those words are so descriptive, and they're words that we should begin pressing into the lives of even our little girls.

We have three younger granddaughters-we have twelve grandchildren in all, but the three younger ones are nine and two of them are twelve. And I use this life-giver/life-taker terminology with them all the time, because it says it! Are you being a life-giver or a life-taker? In our hearts we know which we are being.

But then, after learning all of this, in Genesis 4:25, we see Eve's progress: "She bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, 'God has appointed for me another offspring.'" Before she began with self; now her reference point is God! And that's really the determiner of whether we will finish strong or not. Is my reference point, is my whole life, centered on glorifying God? Do I see that it is from Him and unto Him? It's about Him, it's all for Him.

So let's ask ourselves the questions over and over: Am I living for self, or am I living for Christ and the power of Christ?

Now the second group of women that I want us to think about are Titus 2 women. There are so many in Scripture that we could look at, but this has had a huge impact on my life. It was, I think, in my late thirties or early forties that I began to really see the beauty of this passage-that we as women have been called to disciple other women. Nothing will keep you fresh and green any more than discipling, investing in the lives of other women.

Jesus told us to make disciples; this is what He has put us here to be doing! All discipleship is not gender-specific, but there does need to be some gender-specific discipleship, because God created us male and female. I urge you to be involved in the lives of younger women.

Elizabeth Prentiss, who wrote Stepping Heavenward, said, "I'm ever so glad that I'm growing old every day, and so becoming better fitted to be the dear and loving friend to young people I want to be." Now, contrast that with-a young pastor's wife told me that soon after they went to a new church, she was asked to teach the preschoolers (I think it was for a Wednesday night program).

Soon, the lady who taught this same age group-an older woman (and she taught them in Sunday School, and she had taught that Sunday School class for something like twenty years)-there began to be tension between this lady and the young pastor's wife, and the lady began criticizing her. She was talking with other women about her, and it became such a problem that two of the elders went to visit this older women, just to ask, "What is the problem!?"

They said she talked all around it and she made excuses and she tried to shift the blame, but finally when they kept pressing her, she said, "I'm just afraid the children will love her more than they love me!" [groans] We groan, but I understand it. I'm watching younger women do what I did, and my choice is-while, I celebrate it to the hilt, while I thank God that there are those coming along who are doing it so much better. They're building on everything we did.

Am I going to think, They're going to love her more? Am I a life-taker, or a life-giver into the lives of younger women? All along the way I have had older women who cheered me on. And I think back, How could they have cheered me when I was making such a mess of things? But they did!

They encouraged me, and we see that in Scripture. I love two of the spiritual mothers that we see in Scripture. At that high point of human history, when the angel told Mary she would be the mother of the Messiah. In Luke 1, we see that he dropped into that astounding announcement, "Your cousin Elizabeth is with child."

And this made her think, and Mary knew that she needed the ministry of an older woman. Scripture tells us that Mary hurried to the hill country, and I encourage you to go back and read that encounter. But when Mary entered Elizabeth's home, Elizabeth affirmed her, encouraged her, "Blessed are you among women!" (Luke 1:42). The result is that Mary sang. She sang that Magnificat that blesses us down to this day.

One commentator said-and I love this-"Mary did not sing when an angel spoke to her; Mary sang when an older woman welcomed her into her home and instructed and encouraged her." So ladies-even the youngest woman in here-are the women in your life singing? Are the teenage girls in your church singing because you stop and talk with them? You're interested in their lives. You pray for them, you write them notes.

You know what, as we do this, our youth is renewed. We stay fresh and green as this becomes a way of life for us. But that's not the only woman in Mary's life. After Jesus was born, they took baby Jesus into the temple, and you remember Simeon took the child and he blessed Him. But then he said something to Mary, "Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also)" (Luke 2:34-35).

There are many women with "swords in their soul" from their own sin, from the sin of others against them, or from their providential circumstances-the calling that God has placed on their lives. But what takes my breath away here is that, just after Mary was confronted with the cost of her calling, there was a prophetess-Anna-who was in the temple.

She had been married for seven years, and then she became a widow and she is now eighty-four years old in this passage. "She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day" (Luke 2:37). God had waiting an eighty-four-year-old woman to come up and to give thanks and to speak to Mary about redemption, about the big story!

"It's still not about you, Mary. That sword in your soul has a redemptive purpose that is so much bigger than you!" We as older women, I think, can say that with so much credibility, because we've all had swords in our soul. And some of them we've dealt with well, some we didn't. But when we look back, we can see that even when we did not deal with them well, God dealt with us well, and they had a redemptive purpose.

And we can say to young women, "I know it's painful, I know a sword hurts, but there's purpose in it. God is big enough to use it for good and for His glory." We must tell that message, because we can say it with so much more credibility, simply because we've lived life longer. So let's be available to those women in our church.

The last group of women I want to look at-Janet did the work for us this morning in talking about Mary Magdalene. I want us to look at the passage in Mark 16, if you want to turn there. I'm just going to go through it very quickly. In Mark 16, we read the account a little bit different, but the same thing that Janet took us to today as she was talking about Mary Magdalene.

In Mark 16 we see that, after Jesus' crucifixion and the burial, when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James go and tell. She really unpacked that for us. The takeaway I want for us here is the Church is the Body of Christ. I've already said it, but I want to say it again. We must stay connected to Christ's Church, not because our church is always easy, but because He loves His Church.

He died for His Church. His Church is His bride, and we must stay connected to serving His Church. There will be obstacles, there are always obstacles, and the older we get some of those obstacles may change. Some of my obstacles are doubt and fear, indifference, selfishness, lack of faith.

The older I get, I would have thought maybe this one would have gone by the wayside-but just, compromising. As Mary Kassian was talking about, "I'm just so tired. Would it really be wrong if I missed church this morning? My bones are hurting." All of that.

Then, unforgiveness and weariness, transitions-like that older woman who was having to make the transition and watch a younger woman doing what she had always done. All those things are obstacles, and we must come back and look at the big story of redemption and remember that we've been brought into that story, not to tell our story, but to tell His story.

If I begin to get to the place in my church that I'm holding on to anything tightly . . . actually, if I'm doing that with anything in my life, it means that has become my idol. That's defining me and I've become possessive of that rather than clinging to Christ. Those are transitions we have to make as we get older.

So the application of this is to pray for grace to be a life-giver, even as we're older and perhaps confined to a bed. Stay engaged with younger women. You know, younger women still come to see my mama. She can't go to them too much but she calls them and she talks with them and she prays for them-and they come to see her.

They want to see her because she's a joy to be around. She points them to Jesus.

Third, love and serve the Body of Christ. If you'll just look down at your handout, just a few more things. As I was talking about this with a friend, she said, "You know, Susan, to finish strong, I think that we have to finish weak." And I think she's exactly right. It's that same kind of dynamic that Mary Kassian was talking about this morning-not our strength, but being so covered in the strength of Christ.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). One of the things I have loved about getting older and some of the physical disabilities that I have now, and situations-it really is impossible for me to stand here in the afternoon and talk to women.

On a regular basis, I'm in the bed for two hours every afternoon. That's just what it takes for me to keep going. I have some balance issues and things like that. So I've told the Lord, "Well, Lord, when You stop enabling me to do it, I'll stop going and speaking." And you know, so far every time, even with afternoon sessions, I stay awake and I stay upright. And I want you to know, that is an amazing thing! I can boast! [Laughter, then applause]

Now you may see me wobble as I go down the steps, but that's okay, there's a railing. I am so thankful for this weakness, because I am knowing the strength of Christ in deeper and newer and fresher ways, and it makes me just keep declaring, as we read in Psalm 92, "the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him" (v. 15).

I've just listed a few checkpoints to help us to know if we're floundering or flourishing. Again, it's not what we do; it's who we become. These are some of the things that keep me on track and I keep going back to. You add yours to it.

One that I think we can all really embrace-and I pray it daily-is that I might decrease and Jesus will increase. Number seven on your handout, our assurance is not that we will finish well or finish strong. Our assurance is the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and He will bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever, amen.

My comfort is summarized so beautifully in the Heidelberg Catechism. When our granddaughter Annie Grace died at three months, it was such a shock to us, and we were sitting there in the funeral. And I clearly remember the young pastor who was so overcome with emotion as a young father, and a young father who had loved this family and loved that baby-he went to the pulpit and he said, "What is your only comfort, in life and in death?" And we as the congregation read these words, and they have been an anchor for my soul. Let me ask the question again, and then you read the answer with me:

"What is your only comfort, in life and in death?"

Audience: "That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil."

"He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to Him, Christ by His Holy Spirit assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready, from now on, to live for Him."

Susan: My family has been instructed to do this at my homegoing.

And then the prayer that we see in "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded," in verse three:

What language shall I borrow
to thank thee dearest friend
for this thy dying sorrow,
thy pity without end?

O make me thine forever;
and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
outlive my love for thee.

And Moses prayed, "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom" (Ps. 90:12).

On the back of your handout is the devotional that I was asked to write for heart preparation for this conference. It is from the Ephesians passage. It explains a little bit more why it is one of my go-to passages, and I hope that it will be helpful to you as you meditate on it. I've tried to put a lot in here, because this really is a topic that we need to reflect about and think deeply on.

I'm glad that you're willing to talk about it, to talk with one another, and gather a group of friends around you-that you pray for one another and hold each other accountable-to live well and to finish strong. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, I thank You for every woman who is here, who has that desire in her heart to flourish. Father, I thank You that You have planted us in Your court, in Your family, in Your Church, and I pray that we will flourish there, that our local churches will be so much stronger because we're gathered here this weekend.

Father, I pray that we will be life-givers in our churches and our families and our neighborhoods, wherever You place us on this planet. This is the time that You would put us here, and I pray that we will glorify You-that we will live under the authority of Your Word. And I thank You for all the things that we're learning this weekend to equip us to do so.

Lord, please be with every woman in this room. Please meet her need, Father. I pray that Your Spirit will take the feebleness of my words and work gospel fruit in that woman's life. I thank You that no woman in here is dependent on my words, but that You can take those words and empower them with Your Spirit to speak to our hearts what You want us to know.

Oh, may we know You better and reflect You more. In the Name and to the glory of our Savior and King, Jesus, amen!