Start Strong…Finish Stronger! | Mike Teixeira

“Heaven doesn’t make this life less important. It makes it more important.”

Billy Graham

“It’s not how you start that matters…it’s how you finish.”

Steve Farrar

Big Idea: Start strong. Stay strong. Finish stronger!

3 “Finish Stronger” lessons…

1. Live a life that looks like !

Acts 20:18-19 (NLT)

¹⁸ When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now ¹⁹ I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears. I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews.

• Humbly- how he carried himself
• Tears- how he cared about people
• Endurance- what he was willing to go through and sacrifice for others

Philippians 2:5

“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.”

Jesus showed us how to…

• Live

Philippians 2:7
⁷ he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.

• Embrace humility

Philippians 2:8

 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—

• Love sacrificially

Philippians 2:8

by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

2. Live with courageous !

Acts 20:20-21

²⁰ I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. ²¹ I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.

Acts 20:20-21 (MSG)

“I didn’t skimp or trim in any way. Every truth and encouragement that could have made a difference to you, you got. I taught you out in public and I taught you in your homes, urging Jews and Greeks alike to a radical life-change before God and an equally radical trust in our Master Jesus.”

“What we want to hear is often different from what we need to hear”

Craig Groeschel

1 John 3:1-19

¹⁸ Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. ¹⁹ Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God.

Mobius Strip… discovered in 1858 by Augustus Mobius a German mathematician.

This week pray…

“Holy Spirit, show me the places in my life where the words I speak, and the life I live are not consistent. Where am I saying one thing but doing another? Help me to live courageously consistent in every area of my life. Amen!”

3. Live with a ‘God’s not with me yet’ vision!

Acts 20:22-24

²² “And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don’t know what awaits me, ²³ except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. ²⁴ But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.

3 “Finish Stronger” lessons…

1. Live a life that looks like Jesus!

2. Live with courageous consistency!

3. Live with a ‘God’s not finished with me yet’ vision!