6For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith …
The call to sober endurance in ministry comes from a man who wrote from experience. Timothy would have been fully apprised of Paul’s experience, for he co-wrote the second letter to the Corinthians with the apostle, who described there what he here calls “being poured out as a drink offering”:
. . . imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern? (2 Cor 11:23a–29)
When we do not shrink back from sacrificing to reach others for Christ and to carry on our ministry, we stand with the apostle Paul and Timothy!
Paul writes as one who is nearing the end of his life and ministry and can look back with satisfaction, which he describes with three comments. First, “I have fought the good fight.” It was not easy; fighting never is. But he did well, for he was faithful to what God had called him to do.
Therefore, he could say next, “I have finished the course.” What course? He wrote to the Galatians, “God . . . set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace . . . [He] was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles” (Gal. 1:15–16). Paul did exactly what God had chosen him to do—to the very end. He never wavered.
Finally, and most importantly, he said, “I have kept the faith.” He endured to the end living by faith in Christ, preserving the truth of the gospel of God, which comes to all by grace through faith, unlike others who had “denied the faith” (1 Tim. 5:8) or had “gone astray from the faith” (1 Tim. 5:21).
Lord, I recommit to serving You faithfully to the very end, when You bring me home. I want to fight the good fight to the very end.
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