Haven't Finished...Yet - By Pastor Thomas Engel

Obviously, it’s Sunday morning. I know it’s Sunday because we are in worship. If it was Saturday, we would be cutting the grass, and if it was Monday, we would be sitting at a desk at work.

Now, all that seems obvious. We know where we are to be at certain moments.

Then, from those moments, we go on to do other things. That’s called progress.

We are all progressing towards something. Well, anyway, that’s at least the idea.

Like kid’s building blocks, we are to build a good work upon another good work, and after awhile, we look at our lives and say, “Good life.”

Looking back at a life, we have done so much. It has been a full life of life’s ups and downs.

Some of those building blocks were not not always so good, and, to admit, some were bad, but when all stacked up together, it all works all quite well.

Also, as far as the building up of those blocks of life, we haven’t finished, yet.

When it comes to things I haven’t finished, yet, I don’t actually have a “Bucket List” where I have written things down, but I do have several things floating around in my mind that I would like to get done before I “Kick the Bucket.”

How about you? Do you want to do something like bungee jump, sky dive, or surf a ten foot wave? Or, are you the less adventurous type?How about getting tickets to a Broadway Show, a trip to Paris, or an all-inclusive package to a tropical island paradise?

At the beginning of every summer, I’m thinking about how I want to go to Spain in July to be at the festival where they run with the bulls.

But, lately, with my aging knees, it’s a strain for me to go jogging. I have trouble keeping up with CC, and to be honest, CC is far from a sprinter. So, I might have to find something else that does not require the physical exertion that it would take to run ahead of young bulls.

We can only fit so much in one lifetime. Even with loads of time and a high limit on a credit card to do things, it would still be impossible to do all that this big world has to offer.

In an old Jim Croce song, “Time in a Bottle,” there is this line,

“But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do once you find them.”

There are always more things to do at the end of the day. We don’t often get everything done that was on that day’s to-do-list.

But, we go to bed, and we wake-up to do it all again.

More to do. Often feeling like we are behind on things. So many demands. So much to figure out. So much unfinished business.

I know you want to get all caught up. Not to be discouraging, but “Good luck with that.”

As we have said, it’s the very nature of life to keep moving forward. Time is always marching on, and as it marches, we are to do things in that time.

What exactly we are to do with so much time?

I’m not sure. I don’t know if I’ll ever to get Spain, which may save on some hospital bills.

Figuring out what to do with our time is the tricky part of life. Isn’t it?

I don’t like feeling empty. I want to feel full with meaning. I want a big purpose. I want a good direction. I want to get things done.

But, it can get frustrating wanting to get things done, trying to make something happen, and wanting to make things better.

We want do something about the problems, like to fix them. We want to do something about the bad, like make it go away. We want to do something about the pain, like having no more tears.

On the one hand, we are doing things to make for a better world, but on the other hand, what we do never seems to be enough.

It seems that the government has unfinished business. Let’s throw more money, pass more legislation, and get more regulations.

It seems our society has unfinished business. Let’s add in our schools more curriculum of all kinds of theories that address social issues.

It seems that our posting on social media is unfinished business. Let’s get out there as many comments as we can.

Not to say, we are not to do things to make the world a better place.

Not to say, we are not to do things to make our lives better.

We can get things done.

We can finish projects. We can finish a day’s work. We can finish homework. We can finish chores around the house.

But, as much as we can try, there are things that we can’t do.

What’s interesting about knowing what we can’t do is what’s most helpful to us.

The best that we can do for ourselves is to know our limitations.

As humans, we have some things going against us that we on our own can’t do anything about.

We don’t like to hear that we can’t do anything about something, but these things are so much bigger than us.

The world would do so much for itself if it took a good dose of humility, and it would say it’s a mess, and these messes that are causing so much harm is because of sin.

We need to turn ourselves to God, and His good will for us.

We all agree that here and now we need a solution.

Here and now, we need some finished business, and it’s our Lord who only knows how to finish the business of sin, Satan, and the world’s evil ways.

Jesus’ time is always well spent, and he always finishes what he starts.

Jesus came to take on sin, Satan, and eternal death. When Jesus was on the cross taking our punishment for our sins, he yelled out just before he died, “It is finished.” Jesus finished the battle against all that wants to harm us.

Jesus’ victory over evil is our victory.

Now, nothing can harm us.

But, we need to say it because we see it so often. Although all evil is defeated, it still tries to take away all that we have in Jesus.

As long as this old world is spinning, evil will roam trying to create as much chaos as it can, and it will have our bursts at times.

So, what do we do in these times, especially as we see so often now, when there are outbursts of evil?

What we need to know is that Jesus has finished his business. We know of his death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life.

But, we also need to know that Jesus has some unfinished business.

Jesus did die, rise, and ascend to heaven, where he presently reigns over all.

Jesus is working right now taking care of everything.

Sadly, with no doubt, we are seeing such bad things happen. These things that do cause such pain, but these bad things do not have the last word.

If we are keeping the analogy of building blocks, the world, too, has good and bad blocks.

Like a life, we want more good building blocks than bad ones.

With all its violence, crises, and issues, the world seems to be having more bad building blocks at this time than good ones.

As we keep seeing the world as it is, faith keeps telling us that, at times, God will let the world be the world.

We will, at times, see evil pops its head.

Faith will also tell us that Lord, in His way, is always trying to have the world come to Him for all things.

We are not going to find the real answers in the budgets of government or it’s laws, in any curriculum of any theory, or on social media.

Jesus is here with all that we need.

The last prayer of Scripture is, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Jesus is here, but we need to pray, so we know that Jesus is here.