It’s interesting what people will say right before they die. Oscar Wilde reportedly said these words on his deathbed…” This wallpaper is killing me.  One of us has to go.”  So he went.  Union General John Sedgwick made this boast minutes before he was shot by a Confederate sniper, “They couldn’t hit an elephant from this distance.”  Well, I guess they could.

Many times the words that people say right before they die are really ironic and providential:  On the day that John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas; only moments before the Presidential Motorcade turned on to Dealey Plaza, Nellie Connally the Governor’s wife remarked to the President, “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome, Mr. President?”  To which the Kennedy replied, “No, you certainly can’t.”  Minutes later, shots rang out.

Believe it or not, some people have put a lot of thought into what they would say just before they die.  Steven Wright said this, “sometimes I wish my first word was ‘quote’ so that on my death bed, my last words could be ‘end quote’”.  Or this one from some unknown author who wrote, “When I die I want my last words to be, ‘I left a million dollars under the….”  Obviously, people can get rather macabre when it comes to death, but it does beg an important question we may want to consider:

“If you knew that today was your last day on earth, what parting words would you want to say to those you love the most?”

Certainly, there would be expressions of love and affection; of longing and regret said between you.  But out of all the things you could say to them; the things most important you want them to remember, what would you say?  Well, we would know this, wouldn’t we?  That everything you would have to say at that moment would carry with it a wealth of heavy importance!  And you’d know if you were on the receiving end of such a discussion, that everything that your dying loved one had to tell you, would be something you really ought to listen to and take to heart.  As Wiersbe puts it, “A great person’s last words are significant.  They are a window that helps us to look into his heart or a measure that helps us evaluate his life.”

Parting words are the most significant words ever spoken! 

Such is what we have before us in 2 Timothy 4:1-5, for these, are the Apostle Paul’s parting words to his young son in the faith, Timothy.  Paul knew that his time had come.  Martyrdom was fast approaching!  The writing was on the wall.  The blood was in the water; the sharks were circling. Soon Timothy would be living in a world without his mentor and friend.  Graduation day had come for young Timothy.  And in his parting words, there was one thing in the heart of Paul that he wanted to encourage Timothy to do before Paul left to go to his eternal reward.  It’s something God wants pastors to do…it’s something he wants his churches to do…and it’s not difficult to understand.

Are you ready for it?  Here it is!  Fulfill the mission God has given to you!  There it is…that’s Paul’s parting words for his young protégé:  Fulfill your Mission!

“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the Word…”

 But you say, isn’t that a verse addressed to pastors?  Isn’t preaching something that only pastors do?  Yes, and no.  Yes, Paul is addressing a pastor, but he is also addressing the church.  For the word “preach” in Greek literally means “to act as a herald” and in this, the church itself has the same responsibility as the pastor, to act as a herald; to proclaim the Word of God to a deaf and dying world.

 If you think about it, everything we do as a church has a proclamation attached to it.

 When we give our tithes and offerings, we are proclaiming our obedience to God; we are proclaiming that we trust God with our lives to the point where we are willing to give a little piece of it away in an offering plate.  When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, Paul taught us that we “proclaim his death, until he comes”.  When we baptize a new believer, we are proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I could go on.

Everything…Everything we do as the church proclaims to the world who God is and what he expects from mankind.  It is the church itself that is the “ground and the pillar of the truth”.  Our mission is to proclaim to a lost and messed up world; a world confused as to who God is; a rebellious world living without him that, “When it comes to God, you’ve been getting it wrong.  God is nothing like who you imagine him to be!”  Our mission is to point people to the hope of the cross; to be crossroad sign on the broad road that leads to destruction, in the world of many voices, just where grace, mercy, forgiveness, eternal life and a relationship with God may be found.  That’s our mission.

Now that’s not the whole mission of the church since the mission itself is multi-layered but whatever else we find ourselves doing; if we don’t to that, then we’ve lost sight of why we’re here.

“Fulfill your mission!” Easier said than done, isn’t it?  Now, unfortunately, I have to say, that many a church has no idea what their mission is…let alone are they fulfilling it?  And sometimes the reason we’re not fulfilling it is that we become distracted by other things.

Having spent 29 years in pastoral ministry, I am still amazed at how distracted the church is.  Evangelism and discipleship are things the church never seems to get around to actually doing.  That’s not to say it’s not happening at all or that it’s non-existent in church ministry.  But it is to say, that the way we’ve come to view the church…what is often expected of those who attend its services; in its list of intentional obligations for “good Christians”, making disciples, appears nowhere on the page.  The average American Christian seems to think that that obligation applies only to the pastoral staff.  We’ve sold this bill of goods to the people sitting in the pew:  All they need to be good Christians is to attend its services; stay awake while the pastor drones on and on; serve where needed; and for heaven sake, pay your tithes.

But is that it?  Is that all the mission is?  To show up on Sunday morning and Wednesday night and go through a series of religious calisthenics?  Is there no time in which the average Christian is required to get in the game?

Can you imagine if the church were a football team where a player tells his coach when beckoned onto the field in the big game; if he were to respond to that invitation saying, “No thanks, Coach!  I’m not here to play football.  I’m not here to get in the game…I’m just here for the calisthenics!”  I dare say that player would have missed the point completely for why he was on the team in the first place.  Would we not view that exchange with more than just a little incredulity?

And yet this same nonsense is evidenced in the church.  For I have seen with my own eyes that when you lay the obligation of making disciples on the church body at large, many look back at you with a deer-in-the-headlights look?  “You mean you actually expect me to do that?  I thought that’s what we pay the pastoral staff to do?”

That attitude is why there might be a lot of activity going on within a church; we might be running around busily going about our religious calisthenics routine, having meetings and running programs, lifting this and cardio-that, but at the end of the day, nothing of what we have done inside or outside the church has advanced the mission.  The ball is still sitting on the 50-yard line.

And why?  Because we’ve been oblivious to what the church is all about.  For some church is all about simply maintaining family and friendship relationships or a place they can go to get a spoonful of spiritual inspiration in an otherwise uninspiring world.  For others, the church is a good source for business contacts; a marketplace of potential customers one can bilk for monetary gain.  Some see it as an organization to lobby for social justice or racial equality, or merely as a food distribution center to feed the hungry or the dispossessed.  All of these things may be good.  There may be good intentions behind all of it, after all, who wouldn’t want to feed a hungry family down on its luck; which of us wouldn’t want to live in a more just and equitable world?  The problem is none of these things defines the true nature of our mission.  And if we’re not careful the true nature of the church’s mission can get lost in the shuffle of distraction.

We can become like the builders of the Taj Mahal.  In his book, Coming Home – Timeless Wisdom for Families, James Dobson writes this:

“The Taj Mahal is one of the most beautiful and costly tombs ever built, but there’s something fascinating about its beginnings.  In 1629, when the favorite wife of Indian ruler Shah Jahan died, he ordered that a magnificent tomb be built as a memorial to her.  The shah placed his wife’s casket in the middle of a parcel of land, and construction of the temple literally began around it.  But several years into the venture, the Shah’s grief for his wife gave way to a passion for the project.  One day while he was surveying the site, he reportedly stumbled over a wooden box, and he had some workers throw it out.” (Dobson, 1998)

 What was in the box?  None other than the body of his beloved wife for whom he was building the Taj Mahal in the first place!  Yikes!  What an epic fail!

Dobson concludes by saying, “While we’re building our Taj Mahals, let’s not forget the purpose for which we began building.”

That’s good advice.  For Indian tomb builders, as well as for churches.