He Will Finish What He Started

◆ Opening Scripture

◆ Sunday Word

Beloved family and friends,

Some of you started well and now you are tired of your own story. You remember a day when Jesus was close. You prayed. You meant it. Then the week got heavy, an old pattern came back, and a quiet thought moved in. Maybe He started something in me, and I stalled it. Maybe He is done.

He is not done.

Paul wrote to a church he loved, “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:3-6, NIV).

That confidence is not in their record. It is in the One who began the work. He carries it. He completes it. Not until you feel strong. Until the day of Christ Jesus.

Go back to that first day. It is in Acts 16. Paul and his companions came to Philippi. On the Sabbath they went outside the city gate to the river, where they expected to find a place of prayer. They sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

One of them was Lydia, from Thyatira, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. Scripture does not say she talked herself into faith. It says, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message” (Acts 16:14, NIV). She and her household were baptized. Then she opened her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.”

That is how a good work begins. Not with a person finishing themselves. The Lord opens a heart. A woman by a river says yes. A house becomes a church. God started it.

The same chapter shows you the other kind of beginning. About midnight, Paul and Silas were in prison, praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. An earthquake shook the foundations. The doors flew open. The chains came loose. The jailer woke up, saw the doors open, and drew his sword to kill himself, because he thought the prisoners had escaped and his life was over.

Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

The jailer rushed in, fell down trembling, and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household” (Acts 16:30-31, NIV). That same hour he washed their wounds. He and all his household were baptized. He set a meal before them, and he was filled with joy, because he had come to believe in God.

Look at that man. He thought the open door was the end of him. It was the beginning. The work did not start when he had his life in order. It started when he was about to quit, and Jesus met him there.

Here is the connection. Lydia kept a faithful life by the river, and she still needed the Lord to open her heart. The jailer had a post, a sword, and a reputation to protect, and none of it could save him when the night broke open. Both of them were returned to the same truth. You do not complete what only God begins.

That is a lot of us. We keep going back to the same well of effort. Try harder. Clean the week up. Prove to God the work was not wasted. By night we are dry again, sure that a stall means the story is over.

It is the woman at the well, in another town and another chapter, but the same mercy. She kept walking back to a well that could not last. Jesus did not tell her to draw better. He told her to come to Him, and the water would not run dry. Philippi is that same invitation in a different scene. Come to the One who begins the work. He does not hand it back and hope you finish it.

Paul could say “from the first day until now” because he had seen the first day. A businesswoman at a prayer meeting. A jailer at midnight. Households baptized. Joy in a house that had been a place of fear. And later, writing to those same people, he does not say, I hope you can keep this going. He says he is confident. The One who began it will carry it on to completion.

So if you stalled, hear this as a church, not as a slogan. The Lord opened Lydia’s heart. He can open yours again. The jailer thought the story ended when everything shook. God was just getting started with him. A hard week is not the day of Christ Jesus. That day has not come, and the work is still in His hands.

You don’t have to pretend the stall did not happen. Name it. Then come back to the One who began the good work. Believe. Stay in the Word. Let Him carry what you cannot complete.

Will you stop treating a stall like the end?

Will you trust the Lord who opened the heart, more than the effort that keeps running dry?

Will you tell someone who thinks God is finished with them that the first day was His, and so is the last?

Let’s pray together. Lord Jesus, You are the One who begins the good work. You opened Lydia’s heart by the river. You met a jailer who thought his life was over, and You gave him joy. Forgive me for trying to finish in my own strength what only You can complete. Forgive me for going back to empty wells and calling that faith. I come to You. Carry on to completion what You started in me, until the day of Christ Jesus. Open my heart again. Let Your Word steady me. Make me a witness, not a performer. I trust You. I need You. I am Yours. In Your name, Amen.

If this met you in a stall, don’t keep it to yourself. Tell somebody, He is not finished with you. The first day was His. The last day is His too.

With love,
JR Tyndale Ministries