Please turn to 1 Corinthians 9. I was thinking on what passage to look at as we have come to the end of another year. We are just a couple days away from the end of this year and the beginning of a new year, and this is the passage that I kept focusing on and turning to. In 1 Corinthians 9:23-27:
And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
At the end of this passage, there is a stern warning for anyone who is going to teach the Word of God. We really need to be a child of God ourselves if we are going to teach others.
Also in this passage, God is speaking about “they which run in a race run all,” and He is looking at the world. In one sense, He is giving us the illustration of those who are involved in sports and that they go after a crown.
We see this all the time. The world is really sports crazy, much of the world I mean. Here in many parts of America, it is football. In other countries, it is soccer. Name any sport and people are really greatly involved in it. People spend a lot of time involved in sports. When someone becomes a champion, they are greatly honored and they receive all kinds of glory, not to mention money. The world loves them. Someone who reaches the top of their game is someone who has become the best at whatever sport they are involved in. These people are highly lifted up, and not just our society but around the world.
Many athletes, in America anyway, are professing Christians. You will see them when they get into the batter’s box; they will give the sign of the Cross. Or when they score a touchdown, they kneel down in the end zone like they are praying. A lot of times, they will shoot their finger up to Heaven after they have done something wonderful or when they were able to get the victory. By doing these things, they are acknowledging God, in a sense, that God is the One who gave them the physical ability to do this. It sure looks like they are doing a very good thing and that they are not taking the credit for themselves.
The problem is that in just about any sport you can think of today—I tried to think of one and I could not think of any—they all play on Sunday. In college, football is still played on Saturdays. But when you get to the professional leagues, just about all of them play on Sundays: football, baseball, hockey, basketball. Some not as much as others; but still, they are always presented with this test. They are always presented with the test of whether or not they are going to play on Sunday. Just about every professional athlete I know today fails the test; they do play on Sunday.
Some of them think that they are helping out the cause of the Gospel. They think that they are helping out in service to God because people see them kneeling down in the end zone. People see them do these things, and it is on a Sunday.
But really, this is no benefit to the cause of the Gospel when God tells us in His Word to “turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day.” It is not a day for our own pleasure.
Right there, that is an arrow against every single sport because people watch sports and play sports for pleasure, even though in our day it has become a lot more than that. So just about every professional athlete today fails this test that God has given.
We are not to do our own thing when it comes to the Sabbath day. We are not to work. We are not to play sports. We are not to cut the grass. The child of God learns from the Bible that we are to be involved in spiritual things, spiritual activities. We are to do things God’s way.
This is why if anyone ever asks me who my favorite sports personality is or what sports figure I most admire, I have to go back 60-70 years. I actually heard Eric Liddell’s story on Family Radio. Eric Liddell was a Scottish runner. He was a Scottish athlete and he was also a very serious Christian. He ended up going to China as a missionary. There is one account in his story where he is coming out of church. During that time, that is where a child of God would be. He would have been in church because the Church Age was still underway. He was coming out of a church and some boy was kicking a soccer ball. The ball rolled over to Eric Liddell who was a soccer player also. He was also a soccer player, yet he picked up the ball and took it over to the little boy. Then he kind of gently admonished him that Sunday was the Lord’s Day and that it is not a day to be playing ball. I admire that.
This was his stand, but this was also a test because later he would go to the Olympics. In France, in the early 20th century, I cannot remember the year, either the 1920’s or 1930’s, he went to the Olympics. He went to the Olympic event that was held in France that year and he had a very good shot at winning the gold medal. But then, he found out that his run (I think they call it a “heat”) was scheduled on Sunday. It was scheduled for a Sunday, and he was really shaken by this because this was a big test.
Of course, he wanted to run. He wanted to run for his country and he wanted to run for God. He wanted to run for God because he felt that running glorified God. God had given him this ability to run, and yet the meet was scheduled for a Sunday. So he let it be known, after considering and praying about it, that he could not do it. At that point, the pressure came down on him from British royalty and the government of Britain. Because they knew that he was their best chance for a gold medal, they wanted him to run. Yet he refused.
God worked it out so that another gentleman who was on the British team took that particular run and exchanged with him another event, an event in which he really had never practiced or was not qualified to do. They made this exchange and he ended up winning that event and winning the gold medal.
I really think that it was admirable for him to refuse to set his foot on God’s Holy Day. God honored him, in that in a sense, and he was able to win the gold medal. Later on, Eric Liddell went to China during World War II where the Japanese put him in a concentration camp and he died as a missionary.
So when we think about the athletes of our day, the world admires the money that they are given and the popularity that they have. In all those things, I do not admire them one bit. I do not admire them at all, because they really are doing something that God forbids, something that God forbids in His Word.
Now in 1 Corinthians 9, God is discussing this idea of running a race. He is talking about the Christian life that each one of us who professes to be a child of God is involved in. This is the “race” that we are all running. When you run a race, the first thing that you have to do is to get to the starting line. You have to go up to the starting line in order for the race to begin.
So I would like to look at just three aspects of this today, this idea of running a race as far as living the Christian life is concerned. One will be the starting line. The second will be the race itself. And the third and last will be the goal, the finish line, and what the prize is, what that “incorruptible crown” is that we find mentioned here.
To start, let us turn to Psalm 119:32:
I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.
Do you see why God is mentioning running this race in 1 Corinthians 9? “I will run the way of Thy commandments.” So we are not talking about a physical race, actually. A physical race is a race that not everyone can run. In order to run in a race physically, you have to be in tip-top physical shape; you have to be actually within a certain prime number of years. A race really is for the young, is it not? You cannot get the elderly out into a race or the very little out into a race. But with the Christian life, this is a race that everyone runs. The child runs in this race. The elderly person runs in this race. The middle-aged person runs in this race. The young person runs in this race. Everyone runs. There is no leaving anyone out.
So how do we run? Where is the starting line? We run “the way of God’s commandments.”
Let us look at a few verses that mention running. In Habakkuk 2:2, it says:
And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables,…
The “vision” has to do with the Word of God, and the “tables” have to do with the Word of God, as God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on “tables of stone”:
…Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
It goes on to say, “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak.” This is exactly what is going on today as we are learning new things from the Bible. We are learning God’s commandments. It is being made “plain” to us about certain teachings, like the end of the Church Age.
So, okay; if it is made plain, if God is opening up the truth of that Scripture to us and you hear that it is now time to obey, do not casually walk, run! Run the way of God’s commandments. Go quickly in obedience to what the Word of God says and do it His way. This is one of the ways that God is using this word “run.”
Now, let us go to Matthew 28, beginning in verse 5. This is after Jesus has risen from the dead. It says in Matthew 25:5-8:
And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
The command was, “go quickly, and tell.” This is very similar to the command a little later in Matthew 28, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” “Go quickly, and tell” that Jesus is not in the tomb, that Jesus has risen from the dead.
This is central to the Gospel message. As soon as these disciples who came to the empty tomb heard, “Go quickly, and tell,” they ran. They ran with that message in hand. They ran with the Word. They were running to share this with the other disciples, and this is what God has in view as He speaks of running the race of the Christian life.
Let s go to Psalm 147:15. It says:
He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.
God has given us His Word. “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” So here we have the message of salvation, the message that can save a soul from eternal destruction. It is a message that can bring eternal life to those who hear it, so His Word will run very swiftly into the earth.
Today, of course, over radio and internet and through the electronic medium, it is fulfilling this verse. As God’s Word is broadcast into all the world, it is running over all the earth. God has His people sending it forth in a very quick way through the electronic medium.
Let us also go to Romans 9 and I think we will understand this verse a little better. In Romans 9:15-16, it says:
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth,…
This has to do with man’s free will. You cannot bring mercy to yourself. You cannot get yourself saved by exercising your will. God says that it is “not of him that willeth.” We are “dead in trespasses and sins.” We can never do anything pleasing enough to bring salvation to our self.
The next part of the verse goes on to say something that confused me because I had never really look into it. It says:
…nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
God is saying, “I will have compassion.” “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” It is not of man’s free will and it is not of man’s running.
Man is to run after God’s commandments, as Psalm 119 says. So we can do this. Someone can be very eager like the rich young ruler who said, “All these have I kept from my youth up.” Christ responded, “Yet lackest thou one thing.” You see, he was not yet a child of God. Christ had not yet saved him.
So salvation is not of him that runs a good race. We have to get that idea completely out of our minds. God tells us to run the Christian race, and that means that we are to put forth effort, “So run, that ye may obtain.” Not only are we to run, but we are to run like we want to win. That is what it says in 1 Corinthians 9. We are to run that we get the prize.
Have you ever watched a race where the people are really serious about winning? How much energy they put forth and how much effort they put forth in training! All to get to the starting line, in order to run as fast as they can, for how ever long that race is.
Yet God is saying that, yes, the Christian life is like a race, but seeking to keep God’s commandments in itself will not save anyone. “It is not him that runneth.” That is why in Psalm 119:32, it says:
I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.
That is how we get up to the starting line. God first has to enlarge our heart. He has to save us. He has to give us a new heart and a new Spirit.
This word “enlarge” has to do with God’s blessing. For example, in Deuteronomy 19 God speaks of enlarging the coast of Israel, if they keep His Word and if they do His commandments. And it would be a great blessing if God enlarged the coast of the nation of Israel.
But another place where this word “enlarge” is used is where it shows that salvation is in view, and that is in Isaiah 60:4-5:
Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.
Here God joins the idea of the heart being enlarged along with fear. So when someone fears the Lord, they will want to do things His way. They will want to keep His commandments. They will want to obey God. They will have an ongoing desire to do the will of God, and that is what God is saying in this verse.
So that is how we get to the starting line. In other words, no one is really running the life of a Christian, or the Christian race, if they are not saved. You can have a Bible. You can pray. You can hand out tracts. You can participate in spiritual-type events or activities. But in order to be a part of that race, you have to be a child of God. You have to be a true Christian. When you are a true believer is when you can begin to run this spiritual race.
Let us go back to 1 Corinthians 9. It says in 1 Corinthians 9:24:
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all,…
This word for “race” is translated everywhere else in the New Testament in the Greek as “furlongs.” It is the word that is used, for example, “Bethany was fifteen furlongs off from Jerusalem.”
Know ye not that they which run in a race…
A furlong would be the distance they would run. Whatever distance it was, that is what this word means.
Now let us turn to Hebrews 12 where we are going to look at the second point of the Christian race itself. In Hebrews 12:1, it says:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Do you see how God is still using that figure? The word for “race” here in Hebrews 12 is a different Greek word, but the context is basically the same as 1 Corinthians 9. God, in His ability to give us images, is picturing a race. He says, “Let us lay aside every weight.”
From what we know about runners, what do they want when they get up to the starting line and are ready to take off running? They want to be as lean as they can be. They have little shorts on, little muscleman shirts, and some nice sneakers, and that is about it. And really, when you look at them, especially the marathon runners, they are almost skin and bones. Many of them, the ones who are the fastest the ones, the ones who finish the race and are the quickest, their body weight or their body fat is about as low as it can possibly be. They realize that if they are going to run a race, they do not want to carry a lot of extra weight, right? If there are two of us and we are about the same age and everything is the same except one weighs 100 pounds more than the other, and if we are going to run a race, most of the time the lighter person is going to win the race. It is almost like the one guy is carrying a wallet and the other guy is carrying a 100-pound suitcase. They are going to run, so who is going to win? Well, the person carrying the least amount of weight, the person who has less to worry about as far as carrying that weight to the end to the finish line.
So God is really using this kind of picture, this type of an analogy, “Let us lay aside every weight.” And remember what Jesus said in Matthew 11, towards the end of the chapter. We read in Matthew 11:28:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
I think that this is really a commentary on what we read in Psalm 38:4:
For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me.
Is that not the truth? What troubles us more than our sin? Is that not what really weighs us down and sorrows us and discourages us? Have you ever tried to do an activity when you are discouraged, when you are cast down in soul? You can barely clean your dishes. You do not feel like doing anything.
This is what sin does as someone is hearing the Gospel. They read God’s commands and they realize that God commands them to go forth, to go into the world with the Gospel. God commands them to obey His Word and to live a holy life. Yet sin easily besets them. It is not a difficult thing at all to fall into. Sin easily grabs hold of someone who has taken their eyes off Christ. If sin does beset us and if we are involved in inequity, it is a heavy burden. It is a heavy weight. It is a tremendously heavy thing to try and obey God and to run the way of His commandments when we keep falling into transgression.
So here in Matthew 11:28-30, we read:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
When we become a child of God, all sins are removed “as far as the east is from the west.” He has “cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” We are washed clean. We are made “white as snow.” Every transgression, God remembers them no more. The burden is gone.
It is just like in Pilgrim’s Progress. He had that heavy burden that he was carrying all over the place. Then one day, it was gone.
That is how it is with the believer. God saves a sinner He makes them righteous through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is His righteousness and His faith; everything is of Christ. Then our burden becomes light. Our burden becomes the race itself, because the word for “race” in Hebrews 12 is only translated as “race” there. Everywhere else, this word is translated as “conflict,” or “contention,” or “fight.”
So let us go back to Hebrews 12 with these synonyms in mind, and let us look at Hebrews 12:1:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race (the fight, the conflict) that is set before us,
You see, there is affliction. Jesus did not hide that. In the world, you will suffer tribulation. He told us that plainly. It is not going to be easy. It is a difficult task to bring the Gospel to the world, to run the way of God’s commandments, to do things His way. The world will not appreciate it.
When we are running this race, we do not have the benefit that many people in the world or the athletes have. They are cheered on, are they not? They are encouraged, especially if they start making a few strides and getting out ahead of the pack. They will have a whole stadium of people cheering their name, encouraging them, trying to lift them up to do more. But with the child of God, it is normally just our self and God. Our self and God; no one else knows. No one else cares in the world. No one knows about this race. Our race is a race that is not something that is widely known, like the Olympic race or like a marathon race where you have people lined up and down the sides of every street. Our race is a very silent and quiet type of race. No one knows when you stumble and fall. Nobody knows when you are actually making great strides either. No one knows anything about it. It is all between you and God, and yet it is the greatest race there is. It dwarfs everything else in the world.
The Bible tells us that “bodily exercise profiteth little.” I cannot remember how it goes. It is in 1 Timothy, so let us turn there. We read in 1 Timothy 4:8:
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things…
So to be physically fit, you can have the world’s love but it is a very vain and little thing. It “profiteth little” because it might help your physical body a little bit, but you are still going to die at the appointed day that God has determined. It could help you keep more physically fit to where you might be able to go on a tract trip for instance, so there is a little help there.
But overall, physical fitness does not mean a thing. It does not mean anything, and yet everyone loves the winner. Everyone loves the champion. Everyone loves the one who is involved in the physical sporting events of the world.
The greatest race gives the greatest prize. That is how you judge the greatest race. In the world, people might say that the Super Bowl is the greatest, or something like that. But actually, the greatest prize has nothing to do with gold or silver or money or fame, or any of those things. Those prizes are not anything. By the next year, you are forgotten anyway. They will forget all about you.
The greatest prize is what we find in 1 Corinthians 9. Let us go back to 1 Corinthians 9 and take a look at that. We read in 1 Corinthians 9:24-25:
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things…
This relates to casting off the sin, that heavy weight of sin. We are to be “temperate,” and the word “temperate” has to do with obedience and not indulging in sinful things.
And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
And so the prize is this incorruptible crown.
Now let us go over to Philippians 3. We read in Philippians 3:13-14:
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
There is the prize. There is the gold. There is the finish line: the Lord Jesus Christ, the high calling of God, eternal life. Can you get anything better than that? If you were given the gift of eternal life, if you are going to live forever with the description that God gives us in the Bible, there will be no more tears, nor pain, nor sorrow; there is just joy and peace and love, forever and ever and ever. We will be in the very presence of God and we are at the end of the race.
We are at the finish line, and that is why I wanted to speak about this passage today. We are ending a year and we are going to begin a new year. It really is kind of like a mile marker. It is a mile marker on the road, on the race course, and it is letting us know that the goal is in sight.
It is like we have been running this long, long race. We can get tired and weary, and we have to deal with keeping our bodies under. It is really a struggle. It is really a difficult thing to live as a child of God.
Just like a runner running in the Boston Marathon or the New York Marathon, he is coming around and he has been running for miles and miles and miles. Runners talk about hitting the wall when they just feel like they are going to collapse. Their muscles are so weary and also their minds are very weary. They are very tired in their minds from this event that they are involved in, but then they make a turn and they know the course and they know what is at the end. At this point, it is like a straight line to the finish line; it is still a few miles up ahead, but they can see it. What the best runners do is they hold back a little bit. They have been holding back a little bit for a last kick, and those are the best runners; those are the ones who win. The top of the line runners stay within distance of one another, for most of the course. But when they hit that last stage, they put in for that last kick. They try to reach within themselves for more energy, and then they run as fast as they can. They run as fast as they can because they want to win the prize. They want to be the one who crosses the goal and who has all of the cameras taking their picture; they want their face on the cover of the paper.
But the believer, the child of God, we have been learning from the Bible that the world is going to end. The world is going to end in 2011. We are finishing 2007. In about 48 hours, it will be 2008. Can you see it right off in the distance? Do you see the finish line? Do you see the high calling of the Lord Jesus Christ? It is right there.
As we run this race, I think that what God is telling us in His Word is that we now should reach back—not physically, because we do not care about that, but spiritually. If we have been turning from sin, good, there is probably more we can turn from. Cast off those weights. Be as light as a feather, as far as sin is concerned, so that you can really take off. God can really energize us to will and to do of His good pleasure, to obey Him, to bring the Gospel to all these poor souls who are out there in the world. We run this race.
There are a couple more verses that relate to the word “race” that we found in Hebrews 12. In 2 Timothy 4:6-7, it says:
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight,…
This is the word that was translated as “race.” It continues:
…I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
May God have mercy on us and give us the great privilege of doing His will and of bringing the Gospel to those around us like never before and in a far greater way in our lives, as far as the time we have spent, maybe the money we have spent, our prayer life, in handing out tracts, whatever it is, may God strengthen us so that we can finish the race in a very God glorifying and honoring way, just like Eric Liddell did when he gave his life for the sake of the Gospel.