00:00:00.000 - 00:00:49.000

[Music] The Runner and the Race, a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. [Music] Our scripture reading is passages from Paul's letters in which he uses the figure of the runner and the race.

00:00:49.000 - 00:01:08.000

Pay attention now to the reading of God's word. "Do you not know that in a race all runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

00:01:08.000 - 00:01:34.000

They do it to receive a perishable prize, but we an imperishable one. I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air, but I pummel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. And remember, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

00:01:34.000 - 00:01:54.000

Also, brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own, for one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal, toward the finishing line, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

00:01:54.000 - 00:02:19.000

Therefore train yourself in godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. And finally, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely,

00:02:19.000 - 00:02:41.000

and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, with our eyes fixed upon Jesus. Praise God for this, his written word. Amen. Pray with me. (Prayer is offered.)

00:02:41.000 - 00:03:10.000

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (Prayer is offered.) Elie Weissel is one of the world's best-known Jewish authors. In his work, "Souls on Fire," he writes these words.

00:03:10.000 - 00:03:35.000

"When we die and we go to heaven and we meet our Maker, our Maker is not going to say to us, 'Why didn't you become the Messiah? Why didn't you discover the cure for such and such?' The only thing we are going to be asked at that precious moment is,

00:03:35.000 - 00:04:06.000

'Why didn't you become you?'" I think Weissel's understanding is wonderfully and powerfully true. Each and every one of us has the capacity, God-given, to be an incredible human being. And the question which will be asked of us when we stand before the judgment bar of God is this.

00:04:06.000 - 00:04:38.000

"Have you become what I, God, have given you the capacity to be?" The New Testament echoes this truth in Ephesians chapter 4, when it says that the goal of the human adventure is the knowledge of the Son of God, to grow to mature personhood, and to have the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

00:04:38.000 - 00:04:55.000

Now, what is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ? It is love. And where does love begin? Love begins with the self.

00:04:55.000 - 00:05:19.000

Antoine Saint-Exupery says in "Winds, Sand, and Stars," in an attempt to define love, that love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself. Now, love is such a boundless idea that it is impossible for us to define it, but these words are, to me at least, a very good beginning.

00:05:19.000 - 00:05:41.000

Love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself. Because, you see, if you do not love yourself, if you do not seek within yourself to become everything that God wants you to be, to grow to mature manhood, and to have within you the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,

00:05:41.000 - 00:06:08.000

if you do not love yourself, you are never going to be able to love anyone else. Until you kiss your own life, you will never really be able to caress anyone else's. And until you are willing to hug yourself, you never will really be able to put your arms around anyone else.

00:06:08.000 - 00:06:34.000

That's the reason Jesus says, "We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves." John Claypool is one of America's most distinguished ministers, and a few years ago he gave the Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale University. In those recently published lectures, he tells of how at a certain point in his career

00:06:34.000 - 00:06:58.000

he was sitting with a group of other clergymen, and he was talking about the deep sadness and despair, the feeling of lack of worth which he knew in his own life. And one of his brother clergymen said to him, "John, the trouble is you've never let the gospel get into your gut." "Jesus says you are the light of the world."

00:06:58.000 - 00:07:21.000

"Now, he does not say that you have to be number one in order to be the light of the world." "He does not say that you have to achieve some particular level of accomplishment in order to be the light of the world." "He says you are the light of the world." "And John, if you would ever recognize that and simply acknowledge that to be true,

00:07:21.000 - 00:07:45.000

the brightness of the glory of God would begin to shine through you." And John Claypool goes on to say that he'd studied those words in the Bible countless times before, but when they were quoted to him now, he said it was as if fire moved from his head to his heart, for he suddenly recognized that his worth was not in terms of anything that he could do,

00:07:45.000 - 00:08:07.000

not in terms of anything that he had ever done. His worth existed in the fact that he had been made by God, and all he had to do was to be what God gave him the capacity to be. Nothing else was expected or required.

00:08:07.000 - 00:08:29.000

And coming to that recognition, John Claypool, now at a new peace with God, went on to preach the gospel of the Prince of Peace with greater power than he had ever preached it before, with such power that he was invited to give the Lyman Beecher Lectures, which are the most distinguished lectures on preaching in America.

00:08:29.000 - 00:08:54.000

Now what Claypool was saying, and what I've been trying to suggest in the last minutes, is simply this. That the greatest joy that a human heart can know is the inner splendor of its own worth. For understanding that, you are given the capacity to love, and you are freed as a spirit, and you begin to become a mature person.

00:08:54.000 - 00:09:14.000

The scriptures say that Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. And so we are to grow. We are to allow ourselves to be everything God wants us to be. Now Paul often speaks of this in his letters.

00:09:14.000 - 00:09:41.000

Many times when he speaks of it, he uses the terminology of the world of sports to make his point. And what I'd like to do tonight is to simply look at those passages in Paul's writings where he speaks of this subject and speaks of it specifically in athletic terms. The first thing he calls to our attention is this, that there is a race, and that we ought to go for it.

00:09:41.000 - 00:10:11.000

To the Corinthians he writes, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run to win the prize." Athletes compete, he says, for a perishable prize, but we run for an imperishable one. What Paul is saying is, in terms of the development of yourself into everything that you can be, go for it.

00:10:11.000 - 00:10:33.000

After all, when you get right down to it, in the last analysis, you are all you have. It is possible in the course of your days that you will lose your loved ones, that you will lose your wealth and your possessions, that you will lose your health and many of your capacities.

00:10:33.000 - 00:10:58.000

You may be stripped of all of the things in life on which you so much depend today. If that were to happen, all that would be left would be you. And if you have done nothing whatever to allow your you-ness to be everything that it possibly can be, then you're going to be in desperate straits indeed.

00:10:58.000 - 00:11:23.000

You know, there's a great scene in the tragedy Medea, in which the oracle says to Medea, "What is left? Everything is destroyed, everything is gone." And Medea immediately answers, "What is left? I am left." Look, "I am left" only means something when your "I" is something.

00:11:23.000 - 00:11:45.000

If you have no respect for the "you" in you, if you allow it to become so much less than it ought to be, then when only you are left, you are very poor indeed. The fact of the matter is, no one in all the world is as qualified to be you as you.

00:11:45.000 - 00:12:01.000

And that means that if you do not play the part to the full, you have not only lost, but so has all the world. And many people are so losing. Many people are not going for it.

00:12:01.000 - 00:12:21.000

Jack Parr, who was the first late-night talk show host, he was the earliest. Johnny Carson used to say, "My life has been one long obstacle course, and I am my own chief obstacle." Well, a lot of folks are like that. They place before themselves many negative thoughts which lead them to believe

00:12:21.000 - 00:12:37.000

that they can't be what God has given them the capacity to be, that they can never do what God has given them the ability to do. And believing this, they surrender to their circumstance. Have you ever read anything about voodoo,

00:12:37.000 - 00:13:01.000

that primitive animistic form of religion practiced in the Caribbean basin? You know, it is often said that the curse of a voodoo witch doctor has the capacity to kill. It actually doesn't, although many people have died from such curses. The reason they have died, of course, is not because the curse has any magic capacity,

00:13:01.000 - 00:13:20.000

but simply because they believe so deeply in voodoo that when that curse is placed upon them, they literally, through their own destructive thoughts, kill themselves. Any minister who's had any experience at all

00:13:20.000 - 00:13:39.000

will tell you of being with people in the hospital who were dying, and there was absolutely no medical reason why they should be dying. The only reason they were dying is because they expected to die. And that expectation killed them.

00:13:39.000 - 00:13:54.000

So there are many people who confront the race of being everything they can be and believing they can't run the race won't go for it. You see, in the last analysis, your sense of worth does not depend upon your good looks.

00:13:54.000 - 00:14:07.000

If that were the secret to worth, then Marilyn Monroe would never have committed suicide. And it doesn't depend upon your wit and your cleverness. If that is where worth rested,

00:14:07.000 - 00:14:23.000

then Freddie Prinze would have never committed suicide. And it doesn't depend upon your intellectual accomplishments and your level of success. If that were so, then Ernest Hemingway would never have committed suicide. But every day, people commit suicide

00:14:23.000 - 00:14:39.000

who have great financial resources and many friends and good looks and many abilities. What do they lack? They lack an inner sense of their own worth. They lack an inner confidence in what they are making out of themselves.

00:14:39.000 - 00:14:58.000

And the absence of that literally brings them to self-destruction. Now, if negative thinking can do that, positive thinking can do just exactly the opposite. I always think about Jim Thorpe, the great Indian athlete

00:14:58.000 - 00:15:08.000

who was on one of our Olympic teams, and they were traveling by ship to Europe to compete. And every day, the team would work out on the deck, and they would run and they would lift weights and so on.

00:15:08.000 - 00:15:21.000

And the coach came around one day, and Jim Thorpe was sitting there with his eyes closed, leaning up against the lifeboat, doing nothing. And the coach said, "Thorpe, what are you doing?" And Thorpe opened one eye and said to him,

00:15:21.000 - 00:15:35.000

"I'm picturing myself winning the decathlon." Then he closed his eye again, and he went on to win the decathlon. It was for him, you see, not only physical preparation and training,

00:15:35.000 - 00:15:47.000

but also mental attitude. That's what the Apostle Paul means when he writes to Timothy, "Train yourself in godliness." He says, "While bodily training is of some value,

00:15:47.000 - 00:16:00.000

godliness is of greater value because it lasts both in this life and in the next." You see, in Paul's day, there were some people who were hooked on athletics,

00:16:00.000 - 00:16:12.000

just as there are some people who are addicted to athletics today. You take, for example, the fad, the craze concerning running that has moved all across our country. I, of course, do not mean team running,

00:16:12.000 - 00:16:24.000

such as we have in this college and other schools. I'm talking about those you see running along the highways and byways at any hour of the day or night. They now have magazines devoted to running,

00:16:24.000 - 00:16:36.000

and they have books devoted to running. There are just as many doctors in the American Medical Association who say running is bad for you as there are who say it is good for you.

00:16:36.000 - 00:16:48.000

I was on the platform this last summer with Dr. Christian Barnard, the man who performed the first heart transplant. I said to him, "What do you think about running?" He said, "I think it's a new way to kill yourself."

00:16:51.000 - 00:17:26.000

And he said, "I think it's a new way to kill yourself." Because it brings concentration down to something which you can so focus upon that you can forget about everything else. It does nothing for the society. It does nothing for anyone else.

00:17:26.000 - 00:17:46.000

It has no profit for the community as a whole. One can center in upon oneself in one task and then conveniently forget everything else. Well, Paul has a thought rather like that in mind when he says here, "Bodily training is all right. It has some positive virtues.

00:17:46.000 - 00:17:58.000

But of far greater importance is the training of the mind and the training of the mind toward godliness." And what is godliness? Godliness simply means to live to please God.

00:17:58.000 - 00:18:10.000

And how do we please God? We please God by being everything he has given us the capacity to be. Remember Elie Wiesel's question, "You will not be asked if you've discovered the cure for such and such.

00:18:10.000 - 00:18:29.000

You will simply be asked, 'Why did you not become you?'" Look, I'm not talking tonight about any theological ego trip. I said that the measure of the stature of the fullness of God and Jesus Christ was love. What is love?

00:18:29.000 - 00:18:51.000

Love is offering yourself to another person. That is a meaningless act if yourself is worth nothing. Giving yourself to someone else when yourself is nothing is giving to the other nothing. That's the reason you must love yourself,

00:18:51.000 - 00:19:05.000

so that you have something to offer to others in the act of love. So the first thing Paul says to us is, "With regard to developing yourself, go for it." The second thing he says is this,

00:19:05.000 - 00:19:22.000

"When you run, run by the rules." He writes to Timothy, "An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules." Now, of course, there are rules and there are rules. And you've got to use the right rules for the right sport.

00:19:22.000 - 00:19:41.000

You don't use football rules for a track meet. You don't use polo rules for a cross-country meet. You've got to use the right rules for the right sport. And Paul says that the rules that we're to use in running the race of life are the rules of God.

00:19:41.000 - 00:20:01.000

But it's very interesting to notice here that Paul goes on many, many places in his letters to point out that God is not best understood in terms of his rules. Paul goes to great lengths to point out that God is not a rule-giving God. Paul goes to great lengths to point out that Christianity

00:20:01.000 - 00:20:19.000

is not supposed to be a grindstone type of religion. Paul is opposed to nitpicking discipleship. Paul attacks legalism every time he encounters it. So what he really suggests to us is not that we become fascinated with the rules of God,

00:20:19.000 - 00:20:45.000

but rather that we discover those principles for life which God has built into our experience and which, if we bring ourselves into cooperation with them, will enable us to run a better race. I think of it very much in terms of this very popular film right now, Chariots of Fire. You know in that film there is a character, Eric Liddell, who wants to win an Olympic gold medal.

00:20:45.000 - 00:21:03.000

And he discovers that the time trials are being held on a Sunday. And he is a very strict Sabbatarian, and so he will not run on a Sunday. And they bring all kinds of pressure to bear on him to run. And the Duke of Sutherland and the Prince of Wales and the chairman of the British Olympic Committee,

00:21:03.000 - 00:21:32.000

they all get together and they say, "Eric, we expected you to do this for your country." And Liddell replies, "My God comes first, and my king comes second." Now the interesting thing about this is that Eric Liddell was against running on a Sunday because he came from Scotland, and in Scotland there is a very rigid view about what you can and cannot do on Sundays.

00:21:32.000 - 00:21:48.000

And it's based on the commandment to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now the fact of the matter is there is no justification in the scripture at all for that view in Scotland or for what Eric Liddell was doing. The Old Testament Sabbath was Saturday, it wasn't Sunday.

00:21:48.000 - 00:22:08.000

And therefore to be consistent, Eric Liddell should have refused to run on Saturday, not Sunday. And not only that, but there is no word in either the Old or the New Testaments which says that it's wrong to participate in athletics on that day. It says you may not labor, you may not do your regular work,

00:22:08.000 - 00:22:32.000

but you can involve yourself in other things, and athletics are never specifically prohibited in either of the Testaments. On the basis of the scriptures then, there is no justification whatever for the stand that Eric Liddell took. Yet it was the right stand. Why? Because more important than those rules, more important than those legalisms, is this.

00:22:32.000 - 00:22:50.000

"I put my God first and my King second." The whole principle of his life, you see, the whole direction of his life was God-ward. And that's what made the difference. [Bell rings]

00:22:50.000 - 00:23:12.000

Please turn your cassette to the other side. So Paul doesn't give up when he talks about the rules for running the race. He does not give up ironclad rigidity, but he does pass along some suggestions. He says, for example, forget about your failures.

00:23:12.000 - 00:23:27.000

Forget about the races that you've lost. There's a wonderful story which is true of a group of people who were in an air raid shelter in London during the Second World War when the Nazi blitz was on. And they'd been in there for many, many hours trying to sleep.

00:23:27.000 - 00:23:44.000

And there was one old woman in the group who kept on yelling out, "Oh, God, how thirsty I am." And every time she would yell out, everybody would wake up again. And she kept this up for a long time until finally someone got up and went and got her a glass of water. And they brought it and she drank it and everybody got still and quiet.

00:23:44.000 - 00:24:05.000

And just when everybody was ready to drift off to sleep, she called out, "Oh, God, how thirsty I was." You see, she was looking back at the misfortunes that were before. Paul says, "Don't do that." He says, "Forgetting the things which are behind, press on toward the goal.

00:24:05.000 - 00:24:26.000

Press on toward the finishing line." Any runner will tell you you will not win if you spend all your time looking over your shoulder at your opposition, your competition. You've got to keep your eye on the target, on that goal, on that pace. So Paul's first principle is, "Don't focus on your failures.

00:24:26.000 - 00:24:45.000

Look instead where you're going." His second principle is this, "Remember to always be a part of a faithful fellowship." The Greek word "eleo," which we translate "athlete," means literally "to work side by side." Athletes are seen in a team context.

00:24:45.000 - 00:25:10.000

And in this sense, the race that we run in life could better be described as a relay race than any other kind of race, where we each take our turn carrying the baton for one another. Now, what Paul is suggesting is that we should be part of a fellowship of others who will assist us and uplift us. When I lived in California, my favorite place to visit out there was Kings Canyon National Park.

00:25:10.000 - 00:25:26.000

That's where the big trees are. The 300-foot redwoods, 40 feet around. One of the interesting things about those trees is they don't have deep roots. You would expect a tree that high to have a great root structure. It doesn't.

00:25:26.000 - 00:25:50.000

As a matter of fact, its roots are very shallow. But they spread out in all directions to a great distance, trying to get as much surface moisture as they can. Now, in a grove of redwoods, all of these roots spreading out weave themselves into a very, very strong network of support. That's the reason the trees do not fall over in storms, in great winds.

00:25:50.000 - 00:26:08.000

They're supported by the rootwork that ties them to others. You will never see a redwood tree growing by itself. Now, that's the way we are to be. There is to be that kind of mutual support. Paul says, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

00:26:08.000 - 00:26:27.000

Again, he's not establishing a legalism there. He writes that to the Galatians. And if there's any book in the Bible that's against laws and rules and regulations, it's the book of Galatians. But Paul is saying, "Here is a principle. We are to support each other, be part of a fellowship." Here's another rule, he says, another suggestion, another principle.

00:26:27.000 - 00:26:52.000

Learn the significance of little things. A pebble in a shoe can make you lose a race. A moment when your attention wanders can cause you to drop the baton and lose the race. The more I look back over my own life, the more convinced I am that some of the most significant turning points in my life

00:26:52.000 - 00:27:20.000

had been moments which at the time were so insignificant that I hardly noticed them. I was thinking just today of a party that I was invited to when I was in high school. And at that party, certain things were going to be done which were decidedly wrong. And I'd never been engaged in this particular wrong thing before.

00:27:20.000 - 00:27:50.000

And I remember thinking about it casually, would I go to the party or not, and deciding no, I wouldn't go. As I look back upon it now, I think my decision not to go to that party has changed the entire course of my life. I have never found myself defeated by the particular sin which was entered into at that party, because at the very outset I was enabled to say no to it.

00:27:50.000 - 00:28:16.000

Yet at the moment, I had no idea of the significance of that decision. You know, Jesus says in Matthew 25 that most of the great decisions in life are ones that we don't recognize when they come to us. Remember the people come to him and they say, "Lord, when did we see thee thirsty and not give you something to drink? When did we see thee naked and not give you something to wear?

00:28:16.000 - 00:28:47.000

When did we see thee hungry and not give you something to eat?" They were so unaware of what was going on that they missed the significant moment when it came. See, the organizing principle of life is this, that every decision you make has some effect on your character and your destiny. And that means that the answer to the question, "When did we see thee?" is when you lied to someone,

00:28:47.000 - 00:29:12.000

or when you took something that didn't belong to you, or when you were unkind in the use of your tongue, cruel and gossipy. Those are the moments. They seem to be nothing, yet they have great significance. Paul says, "Be aware of these things. Lay aside every weight, even the smallest one, anything that encumbers you.

00:29:12.000 - 00:29:34.000

Lay it aside so you can run to win." And one other principle he gives is this, "Put risk into your running." William James, the great psychologist, says that most people never discover what their real resources are. The reason is they quit before they get to the end of their first wind,

00:29:34.000 - 00:29:56.000

so they never understand how far they might have gone with their second wind. Well, there are a lot of people who quit too quickly in this race to be everything that God wants them to be. And sometimes they quit for such inexcusable reasons. Sometimes, for example, they won't laugh at things that are funny,

00:29:56.000 - 00:30:11.000

because people will say, "Well, you shouldn't laugh. Other people will think you're crazy." Go ahead and laugh at things that are funny. You'll have fun while you're doing it, and they'll be bored stiff. Or they'll say to you, "Don't cry. Don't show your emotions. Don't show your sentimentality."

00:30:11.000 - 00:30:33.000

There are some things in life, some things that are very sad and some things that are very beautiful, which deserve crying. So don't hesitate to cry because somebody else says not to cry. If crying doesn't do you any other good, it at least cleans your eyeballs. Or they'll say to you, "Don't get involved."

00:30:33.000 - 00:30:53.000

We are put on a world where we are inextricably involved. We do not live on separated islands. We are meant to be involved. You never hesitate to be involved. Or folks will say to you, "If you love like that, you won't get anything in return."

00:30:53.000 - 00:31:15.000

So what? The purpose of love is not to get something in return. Loving something in order to get something back is a prostitution of love. Love is when you offer yourself. So what Paul says to us here is that forget what's behind, bear one another's burden, lay aside every weight, and press on.

00:31:15.000 - 00:31:36.000

Do the things that you feel called to do. Open yourself to all the possibilities. And then, and then he says, one last thing, keep your eye on the referee. He says that to the Colossians. He says, "Don't let anyone disqualify you."

00:31:36.000 - 00:31:56.000

And the word he uses for "disqualify" here means, "Don't let anybody rule against you because of bad refereeing." You know how it is in a track meet. Sometimes someone will cut in front of you. They'll break your stride or perhaps actually bump you. That's illegal. That's against the rules.

00:31:56.000 - 00:32:12.000

And a good referee will catch that. Paul points out in the New Testament an incident where that occurred. He writes to the Galatians, "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying?" Well, that can happen to any of us.

00:32:12.000 - 00:32:30.000

Paul says, "Watch out when that happens, because sometimes those who are supposed to be seeing that the race is running fairly will miss their call." In such an instance, he says, "Go to the commissioner. Set your mind on the things which are above."

00:32:30.000 - 00:32:51.000

You know how it is. Even your best friends, when you're running this race, even your best friends will sometimes rule against you. They'll say to you, "Look, I know it's a great opportunity, but you've got to say no." "No" is such a dreadful word.

00:32:51.000 - 00:33:04.000

"Yes" is a great word. "Maybe" is a fair word. But "no" or "I can't" or worse still "I won't." Terrible word. Or they'll come to you and they'll say,

00:33:04.000 - 00:33:16.000

"Well, it would be nice for you to try, but actually you're a bit too old for it now." I said to a young girl, 17 years old this summer at Lake Chautauqua, "What are you going to do with your life?" And you know what she said?

00:33:16.000 - 00:33:32.000

She said, "Well, if I had it to do over, I'd be a model." She was 17 years old. What age are you anyway? It's never a matter of years.

00:33:32.000 - 00:33:46.000

The fact of the matter is that for every one of us in this room tonight, there are some of us who in some dimensions of our lives haven't even been born yet. And in some dimensions of our lives, we're very childish. We're still very excitable.

00:33:46.000 - 00:34:03.000

And in some dimensions of our lives, we're quite adolescent, rebellious, and ready to take the whole world on. And in some areas of our lives, some of us are more than 200 years old, because we've lived through experiences which have given us wisdom.

00:34:03.000 - 00:34:18.000

Age is never a matter of years. Don't listen to that kind of bad judgment from one of your friends or referees. Here's another one they'll give you. They'll say, "Don't do that, because if you do, you'll get hurt."

00:34:18.000 - 00:34:28.000

That's probably true. You probably will get hurt. And I have news for you. You're going to be hurt a lot of other times in life, too.

00:34:28.000 - 00:34:46.000

But hurt is common to life. And hurt and pain and suffering are amongst the best teachers in life. So when something that comes along hurts, hug it, taste it, feel it, experience it. Derive everything from it that you possibly can.

00:34:46.000 - 00:34:59.000

Life isn't like some B movie where he chases her or she chases him for six reals, and then at the end of the thing, as they walk down the aisle, the two words appear on the screen, "The End." That's not the way life is.

00:34:59.000 - 00:35:14.000

It doesn't end in six reals. It goes on, and it involves continued investment, and it involves patience, and it involves courage, and it involves zeal, and it involves faith, which are all the things that are necessary for a good runner.

00:35:14.000 - 00:35:36.000

So Paul says, "Coach," Paul says, if you will, "press on toward the goal." For God's sake, and for your own sake, and for sake of all those to whom you're going to give yourself as an act of love. Let me close with this.

00:35:36.000 - 00:35:54.000

Martin Luther records in one of his journals that once he had a dream. In the dream, he saw Satan sitting on a throne. And one of Satan's evil emissaries came to him and said, "I saw a company of Christians crossing the desert,

00:35:54.000 - 00:36:10.000

and I set a pride of lions on them. And when the lions were done, the sand was strewn with their bodies." And Satan replied, "So what? They lost their bodies, but they still have their souls.

00:36:10.000 - 00:36:23.000

I want souls." And another fiend came up and said, "I saw a company of Christians crossing the sea, and I caused a great storm to break upon them.

00:36:23.000 - 00:36:41.000

And their ship went down, and every one of the lives was lost. Their bodies are now at the bottom of the ocean." And Satan replied, "So what? They've lost their bodies, but they still have their souls.

00:36:41.000 - 00:37:12.000

I want souls." And then one particularly loathsome preacher slithered into the presence of the devil and said, "Sire, I know a company of Christians who are asleep, and I have worked very hard to see that nothing will ever wake them up.

00:37:12.000 - 00:37:33.000

And the corridors of hell rang with malignant laughter." Paul's counsel is this. Wake up! There's a race to be won, and the rules are these. Forget your failures, hang on to each other, pay attention even to little things,

00:37:33.000 - 00:38:11.000

and run with risk, and watch out for bad referees. Now, on your marks, get set, go for it. Let us pray. Our Father, when we contemplate the treasure that you have put in us by your grace,

00:38:11.000 - 00:38:34.000

we have no ability to give adequate thanks. We pray that you will thrill us with the possibilities inside us, that you'll help us to run the race that is set before us, to forget the things which are behind and to press on toward the goal,

00:38:34.000 - 00:39:08.000

to compete always according to the rules, and to let nothing disqualify us from taking the prize, which is to be a mature person in Christ, having within us the measure of the fullness of thy grace. We pray our prayer in Jesus' name.

00:39:08.000 - 00:39:32.000

And the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give to you and to all those whom you love, and to all those who don't even love themselves,

00:39:32.000 - 00:39:38.000

his peace. I tweeted that out retweeting it out.