The Passion of a Spiritual Champion

1 Corinthians 9:24-26

He was a baseball fanatic.  Without hesitation he could rattle off batting averages, home runs, and runs-batted-in for every player.  Praising him for his memory, a stranger asked, “Do you ever forget your wedding anniversary?”  “Never!” he answered.  “I was married the day Bobby Thomson hit the home run that won the pennant for the Giants.  I’ll never forget that day.”

Some people will do anything to win.  The early days of baseball provide many notable examples. Before stadiums had permanent seats in the outfield, for example, teams were permitted to erect temporary bleachers or simply put up a rope if a large crowd was expected and any ball hit into that area was ruled a ground‑rule doubles. When Ty Cobb was managing the Tigers and a power‑hitting team was visiting, he would have the ground‑crew set up temporary bleachers, turning balls that might otherwise have been home runs into ground‑rule doubles.  And if the crowd wasn’t large enough to justify putting up the seats, Cobb would have the ground‑crew sit in those bleachers so the umpire would not order them removed.

In Chicago, Cubs’ fans standing behind the outfield rope would push forward toward the infield when the home team was at bat, thereby shortening the field, and then back up several steps when the visitors came to bat, thereby causing some would‑be homers to fall shorts.

When Bill Veeck owned the Cleveland Indians, he moved the outfield fences in or out depending on the lineup of the visiting team.  When the league finally passed a rule prohibiting that, Veeck compensated: He would go out to the ball park at night, dig up home plate, and move it a few feet forward or backward.[1]

The Apostle Paul had one

Even though baseball has not been around for centuries, sports have played an important part in history.  The Apostle Paul must have been a sports fan.  Every two years in Corinth, they held the Isthmian games.  They were second only to the Olympic games.   Every two years, Greek men would gather and for ten months they did nothing but train for those games.   At the beginning of the ten months they took an oath about what they would eat.  

With this in mind, Paul wrote these verses. 

The Christian life involves total commitment in order to win the race. 

I.  Only Singleness of Purpose Wins the Christian Race

The greatest achievements in life are usually accomplished by people who have a singular desire that becomes the ruling passion of all they do. For example, when Bob Feller was a child, he loved to throw a ball.  By the age of 5 he spent hours every day pitching through a hole in the barn wall.  At 10 his father bought him all the necessary equipment and provided him with a playing field on the family farm.  At 13 he pitched for a local team and averaged 20 strikeouts a game.  At 17 he began playing for the Cleveland Indians.  As a major leaguer, Bullet Bob, he had 6 seasons as a 20-game winner, 3 no-hit games, 11 1-hitters, 266 wins, and he set a record of 348 strikeouts in 1 season.  He is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Bob Feller had a singleness of purpose.

·          (1 Corinthians 9:24 NKJV)  Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.

A.  The Petition: Perception

Every time Paul uses the phrase, “Know ye not” in any of his thirteen letters, it is an appeal to the obvious.  “All of you know very well.”   Every one knows that those who run a race run to win. 

Every Greek knew that those men who trained severely for ten months for the Isthmian games did it to win.  There at the Isthmian stadium with its track of 606.75 feet, they knew that at the end of ten months every one of them would run, but only one would win. 

Paul reminded them of what they already knew.  It was an appeal to common knowledge. 

We must understand Paul.  He did not say that all those who run the Christian life, only one wins the prize.  That is not the emphasis at all.  His emphasis is on the strenuous of the discipline in order to win.  It takes an agonizing commitment in order to win the race.  We do not compete against each other but against the obstacles ¾ practical, physical, and spiritual ¾ that would hinder us. 

Even though many run the race, when the trumpet blows and the judge gives the wreath, only one wins it.  As we think about the Christian life, we should think about it with that kind of intensity. 

B.  The Prescription: Persistence

“So run,” 

The imperative in the Greek for run means to keep on  continually running.    The Christian life is not just a life that has a good start, but one which has a good finish.  

Many of us recall our salvation experience.  I was thrilled to be saved.  I didn’t know all about the Christian life, but I had a sense of joy.  Maybe you remember the time you were saved.  The time you walked a aisle at revival service.  Or maybe you were at your home, and your parents led you to Christ. 

But you know, for many, that special time in a Christian’s life is the only special time.  The joy of their salvation begins to wear off; that inner feeling of peace vanishes, and reality begins to settle in.  And then it becomes difficult to live for Christ.  Even the desire to serve Him diminishes. 

There must be persistence in the Christian life; not only at the beginning, but in the mid years when pressure comes and stress mounts.  We are to keep running the race. 

One of the great martyrs of the Christian faith was Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna.  He was arrested after being a Christian for 86 years, and when they drugged him before the Roman governor, the governor said, “Have respect for your age old man and deny Christ.”  Polycarp looked at him having run the race those 86 years and said, “For eighty and six years I’ve lived for my God and King, I will not deny Him now.” 

C.  The Purpose: The Prize

“So run, that ye may obtain.”

The Apostle Paul says to run in such a way as to get the prize.  The word that he uses doesn’t mean to casually stroll up and get the prize.  It means to reach out and grasp that prize.  That young Greek who spent 10 months training did not go up to the platform to get his prize in a casual way.  No, he went up and gripped that prize for what it was worth. 

Many of us lack to singleness of purpose that wins the Christian race.  

II.  Only Strictness of Preparation Wins the Christian Race 

·         (1 Corinthians 9:25 NKJV)  And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.

A.  The Totality of the Preparation

“And every man . . .”

Every man who participated in the Isthmian games knew they had to prepare.  No one was strong enough that they could get by by not preparing himself.  There were no exceptions. 

B.  The Intensity of Participation

“. . . who competes for the prize is temperate in all things.”

The Apostle Paul calls for that kind of participation on the part of believers.   In other words, they go into strict training.  The word meant that ten months of negative and positive discipline. 

That word for striveth is agonizo in the Greek.  It gives us our word agony.  Literally, he said, “Everybody who agonizes for those ten months disciplines himself.” 

Temperate means to have self-control.  The man who runs the race agonizes with self-control in order to win the prize.  This involves strict training with intensity. 

Paul knew nothing about a casual Christianity.  “The Christian life has become a smorgasbord where you take what you want and leave the rest.”  Paul said it is an agony.  Involved with this is self-control. 

·         (1 Corinthians 9:26-27 NKJV)  Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. {27} But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Paul, in his Christian race, did not beat the air. He changed metaphors for a moment.  He goes to the sport of boxing.  He did not shadow box; he was always fighting the real fight.   He was not just working up a sweat, but engaging in a real battle. 

He said, “I buffet my body.”  Buffet literally means to hit under the eye.  He would give himself a black eye if necessary to keep his body under subjection. 

The word subjection means to make a slave.  Paul made his body a slave in order to finish the race.  We should be slaves of our bodies, not having our bodies slaves over us.  An athlete cannot allow that.  The body cannot tell him what to eat, how to exercise.  He must tell his body. 

Paul exercised self-control and commitment so that he would not be disqualified.  A contestant who failed to meet the training requirements was disqualified.  He could not even run, much lest win. 

C.  The Durability of the Motivation

►       “Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.”

There is a lasting quality that we find here.  They do it for a crown that will not last, we do it for a crown that will last forever. 

As Paul looked at those men who trained for the isthmian games, he said look at them, they are agonizing after a crown that will not last.  It was a great moment for the prize winner and for the crowd who gathered together to watch the winner get the crown.  They stood in awe with silence as the judge placed the crown upon the winner’s head.  But that crown was a crown made of pine straw.  In no time it would deteriorate.  Just in a few years, that winner would be forgotten. 

But the Christian strives for a crown that is incorruptible.  That crown will last forever.  For when the pressures of life come upon a Christian, their crown will mean something.  When heartache comes, their crown will last.  When death comes upon them, the only thing that is going to matter is the crown they received by trusting in Jesus Christ. 

There is a lot of emphasis on discipline in order to win the race.  There are all kinds of books on running, on getting physical fit, on getting in shape in order to win.  I am sure the coach of those Indians and coach of any sport emphasizes the importance of discipline.  Why can’t there be as much disciple in the Christian life.  We are running a race to win, and in order to win, there must be discipline. 

III.  Only Straightness of Pursuit Wins the Christian Race

“I therefore so run, not as uncertainly.”

In other words, Paul said that he was not a man who ran the Christian life aimlessly.  He was not running like someone who had no goal.  Remember that women who ran the marathon in the Olympic games.  She entered that stadium staggering back and forth until finally she crossed the finish line. The Christian can not afford to do that, we must not run aimlessly, but he must run straight toward the goal, and the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 

Christianity Today carried a story about Barnow Baptist Church in Barnow, Soviet Union.  It was a story of how they kept on running the race.  In 1961 the Soviet authorities stated that the Christians could no longer stay in their church, and they padlocked the door of the church.  They Barnow Christians kept running the race. 

They went to private homes, and there they preached the gospel.   The KGB began to harass them.  They bugged the homes and bet up those who worshipped their, but still they kept going.  In 1963 five of the Barnow Baptist leaders were sent to Siberia as prisoners, but they kept running the race. 

In 1964 one of the Baptist was tortured to death. but they kept running the race.  In 1967, they discovered the house in which they were meeting and bull-dozed the house down to the ground. 

Throughout the seventies, their children were picked up after school and they were interrogated and the children were threaten to be taken away from their parents and sent to a communist orphan unless they gave up the faith.  But they continued the race. 

While we meet in comfort this morning, on the other side of the world in a little village in Russia, there are those who since 1961 have run the race with agony regardless of what it costs them. 

What kind of commitment do we really have? 

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[1] Pon Luciano and David Fisher, Remembrance of Swings Past, New York: Bantam Books, 1988)