Running to Win

I am reading this morning from the first letter written to the Christians at Corinth. The Apostle Paul probably wrote these words sometime around the spring of A.D. 57. It might have very well have been at a time when the young Isthmian athletes began competing in the well-known athletic games of the first century.

What we are going to read and hopefully see today as we look at God’s word for us is that Christians are called not only to run the race of life, but to win. More than anyone else on earth, God expects His children to be successful, not in temporal games that crown a new champion every year, but God expects His children to be crowned victorious both in this life and the life to come.

You know that many runners enter a race, and only one of them wins the prize. So run to win! Athletes work hard to win a crown that cannot last, but we do it for a crown that will last forever. I don’t run without a goal. And I don’t box by beating my fists in the air. I keep my body under control and make it my slave, so I won’t lose out after telling the good news to others. I Corinthians 9:24-27 (CEV) Contemporary English Version.

I want you to see three simple thoughts this morning as I share with you the topic, Running to Win. The first thing I want you to understand is. If a runner is going to run to win, he must start well. He must get a good start.

Getting a good start is important in anything we do. It is in a race and it is in the Christian life. We must start well. So let’s see what the Bible has to say about starting the race.

1. STARTING THE RACE, many runners enter a race

The first thing he says is that many runners enter a race. Many enter a race but only one will win. The difference for the Christian is that all that enter the race of life as a Christian can win. But not all will. Are you running to win?

I’m not much of a runner. I don’t know much about the sport of running. When I was in high school I did all I could to avoid running. It was a requirement at my high school that if you were going to play varsity football you had to run track in the spring. I hated that.

I remember the first day of track practice the coach asked everybody what event they wanted to train for? I was only there because I wanted to play football so I asked what the shortest running event was. I found out that the 100-yard dash was the shortest event and I thought, “that’s my kind of event. The shorter, the better.” It didn’t take long before the coach saw that I didn’t have the skills or the speed to be a sprinter. So I got moved to the distant runners.

There were three events for long distance runners, the 2-mile run, the 1-mile and the ½ mile or the 880. So, you guessed it, I chose the 880 or ½ mile run.

But this is what I want to tell you about what I learned while running that one-half mile event. If you want to win, you still have to get a good start.

They taught us how to start from the blocks. They taught us how to come position your body in order to come out of those starting blocks low and leaning forward. They taught how to run with a lean forward. They taught us how to run with our head tilted downward and with our eyes on the finish line.

It reminds me of Philippians 3:14 that says, My friends, I don’t feel that I have already arrived. But I forget what is behind, and I struggle for what is ahead. I run toward the goal, so that I can win the prize of being called to heaven. (CEV)

I need to confess something to you today. Some of you have already figured it out. “I wasn’t a very good high school runner.” You see, my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t really want to be there. I had ulterior motives.

As a result, I never won a race.

How do you start the race of life? You got to get in. You’ve got to enter. You enter the race of life by trusting Christ. You have to get saved. But becoming a Christian is just the beginning of the race. It’s not the end.

You know another thing they taught us in running the shorter distance races was that at the sound of the starter’s gun the first thing you wanted to do was to sprint the first 50 yards. The strategy was to get out front quick. To get ahead of the rest of the runners. You didn’t want to fall behind a pack of runners and fight through the elbows or throw off you stride by tripping over another runner’s feet.

Some of you have started well. You’ve gotten saved. Maybe it was a long time ago, or maybe it just happened, but you’re in the race. But are you running to win?

There’s a second thought I want you to understand about running to win. Not only is it important to start well, you must run well, if you’re going to win the race.

2. RUNNING THE RACE, Athletes work hard to win and I keep my body under control and make it my slave.

Some bibles will say in these verses, verses 25-27, And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. (The Living Bible says, To win the contest you must deny yourselves many things that would keep you from doing your best.) It means we must learn self-control.

Look at verse 27, Paul says, But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: Again, the Living Bible says Like an athlete I punish my body, treating it roughly, training it to do what it should, not what it wants to.

Literally that word means "I cut under the eye - I hit under the eye - I beat myself

black and blue." He is saying I get control of my body and I bring it under subjection. You have to make a decision. Either your body makes you its slave or you make the body your slave.

That’s the same concept that many of you are learning in Weigh Down. You’re learning to listen to God and not your body. The concept in the Bible is this. You, as a believer, can take control over your body and you do not have to be a slave to your body. Every thing your body tells you to do you don't have to do. My body just screams out to me sometime "I need some chocolate." It does it very often. To be perfectly honest with you there are times I am a slave to my body. I do what it says. I’m thinking, “I need it. I’ve got to have it. I can’t do without it."

If you really, really are willing to be what God wants you to do you discipline your life and take control of your body and make your body your slave not you a slave of your body.

Then he says they do it to obtain a corruptible crown. In those days it was a laurel wreath. Those guys would work four years. Deny himself, train, and push himself to the limit. Hone his body until it became a sleek machine. Then he would compete in the race and hit the finish line and be number one and they would put on his head a laurel wreath and in a matter of days it had faded away. But he says we do it to obtain an incorruptible crown. See his point. He is taking from the world of athletics this whole matter of discipline and self-control and denial. He is simply saying to us that we ought to have that same kind of intensity in our life for the Lord Jesus. We ought to have that same kind of dedication to serve Christ. It's a shame when Christian people are so flabby and so indulgent and so lackadaisical in their service for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now let me meddle for just a minute. Self-control and self-discipline is something we Christians today know very little about and practice even less. We live in a day in which we have been conditioned to believe we can get something for nothing. Easy credit, drive-through service, punch a button, change a channel and this “it’s not my fault,” victim mentality have all made us soft around the middle spiritually.

We want something for nothing. We want new cars, new homes and new clothes but we don’t want to have to work for it or pay for it. We want to pass the test but we don’t want to study. You see what I’m saying?

And Christians today have brought that same “something for nothing” mentality into the church. We hear, “Jesus will forgive your sins,” but we don’t want to stop sinning. We hear, “Jesus will take you to heaven,” but we don’t want to go to church. We hear “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God,” but we don’t read our bibles. We hear “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be saved,” but we don’t pray.

We want salvation but not sanctification. We want grace but not grit. We want membership but not ministry.

We don’t have a problem when it comes to committing ourselves to make it in the world. We develop a “whatever it takes” mentality at work or at school for ourselves or for our kids. Nothing's too good for little Johnny. We will see that they spends hours and hours each week in sports, or music or dance while we work hour after hour of overtime or on the lawn, or house, or boat, then we’re too tired to get up on Sunday morning for church, after all, “Sunday’s my only day off.”

We don’t think twice about overspending to dine out or buy that new dress, or another pair of shoes. Men are blowing our money on sporting events, recreation or a shiny new tech toy. Then we complain when the church asks for an additional offering to be taken to help reach the world for Christ.

(READ THE FUNNY? ARTICLE)

One last truth about running to win.

3. FINISHING THE RACE, I keep my body under control and make it my slave, so I won’t lose out after telling the good news to others.

Look at verse 27. (Read above) Another version says it this way, I treat my body hard and make it my slave so that I myself will not be disqualified (NCV) Some bibles use the word “castaway” instead of disqualified.

Again, it’s not enough to start well and to run well, but we must also finish well.

I cannot say this clearly enough. In my 26 years as a believer, I have met many believers who have become disqualified. They are castaways. They started the race and for awhile, they ran well, but somewhere along the way, they fell away.

What disqualifies an athlete from competing? They break the rules. They don’t follow the game plan. Ask Leon Lett.

Remember my high school track days? I remember another time when I broke the rules. I hated running. (Have I said that before?)

Every day after school we had to run to “Dolittle’s bridge” and back. The first thing, a five-mile run, then we would practice. Boy, I hated that. One day several of the guys had a bright idea. They decided that by following a path where new power lines were being cleared through the woods we could cut several miles off the run. Well, back in those days I was a follower and not a leader, so through the woods I ran. Well, we got caught. We ran more that day than any other track practice.

God doesn’t allow shortcuts through His kingdom either. Not if we’re going to run to win.

You might think, “I just can’t do it. I’ve tried before and failed. I’ve just given up.” Well, Jesus didn’t. In fact, recognizing that you cannot do it, is the first step in acknowledging that God can. If you will let Him help you.

You may not recognize the name Jim Redmond, but you might remember the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Jim Redmond’s son, Derek, a 26 year old Briton was favored to win the four hundred-meter race. But halfway into his semifinal heat, a fiery pain seared through his right leg. He crumpled to the track with a torn hamstring.

As the medical attendants were approaching, Redmond fought to his feet. He set out hopping, pushing away the coaches in a craze attempt to finish the race.

When he reached the stretch, a big man pushed through the crowd. He was wearing a tee-shirt that read “Have you hugged your kid today?” and a hat that challenged, “Just Do It.” That man was Jim Redmond, Derek’s father.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told his weeping son. “Yes I do,” Derek declared.

“Well then,” said his father, “we’re going to finish this together.”

And they did. Jim wrapped Derek’s arm around his shoulder and helped him hobble to the finish line. Fighting off security men, the son’s head sometimes buried in the father’s shoulder, they stayed in Derek’s lane to the end.

The crowd clapped, then stood, then cheered, and then wept at the father and the son finished the race.

And that’s exactly what your Heavenly Father wishes to do for you. If you will let Him, you can not only start the race and run the race but you will finish the race. And you will be a winner!

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, 1 Timothy 4:7-8 (NKJV)

But those who wait on the Lord

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31 (NKJV)

Related Media

Related Sermons