Transcript
Well, I pointed out last week that one of the differences between the Old Covenant that
God made with Israel in the Old Testament and the New Covenant that God makes with the
Church in the New Testament is that the Old Testament saints did not have the privilege
of an indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit was given to prophets, priests, and kings, but the average believer did not
share in the benefits of the Holy Spirit.
They were left on their own to try to live a life that was pleasing to God.
All of that changes when you get to the New Testament because in the New Testament God
institutes a New Covenant, and under the terms of that New Covenant God not only tells us
what to do through the law, he not only tells us what to do through other people, the prophets,
but he also tells us what to do and then helps us do it by the Holy Spirit who comes to live
with Ian.
Jeremiah, you will recall spoke about that in the words that we quoted at the beginning
of the service in the book of Hebrews.
Here is what Jeremiah said many years ago, looking forward with the eye of faith.
This is the covenant that will make with the house of Israel after that time declares the
Lord.
Now notice these words, "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother saying, 'Know the Lord because
they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the Lord."
And I might add that there lies the secret to keeping our children in faith as they grow up.
It's not enough for them to know out there who God is or what God wants them to do.
It's not enough for them to be taught by parents and teachers, "This is the way, walk in it."
They need to come to faith in Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit implanted in their hearts.
And then from the inside out, please hear me, from the inside out there will be a longing
to get to know God, to walk with him, and to obey him, and an ability that flows out
of that to connect with their neighbors.
That is the genius of the Christian life.
And that's what Paul is talking about as we saw last week in the passage before us when
he says in verse 22 of Acts chapter 20, "And now compelled by the Spirit, I am going to
Jerusalem not knowing what will happen to me there."
Compelled by the Spirit, bound in the Spirit.
Even though all his friends are saying, "Paul, don't do this, you're going to get hurt.
We don't want you to go.
We don't want you to be in pain."
He knows inside there is a pressure from the Holy Spirit that says, "Paul, I want you to
go to Jerusalem, and yes, you're going to get into trouble."
You won't understand why.
It will not become clear until many years later.
But this is what I want you to do.
That is New Covenant, New Testament Christianity, and you and I will have those moments when
on the inside there is that little voice, and it isn't just the voice of your conscience,
it is the voice of the Holy Spirit working deep inside your own spirit that says, "This
is the way, walk in it.
This is what I want you to do.
This is what I don't want you to do."
How successful you and I are in the Christian life is determined to a very large degree
by our ability not only to discern that voice of the Holy Spirit, but to obey it.
That is New Covenant Christianity, and that is available to all of us by faith in Jesus.
You don't have to be a super Christian, you don't have to be a super holy Christian.
If you're in Christ, the Holy Spirit is yours, and He will direct you if you will let Him.
A lot more people hear from the Holy Spirit than realize it because they confuse the voice
of the Holy Spirit just with their own internal wishes or do not.
Listen for the whispers, and the Holy Spirit will lead and direct and guide our lives.
That brings us then to the second thing in this particular, the second point in this
particular passage that I want for us to ponder.
I introduced it very briefly last week, and that is that Paul wants to finish well.
He wants to finish well.
Verse 23 and 24, "I only know," he says, "in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that
prison and hardships are facing me.
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race, complete
the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the gospel of God's
grace."
And I mentioned last week that finishing well for Paul meant two things, finishing the race
and completing the task.
Let's try to look at those two this morning.
We'll see how far we can get in the time that we have left available to us.
First of all, there is finishing the race.
Throughout the New Testament, and you will know this, there is a comparison made between
athletics and the Christian life, particularly running the race.
Let me give you a number of verses that I'm sure you're familiar with, Hebrews 12 verse
1.
"Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything
that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race
marked out for us."
The picture here is of a stadium full of witnesses in this context.
These are the saints that have gone before us.
These are the people that are watching us from heaven as we live life and we struggle
with temptation and we seek to overcome the obstacles and we try to walk faithfully before
God.
They are encouraging us in the race.
This is part of what we confess as the communion of saints.
They have completed their journey.
They're cheering you on because of the race that we find ourselves in.
1 Corinthians 9, 24, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one
gets the prize run in such a way as to get the prize."
And then of course Galatians 5, 7, a very graphic word picture, I think, "You were running
a good race.
Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?"
See there's that parallel between running the race and living the Christian life.
As I've been pondering that a little bit these past couple of weeks, it occurs to me there
are at least four parallels between running an athletic race and living the Christian
life.
Let me run them by you really quickly.
Number one, let me just reference it here.
Number one, both have a fixed course.
That is to say, in a foot race, there is a fixed distance that you are to cover.
Maybe 100 meter, maybe 200 meter, maybe 500 meter, maybe a kilometer, all the way up to
a marathon.
There is a fixed distance that you are racing.
Well the same thing is true in the Christian life.
The Christian life has a fixed span from the moment of our birth to the moment of our death
is the race of life and it's very similar to a race in athletics.
The second area of comparison is that both courses must be completed satisfactorily.
In a foot race, you don't want to stumble, you don't want to fall, you want to be able
to complete the race in a satisfactory fashion and in the Christian life, you want to walk
in a way, you want to complete the race in a way that is satisfactory to our father who
is in heaven.
The Apostle Paul talks about this in Philippians chapter three, the verses 12 to 14 and I don't
know if you may have noticed earlier in one of the songs that we sang, there's a reference
to this particular passage but let me read you these verses, you'll know them well because
they're familiar.
Paul writing again in the context of a sports analogy because that was the culture in which
they lived.
Sports was as big in the Greek and Roman Empire as it is in the western world today.
He says, "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it but one thing I do, forgetting
what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win
the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Ponder that with me for a moment.
I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in
Christ Jesus.
Paul says I'm running this race and I want to finish it satisfactorily.
So here's the question, what does running the race of life satisfactorily before God
look like for you and me?
Well it is living and walking faithfully before God in the face of all temptation and obstacles
that come to the contrary and allowing him to conform us to the image of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
That is God's purpose in life for you and for me.
Paul echoes that same thought in Romans chapter 8 verse 29 when he says, "Those whom God
foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son that He might be
the firstborn among many brothers."
You and I are supposed to be growing in Christ-likeness and how well we do in the race of life from
God's perspective isn't determined first and foremost by you know how well we do materially
or how much we have prospered socially or politically or economically or any of the
things that the world calls signs of greatness.
Greatness before God is do we love God with our heart, soul, strength and mind?
Do we love our neighbor as we love ourselves?
On those two, said Jesus, hangs all the law and all the commandments.
So there is a course that is set before us that is fixed.
That course God wants us to complete to His satisfaction.
That completion takes discipline and perseverance.
If ever you've watched professional sports then you will know that the top athletes in
the world spare no time, effort or energy to accomplish what they need to accomplish.
Very so often my wife and I on a Monday night we will watch American Ninja Warrior.
Any of you here sinful enough to watch that with us?
For those of you that haven't watched the show, it's really an athletic course where
if I had time I would have found a picture to show you but they have all these obstacles
that they have to overcome and then you know the challenge is to get to the end, to hit
the buzzer faster than anybody else.
And it requires an incredible amount of body strength and oh what these people go through
to try to compete in this is astonishing to me but that's true for every sport.
I mean a good athlete will spend hours training.
They are fussy about their nutrition and in this day and age they're really high level
athletes.
They're surrounded by all kinds of coaches, not only those who train them in their field
but even psychologists so that they can keep their head on straight because half the battle
is to keep a positive attitude when everything is falling apart.
Now as we'll see in a moment they do it for a prize that tomorrow you're not going to
remember.
We've got a whole other prize to contend with but I'm getting ahead of myself.
They discipline with perseverance.
Well all through the New Testament and you find it in the Old Testament too there is
an emphasis that if the race is to become like Jesus then there are obstacles in the
way that have to be overcome.
One of those obstacles is your own flesh that seeks self comfort, that doesn't want to pay
the price, that doesn't want to obey God.
If the flesh weren't enough then there are all kinds of people around you who don't want
you to put God first, who want you to put them first in their lives and who will do
everything they can to make your life miserable because you're not giving them what they want
and if that's not enough there's a devil out there.
And if you've ever tried running the race and if you've ever tried being like Jesus
then you will know the devil is not merely a figment of your imagination.
He loves to find your weaknesses, he loves to find other people to trip you up and it
takes, did I say it, discipline.
It takes perseverance to run that race and I cannot tell you how many people I have known
over the years even in this congregation that started that race.
Oh yes, you know Tina was talking about it earlier, first love for Jesus right?
Boy there's nobody greater than Jesus and there's nobody greater than the church and
there's nobody greater than, well you give that a couple years and you know what happens.
I've often said the road to the promised land is littered with the carcasses of those who
are unable or unwilling to pay the price to run the race that is set before us, isn't
that true?
Takes discipline, takes perseverance, that's why Hebrews 12 verse 1 is worded the way that
it is.
Since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, remember these are the people
that ran the race before us.
I don't know how that works and it kind of freaks me out sometimes when the saints of
old seem to be watching me, there are some things that I might not want to be seen in
just for the record but you can worry about that yourself.
We're surrounded by this great a cloud of witnesses, they're watching us run the race
and then he goes on to say, "Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that
so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us."
And have you ever seen an athlete compete or a swimmer compete, you know that they do
everything that they can to be unencumbered, I mean in the swimming business having the
right kind of fabric for your swimsuit is the key to that fraction of a second that
you need to beat out the competition.
And in running the race, the picture here, in Greek athletics a lot of races were done
naked so that the clothes would not hinder the impact of their journey.
The Apostle Paul, certainly no coward in terms of his own walk, describes his own journey
in 1 Corinthians 9, 26 and 27 when he says, "I do not run like a man running aimlessly.
I do not fight like a man beating the air.
No, I beat my body and I make it my slave so that after I have preached to others I
myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
I beat my body, I make it my slave so that after I have preached to others I myself will
not be disqualified for the prize."
It takes discipline and it takes perseverance to remain faithful to the race that the Lord
has us running in life.
And then of course you say to yourself, "Well, why bother?
I mean life was a lot easier before I came to Christ and I could just do what I wanted
to do and go where I wanted to go and life was a cinch.
Now I've got to second-guess myself and now I've got to fight my sinful urges and why
bother?"
Well, Paul alludes to it in this verse that we just talked about.
He talks about a prize.
Why do athletes put in the kind of training that they put out and spend the kind of money
that they spend to become the best in their field?
It's because there is a prize and that prize may be nothing more than a trophy.
It may be nothing more than your picture in the paper.
It may be nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing that for this moment at least you
happen to be the best in the world at what you just did and that satisfaction is enough
to keep people moving forward.
Well, Paul has things to say about their prize and our prize when he compares it to the eternal
kingdom prize that awaits you and me.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize?
Run in such a way as to get the prize, everyone who competes in the games goes into strict
training, they do it to get a crown that will not last but we do it to get a crown that
will last forever.
Three times in the New Testament there is reference to a crown or three different kinds
of crowns, crown of righteousness, the crown of life and the crown of glory.
I have a chapter on that in my new book, on the book of James.
The crown of life is the reward that God promises to his children when they run the race and
they run it faithfully to the end.
And what do you suppose that crown is?
Well it is to share in the glory of God given to the Lord Jesus.
Here's the best way to describe it, Romans 8.17, "If we are children, then we are heirs.
Heirs of God, coheirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we
may also share in his glory."
Couple of things there for you to note, notice we are destined to be heirs of God and coheirs
with Christ.
I want you to think about that for a moment.
What does it mean to be an heir of God or a coheir with Christ?
Why bother running this race when most of the world around you doesn't give a bit of
care about running the race before the face of God.
There awaits you a crown of life which means you become an heir of God and a coheir with
the Lord Jesus.
All that means is this, when God originally created Adam and Eve, he gave them dominion
over all the works of his hands.
We've often talked about that.
Think of your most favored longing about the meaning and the purpose of life.
Adam and Eve had it, not because they worked for it, but because God gave it to them out
of relationship with himself, life was in paradise.
You know what happened, they turned their back on God, they fell into sin, and they
have become enslaved to the very creation that they were supposed to have dominion over.
God could have left us there, but he chose not to do that.
He sent his son the Lord Jesus so that we could be delivered from our bondage to sin
and Satan and a world that was lost in brokenness, and we could be reestablished in a relationship
with God.
And what that means is that when Jesus comes back, when the curtain falls in history, to
be an heir of God means that we inherit everything that God has for his children.
And to be a co-heir with Christ means that whatever God the Father gave to Jesus upon
his ascension into heaven, when he sat down at his right hand, gave him the name that
was above every name, that glory is for you and me.
Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, the heart of man hasn't imagined what God has prepared
for those who love him, but God has revealed it to us through the Holy Spirit.
Through the Holy Spirit, we get little glimpses every so often of what the promised land looks
like.
Remember back in the Old Testament when Israel was about ready to go into the promised land,
they sent spies into the promised land, and they came back, you will recall, bearing the
fruit of the promised land.
That's kind of what the Holy Spirit is like.
He is the foretaste of the life that is to come.
Every so often, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, God blows our minds, he opens up our
hearts, and he shows us the prize that he has prepared for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We're destined for glory.
We're destined for glory, but in order to share that glory, we need to share in his
sufferings.
That is to say, we've got to do the discipline, we've got to do the perseverance, we've got
to do the struggling so that we can remain as faithful as we know how to remain to the
Lord to be awarded the inheritance.
That's why Hebrews chapter 12 goes on to say in verse 2, "These words, we cannot do this
ourselves, we need Jesus for it."
Here is the verse, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy said before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God."
Jesus is author, some translations have pioneer, and perfecter, some translations have finishers.
This means that on the one hand, Jesus is the one who completed the course.
He encountered every obstacle that you and I can ever encounter, and he did it successfully.
That's why God gave him the name that is above every name, Jesus has paved the way, and you
and I, when by faith we are joined to him, we share in his victory.
We share in his victory.
He grants us the Holy Spirit, he helps us to live life to the full so that we can be
worthy of the inheritance that we have in Christ Jesus.
But we have to run the race.
Means every time we fall down, we need to get back up.
Means we need to keep our eye on the prize.
Means we can't let ourselves be deflected by things of less importance.
We need to be able to accomplish what God calls us to accomplish in the purposes and
in the areas of life.
And it's astonishing to me that the Apostle Paul, when he gets to the end of his journey,
after everything that he has gone through when you need to only read the book of Acts
or the epistles that he writes, to see the price that he had to pay to run this journey
successfully, he's able to say at the end of his life in 2 Timothy 4, 7 and 8, "I have
fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, now there is
in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will
award to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing."
I think that's where we'll leave it this morning.
We need to continue looking at what completing the task means.
But let me ask you to do some self-reflection as the week goes on, particularly if you're
joining us tonight for the celebration of communion.
What does your race look like?
What does finishing well look like?
Where are the obstacles that trip you up?
Where are the areas that you find it simply too hard to run the race?
Own them.
Be honest with God and with each other.
Lay hold of the fact that God in Christ is the author and the finisher.
What he has called us to, he will enable us to accomplish because we stand on the shoulders
of many who have gone before us, who have walked by faith and who have claimed the prize.
And painful and difficult as sometimes the journey is and surely will be, nobody who
puts their hope in God is going to be disappointed because if you think all the things we strive
for in this world that give us pleasure and satisfaction, multiply that by infinity what
it is that God has promised to those who love him.
There isn't anything that we...
Paul says the brief and momentary sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared
to the glory that is going to be revealed.
Ask God to show you the glory.
Ask him to show you the prize.
Whenever you want to flake out, whenever you want to give up, whenever it's too difficult,
whenever the costs are too high, ask God to show you Jesus at the right hand of God the
Father and ask him to show you what being a co-heir with Christ looks like and what
glory will look like forever and ever and ever and then tell me that it's not worth
your while.
Because when all the rest of the world suffers under the eternal judgment of God, he'll sit
at his right hand and he will share his glory and you will rule over creation, whatever
that looks like, forever and ever and ever.
I wish I could pour that into each heart and each mind here because that is the Christian
hope of glory.