SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: First Corinthians chapter nine.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that is page nine fifty-seven in the Pew Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Page 957 in the Pew Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The first time I watched a movie on a Sunday evening.
SPEAKER_00: It was back in 1981, and it was a movie that left an indelible impression on my mind.
SPEAKER_00: It was the movie called Chariots of Fire.
SPEAKER_00: 1981 Oscar-winning film.
SPEAKER_00: It's based on the life of that Scottish athlete, Eric Little, who won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics.
SPEAKER_00: And that movie immortalized these words of Eric Little.
SPEAKER_00: I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast, and when I run I feel his pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Little was a devout Christian.
SPEAKER_00: He was also a pastor, a Scottish Presbyterian minister.
SPEAKER_00: That year the 100 meter races was held on a Sunday, and that was his strongest event.
SPEAKER_00: Being a Scottish Presbyterian, Sundays were devoted to the Lord's work, and he wanted to set example not only to fellow Christians, but also to the unbelieving world.
SPEAKER_00: So he withdrew from that.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he competed in perhaps his weakest area of performance, the 200 and 400 meter events.
SPEAKER_00: He ran that day the 200 meter and he gained a bronze medal and then turned in a stellar performance the next day in the 400-meter race.
SPEAKER_00: He won gold.
SPEAKER_00: He not only won gold, but he also set a new Olympic and world record in the 400-meter foot race.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, some people contribute his falling of some athletes to his uh amazing speed for the 400.
SPEAKER_00: And they tripped trying to keep up with them.
SPEAKER_00: Two athletes fell in that race.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, God made Eric little for a purpose, but he also made him fast.
SPEAKER_00: And when he ran in the Olympics, he felt God's pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: God indeed also made another athlete, the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: God made Paul for a purpose to run perhaps a different race, the race of winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: And in running that race, he would feel God's pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a little background here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take you to 1 Corinthians 9.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to take you there to verse 19 so you can get a little background as to what Paul is planning to say.
SPEAKER_00: For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: To those who are under the law, and under the law, though not being myself under the law, so that I might win those who are under the law.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes on and he tells us the people that he wants to win for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, 21, 22, and 24.
SPEAKER_00: He uses terminology of not winning just a race, but winning people for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we think of this, it is very clear that God made the apostle Paul for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: He made him gifted and talented, and he made him smart so that he can run this race of winning, winning souls for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, Paul felt God's pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: The title of today's message is Run and Feel His Pleasure, and it's based on 1 Corinthians 9, 23 to 27.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read that for you from the English Standard Version.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23, I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I may share with them in its blessings.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run?
SPEAKER_00: But only one receives the prize.
SPEAKER_00: So run that you may obtain it.
SPEAKER_00: Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.
SPEAKER_00: They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
SPEAKER_00: So I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air.
SPEAKER_00: But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: It is clear that Paul gets his ideas from that games known as the Isthmian Games.
SPEAKER_00: It was a biennial event hosted near the city of Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: And athletes would come from all over the ancient world to compete in the foot races, the wrestling matches, boxing, throwing discus and javelin, the long jump, chariot racing, even poetry reading and singing in honor of the Greek god Poseidon.
SPEAKER_00: The athletes would come to Corinth at least one year ahead of the games to enroll in this rigorous process of preparing and training and other physical and mental exercises to get ready for the race a year later.
SPEAKER_00: These athletes all came to compete, but they all came with the resolve of winning a prize.
SPEAKER_00: That would require much discipline and much self-denial, but the reward of receiving that prize was so treasured.
SPEAKER_00: All the athletes, though, they needed to keep an eye on the target and the eye on the what the race is all about, or else if they lose aim and they're not precise in what they need to do, they would be disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at the passage here today, Paul is using athletic imagery, the imagery from the Isthmian Games, as an apt metaphor for the Christian's resolve, the Christian's reward, and the Christian's rigor of running a different race, and that is the race of winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: This, my dear brother, this passage is about soul winning and winning souls for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What I hope to teach you today from God's Word is that every Christian is made for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: God made every Christian with a set of gifts and talents, and they are to use those to run the soul-winning race, and in so doing they will fill his pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at verse 23 there.
SPEAKER_00: I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of that.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is setting himself as an example of winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants you and I to emulate him.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to run the soul-winning race with resolve and not half-heartedly.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to run the soul-winning race with the reward in mind so that we don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: And then thirdly, Paul wants us to employ the rigor required of running the soul-winning race so that we don't lose our hearts for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God made Paul for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: To become an active participant, not simply be a spectator or announcer or the guy in the skybox being a commentator on the side, far removed from the race.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ignorant that you, dear Christian, you are in a race?
SPEAKER_00: And this is a race that you need to run all out.
SPEAKER_00: There is no half-baked efforts here, and certainly there's no room to be a spectator or the commentator up in the skybox, but you must run with resolve as one who wants to win the prize.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul wrote this to the church in Corinth, the church there appeared to be more like spectators, more like the people up in the sky boxes, VIPs of some sort giving commentary on what is happening down there.
SPEAKER_00: These were people who did not see themselves as active participants in the race for willing souls, but rather to pursue their own passions and desires.
SPEAKER_00: If we turn back into chapter 8, we will see Paul addressing the people there for not insisting to eat what they want to eat for the sake of a weaker brother.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 7, he has to deal with them about divorce and marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just divorce and marry at womb here in verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, chapter 6, there were lawsuits because people felt wronged and they felt like suing another Christian would probably fix the problem.
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody wanted to express themselves sexually without judgment or correction.
SPEAKER_00: And so these folk here in Corinth insisted on their own rights.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted things their way.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to eat what they wanted to eat.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to marry who they wanted to marry, divorce who they wanted to divorce, sue who they wanted to sue.
SPEAKER_00: But their focus was wrong.
SPEAKER_00: They did not think that they were in a race for winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul wanted to teach these saints at Corinth to set aside rights and privileges so that people can get saved.
SPEAKER_00: And hence the words, do you not know?
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know?
SPEAKER_00: It's evident that you do not know.
SPEAKER_00: You do not know, Corinthian church, that God made you for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And that purpose is to run the race of winning souls for Christ with resolve.
SPEAKER_00: And if you run it, you will feel God's pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Run in such a way that you may win.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I I've never heard well, I'm pretty committed to watching the Summer Olympics.
SPEAKER_00: And the Winter Olympics.
SPEAKER_00: That's even cooler.
SPEAKER_00: I like it.
SPEAKER_00: Feels like North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: Run in such a way that you may win.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody goes to the Olympics and goes, yeah, I'm gonna run the 100-meter dash here, but I just want to finish it.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody gives that.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, I'm ready, I want gold.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody says I want bronze.
SPEAKER_00: Oh like, yeah, I'm running for gold today.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you and whose army?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, okay, we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_00: But everybody has somewhat a resolve to win the prize.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Christians do a lot of things with great resolve, and they should.
SPEAKER_00: They should do all things to the glory of God, 1 Corinthians 10, 31.
SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to the unsaved around them, there is less resolve.
SPEAKER_00: I've got this little booklet by Horatio Bonner.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Scottish minister in the 19th century.
SPEAKER_00: He died in 1889.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what he says in his book, A Message to Soul Winners.
SPEAKER_00: He says, How can we see thousands perish around us and our sleep never be disturbed?
SPEAKER_00: No vision of their awful doom even scaring us.
SPEAKER_00: No cry from their lost souls even turning our peace into bitterness.
SPEAKER_00: This pastor was perplexed at how he saints could be so indifferent to the eternal destinies of those around him.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps as if Horatio was living in our time today, he would say it's like somebody driving past a campground and there's a trailer, and the trailer's on fire, and there's children banging at the windows, and this burning fire, and you can't stand to see the agony.
SPEAKER_00: So what you do is you turn the window up and turn up the radio so you don't hear their screams.
SPEAKER_00: That's probably how he would have phrased it today.
SPEAKER_00: Because so many times in Christian history, the church has very little resolve to fulfill the mandate of winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: And yet that is the very race we are called to run.
SPEAKER_00: Soul winning certainly was something of a sideline event in the Corinthian church, and it's probably a sideline thing in many of today's churches.
SPEAKER_00: It's like Badminton or table tennis or the air pistol matches.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever you watch those and you on the edge of your seats, it's like I I'm gonna wake up at midnight to watch table tennis or the air pistol champions.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's like, oh I was glued to my seats, biting my nails.
SPEAKER_00: That table tennis is so riveting.
SPEAKER_00: No, but everybody gets up for the hundred-meter race, right?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants to see the hundred-meter sprint.
SPEAKER_00: That's the main event, and that's what soul willing ought to be for the Christian church.
SPEAKER_00: The main event, not these sideline things like curling.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, sorry, maybe I'm no curling is way too fast for me.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is gonna sting, dear brothers and sisters, so brace yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we do the VBSs, we do the five-day clubs, we go on short-term missions trips, and these are very important.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, we must.
SPEAKER_00: But what happens until next summer?
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps uh we got to think of what how active we are in the summer running the race for winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: But for the rest of the year are we kind of spectators?
SPEAKER_00: We take a little time out to rest and stretch.
SPEAKER_00: Horatio Moner's solemn warning would maybe awaken us from this apathy for the plight of the lost.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the soul and eternity of one man depends upon the voice of another.
SPEAKER_00: That's profound.
SPEAKER_00: People will not get saved unless somebody shares the gospel with them.
SPEAKER_00: The soul and eternity of one man depends on the voice of another man.
SPEAKER_00: And as we think about this, from going from summer to the next summer, in between, we must remember while we take a rest, hell never rests.
SPEAKER_00: Hell has an insatiable appetite to suck in one more soul.
SPEAKER_00: It craves to receive another uninformed soul.
SPEAKER_00: It never asks questions, it welcomes the unsuspecting and the ignorant.
SPEAKER_00: Run, dear brothers and sisters, that we may win the race.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the race about?
SPEAKER_00: It is about winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: And so we as Christians, we are made for a purpose to run the soul-winning race with resolve.
SPEAKER_00: This is a race not against time, it is a race against eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Eric Little's resolve will make us ponder for a moment at the opportunity of winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Eric Little said.
SPEAKER_00: He says, yes, we are all missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever we go, we either bring people nearer to Christ or we repel them from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We also are like, oh, well, I'm not a missionary, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I'm uh I'm just like an ordinary guy, just a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Not here to to evangelize people.
SPEAKER_00: That's not my job description.
SPEAKER_00: We are all missionaries, and we either bring people nearer to Christ or we push them away from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We must run the race and we must run it with resolve.
SPEAKER_00: There is no place here for the spectator.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we as Christians must run this race of winning souls with the reward in mind.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't keep the reward in mind, we will lose heart.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not an athlete.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not very athletic.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ask me to play games that involve round objects.
SPEAKER_00: I've got no ball sense.
SPEAKER_00: I can still run fast.
SPEAKER_00: But I think an apt illustration for me would be fishing.
SPEAKER_00: Muskie fishing or some elusive species of fish, right?
SPEAKER_00: Guys would sit there day and night like sturgeon.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people grow old waiting for a sturgeon at the end of the hook.
SPEAKER_00: And man, when they hook that sturgeon, they go and it's like pandemonium for about an hour.
SPEAKER_00: And then they pack up.
SPEAKER_00: Well, and then they throw the fish back and they go up and go home and they're like, let's do this next year again.
SPEAKER_00: But you gotta stick with it, but but you stick with it because you know the reward.
SPEAKER_00: As somebody once said, the tug is the drug, right?
SPEAKER_00: You sit there at the fishing water just waiting for that tug, and it's like that's a A lot of adrenaline.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of serotonin and dopamine when I get that little tug on the end of my fishing pole.
SPEAKER_00: It's very addictive.
SPEAKER_00: We are running a race not against time, but a race against where people will spend eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And we must keep the reward of a soul saved in the back of our minds.
SPEAKER_00: You see, God made you as a Christian with a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: He has gifted you, He has talented you, He has given you spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_00: You can run the race.
SPEAKER_00: Even a guy like me who's not very athletic, I am called to run this race of winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: But I keep this reward in mind, the sweet reward of a soul led to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That is infinitely rewarding.
SPEAKER_00: Infinitely rewarding.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe it was John Owen who said, most of us just don't stick with it, and we just don't ever have the satisfaction of the reward.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone who competes competes in the games exercises self-control in all things.
SPEAKER_00: They, the runners in the Isthian games, they run it to receive a perishable wreath.
SPEAKER_00: But we receive an imperishable reward.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at the word compete.
SPEAKER_00: Various translations.
SPEAKER_00: King James Version comp striveth.
SPEAKER_00: Striveth.
SPEAKER_00: Us V exercises.
SPEAKER_00: NIV competes, no matter which translation.
SPEAKER_00: This is imagery of arduous, strenuous, agonizing activity.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, fact check, the Greek verb here is agonitsumai.
SPEAKER_00: Men who have done 412 with me, agonitsu, right?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't there no guys?
SPEAKER_00: Agonitsu, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is this is agonized.
SPEAKER_00: Agonized.
SPEAKER_00: This is a race.
SPEAKER_00: It's agonizing, but it has sweet rewards.
SPEAKER_00: We strive, we compete, we agonize.
SPEAKER_00: And we receive the sweet reward.
SPEAKER_00: But those who plod along or sit in the skybox sipping cocktails, they never have the sweet reward of leading one soul to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You lead one soul to Christ, that reward is so sweet and so precious, you're like, let's do this again.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do this again.
SPEAKER_00: Dear brothers and sisters, we are not racing against each other.
SPEAKER_00: We're not competing against each other.
SPEAKER_00: We each running our own race.
SPEAKER_00: We each agonize and contend in our own sweet way.
SPEAKER_00: But we certainly must keep seeking the lost and lead them to Christ, and then we will taste that sweet reward.
SPEAKER_00: But this requires, verse 25, says, self-control in all things.
SPEAKER_00: Self-control in all things.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is very interesting, this idea of self-control in all things, because there are so many things that athletes say no to in order to win the prize.
SPEAKER_00: I will get back to that, but I want to show you something here about the sweet reward.
SPEAKER_00: About the sweet reward.
SPEAKER_00: It takes sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Think of Jesus, who in Philippians 2 says.
SPEAKER_00: It says of him, he emptied himself.
SPEAKER_00: Taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: But what did Jesus have in mind?
SPEAKER_00: The sweet reward of fulfilling the purpose of seeking and saving the lost.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 4 12, Jesus too set aside a lot of things, even sacrificed a lot of things, even sacrificed himself on a cross so that he could have the joy of redeeming souls and then sitting down at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 12, 2, who for the joy sit before him endureth the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The joy set before him sit endureth the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The amplified version says who for the joy of obtaining the prize or obtaining the reward endureth the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Athletes agonize and work hard.
SPEAKER_00: They set aside lots of things in order to win the prize.
SPEAKER_00: At the Isthmian Games, these athletes would say no to so many things and commit themselves to the sole purpose of winning their races only to receive a wreath.
SPEAKER_00: A wreath.
SPEAKER_00: And get this.
SPEAKER_00: The wreaths were made of parsley and celery.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
SPEAKER_00: All this work to put it on my burger patty?
SPEAKER_00: This is crazy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that thing would be withering by the time by the moments it's on your head.
SPEAKER_00: You walk away there, it withers.
SPEAKER_00: And the next morning it's all shriveled up.
SPEAKER_00: Like a month later, you're like, honey, what happened to my wreath?
SPEAKER_00: She's like, that thing, I sucked it up with the vacuum cleaner.
SPEAKER_00: It's gone.
SPEAKER_00: Your reward, dear brothers and sisters, for winning a soul is an imperishable wreath.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what is the imperishable wreath?
SPEAKER_00: There's so many options in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it may wreck our brains.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, James 1.12 speaks of the crown of life, speaking of eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Timothy 4.8 speaks of the crown of righteousness, perhaps referring to our eternal state of perfection.
SPEAKER_00: The reward in this passage, the wreath in this passage is not that.
SPEAKER_00: The reward is a soul saved.
SPEAKER_00: If we had to preach to thousands year after year, and never rescue but one soul, that one soul would be full reward for all our labor.
SPEAKER_00: For a soul is of countless worth, says Charles Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_00: If only one could get saved, that is a great reward because that reward goes into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: You see, there's two things that go into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: One, God's word, second, the soul that is saved.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 15, 10 says, there is joy in the presence of God's angels when even one sinner repents.
SPEAKER_00: You lead somebody to Christ, dear brother and sister.
SPEAKER_00: There are angelic cheers in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It reverberates down the halls of heaven, and the applause rumbles into the corridors of eternity, like the spectators at the games cheering at their favorite athletes.
SPEAKER_00: There's an eternal touchdown.
SPEAKER_00: There's an eternal touchdown every time you lead somebody to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Yes! Another wreath for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 69.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself so that when it's gone, you will be welcomed into their eternal dwellings.
SPEAKER_00: There too, speaking of the saved soul as something that goes into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And in a fact, he says, make for yourself friends.
SPEAKER_00: Friendships are good, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, most of the time, right?
SPEAKER_00: Friendships are good.
SPEAKER_00: Eternal friendships are even better.
SPEAKER_00: You make a friend for eternity, wow, that's a sweet reward.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, make sure you store up for yourself treasures in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: What would that be?
SPEAKER_00: I can't think of anything else than it's a soul saved for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Word of God or it's a saved soul.
SPEAKER_00: Can only be one of those two things.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only things you can take into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus too had this sweet reward in mind where he was fulfilling the Father's mission of seeking and saving the loss, and he endured the agonies of the cross, but yet he contemplated the sweet reward of the souls who will spend eternity with him.
SPEAKER_00: Eric Tolittle at the end of the games journalist uh uh interviewed him and they they they asked him something about his gold medal, and he says, it has been a wonderful experience to compete in the Olympic Games and to bring home a gold medal.
SPEAKER_00: But since I have been a young lad, I've had my eyes on a different prize.
SPEAKER_00: He was Scottish, that might have been a South African accent.
SPEAKER_00: So uh dear friend, little Eric Little had his eyes on a different prize, Paul had his eyes on a different prize, you and I have our eyes on a different prize.
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is we often strive and agonize for wealth, personal success, and I just want to remind you the rewards of that is a wreath of parsley.
SPEAKER_00: You may agonize and strive and endure and compete to have your comforts and your worldly pleasures when you want it, how you want it.
SPEAKER_00: But let me say this it's a wreath of celery.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be gone.
SPEAKER_00: But let me say to you store up for yourselves a treasure in heaven, a wreath in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And there where your wreaths are, there your heart will also be.
SPEAKER_00: You lead one sinner to Christ, it will change your perspective on life.
SPEAKER_00: Guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00: So, so far we've learned about the resolve of the Christian race of winning souls for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is agonizing at best.
SPEAKER_00: We learned of the uh the rewards of the race, and we know it is an everlasting reward.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's look at the rigor of the race, and hopefully we will be done here soon.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: Now he goes over to boxing.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Boxing.
SPEAKER_00: He says, but I discipline my body and make it make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself may not be disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should read to you verse 26 too to give you a bit of context here.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim.
SPEAKER_00: I box in such a way as not beating the air.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna flip verse 26 and 27 around just for clarity's sake here, but this is all about employing the rigor of running the race for winning souls.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I did some research on uh Olympic athletes, and I learned that they control their bodies very well.
SPEAKER_00: They are masters of their own bodies, their bodies aren't masters of them, they tell their bodies what to do, it's not the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's like Sunday after church.
SPEAKER_00: Food, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're hungry, we want to just feed it.
SPEAKER_00: No, Paul says here that we must make our bodies slaves.
SPEAKER_00: We master our own bodies.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the uh the that that word there is to give yourself a black eye.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a boxer punching himself, and he's like, You gotta listen now.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have that.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have a burger patty now with cheese and whatever.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta eat something healthy, like celery and parsley.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think an athlete that walks away with a gold medal, he is usually known, he or she is usually known, not for what they say yes to, but what they say no to.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem with Christianity, and in much of modern Christianity, we don't discipline ourselves, we don't discipline our bodies.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, we are slaves to our bodies and its appetites.
SPEAKER_00: We are indeed slaves of FOMO.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Christians often are people who feel safe in the arms of God, but they are slaves, they are short-sighted.
SPEAKER_00: They have no fear of hell, but they have fear of missing out.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we have no fear of hell, but we have fear of missing out.
SPEAKER_00: And in this fear of missing out, what do we miss out on?
SPEAKER_00: Running the race of winning souls for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Donald Whitney and his book Spiritual Disciplines, and this is something we're gonna deal with insteadfast, that new fellowship group that I believe is uh gonna be quite exquisite.
SPEAKER_00: Um Evangelism is a spiritual discipline, says Donald Whitney.
SPEAKER_00: He says, unless we discipline ourselves for evangelism, it is very easy to excuse ourselves from ever sharing the gospel with everyone.
SPEAKER_00: It is very easy to excuse ourselves for never sharing the gospel with anyone.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can I can think of 25 reasons why I won't share the gospel this afternoon with somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I gotta get home, I gotta rest, I gotta eat, I gotta eat more, I gotta make a latte for myself.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a hundred things.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And yet Christians are so short-sighted.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we plan for things that often have very little eternal value, and for the things that have eternal value, we put in no planning.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: You see, soul winning is something we have to discipline ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We got to say no to this so that we can save souls and evangelize people.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Christians don't plan for it, Christians are unprepared.
SPEAKER_00: And tragically, they find themselves when they are in a place to share the gospel, they find themselves a little out of shape, and maybe even fearful and a little unwilling to share the gospel, even when the opportunity is ripe.
SPEAKER_00: We gotta be like athletes, ready to run any time.
SPEAKER_00: And we it takes discipline.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one commentator says about this passage, he says, the Christians in Corinth were indecisive, half-hearted, out-of-shape Christians, who did almost nothing to prepare or equip themselves to witness to the lost, and consequently, they seldom did.
SPEAKER_00: You see, dear brothers and sisters, if we don't uh get our ducks in the row and start disciplining ourselves and start planning for it, there's a lot of souls who will enter eternity never hearing your voice speak the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back, let's circle back to verse 26, and then we will close before we are out of breath.
SPEAKER_00: This race is getting more like a marathon, right?
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I run in such a way as not without aim.
SPEAKER_00: I box in such a way as not beating the air.
SPEAKER_00: What I learned about the Isthmian Games, the race was about a 200-meter race.
SPEAKER_00: That was the main event.
SPEAKER_00: And there were four pillars every 50 yards or so.
SPEAKER_00: And on the pillar there was like an instruction.
SPEAKER_00: Do this, do this, do this.
SPEAKER_00: And you had to do it, or else you are disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, dude, just let the people run.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give them instructions.
SPEAKER_00: But that's apparently how it worked.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: There's even a point, turn.
SPEAKER_00: It's like you're running now, you gotta turn.
SPEAKER_00: That was one of the instructions.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't turn, you go straight, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You're disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta you gotta follow the plan here.
SPEAKER_00: He says, run in such a way as not without aim.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: I box in such a way as not to beat the air.
SPEAKER_00: Shadow boxing, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's like, quit the shadow boxing.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to make that punch count.
SPEAKER_00: Don't punch people when you evangelize them.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what it's saying.
SPEAKER_00: But Horatio Bonner says the conversion of our own souls is not to be spent aimlessly on ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But our own wreath birth is to be aimed as an instrument of saving others.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: How many of us aimlessly spend our salvation on ourselves, and we never aim ourselves as an instrument in the redeemon's hands to save others.
SPEAKER_00: You, dear brothers and sisters, and myself, we were bought with a price, we not our own.
SPEAKER_00: So we can't spend our salvation aimlessly on ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Our rebirth is to be aimed at saving others.
SPEAKER_00: We are to run this race with gospel precision.
SPEAKER_00: Gospel precision.
SPEAKER_00: Not beating the air like shadow boxers.
SPEAKER_00: We devote so much of our energies and we spend so much of our resources in churches today without aiming the target.
SPEAKER_00: We're aiming at the target.
SPEAKER_00: We beaten the air and hope somebody will get saved.
SPEAKER_00: How many people do you know got knocked out?
SPEAKER_00: Just airboxing.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you play we or Xbox, then you can knock somebody out without touching them.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Michael Orton said, and I love his book on recovering the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: He says, in all our efforts and all our attempts to reach the last, we are simply losing the reached.
SPEAKER_00: What he is saying is we are all about reaching people, but we don't come with aim.
SPEAKER_00: We don't come with precision.
SPEAKER_00: We don't let it land right where it should land.
SPEAKER_00: There's no gospel clarity, vagueness, and we reach people, but we don't make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he says our job is not to reach people, but to make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I reached this person with the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but how did you deliver a knockout punch there?
SPEAKER_00: Did they have clarity of what it means to be lost?
SPEAKER_00: Do they have clarity about what it means to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: Do they have clarity of how to get saved?
SPEAKER_00: Are we really?
SPEAKER_00: Ready and equipped to deliver good blows that explain justification by faith alone, through grace alone?
SPEAKER_00: Do we understand how to explain to people imputation?
SPEAKER_00: Can we distinguish to people what is sanctification and what is justification?
SPEAKER_00: Because if you mix those two up, that's aimless boxing.
SPEAKER_00: Do we know how to explain to a sinner what is the vicarious substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: These are not just simply big words invented by men with long beards.
SPEAKER_00: These are gospel essentials.
SPEAKER_00: And if we if we reach people and we don't give them the essence of the gospel and gospel essentials with great clarity, I think we are just running aimlessly and boxing aimlessly.
SPEAKER_00: And once again, if we don't run the race by the rules and we don't follow the instructions, Paul says you might be disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: Disqualification doesn't mean forfeiture of your own salvation, but it does mean that we forfeiture the opportunity of leading, not just reaching, leading someone to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You got to do it by the rules.
SPEAKER_00: So let's wrap this up.
SPEAKER_00: We've looked at the resolve of the race, the reward of the race, the rigor of the race.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see how Eric Little continued running for Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: After the Summer Olympics in 1924, Eric Little continued to run a race, but this time a different race.
SPEAKER_00: He went off to China as a missionary to win souls for Christ, and he would do so nonstop for 20 years.
SPEAKER_00: He granted himself two short furloughs.
SPEAKER_00: The last furlough that he granted himself was to go back to Mother England to take his family back home, because by 1939 the winds of war was building.
SPEAKER_00: But he promptly returned to China despite ample warnings that a Japanese invasion is imminent.
SPEAKER_00: But little remained resolved to run the race of winning souls for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In 1941, he was captured by the Japanese and interned in an internment camp.
SPEAKER_00: But even in his internment, he would run the race of winning souls for Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: By 1945, he was malnourished, overworked, and suffering of an inoperable brain tumor.
SPEAKER_00: And he continued to run the race.
SPEAKER_00: And he tasted many sweet rewards of souls being saved for Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Little would eventually complete his race on February 21st, 1945, five months actually, before the liberation of China by the American airmen.
SPEAKER_00: And people have so many stories of Little's life, but they have so many stories about the noticeable void in the internment camp after his death.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, if we consider the Apostle Paul and we consider Eric Little's race of winning souls for Christ, then we can say they did run it with the resolve of winning the prize and tasting the sweet rewards, the eternal rewards.
SPEAKER_00: And they also applied themselves to the rigor of the race, aiming at getting souls from the clenches of hell.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because souls are infinitely, infinitely precious.
SPEAKER_00: Dear brothers and sisters, God made you for a purpose.
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you, when you run this race of winning souls for Christ, you will feel his pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray and thank Lord the Lord for his graciousness to save us.
SPEAKER_00: May we run, Jesus, to feel your pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: May we be a people who are not fearful of hell, but we are fearful of missing health.
SPEAKER_00: Let's set aside these lesser important things and pursue what is important.
SPEAKER_00: Let us use our voices to call sinners to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk to them about what it means to be lost and what it means to be saved and what it means to run the race.
SPEAKER_00: Let us be a people, Lord, that uh that are the pleasant feet that bring the message of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Let us be the blessed feet that bring the gospel to people because faith comes through hearing, hearing the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we know that we cannot run this race of winning souls without your help.
SPEAKER_00: We do it for you, but we do it with you, and we do it through you.
SPEAKER_00: And lo, you are with us until the end of the age.
SPEAKER_00: So we can run and be encouraged and be strengthened through Him who strengthens us with all power and grace, so that we may run this race and feel your pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Help us in this great work.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
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