Text: 1 Cor 9:23-27, Title: Olympic Glory, Date/Place: NRBC, 5/15/11, AM
A. Opening illustration: Shoot for an “A” next time…British athletes 10,000 training for Olympics
B. Background to passage: On the heels of his two chapter discussion on the willing limitation of Christian freedom for the sake of other disciples and unbelievers, Paul gives us a wonderful illustration that compels us to consider sporting events and our Christian lives. This illustration here relates to the laying down of the “right” to eat in temples and doing everything for the sake of the gospel, but it is so applicable to the entirety of the Christian’s walk with Christ.
C. Main thought: Do you run to win? Are you in the Christian life to spectate? Is your Christian life just flailing along in laziness, flabbiness, outta shape, and without clear purpose?
A. Motivation (v. 23-25, 27)
1. Paul tells the Corinthians that they must run the Christian life race to win the prize. What is the prize that they should strive (agonize) to obtain? The imperishable crown is that of our inheritance—eternal life—the prize of the race of the Christian life. He later shows that he runs to obtain, but tells them to as though they weren’t (they were flaunting liberty, not focusing on the goal, but on themselves). And herein lies the danger. The first motivation is not Paul’s competitive nature, but eternal life itself. In v. 23 Paul says that he lives the way he does “so that” he could be a partaker in the gospel. Later in v. 27 he says that he doesn’t want to be disqualified (which mean that the judges didn’t think that he had put in the required 10 month training) and cannot run at all. The model here is that of a player-coach, Paul is a coach in that he is constantly calling, encouraging, training, strategizing, and equipping others to get into the ran. He is also a player in that he is already in the race himself. And what is at stake in their agonizing to win the prize is salvation. Now we don’t have a works salvation, so it is not as though Paul must agonize to win the prize to earn or maintain his salvation; but so that his life will display the reality of the transformation. Paul does not think that he may lose his salvation, but that he may not have it to begin with. Paul doesn’t want to be one of those that has run the race in vain, and will hear, “Depart from me…” His training and running hard is evidence of his being on the narrow and difficult path. It shows that Christ is the center of his universe, and the desire of his soul, which is the earmark of the Christian life (not the desire to get out of hell).
2. So in some sense the second motivation is the same as the first, but I want to come at it from a different angle. He says that those who train and run in the Olympic Games do to obtain a laurel wreath that will disintegrate in days, but we some thing that is eternal—Jesus Christ and all that is in Him. So Paul’s motivation is not only a warning about whether or not he truly possesses Christ, but the sheer joy, peace, and satisfaction that comes in Christ.
3. Paul’s goal in the race was to put on display the reality of his salvation in Christ, and make much of the joy, sufficiency, power, wisdom, and worth of Jesus~
4. 1 Cor 15:2, 2 Cor 6:1, Philip 2;16,
5. Illustration: Jonathan keeping count of how many goals that he scores, softball team hoping just not to get the slaughter rule used on us, the underground Chinese seminary that made students memorize a chapter a day, and jump from two-story buildings in preparation for escape and death, the seriousness in which Adoniram Judson asked his future father-in-law to give him his daughter in marriage, Don’t Waste Your Life, p. 158,
6. The Christian life is deadly serious. It is not a playground, but a battleground. It is not the lazy river at Wild Adventures, but the mighty Mississippi in flood stage. It is not a “no-pads” run-through, but the Superbowl. It is not shooting clay targets, but live targets that shoot back, and whose mission is to kill you no matter what. It’s not a cool summer breeze, but an F5 tornado. And if you approach life as a spectator, or as an untrained, undisciplined, low-priority, low-intensity, low-commitment, low-everything with a life full of sin, full of waste, full of idols, and all sorts of other things that are your true treasures other than Christ, it may reveal that you are not really transformed. And of course no one thinks that when they make a commitment to Christ, they will quit, but if they do, they should be worried. Their life testifies against them.
7. So don’t simply serve the Lord out of fear, but out of thrill. He is tastier than any pleasure in life. He is more satisfying than any desire ever. Inheriting Him will be a billion years of absolute, ever-increasing pleasure and mind-blowing satisfaction in Christ. Joy here? Yes, for sure, circumstance-overcoming, sin-killing, countenance-lifting, understanding-passing, strength-giving, soul-sustaining joy here, but 10,000X more in the life to come. Serve Christ for joy, not simply fear. He is the best and the highest and the greatest!!!! And that pleasure found in Him will help you turn away from earthly pleasures and have them fade away in the light of His glorious being!
B. Application (v. 25-27)
1. How do we do it? How do we run to obtain the prize of the high-calling of Jesus Christ? If you are truly saved, you want to run like that, you want to be insatiably thirsty for Him to the point that it throws your whole life into a single-minded passion to live for Him, worship Him, serve Him, love Him, right? Wish I could give you a silver-bullet that would allow you to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle in the lap of the flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize and sail through bloody seas. But as Piper says, “No, how could you ever want such a thing?” Because we are Americans, and human beings. Paul’s solution is this: beat your body into submission. Hoist the sails of discipline in your life by faith to catch the mighty wind of the Spirit of God as He transforms you into the image of Christ. He instructs them by example to exercise Spirit-fueled (Gal 5:22) self-control and restraint, giving the body a black eye continually and making your body a servant of your spirit rather than the other way around.
2. Argumentation
3. Illustration: “The serious athlete doesn't ask about how to just get by in his training. He asks about what will bring about maximum performance. So the mature Christian asks, what will make me most useful for the kingdom? What will stir up my zeal for God most? What will intensify my earnestness in prayer? What will trigger more hunger for God's word? What will strengthen my longing to love? What will fan the flames of my passion for holiness?” –Piper, “Essentially my life revolves around skating when I'm competing,” he said. “So everything I eat, everything that I do, everything revolves around my recovery…Training for an Olympic Games is very difficult. Some athletes are able to really balance their lives and they can do a lot of separate things, but for me I was very intently focused on what I was doing at the time and I wouldn't allow myself to really do anything else.” –Apollo Ohno, “Following Jesus simply means learning from him to arrange my life around activites that enable me to live in the fruit of the Spirit. Spiritual disciplines are to life, what practice is to the game.” –Ortberg, “Adopting a training paradigm requires structuring our lives around the means that will keep the vision of the good and sovereign God before us and the intention to conform our lives to this reality.” –Ogden,
4. We must seize the areas in our lives of excess and waste, and curb them. Put to death by the Spirit the deeds of the body (Rom 8:13). We must say to our bodies, “no, you do NOT have to have _____.” We must fast, pray, memorize, read, serve, etc. We must practice the spiritual disciplines that we know of. And when we fall down, we get back up. And when we fall again, know that His grace is waiting there for you, and you go again! And you get some accountability if that is what you need to overcome. Get some brothers and sisters in the Lord that will help give you the broken face that you need to make your body serve you. It is work! It is hard (if you are dealing with the real messiness in your life). No pain, no gain applies here! But with a twist, ever pain you experience will be rewarded by a greater pleasure. You will never be eternally sorry when you suffer, sacrifice, or refrain for Jesus! And it’s long-term! You fight and you fight and you fight, till you can’t fight no more, and you fight some more. And by faith you will have the victory or die trying, but that death will be sweet, and it will provide a wonderful testimony of the genuineness of your faith, and the fact that when you passed from life to death, you did not meet your Judge, but your Treasure and the Lover of your soul! And your passing was not really from life to death, but from death to life! So let us go forth outside the camp and suffer for Him and with Him, cutting off the hands, gouging out the eyes by the Spirit and the Word, and let our lives reflect His beauty and glory so that the whole world may know Him. So with this passion, we can cut off our internet if need be; get up 30 minutes early, if need be; stop watching NCIS and numbing our brains, if need be; come to church on Sunday night if need be; give with fresh commitment; put down chocolate if need be (Edwards monitored his diet, rest, everything); do whatever it takes to let our bodies serve us, and advance Christ’s cause in the world, and win the prize, that imperishable inheritance.
A. Closing illustration: Story of Tasha Danvers
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• Is Christ Exalted, Magnified, Honored, and Glorified?
