Sports are a big part of the American way of life. We admire athletes for their drive, their determination, their dedication to the game, and the contribution they make to their team and to the sport as a whole. And these are good things.
Christians Are Like Athletes
The Christian life is a lot like the life of an athlete. In fact this comparison is drawn several times in the Bible. I Corinthians 9:24, Galatians 2:2, and 5:7, and Hebrews 12:1 all use running a race as an allusion for the Christian life. Let’s look more closely at one of these.
1 Corinthians 9:23-25 (New International Version) says:
23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
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.
25 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.
The Isthmos games were held every two years at Corinth, similar to the Olympic games held every 4 years at Olympia. The most important part of these was a horse race, but another very popular event, especially to the common folk of the times, was a grueling foot race, a pentathlon. It is thought to be this race that Paul refers to in this passage, for there were no silver or bronze medals, only a single winner who received a crown as King of the race. And athletes who were entering the race would arrive many weeks before to train for the race by running the course and practicing the skills employed in the race. They focused on a single goal: to win.
Not a Competition?
Now, some people take offense to the notion that the Christian life would be a competition, or that there are rewards to be earned, and will say “I don’t care about rewards, I don’t serve Jesus to get a prize, I do it because I love him and because he gave me salvation.” And that’s fine, I don’t think we need to become like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who believe that only the 144,000 most productive souls will be raised to heaven to live with God when the end comes, all others who are “saved” will live in a paradise on Earth (they get this thought from Revelations 14:1-5 by the way) and so they are in tense competition with one another to obtain as many converts as possible in their lifetime.
And we must be clear that we are running for a heavenly reward, not the accolades of man. For Matthew 6:1-2 (New International Version) says:
1 “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
But it is clear that we are expected to make productive use of our time and abilities. We are expected to “run the race with diligence”.
Using Our Talents
I liken it to the Parable of the Talents that Jesus told as related in Matthew 25. You know the story: a wealthy man was going away on a journey and he gave each of his 3 servants some of his money to look after, two of them invested the money and when their master came back they returned what he had given them and a healthy return. But the third servant buried the money he was given and when his master returned, he gave back only what he was given originally. The master was very displeased with the servant and called him evil and lazy.
In the same way, God has given each of us talents, not gold coins but abilities, that we are expected to invest and manage while our master, Jesus, is away on His journey. When He returns, He will expect us to give an account of how we have managed what He entrusted to us.
Romans 14:11-12 (New International Version) says:
11 It is written:
” ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.’ “[a] 12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
There will come a time, after the end of days, after the rapture when all of God’s children will stand before the throne of God and give an accounting of their lives. This has nothing to do with salvation. We will not have to argue our way into heaven based on how we lived our lives. Bible is clear that no one can earn their way into heaven with good works alone. This accounting will take place in heaven, we’re already there.
But, what did we do with our lives and our abilities? Did we serve only ourselves, promoting our own interests or did we serve the will of God and promote Jesus as Lord and fulfill His instructions to us concerning our interaction with the world? Or did we bury our abilities and do nothing at all with them, squandering what we were given?
This will be the awards ceremony at the great throne of God. Those who have trained hard and run the race diligently will be rewarded for their efforts.
If you were going to run in a physical foot race, would you just show up on the day of the race with no training at all? If you did, would you expect to win… or even to perform well? Probably not.
How To Train For the Race
Any athlete, regardless of the sport they participate in – with the possible exception of Ping-Pong – trains. They spend time practicing the sport, building their physical strength and endurance. They condition their bodies by eating the right foods, avoiding the wrong foods, and developing an attitude or mind set that will encourage them to do their best and not give up until they cross the finish line.
In my youth I was a distance runner: cross country, 1 mile relay, 880, 440. I know, you’re wondering how a stumpy little fellow like me could ever have competed seriously in foot racing, but in my day I was actually pretty good. Of course at that time, I was a twig and my coach used to say that the reason I could run so fast was that I had absolutely no wind resistance at all! But the truth was that I trained – a lot. We lived out in the country and there were an almost unlimited amount of lonely country back-roads spreading out in all directions from our home. My brother and I would go out and run these roads together. We were very competitive; my brother and I, and we challenged one another all the time. And it made us both that much better for the effort.
As Christians we need to train for the race. We need to challenge one another occasionally, to encourage each other to step up our pace. All too often I hear people when asked to participate in some church activity say “Oh, no, I can’t… I’m just too busy, I don’t have the time. I just can’t.” And yet I know that if they’d been asked to go out for a meal or to see a movie, they’d have made the time to go. They can find the time to do things they want to do, but time is a convenient excuse for getting out of things they aren’t so keen on.
Maybe “training” for you (or me) would be getting out of bed 30 minutes earlier every morning so we could spend some time with God’s word and in prayer before we head out on our day. Maybe “training” would be to turn off the television set for an hour a couple of evenings a week and visit with someone you know who is ill or in need of encouragement. Maybe “training” means devoting some time and effort to actually going to that neighbor of yours and talking to them about what a wonderful place Heaven is and how to get there, or serve in a soup kitchen, or deliver food and supplies to the needy, or… well you get the idea.
These things are hard! Training is hard work. It takes effort to run well. Sometimes it means making sacrifices.
We Are What We Consume
We must also be careful about our consumption. An athlete is careful to eat only nourishing foods. And in the same way that what we eat will have an effect on our bodies, what we watch or read, the conversations we engage in and the things we spend time thinking about will affect the way we live our lives. The way we think. The things that are important to us. We can not expect to run a good race for Christ if we gorge ourselves on spiritual junk food.
So much of what the modern world offers as entertainment is violent, pornographic, hateful, and pagan. It’s hard to avoid. But there are alternatives. And it is up to us to choose what we will consume, what kind of thinking we will partake of and add to our personal psychological makeup.
Training is hard! But it’s worth it. If the goal means anything to you at all, you will want to do your best.
Why We Compete
Sometimes when we compete in sports as young people we do it because of the personal challenge, sometimes it’s also a matter of making our parents proud of us. We want to do well for them as much as for ourselves. We want to make our heavenly Father proud of us don’t we? When standing before the throne and our traveling Master takes an accounting of our life, we want Him to say, “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into your reward.” not “You wicked, lazy slave, you have squandered that which I gave you.”
We all have abilities. We all, regardless of our age or experience, or intelligence, or financial status, or physical ability, have God-given talents. How are you using your talents? Are you investing them wisely in the matters of God, or have you buried them in the back yard?
