Title: Olympians Remove Any Hindrances
Text: Hebrews 12:1
The Big Idea: Spiritual Olympians, with a “go for the goal” mindset, remove any hindrances.
Series: Spiritual Olympians: Going for the Goal, is based on Hebrews 12:1-13 and designed to coincide with the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, August 8 – 24 and beyond. It is a series developed from Go for the Goal: Become a Spiritual Champion, Mainstay Ministries.
Introduction
The ancient Olympic Games were primarily a part of a religious festival in honor of Zeus, the father of the Greek gods and goddesses and held in Olympia, which was the site of the Sanctuary of Zeus. (www.museum.upenn.edu/new/olympics/olympic origins.shtml)
Over the centuries, the Games have become a very secular event as well as a platform for protesting whatever it is protestors think needs protested… I am hoping that in the next few weeks we will be able to use the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing as a springboard to launch a spiritual event in our lives.
Last week I spoke of the preparations China made for Beijing 2008. In addition to the actual building of the sites where the Olympic Games will be held, China has been working hard to polish its image before the watching world. However, there is another kind of preparation that has been in the works for, in some cases, years. Yesterday we saw Dara Torres, who won her first gold medal when she was 17, win a silver medal in the 400 meter freestyle relay at the age of 41. She not only won a silver medal but set a new Olympic record as the oldest swimmer ever to win an Olympic medal. Dara Torres has been preparing for competition for over 24 years.
Originally, Olympians were required to arrive at the city of Elis one month before the games began… it was something of the first Olympic Village. Would be Olympians participated in a grueling training regime that served to weed out athletes who could not meet Olympic standards of fitness and skill. (Stefan Lovgren, Ancient Olympics Mixed Naked Sports, Pagan Partying, NationalGeographic.com, August 13, 2004)
This summer there are 55 athletes from Colorado who will be competing in the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. They have most recently been preparing at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
The preparation for being an Olympian is rigorous:
• Olympians train every day. They are not couch potatoes all week and then hit the gym on Saturday morning.
• Olympians train with their eyes on the prize. A Colorado Olympian may be swimming in the Olympic pool in Colorado Springs but his or her heart is in Beijing.
• Olympians are specific in their training… weight lifters lift, runners run, wrestlers wrestle.
• Olympians fuel their bodies for peak performance. While I may look at food as an enemy, an athlete looks at food as essential nutrient and caloric intake as fuel for competition.
• Olympians know when to rest… they know they can over train and break down their bodies rather than build them up.
• In addition, Olympians constantly work on developing and maintaining perfect form. Divers cannot cannonball off the high board. (Paige Waehler, Train Like an Olympian, Abrout.com, April 5, 2006)
In one sense, becoming an Athlete Olympian is different than becoming a Spiritual Olympian. Olympic marathon runners prepare for an extended time before they actually run their race. Spiritual Olympians, on the other hand, are already in their races.
We are already in the race. The Christian life and the life of living out one’s faith is not something for which we prepare. In fact, quite to the contrary. Often when we come to Christ, our lives are hardly marked by the warm glow of spiritual grooming and godliness. Our text today is not about how you can prepare for the race… it more about what to do now that you realize you are in a race.
It’s like we are suddenly made aware that we are in a race… we look up and see that we are surrounded by a vast crowd of witnesses to our life of faith.
The watches are cheering us on and want us to do well. So, what does a person who is willing to adopt the “go for the goal” mindset of the Spiritual Olympian do?
The first word of instruction is about an action we take or do.
1. Spiritual Olympians understands that some things are hindrances in the Christian life and that those things must go.
The text is variously translated:
• Let us strip off… NLT
• Let us throw off… NIV
• Let us lay aside… KJV
It is said that the ancient Olympians competed in the nude. There are varying explanations, among them the Wikipedia people suggest it was weather related… it was hot so they ran naked. They also suggest it was part of the Greek celebration of the achievements of the human body.
I don’t think anyone really knows, but one story has it, a runner lost his loincloth and tripped on it, after which everyone ran in the nude to avoid tripping on their shorts. (Stefan Lovgren, Ancient Olympics Mixed Naked Sports, Pagan Partying, NationalGeographic.com, August 13, 2004)
Perhaps that was the motivation of the nude-jogging priest from Frederick, CO who received a summons from the Frederick police at 4:30 a.m. while walking home from jogging on the Frederick High School track. (Mike McPhee and John Ingold, denverpost.com, August 9, 2008)
The point is that Spiritual Olympians are in a race for a lifetime… a lifelong marathon. Athletes who run marathons tend to travel light. But Americans, in general, have no concept of traveling light. How many of you are over-packers? They used to refer to hobos as bindle stiffs. Bindle stiffs carried their bedrolls or their belongings tied up in a bundle on the end slung over a shoulder. They knew how to travel light.
These days the airlines are giving us a crash course in traveling light. American Airlines began the trend and United, U.S. Air, and others have followed suit. United announced in June that passengers would be charged $15 to check one bag and $25 to check a second bag. The result has been traveling lighter and stuffing the overhead carry-on bins tighter.
So we are in a marathon race and perhaps even painfully aware that we are not at all traveling light and we need to get rid of some excess baggage if we intend to live the Christian life well. What do we get rid of? What do we strip off? What do we throw off? What do we lay aside?
The second aspect of our instruction is about identification… identifying what it is that must be stripped off. There are two kinds of things we need to identify and remove.
2. Spiritual Olympians understand that not everything is sinful but not everything is helpful in the living out of one’s faith. Some things are “friction factors” that hold us back.
• Let us strip off everything that slows us down… NLT
• Let us throw off everything that hinders… NIV
• Let us lay aside every weight… KJV
Wouldn’t it be nice if God were a bit more specific? “Everything” is not everything. Everything refers to those things that keep us from running a great spiritual marathon. The Spiritual Olympian does not strip off everything… just the things that hinder. Everything is referred to as “weight.”
Weight or “onkos” means bulk or mass, which translates as any encumbrance, hindrance, impediment, or burden that hampers our progress.
At this point it can get a little dicey… who decides what is necessary and what is unnecessary weight? Who decides what hinders your walk of faith and what does not?
In athletic competition it is rather easily decided. You don’t run in high heels unless of course, you are in a High-Heel Race. In July Kelly Ripa of Live with Regis and Kelly, along with 500 other women and a smattering of men, ran a 150-yard course in New York’s Central Park for a $25,000 first prize purse. It was a High-Heel-A-Thon to raise money for March of Dimes. Generally, running shoes are preferred to high heels in a foot race. (Liz Downey, Regis and Kelly Host High Heel Race, FOXNEWS.com, July 9, 2008)
And you don’t wear a sweat suit, jogging suit, or even one of those tear-away warm-ups worn by professional basketball players. In fact, nearly every sport has what they now call a body suit. Runners, swimmers, skaters, skiers… they all wear only what will enhance their ability to race. Speedo makes a “Fast Skin” body suit for swimmers that reduces water friction for swimmers. Nike makes a “Swift Skin” body suit that reduces wind friction for skaters.
Many have their eyes on Olympic swimmer, Michael Phelps, who is in the running to top Mark Spitz’s Olympic achievements of 1972. One commentator cites the differences between swimming in 1972 and 2008 like this: “Times are faster, technology is better…” (Pamela Barone, NBCOlympics.com, Phelps has already made his mark, July 15, 2008) In 1972, Mark Spitz wore a “Speedo.” In 2008, Michael Phelps may wear a “Fast Skin” body suit and he may swim faster than a man can swim in his own skin. For the swimmer, his or her own skin may be a friction factor. Speedo or Fast Skin… no matter, he won the gold yesterday in swimming the 400 meter medley in a record breaking time of 4:07.
When I was a youth pastor in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, my senior pastor passionately opposed camping that took congregants away every weekend during the camping season. He felt camping was a hindrance to faithfulness in church attendance and the pursuit of godliness. And he had little time for the old argument about feeling just as close to God at the campground as in church with the faith community. It’s easy to pick a poison and point a finger… here in Colorado we could label any number of seasonal activities as hindrances to one’s spiritual progress. However, I don’t know that “friction factors” are that easily identified.
I will be honest with you about my “friction factors.” It may or may not surprise you that every morning I have to decide what is the most important or best way to begin my day.
My inclination is to read the Denver Post, check and answer my e-mail, go online and check out aol.com and msn.com to catch up on the latest news, read the online edition of The New York Times, clear my desk, and get busy.
None of those things are bad things to do, but if I do them at the expense of my daily practice of reading and prayer prior to planning my day, they are friction factors. They become weights that hinder my spiritual progress.
The very first thing on my daily ”Prioritized Task List” is “Solitude and Planning.” Solitude and planning is my “Fast Skin” or my “Swift Skin.” It’s what I put on to speed me through the day… it’s my way of beginning with and going with God each day. If it is necessary to simplify my day, let it not be at the expense of my daily quiet time with God. There are many, many friction factors to be laid aside in order to reduce any hindrances to spiritual growth
David Mains suggests these kinds of things are “choices we make that repeatedly infringe on spiritual priorities.” It could be something as simple as watching too much television, talking too much on the cell phone, reading unimportant books, watching mindless videos, playing video games for hours and end, surfing the web, hobbying, shopping for the sake of shopping, and so on. (David Mains, Remove Any Hindrances, Sermon 2A, P. 3)
As I said earlier, this is where it becomes a little dicey. Who makes the list of “friction factors”? Only you can determine what is a hindrance to your spiritual progress. So how do we respond to this teaching?
The desired response is to identify one’s own “friction factors” and do something about them.
• Identify the things that are complicating your life. What extraneous things are slowing your spiritual progress down… things that consume your time and attention? What extraneous things keep you from your pursuit of Christ likeness?
• Simplify… cut back on or even eliminate those things that are hindering your spiritual growth.
The second thing we are urged to identify and remove are “signature sins.”
3. Spiritual Olympians understand that some things, if not “disqualifiers” in living out the life of faith, are “signature sins” that block spiritual progress.
• Especially the sin that so easily trips us up… NLT
• And the sin that so easily entangles… NIV
• And the sin that doth so easily beset us… KJV
There are various words that describe the effect of sin in our lives as Spiritual Olympians in pursuit of the goal is telling… when I checked for synonyms on onlinethesaraus.com, I found that our understanding of being “beset” includes images of being assailed, attacked, bedeviled, beleaguered, besieged, blocked, bugged, harassed, hedged, hemmed, or ringed in, hounded, infected, obstructed, pestered, plagued, surrounded, and tormented.
In sprints, runners generally have well-defined lanes they must stay in either for the entire race or until the designated place for lane changes. However in distance races, that is not the case, runner often run bunched up until someone eventually breaks out of the pack and the runners begin to string out and strategize their races.
In 1982, Mary Decker was favored to win the Olympic gold in the 3,000 meter race… perhaps you remember or have seen footage of Zola Budd passing Decker on the turn just after 1,600 meters. Decker was on the rail, Budd was uncomfortably close, barely ahead, and drifting to the inside. Budd’s teammate was on Decker’s right when Budd stepped in front of Decker. Decker, was boxed in. She broke stride but still collided with Budd and fell on the curb injuring her hip. Unable to finish the race and hopelessly behind, Decker was carried from the track. (wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Decker)
That is the image of a besetting sin… a besetting sin besieges you. In sports like skating and biking blocking and boxing in are strategies to control and stymie the efforts of an opponent. A besetting sin hems you in. It blocks you. It trips you up so you fall. The “sin that besets” you does not just slow you down – it blocks and even stops your progress.
Once again, wouldn’t it be nice if God was more specific? Wouldn’t it be nice if God gave us some labels or named the sins so we would know what sins trip us up and what sins do not? Interestingly enough, God does. God says sin is what so easily besets us and trips us up. Sin… not just the biggies like murder or adultery. Not just the obvious ones linked with addictive behavior… all sin.
I introduced to you the concept of “friction factors” as things that are not necessarily bad things but do serve to slow us down and hinder our spiritual progress. David Mains of Mainstay Ministries suggests the term “signature sin” to help us understand the effect of besetting sin in the life of a Spiritual Olympian.
Certainly, all sin is a bad thing for a Spiritual Olympian. But for most of us there is a sin that is particularly besetting… it is our “signature sin.” Our signature sin is the sin that we struggle with all the time. It may be an addiction or obsession, a habit, an attitude, a bias, a critical spirit, a temper, selfishness, gossip, bitterness, being untruthful, impatience, an envious spirit, internet porn, self-righteousness... and the list goes on and on and on. The dessert buffet of delectable “signature sin” goodies is long and piled high with things that are very bad for a Spiritual Olympian.
A signature sin basically keeps us in chains. In a book titled Teaching the Elephant to Dance, the author tells how elephant trainers chain young elephants to stakes driven deeply into the ground. Once an elephant becomes conditioned to the idea that he cannot escape from the stake, the elephant will never try to leave, even though they could easily pull up the stake and walk away. Spiritual Olympians understand that “signature sins” are not unbreakable chains. The spiritual Olympian who truly desire to do so, can walk away from a signature sin.
How may we respond to the challenge to strip off every sin or break the chain that besets us and trips us up in our pursuit of Christ likeness?
The desired response to this word from God is to identify and target the signature sin that consistently trips you up…
• Confess it and seek God’s help and the support of others.
• Face it head on… resist it until the urge passes.
• Set one-week goals to achieve victory over your signature sin.
• Celebrate each victory… it feels good to win.
• Continue to rely on the power of God’s Spirit to transform you into a Spiritual Olympian.
Conclusion:
Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy. Wilma was the 20th of 22 children. She was premature and not expected to live, but she did. When she was four years old she contracted double pneumonia and scarlet fever, which resulted in paralysis of her left leg, which necessitated the wearing of a brace. When she was nine years old she removed her brace and began walking without it. By the time she thirteen she had developed a rhythmic walk. She tried running and for the next four years she lost every race she ran. Then she won a race and another and another until she became an Athletic Olympian. Paul Harvey would say, “And that’s the rest of the story.”
We are not unlike Wilma Rudolph. We have hindrances that hold us back but we are in the race and with God’s help, we will remove the weights that hinder us, the sins that beset us, become Spiritual Olympians, and finish the face set before us.
