RUNNING YOUR RACE TO THE FINISH LINE
Introduction:
Do you realize that the key to effective Christian living is to look at your life as a race. That’s how the Apostle Paul looked at it. He said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (II Tim. 4:7)
Every morning when you wake up you have a choice. You can choose not to run, but if you don’t run you can’t win. Secondly, you can choose to run but not run your best; and if you don’t run your best you are sure to lose. And thirdly, you can choose to run, run your best, and strive for the prize by focusing in the finish.
ILLUS: High school football player
- That’s exactly what the Apostle Paul wanted us to do in this passage of Scripture.
- If you are going to run your race and win your race, you are going to have to focus on the finish.
READ GALATIANS 6:7-10
- If you are to remember that you are in a race and that you are headed for the victor’s crown. Then you will need to remember 3 actions that you must take in order to reach the finish line as a winner.
I. DON’T GIVE IN TO SINNING- vs. 7-8
- “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked.” Vs. 7a
- Satan is a liar and the father of lies and if there is one thing that he would like to tell you it is that you can sin and get away with it.
- This verse could also be translated, “Don’t fool yourself”
- We are living in a generation today who has fooled themselves into thinking they can sin and get away with it.
- THINK ABOUT IT: If people really thought that they could NOT get away with their sin, they would do their best NOT to sin. Psalm 10:11 tells us the reason why people do sin, “He has said in his heart, ‘God has forgotten; He hides his face, he will never see it.”
- But we are plainly told, “God is not mocked”
- Mock = root meaning, “pig snout.” In other words, Paul is saying, “You can’t thumb your nose up at God. He cannot be fooled.”
- It is an insult to the knowledge and character of God for you to think that you can sin and get away with it.
- You can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool God any of the time.
- Why is it that you cannot get away with your sin?
- 7b, “for whatever a man sows, that will he also reap.”
- This is the law of the harvest, the principles of sowing and reaping
- A man always reaps exactly what he sows.
- ILLUS: Boy in tree…apples but should have been pears.
- If you sow corn, you will not reap strawberries. You reap exactly what you sow.
- The harvest is always the product of the seed.
- If you sow the seeds of sin you will reap the harvest of sorrow.
- Job 4:8, “Even as I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble will reap the same.
- Now, Paul says you have 2 options: You can sow to the field of the flesh or you can sow to the field of the spirit.
- READ vs. 8
- If you sow to the flesh, that reaps corruption…that word corruption refers to decaying food. Has the idea of degenerating and rotting. Sin putrifies, degenerates the human soul. Sin sours our salvation. It robs us of joy.
- That’s what happens when you backslide. A backslidden Christian is someone who has sowed the wrong seed, in the wrong field, and done the wrong thing and is now reaping the wrong reward.
- It doesn’t matter whether you’re saved or not….If you are bound to sin, you are bound to suffer.
- ILLUS: If you as a Christian…go out and drink…drive home, wrap car around tree…God will forgive you…but you will still only have one arm.
- You always reap what you sow and there is no shortcut
- The price has to be paid and the process has to be followed.
- So we see that there are two principles in the Law of the Harvest. You reap ONLY what you sow…and you reap MORE than you sow.
- If a farmer sows a kernel of corn…he doesn’t just reap another kernel of corn, he reaps a stalk of corn, full of ears of corn.
- What is wrong with our society today…we have sown the seeds of disobedience and rebellion in the home, and now we are seeing it out on the streets
- By the way, this is not only true in the negative sense, but in the positive sense. Jesus said in Luke 6:38, “Give and it shall be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
- In other words, Jesus said, THE MORE YOU GIVE THE MORE YOU’LL GET!
- Personal Testimony: My first pastorat at Indiantown Baptist Church.
- ILLUS: A farmer has a jar of wheat. Now he can take that jar of wheat and make a loaf of bread. But if he takes that same jar of wheat…rather than making just one loaf of bread, he goes out into the field and sows it and he will soon have enough wheat to make a grocery store full of bread.
- JUST A THOUGHT: did you know that the way to get what you need from other people is to give other people what they need? If you want more friends, be a friend to more people. If you want more understanding from other, be more understanding to others.
- You reap ONLY what you sow and you reap More than you sow
- But another principle to remember is that you reap Later than what you sow.
- A farmer does not sow on Monday and reap on Tuesday
- There is a process of cultivation, irrigation, incubation, and then comes the harvest.
- The point is…don’t give in to sinning. I read an excerpt of a book with a chapter title, “Think it Over”
FOLLOWING IS AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF WHAT YOU HAVE IN STORE
AFTER YOUR IMMORALITY IS FOUND OUT:
- YOUR MATE WILL EXPERIENCE THE ANGUISH OF BETRAYAL, SHAME,
REJECTION, HEARTACHE, AND LONELINESS. NO AMOUNT OF REPENTANCE
WILL SOFTEN THOSE BLOWS.
- YOUR MATE CAN NEVER AGAIN SAY THAT YOU ARE A MODEL OF
FIDELITY, SUSPENSION WILL ROB HER OR HIM OF TRUST.
- YOUR ESCAPADES WILL INTRODUCE TO YOUR LIFE AND YOUR
MATE’S LIFE THE VERY REAL PROBABILITY OF A SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED
DISEASE.
- THE TOTAL DEVASTATION YOUR SINFUL ACTIONS WILL BRING TO
YOUR CHILDREN IS IMMEASURABLE. THEIR GROWTH, INNOCENCE, TRUST,
AND HEALTHY OUTLOOK ON LIFE WILL BE SEVERELY AND PERMANENTLY
DAMAGED.
- THE HEARTACHE YOU WILL CAUSE YOUR PARENTS, YOUR FAMILY,
AND YOUR PEERS IS INDESCRIBABLE.
- THE EMBARRASSMENT OF FACING OTHER CHRISTIANS WHO ONCE
APPRECIATED YOU, RESPECTED, AND TRUSTED YOU WILL BE OVERWHELMING.
- IF YOU WERE ENGAGED IN THE LORD’S WORK, YOU WILL SUFFER
THE IMMEDIATE LOSS OF YOUR JOB AND THE SUPPORT OF THOSE WITH WHOM
YOU WORKED. THE DARK SHADOW WILL ACCOMPANY YOU EVERYWHERE AND
FOREVER. FORGIVENESS WON’T ERASE IT.
- YOUR FALL WILL GIVE OTHERS LICENSE TO DO THE SAME.
- THE INNER PEACE YOU ENJOYED WILL BE GONE.
- YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO ERASE THE FALL FROM YOUR (OR
OTHERS’) MIND. THIS WILL REMAIN INDELIBLY ETCHED ON YOUR LIFE’S
RECORD REGARDLESS OF YOUR LATER RETURN TO YOUR SENSES.
- THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST WHOM YOU ONCE HONORED WILL BE
TARNISHED, GIVING THE ENEMIES OF FAITH FURTHER REASON TO SNEER AND
JEER.
- Put simply, don’t give in to sinning, you reap what you sow…
- Life Principle #1: You will reap WHAT you sow.
II. DON’T GIVE UP IN SERVING
- READ vs. 9, “
- You see, the law of the harvest was not given to discourage us but to encourage us.
- Working for God is a joy, but it can also bring disappointment and discouragement.
- You can feel like you’re spinning your wheels and that there is no real fruit from your labor.
- Paul specifically tells us not to “grow weary” or to “lose heart”. Both of these terms mean to grow so tired from working that you feel like giving up.
- ILLUS: Dad used to be a farmer…farming is a lot of hard work. A farmer literally lives by the sweat of his brow. The same is true for God’s work. God’s work is hard work.
- The Lord’s work is no place for a weak hearted candy leg soldier who would rather be in an air conditioned barrack rather than on the front lines of the battlefield.
- I want to tell you up front, Christianity is not for the faint of heart, it is not for the weak or for the lazy. Although God’s work is wonderful work, it is hard work.
- Paul says, do not lose heart…don’t quit. We will be amazed when we get to heaven and see how many Christians were just one minute away from victory but they quit. II John 2:8, “Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.”
- ILLUS: George Mueller prayed for a neighbor for 45 years, witnessed to a neighbor for 45 years. Do you know when this man was saved? At the funeral of George Mueller. DON’T Give up, don’t quit!
- ILLUS: Chinese Bamboo tree. Chinese plant the seed. Water it and fertilize it for an entire year. Nothing happens. Water it and fertilize it for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th. Nothing happens. Then in the fifth year, within 6 weeks…the bamboo tree grows from a seed to a tree over ninety feet tall. The work of God is just like that.
- The Lord of the harvest has promised that if you continue to sow, not grow weary, not lose heart, not quit, you will reap a harvest.
- Paul said to the Corinthians in I Cor. 15:58, “Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.”
- Ray Croc, who founded McDonald’s had this quote, “PRESS ON: NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF PERSISTENCE. TALENT WILL NOT; NOTHING IS MORE COMMON THAN UNSUCCESSFUL INDIVIDUALS WITH TALENT. GENIUS WILL NOT; UNREWARDED GENIUS IS ALMOST A PROVERB. EDUCATION WILL NOT; THE WORLD IS FULL OF EDUCATED DERELICTS. PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION ALONE ARE OMNIPOTENT.
- Life Principle #2: You will reap LATER than you sow
III. DON’T GIVE OUT ON SHARING
- vs. 10, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
- The bible says we ought to take every opportunity we have to do good to all the people you possibly can, knowing you will be rewarded for doing what is good.
- John Wesley had a simple but profound rule for his life:
DO ALL THE GOOD YOU CAN,
BY ALL THE MEANS YOU CAN,
IN ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN,
IN ALL THE PLACES YOU CAN,
IN ALL THE TIMES YOU CAN,
TO ALL THE PEOPLE YOU CAN,
AS LONG AS EVER YOU CAN.
- We are to do good to everyone, and especially to those who are in the household of faith.
- We are to do good to all people…but it is to first start in the church.
- May I say something…I have believed for as long as I have been a Christian, that the first allegiance to your spare time ought to be your church.
- It’s fine to be a member of the Kiwani’s Club or some other civic organization; it’s great to be involved in sports or working with athletic teams…but the bible makes it clear that our priority ought to be the church.
- I Thess. 3:12, “And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you.”
- Every chance you get to do good and every chance you get to do something for God…take it.
- Life Principle #3: You will reap GREATER than what you sow.
God won’t ask what kind of car you drove, but He’ll ask how many
>people you drove who didn’t have transportation.
>God won’t ask the square footage of your house, but He’ll ask how
>many people you welcomed into your home.
>God won’t ask about the clothes you had in your closet, but He’ll ask
>how many you helped to clothe.
>God won’t ask what your highest salary was, but He’ll ask if you
>compromised your character to obtain it.
>God won’t ask what your job title was, but He’ll ask if you performed
>your job to the best of our ability.
>God won’t ask how many friends you had, but He’ll ask how many people
>to whom you were a friend.
>God won’t ask in what neighborhood you lived, but He’ll ask how you
>treated your neighbors.
>God won’t ask about the color of your skin, but He’ll ask about the
>content of your character.
Conclusion:
ILLUS: Henry C. Morrison was a great missionary who served the Lord in Africa for over 40 years. On the way back to United States, he began to wonder “will anyone remember us? Will anyone recall who we are? Will anyone meet us at the boat?” Well, unknown to Henry Morrison and his wife, Teddy Roosevelt, President of U.S., was also on board that ship. He had gone to Africa for a hunting trip
When ship pulled into New York harbor he looked to see if anyone had come to welcome them back home. Thousands of people were there cheering. Bands were playing. There were signs, banners, and billboards everywhere saying, “Welcome Home”.
Henry and his wife were so excited about the crowds of people that were there to welcome them home and they went down to get their luggage, came back to the deck of the ship to get off and they realized that the parade of people were already gone. They had come to welcome Teddy Roosevelt.
Henry Morrison went to his hotel room with a heavy heart. As he sat there on the bed, he asked his wife, “Honey, I just don’t get it…for 40 years we poured our lives into ministry and service. And yet we come back to America and not a single soul comes to welcome us home!” His wife came and sat down next to her husband, she put her hand on his shoulder, and comforted him with words that he would never forget, “Henry, you have forgotten something, you’re not home yet!”
And may that be of comfort to you. It does not matter what takes place in this life, your reward is in heaven. Always remember, “You’re not home yet.”
SOURCES:
James Merritt, Touching Lives Ministries
Book: Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes
