FINISHING STRONG
Going For The Gold:
How to be a World-Class Christian
Hebrews 12:2-3
August 15, 2004
Introduction:
This weekend marked the beginning of the Olympic games in Athens. World-class athletes from all around the globe have gathered to go for the gold. During this time we have been discussing what it takes to become a world-class Christian. We have learned in the previous weeks’ messages that it takes sacrifice and determination. This week we are going to be discussing the third characteristic of those who become world-class Christians. World-class Christians have focus.
To become world-class at anything you have to be focused on what you are trying to accomplish. And herein lies the challenge: you can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. You can either do five things so-so or you can do one thing with excellence.
Have you noticed that typically world-class athletes focus on only one thing? They may be entered in more than one event, but those events are very similar. It is not unusual to see an athlete entered in the 100m and the 200m. He is focused on sprinting. There is nothing strange about seeing an athlete entered in the butterfly and the backstroke. She is focused on swimming. However, it would be highly unusual (and in fact may never have happened) to see a wrestler also entered in gymnastics. Or to see a sprinter also entered in a marathon. Or to see a swimmer also entered in the shot put. Why don’t you see that happen? Because those are very different sporting events and therefore they require very different training regimens. Because world-class athletes understand that they can’t focus on two different training regimens at the same time they choose one to focus on.
The same is true with you. You cannot focus on doing more than one thing and expect to do anything with excellence. I’m not saying that you can’t do other things, but one of them has to be your primary focus.
In order to be a world-class Christian you have to be focused on growing spiritually. Are you more focused on your physical workout or your spiritual workout? Are you more focused on you physical diet or your spiritual diet? Which should be your focus? The apostle Paul said, “Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (Php. 4:8). Spiritual training is of greater importance and therefore it should be the focus of your life. In fact, it must be if you want to become a world-class Christian.
Once again we will be turning to the twelfth chapter of Hebrews to see how this issue of focus should play out in our lives.
1. FOCUS ON THE FINISH.
2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
By fixing our eyes on Jesus we are fixing our eyes on the finish line the way a sprinter does. The KJV says that Jesus is “the author and finisher of our faith.” He endured the cross and when he had finished his work he sat down at the right hand of God in heaven. So when we focus on Jesus sitting on the throne at the right hand of the Father in heaven we are focusing on the goal – to be in heaven with Jesus. This should be the goal of every Christian as Jesus said in Revelation 3:21, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.”
We may in fact be surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us as examples for us to follow, but it is Jesus himself who is our supreme example. “Christ suffered for you. Leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).
Why did Jesus endure the cross? Because he was focused on the joy that was set before him the way an Olympic sprinter is focused on the finish line set before him. He was focused on the joy that would be his when he successfully provided a way of salvation for all who would believe in him. He was focused on the joy that would be his when he returned to heaven to tell the Father, “Mission accomplished.”
Can you imagine the consequences if Jesus had gotten distracted from his mission? What could be more tragic than a world full of people needing saving and no Savior? What are the consequences of you being distracted from your God-given purpose in life? of being distracted from the finish line?
Henry Ford said, “A weakness of all human beings is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction.” (Bits & Pieces, September 19, 1991, p. 18)
The United States Women’s Softball team won the gold medal in Atlanta’s 1996 Olympic games. They lost only one game but from that loss came a remarkable story about the importance of focus. In the fifth inning against Australia, Danielle Tyler hit a home run over the center-field fence. The American third baseman flew around the bases with a rush of adrenaline. When she was greeted by a swarm of well-wishing teammates at home plate she let the excitement distract her focus and she did not touch the base. When all of the yelling subsided, the Australian team quietly appealed to the umpire who dramatically called Tyler out.
Rather than scoring a run, Tyler’s blast over the fence netted her team an out. As it ended up, had the lady slugger stepped on home plate, her team would have won 1-0. Instead, after seven innings of regulation play the game was tied at 0-0. In extra innings, Australia emerged with a 2-1 win and the U.S. team took their only loss of the Olympics due solely to a lack of focus. (Darren Ethier – SermonCentral)
Just as Danielle Tyler could not focus on celebrating with her teammates and playing the game at the same time so we cannot focus on two things at the same time and be successful. Home plate was her finish line and she didn’t focus on it. Heaven is your finish line. If you don’t focus on it, you will never get there. If you don’t focus on it, you will never become a world-class Christian.
Look at what Paul wrote to the Philippians. “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do [that’s focus – circle that]: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal [the finish line] to win the prize for which God has called me heaven ward in Christ Jesus” (Php. 3:12-14).
If Jesus Christ needed to focus on the finish, if the apostle Paul needed to focus on the finish, then you and I certainly need to be focused on the finish. So get focused. What is distracting you? What is stealing your attention? You can’t focus on your career five or six days out of the week and then focus on God on Sunday morning. Does that mean that you shouldn’t have a career? No! Does that mean that you shouldn’t focus on doing a good job at work? No!
It means that you must focus your career upon God. That doesn’t mean that you need to have a career like mine – full time Christian ministry. It means that you should be pursuing the career that God has called you too. It means that you should be pursuing the career that God has called you too in a godly way. You don’t lie to your customers to make a sale or steal from your boss because you are underpaid. You bring your Christian values to work with you on Monday morning rather than leaving them at church when you exit the building on Sunday morning. It means that you work hard to earn as much as you can, not so you can amass more “toys” in this life. Not so that you can have a bigger house or a nicer car than your neighbor. Instead you work as hard as you can to make as much as you can so that you can give as much as you can to the work of the Lord. John Wesley said, “Earn as much as you can, save as much as you can, give as much as you can.” Focusing your career upon God also means that you look for ways to minister to those whom you come in contact with through your work. Instead of allowing your career to distract you from God use it to focus on God.
Family can also distract us from God. It shouldn’t, but it can. You need to focus your family on God. Husbands you need to realize that you have been called by God to love your wives. Wives you need to recognize that you have been called by God to respect your husband. Children you need to understand that you have been called by God to honor and obey your parents. Parents you need to know that you have been called by God to raise your children to serve the Lord. Instead of allowing your family to distract you from God use your family to focus on God.
There are many areas of life that can cause us to lose our focus upon God. But for the Christian there should be no distinction between the secular and the sacred. All of life should be sacred. If we will take the various areas of our lives and focus them upon God, then we will experience true success and true blessing. Then you will finish the race and bring home the gold. Then and only then will you be a world-class Christian.
2. RUN TO WIN.
3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men,
Here we are told to consider him – to consider Jesus. What does that have to do with running to win, you may ask? It has everything to do with it. The Greek word for “consider” was an accounting term. It carries the idea of taking something into account. We are to take into account what the author has just told us of Jesus. That he endured the cross, i.e. that he finished the race marked out for him and that he then was seated in victory at the right hand of the Father in heaven. We are to take into consideration that Jesus didn’t have a cakewalk to victory. He faced opposition, but he ran to win. Jesus is held up before us as a model for us to follow just as Peter said in the verse a quoted a few moments ago.
When we take Jesus into consideration we are to realize that we can do it. We can follow his example. We can walk in his footsteps. And thus motivated we will run to win the way Jesus before us ran to win and the way those in the crowd of witnesses ran to win. We know it won’t be easy. But Jesus faced and overcame opposition just the way we must.
Could an athlete be considered world-class if he won an Olympic event only because no one else ran against him or because everyone else was somehow disqualified? I don’t think so. World-class status comes from facing the competition. It comes from facing the opposition and overcoming the way Jesus faced opposition from sinful men and overcame.
That Jesus faced opposition from sinful men reminds us of whom we are competing against. It reminds us that as Christians we are not competing with other Christians. We, as a church, are not in competition with the Catholic Church or the Methodist church here in town. Nor are you as individual Christians in this church in competition with one another – trying to outdo one another. Our goal is not to overcome each other, but to overcome the world – to overcome the devil. And that is how you run to win.
That means that when we run to win it looks very different from how the world runs to win. Last week I told you part of the story of Eric Liddell from the movie Chariots of Fire, which was released in 1981 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Eric was a devout Christian and he had dreamed of bringing home the gold in the Olympics. In fact he believed that he was called by God to run. His sister Jenny had tried to talk him into giving up his running and joining her as a missionary in China. He said, "No, God has made me fast and called me to run."
However, when it came time for the qualify race for the 200m in the 1924 Olympics in Paris, Eric chose to forfeit the race because it was being held on Sunday. He knew that God had made him fast and that God had called him to be a runner, but he also knew that God had called him to “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Ex. 20:8). His coach and other tried to talk him out of forfeiting, but they could not persuade him to be disobedient.
I would submit to you that Eric ran to win. He didn’t run the way the world runs, but he faithfully ran the race that God had marked out for him and he ran to win. What the world may see as a sign of weakness was really a sign of great strength. What the world may have seen as a loss was really a tremendous victory. Eric ran to win. But he was running for God’s agenda, not the worlds.
But Eric’s story does not end there. Later he went on to join his sister. He became a missionary and moved to China to share the gospel of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. However, during his missionary service the Japanese killed him. What the world may have viewed as a tragedy. God would view as a victory. When Eric was killed he finished the race, he overcame and was seated on Jesus’ throne just as Christ had overcome and was seated on his Father’s throne. Eric ran to win.
Kay Poe and Esther Kim grew up as best friends and fierce competitors. Their sport was tae kwon do, a form of martial arts that was featured for the first time in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. As Kay and Esther got older, they found themselves in different weight classes, so they rarely met in competition. In the pre-Olympic trials they were each favored to win their classes.
There was just one problem. The United States would be sending representatives from only two of the four weight classes to the Olympics, so only one of them would be able to go to Sydney.
In the final moments of the final bout in her weight class Kay seriously dislocated her kneecap. In spite of her injury, she fought strongly enough to win the match and her division. As she hobbled off the floor her Olympic dreams seemed over. She still had one more match to win—this one against her friend Esther Kim.
Esther saw her coach carrying her friend Kay back to the dressing room. The outcome of the final match was a no-brainer. All Esther had to do was show up, and she was on her way to the Olympics. Her injured friend didn’t have a chance. Esther knew that she, not Kay, would be going to the Olympics.
But in a moment of incredible love and sacrifice, Esther made a decision to bow out of the final match and concede victory to her injured friend. She gave up her Olympic dream so that Kay could realize hers.
When Esther informed Kay of her decision, Kay protested.
“Don’t you dare argue with me about this,” Esther told her. They held each other and cried. “Please don’t think I’m throwing my dreams away,” Esther said, “because I’m not. I’m putting my dreams in you.”
Esther signed the scorecard, withdrawing from the match. Then the two friends had to bow to each other on the mat to make it official. Kay’s coach helped her walk to one side of the mat. Esther walked to the other. By the time they reached the referee in the middle, tears flowed freely. The two young women bowed. The referee signaled Poe the winner. Then the women locked arms, sobbing. As they slowly walked off the mat together, the tae kwon do officials stood and bowed while fans applauded them both
Esther later told stunned reporters, “There’s more than one way to be a champion.” (Todd Goodwin – SermonCentral)
I would submit to you this morning that Esther ran to win. Let me tell you this morning that there is more than one way to be a champion. There is more than one way to bring home the gold. Let me tell you the story of an Olympic skier who learned that very lesson. There is more than one way to win.
When Jean-Claude Killy made the French national ski team in the early 1960s, he was prepared to work harder than anyone else to be the best. At the crack of dawn he would run up the slopes with his skis on, an unbelievably grueling activity. In the evening he would lift weights, run sprints--anything to get an edge. But the other team members were working as hard and long as he was. He realized instinctively that simply training harder would never be enough. Killy then began challenging the basic theories of racing technique. Each week he would try something different to see if he could find a better, faster way down the mountain. His experiments resulted in a new style that was almost exactly opposite the accepted technique of the time. It involved skiing with his legs apart (not together) for better balance and sitting back (not forward) on the skis when he came to a turn. He also used ski poles in an unorthodox way--to propel himself as he skied. The explosive new style helped cut Killy’s racing times dramatically. In 1966 and 1967 he captured virtually every major skiing trophy. The next year he won three gold medals in the Winter Olympics, a record in ski racing that has never been topped. Killy learned an important secret shared by many creative people: innovations don’t require genius, just a willingness to question the way things have always been done. (Paul Fritz – Source: Reader’s Digest, Oct, 1991, p. 61 – SermonCentral)
Just as Killy realized that his opponents were working just as long and hard as he was so we need to realize that our opponent, Satan, is working long and hard to see us fail in the race of life. Recognizing that he couldn’t simply outwork his opponents, Killy, developed a new style that was almost exactly opposite the accepted technique of the time. If you are going to run to win the gold medal spiritually, you are going to have to develop a way of living that is exactly opposite of the excepted way of the world. Just as Killy’s unorthodox style of using his ski poles propelled him to Olympic gold three times over so your “unorthodox” style of living will propel you to spiritual gold.
3. DON’T LET UP.
3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Aristotle used the two Greek verbs translated here as “grow weary and lose heart” of runners who relax and collapse after they have passed the finish line. There is nothing wrong with letting up once you have crossed the finish line and your race is over. But the implication here is that the readers of Hebrews are still in the race. And since they are still in the race it would be most inappropriate for them to let up now. We must not let up prematurely. We must not let up while we are still in the race. How do you know if you are still in the race? Are you here this morning? Is your heart still beating? Then you are still in the race. God still has more for you to do. Don’t let up!
I remember competing in a track meet when I was in grade school. They had never used a tape at the end of a race before and so I wasn’t used to that. Also they did hold up the tape at the beginning of the race so I didn’t know that they were going to be using one in this race. During the race I was out in front and almost certainly would have won. But just as we approached the finish line the officials pulled up the tape about chest high. Startled by the tape and not knowing what was going on I let up and the kid who was in second place ran right passed me and won the race. Rather than letting up at the finish line world-class sprinter almost throw themselves forward sticking out their chests doing everything possible to get themselves across the finish line first.
In order to become world-class Christians we must do the same. Rather that letting up we need to throw ourselves forward in an attempt to do all that we can do for God while we have the time.
Golf immortal Arnold Palmer recalls a lesson about overconfidence: It was the final hole of the 1961 Masters tournament, and I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand and said, "Congratulations." I took his hand and shook it, but as soon as I did, I knew I had lost my focus.
On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trap, then put it over the edge of the green. I missed a putt and lost the Masters. You don’t forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again. I haven’t in the 30 years since. (Carol Mann, The 19th Hole, (Longmeadow), quoted in Reader’s Digest.)
What could be more tragic than failing in the Masters on the 18th hole of play except failing the Master on the 18th hole of life? Don’t let that sad tale be yours. Never, never, never ever let up.
Conclusion:
Are you tempted to think that you have put in your time and that your race is over? If your still alive this morning and obviously you are, then there still remains another leg of the race to be run. Rather than letting up go for it. Determine this morning that you are going to finish strong. You just might accomplish more for God than you ever dreamed possible.
In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite’s primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter’s magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target.
But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter’s immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun.
And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth. "Perhaps most remarkable," writes Jaroff, "those signals emanate from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth."
The Little Satellite That Could was not qualified to do what it did. Engineers designed Pioneer 10 with a useful life of just three years. But it kept going and going. By simple longevity, its tiny 8-watt transmitter radio accomplished more than anyone thought possible.
So it is when we offer ourselves to serve the Lord. God can work even through someone with 8-watt abilities. God cannot work, however, through someone who quits.
Craig Brian Larson, Pastoral Grit: the Strength to Stand and to Stay, Bethany.
Maybe you came to church this morning feeling like you don’t have much to offer to God or to the church or to the world around you. Maybe you felt just as unimportant and impotent as a tiny 8-watt transmitter. But if you will focus on the finish, run to win, and refuse to let up, God will use the 8-watt Christians of this world to light up this world. You might not be able to make a difference, but God can make a difference through you. Focus on the finish. Run to win. Don’t let up.
