You’ve see them along side the road. They often wear ragged and loose fitting clothes. Their expression is usually a mixture of pain and determination. You’ve seen them in the rain, you’ve seen them in the snow, you’ve seen them when the sun is blistering hot and the humidity is nearly 100 percent. You’ve seen their suffering, and yet you drive right past them without offering any help. But that’s the way they want it. For they are joggers. A unique class of people who are driven to punish their bodies in this way.
I actually was one of them for a time. It was a long time ago and the doctor told me to stop for the sake of my back. I was up to about 4 miles a day at the time that I quit, and I still remember what it feels like to be one of them.
For me, it was never really a race against anything but myself. That’s what jogging is usually about. It’s about overcoming yourself. Should you ever endeavor to take up jogging, you will notice that different parts of your body will begin to whimper and complain, the further you go. A shoulder on the first mile, your lungs on the next, and perhaps your thighs on the one after that.
Soon all the parts of your body will try to convince you that its time to stop. And you begin to have the most interesting arguments with yourself: "Wouldn’t it be nice if I could stop this nonsense?" "Why I am doing this again? Is it because I like pain?" "Do I really need to go farther then I went yesterday!" "Look how far I’ve gone already, I’ve already exceeded my own expectations. I’m already a hero! Few people in the world can run as far as I have run today!" And on it goes step after arduous step. That might be why you often see joggers with Walkman and Ipods, their drowning out a cacophony of complaints within their own minds.
The best joggers have learned how to distinguish between real and false complaints in their bodies. While they pay attention to the real complaints that could mean damage to bone or ligaments, they disregard the complaints of muscles that simply are not used to working that hard. They do this because they know they’ll be the better for it. They see the payoff of better fitness and and better overall health. As is often the case, the very parts of the body that complain the most will usually reap the most benefit. Jogging: Its a battle against yourself.
Oddly enough, that’s what faith turns out to be like: Keeping the faith is a battle against yourself. In Today’s epistle lesson, Paul writes "....I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. .....Forgetting what is behind, straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." That sounds like Jogging doesn’t it!
But it’s not completely like Jogging. Faith is not you all by yourself, struggling to make it down the road into eternity. Listen to what Paul says again: "I press on to take hold of that for which CHRIST JESUS TOOK HOLD OF ME" and then "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which GOD HAS CALLED ME HEAVENWARD." Christ took hold! God called! This is not merely one of those things where God says " on your mark, get set, go, if you’ll run hard enough you’ll make it to heaven." Eternity in Christ is already ours. It has been given to us by God’s Son. He broke the tape for us when he said "it is finished" from the cross. Christ then took hold of us. He reached down into our lives with his Holy Spirit and called us by his gospel and made us into the heaven bound believers that we are today.
So the apostle is not here talking about you earning your salvation, that has already been done by Jesus. What he is talking about is you REMAINING in salvation, and STAYING in the Faith to which you have been called. God’s Goal for you is to see you in eternity; He wants you to make that your goal too.
And that’s the challenge. That’s the race. That’s the battle against yourself. For just as the muscles in your body complain whenever you force it to do some jogging, Your old sinful nature, that part of you that you inherited from Adam complains whenever you take strides to live in accordance with the will of God. "What are you doing?" It will ask you? "This is not fun?" "Nobody else is doing what you are doing" "What’s it going to hurt if you watch a little filth on your TV" . "And why do you care about foul language, everybody uses it." "And church? Why do you need church? Wouldn’t you rather just sleep in?" "You’ve worked so hard all week, you need your rest!" "Look, here’s the big plush comfortable chair of the status quo, quit your running and slouch for awhile. Do what everybody else does, relax, go with the flow. Don’t be so uptight?"
Keeping the faith is like jogging isn’t it! It’s mostly a battle against yourself. To keep the faith is to agree with God that the lazy old sinful nature of yours is your own worst enemy. To keep the faith is to ignore its constant urgings to complacency and inactivity. If you don’t ignore it, If you instead choose to follow its voice, you will eventually fall out of the race and your faith will be in jeopardy.
For those who choose not to run, the goal of life is not an eternity with God who dwells in glorious light, but rather an eternity in the outer darkness of hell. Yeah, Paul talks about these folks too. He talks about those who refuse to run the race. He says "Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their appetite, and their glory is their shame." What a chilling description of the direction that the sinful nature of man will lead:. "Their God is their appetite" Appetites are the guiding principle of the sinful world. Every person is seen as a combination of appetites that must be obeyed. The Appetite for power, the appetite for pleasure, the appetite for sex. "You have your needs!" They tell us. "You’ve got to fulfill your needs!" When you live like this, the course that is taken is always destructive.... self destructive as a matter of fact.
But this is not really you. You are not a part of this. As Paul puts it "Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven." You’re from a whole ’nother country. By virtue of your relationship to God in Christ Jesus, you are already part of something higher and better. And it’s time to start living up to what has already been attained for you. It’s time to start running the race. And if you are already running it, it time to run it with more determination.
But you might wonder how. How do you run? How do you silence that lazy complaining voice that comes from deep inside? Sorry, neither a walkman nor an ipod will drown it out. You’ll need a something quite a bit stronger than that.
Would you be surprised if I told you that you already have that something. Yes its something that has been given to you. It’s a connection, a direct connection to that one who already ran the race and broke the tape. In Romans Chapter 6, Paul tells us all about it. He says "Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" At your baptism, a connection was formed between you and the cross of Christ Jesus. You have the right and privilege to take those vile urgings of your sinful nature to the cross and leave them there. You can confess your sins and receive forgiveness daily. You can squelch. You can squash. You can silence the urgings of your sinful nature and start to run the race of faith in peace.
The really experienced runners will tell you that once they’re bodies are finally in shape, that they actually enjoy running. You’ve seen some of those too I’m sure. You can spot them by their elegant and seemingly effortless strides. As they run, they have a look of confident joy on their faces. They are actually enjoying it! If you talk to one of them, they’ll tell you that running is an essential part of their day and they feel bad when they can’t run. And so it can be as we run the race of faith. We can get to that point too. Jesus says "take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls". (Matt. 11:29). The major burden of your life is that sinful nature of yours. And when you finally get a handle on it, and it is silenced by the power of the crucified and risen Lord Jesus you are set free to really run the race with confidence and joy. Regardless of how difficult the course you are running might be. Joy will be yours as you press on in the faith.
