Running Your Race To The Finish Line

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