Running Our Race - November 13, 2016 sermon

By Pastor Greg

I spent lots of time during high school and college running track and cross country.  I know it does not look like I am in shape today, but a kindergarten teacher once told me that “round” is a shape, so …

Something I learned in college is that it takes discipline to push yourself and do your best, not simply win a race.  I had to find out how to run my race, not someone else’s.  That may sound easy, but it is harder than you might imagine.  It takes much discipline not to turn your head and look how close the other runners are.  You do not run your race by simply running faster than everyone else, but this is how I had been running in high school; I was content to simply finish first.  My college coach taught me that if I would stop doing certain things, I could run an even faster race, not just finish first.  However, I would need to let go of some bad habits – like turning my head to look behind me.

I know some Christians who do the same thing.  Some churches do this as well.  They feel successful as Christians because they are not nearly as bad as the corrupt people in this world.  They turn their heads this way and that, looking at the world, and figure they are okay because they are not as bad as most people.

This is the way most of us live.  We look at the world and measure our success as Christians against the sinfulness of this world.  We do not murder.  We do not worship sticks and stones and call them gods.  We have a decent work ethic, we do not cheat, we are not nearly as greedy as most people, and most of all, we don’t hate God.  But …

We are filled with envy.  We can be deceitful at times.  We certainly gossip about others.  Maybe we are not as “good” as we thought (See Romans 1:20-32).  I guess it just depends on who or what we use as our standard.

Too many of us succumb to Self-justification – the tendency to measure our morality against the wicked people in this world.  Since we do not commit their kind of sins, we feel we are okay because our morality is one or two steps better than the rest of the world (compare Luke 18:11).  However, that is not running our race.  That is merely being a little better than the world.

Here's the problem with that.

50 years ago, our society was a lot different.  As I look back at life 50 years ago, I am shocked how much things have changed.  Many sins are now accepted, even tolerated.  Some are celebrated!  And as the holiness of our world continues to decline, Christian morality is declining as well, just a step or two behind.  We look at the world’s standard of morality and feel that since we are not “that” bad, we are okay.  However, by running their race, our Christian morality has spiraled down as well.

Let me put it another way.

If a young runner were to enter a race with me today, would you say they ran a successful race just because they finished two or three steps ahead of me?  Of course not.  It is the same with a Church.  If a church is only slightly better than the world, is that Church living up to its potential?  Again, the answer is no.  However, if that is how a Christian or a Church measures success, then bit by bit, and sin by sin, they will slowly decline from the point they first began until they reach a crawl.

This is what happens when we pursue a holiness that is just a little bit better than the world’s – when we look around to justify ourselves rather than looking up.  Remember, Jesus did not command us to be better than the world; He told us to be perfect o(Matthew 5:48), and that will not happen by fixing our eyes on the world.

The author of Hebrews encourages us to lay aside the things which keep us from running our race – notably, the sin that creeps into our lives (Hebrews 12:1). To overcome this, we must stop drifting away with the world.  We need to fix our eyes on something, or someone, else.

 The Church must not lose sight of who we are and "whose" we are.  If we are to survive for another 50 years, we must fix our eyes on Jesus.  Only then will we be running the race set before us.