Four Race-Winning Qualities of a Christian

How many of you have spent any time over the last two weeks watching the Olympics? For just a brief time or an extended period of time? Every year, every two years, and they come around and say, I'm not going to watch them this year. What do I do? I wind up watching the Olympics. And the Winter Olympics probably more than I do the Summer Olympics because they usually come in February and it's cold and snowy and you're inside, so you watch them a little bit more. Debbie really gets into the Olympics more than I do, but we've enjoyed watching some of them this year and much of them. She gets on the websites and sneaks who won and keeps up with more on the medal count than I do. But over the years, there are a tremendous number of stories that always come out about the Olympics. The network that covers the Olympics, they'll always have a lot of background profiles of the various athletes that are up close and personal and help you to understand the people and the stories, the human element of those.

Over the years, there's just been a tremendous number of stories of people that have competed at the Olympics that really form a body of inspirational literature, stories, and examples in so many different ways, as sport often does provide for the challenges of life and dealing with life. That's a normal part of that connection between athletics, sport, and life. There are lessons that sports teach us about everyday life and, if we learn, can help us throughout a whole lifetime of experiences.

There were a couple of experiences, just individuals. One individual and one team that have kind of stood out over the years of Olympic experience, in my mind. I don't know how many of you may remember the name Wilma Rudolph? How many of you know who Wilma Rudolph was? A handful of us. She was the first person that really kind of opened in my imagination of an Olympian. She competed in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Wilma Rudolph. She was a sprinter. And she won, I forgot how many gold medals in Rome, she won three gold medals in the 100, 200 meter, and 4x100 relay.

And the reason she stands out is I just remember that being kind of the first Olympics of my awareness. And she was on the black and white news reels, and she was a black female athlete, and she kind of caught everybody's imagination. But what was even more inspirational was when I later on got to understand a little bit of her life and how she got there.

Because she didn't come by her talent so much naturally. She had a number of obstacles to overcome before she ever won those medals. Wilma Rudolph was born premature. She was four and a half pounds when she was born, which was quite a challenge. This was 1942 when she was born. Actually, I'd say 1942 would have been 1940. Okay, so a lot of technology wasn't around to help a preemie at that point in time. She was also one of 19 brothers and sisters in a poor family in Tennessee.

And she caught at an early age polio, which in those years was a deadly, deadly disease. And of course, she survived it, but she was left crippled. She wore a brace on her left leg for a number of years because her foot was twisted as a result of the polio. But she eventually worked her way out of that. But by the time she was 12, she'd also survived scarlet fever, whooping cough, chicken pox, and measles. Her family drove her regularly from Clarksville, Tennessee, down to Nashville to get treatment for her to straighten her twisted leg, which she eventually came out of and became an athlete.

She was a basketball star when an Olympic coach or a college track coach discovered her and then began to train her and work with her and develop the talent that she had. And then that led to her being a part of the 1960 Olympics. So she overcame a great deal to get even to that point. She was born with a number of strikes against her, if you will. Large family, poor family, polio. And she came back out of that and went on to be an Olympic champion.

A tremendous story of courage and perseverance and dedication. There's another story that stands out probably the number two in my mind, and this regards a team. The 1980 hockey, American hockey team, that won the gold medal at Lake Placid, New York.

That is a story that has been told and retold, not only for those of us that remember it now 30 years ago, that came out of nowhere and they beat the Soviets in the semi-final game to advance to the finals at a time when the Soviet Union dominated hockey because our team were nothing but college amateurs. The Soviet team were professionals. They were all in the Army and they just played year-round for years and years at a time.

They were a machine in that period of time. Things have changed then, but at that point that was the way it was done. We had a group of young men who were put together by a coach named Herb Brooks. Herb Brooks was the coach of the 1980 team.

And what was interesting even beyond the team was in the story of the coach, Herb Brooks had tried out and had been a part of the 1960 Olympic-American hockey team, which was the last one prior to 1980 to win the gold medal. They beat the Czechs. In fact, they beat the Czech team in Squall Valley where we used to have the Feast of Tabernacles when I was a student at ambassador and every year when we go to keep the Feast in Squall Valley, we kept it in Blytherina, which in those years still stood. And they still had the scoreboard. We don't have a scoreboard in here. I guess it's in the gym, but they still had the scoreboard up on the wall. I remember looking at it every service during the years that we went to the Feast there and they still had the score up there of that final Olympic game where the 1960 team won the gold medal, beat the Czech team. So I remembered that, but Herb Brooks was on that team until the very last minute, just before they went to compete, and he got cut. He was the last person cut from the 1960 team. Well, he went on to have a distinguished career as a coach, and when they chose him to be the coach of the 1980 Olympic team, he then put together a team that he said was, I don't want the best players, I want the right players. And he was a hard-nosed, hard-blank type coach. He basically got them all to hate him. That was his coaching technique, and he melded them together, and they won. Now, if you've seen the movie Miracle on Ice, how many of you have seen that movie? Miracle on Ice. I would highly recommend it. They took that about five or six years ago and made that into a movie starring Kurt Russell. He played Herb Brooks, and it tells it very accurately. And it's a wonderful movie. It's a very inspirational movie. You can sit down and watch that movie with your kids and anybody else. I would highly recommend Miracle on Ice because it tells the story of how that team was put together and winning that particular gold medal. But those are the two stories in a sense that stand out, one team, one individual. In my mind, there are many, many others from over the years of individuals. But they kind of capture our imagination every couple of years. And as you delve into the subject, you learn a great deal about people who overcome odds and challenges to become Olympic champions. And it's really a regular reminder to us of certain qualities, spiritual qualities, that we need to understand and maintain in our lives to succeed physically, but most importantly, to succeed spiritually. And that's why you find in the Bible in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 where the Apostle Paul used sport and in this case, not specifically the Olympic Games, because remember, the Olympics come from ancient times. They were originated in ancient Greece every four years. They would stop wars so that soldiers could go and compete in the Olympics. Every four years, this was the big event in Greece. But there was also another kind of a subset of the Olympic Games that were held in the city of Corinth. They were called the Isthmus.

You know what an Isthmus is? I can't say it, but Corinth is on an Isthmus there in Greece. And so they had what they called the Iths. Iths. Iths mean games. And they would proceed and follow by two years, I think, the Olympics. Paul spent a couple of years, 18 months really, I think, in the city of Corinth, raising up the church, pastoring it from which he wrote later these letters, 1 and 2 Corinthians. And so he would have been there likely during a time when they held these games. And he certainly knew about them, and he knew about the Olympic Games. And then as now, though they didn't have cable television and the internet, people got into games. They got into sports, just like we do now. It's just a part of life. And so he understood it. He probably had his interests as well. And he also was inspired to draw the analogy of the sport down to the race, the challenges that we have in our own spiritual life. And so in 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, we find Paul making this statement here. I'm going to read this from the New Living Bible because these words are applicable to all of us as these games come to us now, in two years, another one. But as we observe them, watch them, get interested in them, there are things for us to learn. 1 Corinthians 9, beginning in verse 24, Paul writes, and I'm reading this from the New Living Bible, Don't you realize that any race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize?

So run to win. All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others, I myself might be disqualified.

Very strong words, very powerful words. As Paul draws in this analogy of sport and race and running to win a prize to illustrate our race to the finish line and our spiritual journey to the kingdom of God. Now, this is not the only reference that Paul used in his writings. 2 Timothy 2, verse 5, would offer another one, and others will turn to as we go through the sermon here today. So he fully recognized the qualities, and he wanted the Corinthians to concentrate on different types of competition. There was a spiritual competition that was really most important that engages them, engages us toward our final goal of the kingdom of God. He emphasizes the importance of finishing the race to the victory. Paul also talks here and uses, actually in the original language, he also talks about the fight that he goes through here in verse 26, where he says, therefore I run thus, and that's easy to understand in terms of a race, not with uncertainty, thus I fight, not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body. There is the boxing analogy, or wrestling analogy, and in the original, the wording is really, he's saying, I pummel my body. I beat my body, metaphorically, not literally. He says, I beat it to bring it into subjection in order to maintain a control over his emotions, his desires, his human nature, to avoid anger, to avoid lust, to avoid envy, in any of the other works of the flesh. He says, I have to beat myself. I don't know if you, we've all certainly watched a boxer in training beating the big punching bag that they'll use in gyms. A few years ago, I had set up a gym, pretty good gym in my garage with equipment, and I bought a punching bag, and I hung it, it's still hanging there. I use it now, I joined a club a year ago, and I stopped working out of my garage. Now I go to a fitness club, and I use the punching bag there, but I bought a set of red boxing gloves, and you can get a very good workout punching that bag. It also, you know, just helps you to relieve your stress. Sometimes you imagine certain faces right there, and, no, I'm just kidding. But, you know, I tell you, that's better than writing a letter or picking up a phone or, you know, just getting in somebody's face if somebody's irritated you or whatever, but it is a very, very good workout, and it conditions the body. But this, you know, Paul is kind of turning it on himself in this language here, and he says, I pummel my body to keep it into subjection so that it doesn't get out of control. And so it's like a training, he's saying. Spiritually, we have a training regimen we have to set up personally to go through to emulate something far greater than those who strive for a physical, temporary, gold, silver, or bronze medal. Or in his day, the award was really a crown of laurel wreaths. That was what they gave them, as we'll see later on. And so his point is there are things for us to learn. So let's just enumerate. Let's list a few qualities of an Olympic athlete that we can learn from in our spiritual training, in our spiritual race, and understand what they go through, what we need to go through to bring this down to a level that can help us to understand what Paul is talking about.

The first item that I want to mention is the quality that an athlete has is that of sacrifice.

For them to achieve the level of performance at the Olympics, and to certainly even compete it well enough to win a medal, there is going to require tremendous sacrifice in their life toward that goal. Training in itself, an Olympic athlete trains many hours every single day for years at a time to maintain that ability. I was listening to Apollo Ono talk about training for this skating that he does. He said he had gone to South Korea to train with the South Koreans early on in his career. He was just saying, you know, you're in the rink every day, five o'clock, five a.m., every day. He was talking about how the nine and ten-year-olds as part of the South Korean system were there, too, going through their paces every day, five a.m., and they'll go for hours, then they'll break, rest, do other things, and then they would likely, an athlete, will come back later in the day and train some more.

It is more than a full-time job, and it has to be done regularly, consistently, according to a plan, diet, everything else. It's very finely tuned and regimented these days, but if they're going to compete, then they have to do that for years at a time to reach the form to compete. Now, not everybody has that. You don't get that sitting in front of a television doing this. You don't get it. It doesn't come. And for any of us, as we watch them, we can imagine and we can dream, but if you're going to do anything like that, you've got to get up off the couch and go and do whatever it takes to be a success or whatever we want to be a success at. And it requires sacrifice. I was watching early on in the Olympics this time an interview with the Chinese figure skating coach. He himself had competed like 15-20 years ago, and he wasn't good enough really to compete well, but the Chinese figure skating at that point where they were kind of in its infancy, its program. And I think he had a partner, a female partner, and they were so bad that the audience started to laugh at them while they were out in the rink. They made so many mistakes that they kept trying to... it was so pathetic and they even showed a clip of it that the audience laughed at him. That takes a lot to get back up from that. Well, he was so humiliated. When he went back home, he was determined that he was going to be a part of building his country's figure skating team to the level that they could compete without being humiliated. And so he set out to do that. And they were interviewing him in one of these behind-the-scenes interviews, and he said he had a picture of his son. He said, I haven't seen my son in years. He said, I haven't watched him grow up because the training where they have their training facility is miles and miles away from his home. And so he made the sacrifice in his own life, personal life, to not be there for his child so that he could train the Chinese figure skating team. Whether or not he should do that, that's what he did. It's just an illustration of, at some things and some levels, the sacrifice that it takes to achieve a goal. We've all sacrificed in our life.

In essence, if you understand it, you've sacrificed your life to be a part of God's church, to follow God. We sacrificed one life that we may have chosen or pursued or thought we were going to be on to choose to run this race, this spiritual race. And it is a sacrifice. In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul reflected on his sacrifice.

He, too, was on a one-career track early on. In Philippians 3, beginning in verse 5, he talks about what he came from. He was an Israelite, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews concerning the law, a Pharisee. In that verse, he tells us his family lineage, tribal lineage, and his early choice of career, to be a Pharisee.

That was a career choice. And he had gone to Jerusalem, trained at the feet of Gamaliel, the chief Pharisee, if that will, in the school that he ran. He was very zealous, as he says here, to the point of even persecuting the church concerning the righteousness which is in the law blameless. He was on a career track. God called him, and he chose to follow God, completely changed his life and everything that he had worked for up to that point. And in verse 7, he says, but what things were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. He counted the cost, and he made a sacrifice to follow Christ.

So we have to think about that, what it is that what sacrifice we have made, what sacrifice we might yet have to make, to obey God, to worship God, to be true to our conscience, to be faithful. An Olympic athlete, any athlete at any level, professional or otherwise, has to make certain sacrifices in order to attain their goal and their intent. Second quality of an Olympic athlete is he or she must learn from defeat.

Must learn from defeat because there will be defeat. There will be setbacks, there will be injuries, there will be discouragement. People will even try to discourage one from them, even setting out on a course to achieve a level of performance. Oh, you can't do that. You'll never be that way. Maybe they'll come from a parent. You're not good enough. Forget that idea.

Maybe they'll start and finish last. Not make a team like Herb Brooks didn't make the 1960 Olympic hockey team. Last one cut. You ever gone through the school yard exercise where you weren't chosen for the dodgeball team, for the pickup team, or whatever? Or you get cut from a team.

You have to learn from defeat. You have to learn from defeat. It's a lesson I... My defeat wasn't so much that I... But I did learn certain things that you had to do early on. I used to play summer baseball. I was on a little league team, and I thought I should have been starting second baseman. Well, the coach's son played second base, and guess who became the starting second baseman? I'd get subbed in about the fourth or fifth inning of the game.

And one year I finally realized that the catcher was going to be ending the season. He was going to be too old to be going up. And I had one more year, and I said, I'm going to learn to be a catcher, because the team needs a catcher. If I want to start and play every inning, I can do that.

And I wasn't real big to be a catcher, but I learned how to catch. Because I wanted... I'm not going to break through and replace the coach's son at second base, but I wanted to be a starter. So I learned how to catch. I even caught a few innings before that one season ended. And lo and behold, I got traded to another team during the off-season.

We had our own off-season, and they started a couple of other new teams. And I went from the Cubs to the Mets in those years. They started... the other team was the Mets. But I became the starting catcher on the new team. So I, you know, I had in a sense a defeat in that I wasn't a starting player at second base, but I figured out, hey, if I'm going to do it, you better start learning a new skill, learn a new trade. More than one way to skin a cat. And so, even then, it turned out, I even got traded and had a sure shot to be the starting catcher on the next team. But you have to learn from defeat. No athlete is going to ever win all the races every time in a lifetime. And you look at the Olympics, there are so many different individuals who may have failed in one Olympics. Dan Jansen is one they keep showing on the commercials of... I forgot what year he was the favored and he fell more than once, I believe. And then came back, but he finally came back and won his gold medals years later. So you have to learn from mistakes. Those things are discouraging. We will start out on this road, this spiritual road, obeying God. And we will make mistakes.

But we have to learn to handle failure, not give up, deal with our sins, deal with our mistakes, become more resolved to overcome them, put them in the past. Here in Philippians 3 and down in verse 13, he says, brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, speaking of the goal, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, reaching toward those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And so he says, I forget the things which are behind.

There comes a time when you forget your mistake, in the sense that you don't, not that you just ignore it, you have to repent, but you also have to set in place steps to not make the mistake again. Remove yourself from certain people. Remove yourself from certain situations. Ask God for the strength of the Spirit to deal with the emotional problem that may have led to us getting in trouble with our mouth with an action.

Repent. But then at some point, the humiliation, the agony of defeat. Remember the old ABC, when ABC for years and years would do the Olympics, their tagline was the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. They'd have somebody winning and then somebody falling to illustrate that.

At some point, the agony has to fade, and we have to move on and press toward the mark to lay hold of that prize and forget the things that are behind. And forgive ourselves. If we have repented, God forgives us. It takes a little bit longer for us to forgive ourselves.

But if we can get to that point, then we can begin to learn from our mistakes, leave them behind, rededicate ourselves to improvement and overcoming. That's the best any of us can do.

In Proverbs 24, there's a proverb here that I've always found encouraging. Proverbs 24 and verse 16. It says, for a righteous man may fall seven times.

A righteous man, a good person, one who's striving, one who's endeavoring to overcome, a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again. You each time, you get back up. But the wicked shall fall by calamity.

With God's Spirit, you and I are the righteous. Are those who are going to fall but get back up. A righteous man falls seven times. And the implication is that we might fall eight or nine times too.

But you get back up. It's the righteous who get back up and keep going. It's not the unrighteous. It's the wicked who falls in his calamity and becomes just overcome by it.

A third example or quality of an Olympic athlete, is that a perseverance? Perseverance. Staying with it. Perseverance against every odd, against every obstacle. And there are always challenges. There are always things that get thrown into our path. A number of years ago, when I wrote an article once years ago for one of the church publications on this very subject, I was doing some research and I ran across a word that I remembered. I've long since lost the notes of that. I prepared for that article. But I remembered this one word that I had run across in doing that research that described this very quality of perseverance. And so with the internet being as near as the nearest computer, I went to Google and Googled this word to find a definition for it. And came right up in Wikipedia with a full article of explanation. It was very interesting to read what they had about it. The word is an interesting, kind of an odd word. I'll pronounce it and give you the spelling. It's a Finnish word from Finland, from the Finnish language. The word is Sisu. S-I-S-U. S-I-S-U. Sisu is the way I would pronounce it. Maybe they would have a different pronunciation or whatever. But it is a quality.

The word loosely translated into English means strength of will, determination, or perseverance.

In the face of adversity is the meaning. It's always a perseverance in the face of adversity, and opposition. It's also the ability to keep fighting after most people would have quit and fight with the will to win.

When everybody else would quit and go home, this particular word speaks to a quality of staying with it. Beating your head against the wall, maybe. Perseverance against every odd. It means having guts. Having guts. And it comes from inside, as the Finns speak of it, and what it means. It is something that comes from the inside of us. A quality of determination. It's not something like momentary courage or bravery, where you may charge into a burning building, although that certainly would be an act of bravery and perhaps courage. But that's not what this word is talking about. This is something where you would stay with it day after day, week after week, continually. This particular quality. You would sustain that action. Deciding on a course, staying with it against repeated failures. And when you stop and think about our baptism, what we're told when we're baptized, to count the cost, to stay with it, we set ourselves for the kingdom of God at that point in time, for eternal life. And we, in order to count, counting the cost requires that we persevere against all odds. The article had a few other references and even some Olympic references. It mentioned actually a Finnish athlete who competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics, a runner named Lazi Varen. That might be a name some of you would remember. Lazi Varen was a Finnish distance runner in 1972 Olympics. His expected gold medal specialty was the 10,000 meter running event.

He fell early on, had a fall on the course. But he got back up and he won.

Got back up and he won. Not only did he win, but he broke the Olympic or the world record at that time. He started, ran for a certain distance, fell. Now, you know, when you fall in a race at that level, you pretty well think, you know, the other runners, they just keep right on going. And you've got your own humiliation, you've got your own disappointment, whatever hurt, physical hurt would come from that. And the tendency was, well, I'll never get back into the pack or whatever. What he did, and he won, and he set a new world record. Because he had this quality of determination from within that he would not let that setback occur.

You know, a young person learning how to ride a bike is going to fall. And they have to be, at some point, kind of cajoled, urged to get back on that bike and stay with it. Because the first time they fall, they start crying.

And it gets frustrating. Second time they fall, they cry some more. And they get frustrated. And it's easy to just go inside and do this.

And it's easy for the parent to say, oh, forget it, you know, I'm going to go drink a beer.

I'm going to go paint the house or work in a tool shed or something. But this quality of Sisu, this inner determination, is the quality to get back on the bike and stay with it.

Until you run down the road and you learn your balance and you learn to ride the bike. Learning to ride a bike is not anything heroic. There's no bravery in it. It's just one of those things you have to do. But showing the determination to stay with it in spite of repeated failure falling off of it is this quality of Sisu, of a perseverance.

In a sense, you have to be kind of historical. You have to have this inner toughness about the whole thing to stick to a decision that you make early and to stay with it. And that's what it comes down to. You look at it and whatever it is, whatever endeavor we may set out to be a success in, it's going to require us to stay with it and have a certain approach to work toward that goal and accomplish it. Even if you're the only one, even if you're all alone, and that is all the more important when it comes to our spiritual journey. If you are the only one faithful to God, to His law, to His way of life, the only one would you stay with it.

I've often talked about my mother. When she came into the Church of God, she was the only one in her town or hometown that was in the Church for years. She's not the only one who ever went through that. Lots of people would be the only one in over the years, the only one in a town, the only one in a county. Sometimes people would have been the only one in the whole state or region in the earlier days. I mean, she used to tell me, she said, I just thought it was me and this man out in California that understood this. If you're the only one, will you stay with it? If you're the only one in your family, the only one in your group, some of us have been the only one in our family. Some of us have had to have been a part of a group in the past and we're the only ones still standing. If you're the only one, will you stay with it? You're all alone. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, the Apostle Paul came to this in his life at a moment, 2 Timothy chapter 4.

Near the end of his life, he'd been imprisoned, hounded, and those closest to him begin to peel off. His group began to fade. 2 Timothy chapter 4, beginning in verse 9, he talks as he writes to Timothy. He says, be diligent to come to me quickly. He says, for Demas has forsaken me, one of his associates, having loved this present world and has departed for Thessalonica, Cressons for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia. Now, whether Cressons and Titus had abandoned the faith may be a little bit unclear, but Demas certainly is one who seems to have just had had enough. And he was at a critical moment in prison. He says, only Luke is with me. Get Mark, bring him, for he's useful. He says, Tychicus, I've sent to Ephesus. So he was not only alone in terms of just being the only one, but some of those that had been a part of his group had just kind of peeled off and left.

He mentions, verse 14, he says, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works. You also must be aware of him, for he has greatly resisted our words. Verse 16 then, at my first offense, no one stood with me. No one stood with me, all but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. So what happened at his first offense, when he was first arraigned before the judge at this particular time of imprisonment, he walked into that courtroom by himself.

Nobody else. No one was sitting in the stands that he could turn to for looking for a smile, thumbs up, word of encouragement. He was at that moment all alone, is what he's saying. And he had to give an answer. He had to maintain his dignity. He had to maintain his courage.

He stood alone for that moment. Now, he knew there were others, but they weren't there even in the room. They weren't there even in the town at this point in time.

And some had left by the necessity, while some had left for other reasons. What if you stood all alone in the faith?

Spiritually, there are times when we can feel very alone, especially in a prolonged trial. We may question why, question God, question ourselves, our commitment, but we have to proceed on with this quality. We have to persevere. We have to have this historical quality called, in the Finnish language, Sisu. We cannot give up, which leads to the last point that I want to cover. That is, to succeed in our race, we, as well as any other athlete, can never give up.

Never give up. Hebrews 12 and verse 1.

Hebrews 12 and verse 1.

It says, Let me read this from another translation. Again, this is the message, called the message.

So here is Paul in prison. He still had in mind the games, the Estamian games, the Olympic games.

He was at a point in his life where he knew he was coming down to the close of the race. And in 2 Timothy chapter 4, 2 Timothy chapter 4, in verse 7, he says, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not to me only, but also to all who loved his appearing. A crown of righteousness. As I said earlier, in the ancient games, the award was a laurel wreath crown. It wasn't a gold medal, silver or bronze. It was a laurel crown. And to win that, to stand wherever the place of honor was, to have that placed on their head was their prize, their crown of victory. And so this is what he's saying. There will be laid up for him, he said, a crown of righteousness. By implication, something that will not dry up, wither, and fade. This will be something that will be enduring for all eternity. A crown of righteousness, which has been put aside, and will be awarded by God. But we have to finish the race. There's another moment from another Olympics. I may have, I think I've shown it up here in years past in connection with another sermon, and it wasn't worth bringing and setting all the equipment up to try to show it. But if you want to see it, you can go out on YouTube, and it's out on YouTube. It's from the 1968 Summer Olympic Games that were held in Mexico City, and it's the marathon race. The marathon is, in the summer games, is always the last event that closes out the games, the summer games. And of course, that goes all the way back to Greece. That is one game that is held through the ages to the modern day. 27 point some odd miles, I think, is the course for the marathon. And in 1968, there was a scene, and it was captured on film, and it is a scene of a runner, the last one to finish the race. He was a Tanzanian. His name was John Stephen with a Ph. A Quarry. A-H-K-W-A-R-I, I believe. But you can just kind of type that into YouTube. John Stephen A Quarry. And it'll bring up that two-and-a-half, three-minute clip, and you can watch it. I've got it on VHS, had it for a number of years, and I went out the other day and found it on YouTube, bookmarked it. And I've watched it dozens of times, and it inspires me every time I see it. It was done and narrated by this guy named Bud Greenspan, who for years used to put together these collections of Olympic moments. And he did a wonderful job with chronicling all the different types of stories. And it shows him coming into, down the streets, toward the Olympic Stadium, over two hours after the winning runner has crossed the finish line. Over two hours. And most people have left the stands. The games essentially were over. But he had fallen, and he's bandaged, and he's limping, and he's barely upright. He must have really taken a bad tumble.

And he'd had to have himself bandaged, but he's still going because he's going to cross the finish line. They have the music playing, and it's really, really, very dramatic and very inspiring. And he shows him coming down the street, and he's got a kind of a still motorcycle escort. He's the last one. And he goes in through the tunnel, into the stadium, and he makes the last lap as they do. And he's limping, barely making it, and he crosses the finish line, over two hours after the winning runner had crossed. So there's nothing, there's nobody there to cheer him. There's no medal for him. But as they say in the voiceover, he says, quoting him, he said, My people did not send me here to fail, but to finish. And it's a perfect and wonderful example here of what Paul writes, where he says, I have finished the race. The race he's talking about is the marathon. It's not the 100 meter. It's not the 10,000 meter. It's not a relay race necessarily, although you can have certain analogies there. But really the race that Paul speaks of, probably in his mind, was the marathon, the long one. Because to even compete in a marathon, you got to pace yourself. You have to train rigorously and you don't run a sprint.

You're running at a pace to maintain a certain time to where you can finish. I cannot imagine running 27 miles. I've never had a desire to run 27 miles. I marvel at those that have the mental toughness to do that. But the analogy for all of us is still the same. The race we're in is really a marathon. To not be the first, second, or third, but to finish the race. And that's what this Olympic clip that I talked about shows so dramatically. And that's what Paul is talking about here. We've entered a very, very real spiritual contest with our calling. We need to learn these qualities and many others that we could go through today. We need to learn to never give up. The sacrifice, the perseverance that it takes, the dedication that it takes, and all the qualities to put things behind us. And also, brethren, we need to encourage one another with those qualities. There are times when we will need to reach out to someone and encourage them with it. And to know that even when we experience, when we demonstrate a stick-to-it-ness, a sacrifice, that that in itself encourages others, even though nothing is said.

Some of us will have these qualities at different times while others won't. But to see that example, it will be encouraging. That's when we need to encourage one another to hold fast and to stay faithful and to rely on God. That's why we need each other to finish our race, our marathon.

So Paul used this analogy of Olympic athletics and competition to illustrate the race we are in toward eternal life. Let's run. Let's run with patience and endurance. Let's learn the lessons. But let's run to win. And as we view the games as they might finish up this weekend and anything else that we can do to help them, we need to be able to do that.