Running Our Race: Making the Transition

As Mr. Stewart did this afternoon, I'd like to also start off with a question today. What do people call a race event that is comprised of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and finishing up with a 26.2 mile run? Any ideas? Crazy? They call it insane or ridiculous? That's what I would. So if you were thinking triathlon, technically you're correct. If you said Iron Man triathlon, then you're the winner of today's chicken dinner. For those not familiar with the Iron Man triathlon, again, it's a race comprised of a 2.4 mile open water swim, a 112 mile bike ride or race.

After that, finished up with a 26.2 mile run. That's a full marathon at the end of the other two events. So for me, if you just throw out numbers like that, they sound big. We can all imagine some of these numbers.

But I did a little bit of math this morning trying to figure out, okay, let's bring it down to Michigan terms. So if you were to start this race today, I'd say we're all going to go out after services, which by the way we are. I don't know if everybody's aware of this, but we're going to go out afterwards. And we're going to, it would be as if we were going to swim from here, just on the other side of downtown Birmingham. So right down the road here, just on the other side of downtown Birmingham, is about 2.4 miles.

If at that point we jumped on our bikes, we would have to bike all the way to where we have church in Ann Arbor. That's Selene. And that's only halfway and back. So that's about 60 miles from here. Selene is where we have church there.

So you get on a bike, bike all the way over to Ann Arbor, which everybody from here is familiar with, to Selene, and then come back. And then at that point, we'd start our bikes, and we'd have to start the marathon portion, which would technically take us all the way to downtown Detroit, through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, and then we would have to finish up at the Duty Free Shop there on Windsor, on the other side of Canada. That would pretty much comprise this entire race. So it kind of helps us all to bring it down to a little bit more local terms, of what this would be like.

So, like I said, we're all going to go out after. We're ready. We can do this. We can do this today, right? The history of the Iron Man triathlon is actually a really interesting one. The original idea started as many of these types of ideas go.

A whole bunch of guys together in a room trying to figure out who's the toughest. Who's the best athlete? And so the idea arose during the award ceremony for the 1977 Oahu Perimeter Relay. So these are men who competed in it. They got together for the award ceremony of this relay. And among the participants were representatives of both the Mid-Pacific Roadrunners, so these are runners, and the Waikiki Swim Club, so swimmers. So you've got a whole bunch of runners and swimmers with a lot of testosterone sitting around a room trying to figure out who's the toughest.

Among the... and they were trying to figure out who were the most fit. On this occasion, U.S. Navy Commander John Collins pointed out that a recent Sports Illustrated magazine had declared that Eddie Merckx, the great Belgian cyclist, had the highest recorded oxygen intake of any athlete ever measured. And so he was saying perhaps cyclists were more fit than everyone. And so him and his wife, Judy, had participated in some smaller-scale triathlons in California prior to this.

And so they were familiar with it, and the other people there, the other men there, were also somewhat familiar with the idea, the concept of a triathlon. But so they weren't really shocked when Commander Collins came kind of up with a new idea to try to determine who is the fittest, who is the most fit person that could compete in all these events.

And so they understood the concept when he presented that they would take three events already held on this island at different times of the year, but put them all together and compete in them back to back to back. So he recommended or came up with the idea to do the Waikiki Rough Water Swim. So this is an ocean swim off the beach for 2.4 miles. It's something that they had already been aware of. Then he said we would then do the Around Oahu Bike Race, which was already established, which at that time was 115 miles. And it was originally a two-day event.

And then he said, and then we'll finish it up with the standard Honolulu Marathon course. So he took these three events and said let's do them back to back to back to see who is the toughest, who is the most fit. Up until that point, no one had ever done the bike race, so this was something new for the men who were standing around the room. So Commander Collins came up with a brochure, kind of an outline, everybody waving their rights to any type of death or anything like that.

He got the permissions from local authorities to be able to do an open-water swim, to be able to have a race going on, the police were aware, the Coast Guard were aware. And so he created an application. And so as the different men would fill out the application, they would do their name. And he had handwritten on the application copy this exhortation. It says, swim 2.4 miles. Bike, 112 miles. Run 26.2 miles. Brag for the rest of your life. And with a nod to a local runner who was notorious for his demanding workouts, Collins said, whoever finishes first, we'll call him the Iron Man.

So that's where the name stuck, that this length of a triathlon would be called Iron Man. The Iron Man length triathlon. So each of the racers had their own support crew to supply water and food and encouragement during the event. And of the 15 men to start off early that morning on February 18, 1978, 12 completed the race. Gordon Haylor, a U.S. Navy communications specialist, was the first to earn the Iron Man title by completing the course in a time of 11 hours, 46 minutes, and 58 seconds.

11 hours. I can't think of doing hardly anything for 11 hours. Driving in a car is exhausting for 11 hours. But here he did it in a time of 11 hours, 46 minutes, and 58 seconds. The runner-up, John Dunbar, a U.S. Navy SEAL, led after the second transition and had a chance to win, but I like this part, but ran out of water on the marathon course. His support crew resorted to giving him beer instead. So second place, finished it up with beer. It's quite an event. It's interesting to look at the history of things like this.

So this was the first ever Iron Man triathlon, and it was ran and continues today to still be a premier event that many feel is a pinnacle triathlon event. But there's an aspect of the triathlon that many have not thought much about, but it's a critical part of the race. As with most types of races, most of the time, somebody does one event for the entirety of the race. So if you go out for a marathon, you're just running the entire time.

If you go out for a bike race, you're biking the entire time, or of course swimming, you're swimming the entire time. But when someone completes in a triathlon, they must transition from one stage of the event to the next, and then to a third.

It's all these transition points that the athletes face some unique obstacles in and of itself. Even though the athletes have trained for long periods of time, I mean, imagine how long you'd have to train to run just a marathon, or how much pool time or open water time you'd have to get in. Everybody who runs a triathlon, especially at this length, puts in quite a few hours, to say the least.

But they rarely train for the transitions themselves, because you can go out and maybe run for a little bit, or maybe bike, and then put on your shoes and go for a run. But the bulk of your training is usually in one event. You don't spend a lot of time training for these transition periods. But transitions consist of swimming, so you've got your swim cap on and goggles, and so you come out of the open water, you come across the beach, and now you're going to bike for the next 112. So you've got to remove some of your equipment, you've got to put on your bike shoes and a bike helmet, maybe grab a pair of sunglasses, and then you head out. And then after that, you transition again by dropping some of that equipment, stowing your bike, and then switching into some running shoes that you're going to hope lasts you over the next 26.2 miles. So it's these transitions. But what I understand is the hardest part of the transition is the physical impact it has on our bodies themselves. Because each stage of the race, swim, bike, or run, uses a unique set of muscles. And while you're doing this for this length of time, it's not just that you swing one lap and then you jump out and you go do something else, but when you're doing a specific movement for that long of a time, for that length, your body builds up muscle memory. It gets used to swimming. It gets used to biking, or it gets used to running. And so to tell your body to switch out of that, to go into a different use of muscles, it's quite a bit. It's kind of a mind game, but it's also a physical difficulty. Because when you're swimming, your legs are doing the flutter kick, the motion of just going up and down. It uses a set of muscles unique for just that. Then you transition to a bike, and all of a sudden your legs are doing a circular motion, like you would be riding a bike. And you would think, well, running's not that much different than the motion of riding a bike, but it is. Your cadence is the right word, because that's more of a rhythm. But your stride, that's what I was looking for. Your stride is different, because you're actually lengthening it out. And the muscles themselves, and your ankles, and your feet are working differently than before. So everything transitions. I had a friend that actually did one Ironman in Ohio, and he goes, the hardest part was going from the bike to the run, because your legs are kind of doing the circular motion.

They've been doing it for 112 miles, and all of a sudden you put on shoes and you go running. Your legs naturally want to do this exact same motion, and everybody's just doing that. So you see all these guys and girls kind of running. They look like toddlers just learning how to run. The steps are funny. And he says, it took a while to get your brain to get out of that muscle memory, and to get into a normal stride, what you're used to doing with running.

So successfully executing these transitions is critical to the athlete in continuing their race. It's this aspect of making the transition that I'd like to look at today. Specifically, I'd like us to consider how are we making the transition in our lives after returning home from the Feast of Tabernacles. Just a bit over a week ago, we were at the Feast, observing God's commanded Feast of Tabernacles. I'd like you to think back a few days prior to that last day of the Feast, or the eighth day, to the first day. Maybe it was the opening evening, the excitement that was in the air, the joy that we had in our hearts to be there, singing with a large group of people at most of these sites, the excitement that we had for the sermons, the upcoming sermons, day after day after day. It's just that excitement of the inspiration God has put in these messages, and knowing that we're going to get fed every single day from God's Word. There's an excitement about that. There's an excitement of remembering the people we're going to meet. Maybe some friends we've met from past years, but also saying, you know what, there's going to be new people. And that we're all going to be here to praise Him, to worship Him together, and to enjoy this special time. It was a wonderful time of the year, but it's a time that has to come to an end, as it always does, much quicker than we wish it would. And until we celebrate it again next year. So here we are today. We've returned home, and most of us have started getting back into our normal life. We're getting back into the swing of our daily work of school for some of us. I think some...maybe nobody's...well, Kelsey's in school. I know that for a fact. I don't know if anybody's in college or taken any kind of further education there. But we have...everybody had to get back into work. Some had to get back into caring for grandkids or being involved with children. Some are just getting back to retiring. That's always a good one, too. Someday I may get to do that. But we are all in a transition period of the year where we have just completed these fall Holy Days and are entering a period of time. I added it up. It's 159 days between now and Passover in the spring. It's a lot of time. It's almost...a little more than five months, not quite half the year. But we're entering a large amount of time between the end of the fall Holy Days and the first day of Passover, or the Feast of Passover coming up. I think it's in March, the end of March next year. As we enter and exit the fall Holy Day season, we are now transitioning back to our normal spiritual race that we are each running. In Hebrews 12, Paul uses the analogy of a race when describing the work and effort that each of us are spending as we struggle against the pools of this world and against our own human nature. Let's look at Hebrews 12 just briefly.

This is Hebrews 12, verses 1 and 2.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. After we two run triathlons, they prepare and train with a purpose and a focus to deliver results on race day. They don't just wake up one day and say, you know what, that was a great night of sleep I had last night. I think I'll go out and run an Iron Man triathlon today. Now, I know there's one or few cases of somebody that has some kind of freak of nature and they can do that, but for the most part of people, people don't just wake up one day and determine that they're going to go and do something. No, the athletes focus. They train. They have a plan, and they execute that plan time and time and time again, many times daily, working on either diet, working on rest, working on the different ways that they need to train for their bodies. They log many miles training and preparing their bodies ahead of event time, and an aspect of training is not just on the individual components of the triathlon, like the swimming, the biking, or the running, but they also focus and they plan the transitions they will need to make to continue running their race. As with an athlete who runs a triathlon, we must also run our own spiritual race with purpose and a focus on the end results we desire to achieve. We run with a purpose, and I'd like to look at 1 Corinthians 9 as we consider this point. We run with a purpose.

Because if these men and women who run these triathlons just trained without a purpose, they did one set of arm workouts one day and then they went on a canoe trip and they did other things, but they didn't have a purpose and they didn't have a plan to accomplish their end goal, it wouldn't have benefited them any. Were they working out? Sure. But what was their purpose? They knew what their purposes are when they start to prepare for this triathlon. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 24.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it, and everyone who competes for the prize is temperate, another way you could use the word temperate would be they exercise self-restraint. They're making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do, things that will benefit them, not just haphazardly training, not haphazardly competing, but they're temperate, they're exercise self-restraint.

And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things, not just some things, but all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we, for an imperishable crown, and this is Paul speaking saying, therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty, thus I fight, not as one who beats the air. I like the phrase here because you could visualize somebody who a boxer just swinging, no contact, not doing anything, yet he's exhausting himself for no purpose.

He's just beating the air. The air is providing no resistance, but yet he's fatiguing himself, not accomplishing anything, not moving forward, not progressing his cause. And I like how he uses that, thus I fight not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body, and I bring it into subjection. Thus, when I preach to others, I myself should be disqualified. That's an important aspect. Paul had a purpose.

He did not want himself to become disqualified. What is our purpose? Think through that. What is your purpose for being here today? What is your purpose for wanting to continue to progress in your spiritual growth and righteousness towards God? We all have a common goal. We want to cross that finish line and be children of God. We want to inherit everything that he wants to give us. We want to be part of his process as Jesus Christ returns and establishes his kingdom on this earth.

We want to be there. We want to see it. Because we know that joy will be what we can't even imagine today. That's why we endure. That's why we make sure that our purpose is sure. Our purpose is set. And it's important that as we transition out of the feast season, out of the fall holy day season, and back into another long period of time with no more holy days until the spring, that we make this transition in a successful way.

Because it can be tough at times to make the transition. It can be very tough. We come back, and what's the first thing we have to do? Get ready for school. Get ready for work. We quickly transition. We got home on Sunday. Kelsey's in school on Monday. We got home on Sunday.

I was doing email and work on Monday. All of us were busy with different things of transitioning back. We're getting unpacked and back into the flow of life, knowing that we've got to go to the grocery store. See, we always...this is a sidebar. I always call everything a grocery. I think it's a Cincinnati, Ohio thing, but everybody's like the grocery store, right? I'm trying to break myself of that. But we had to go to the grocery store to get supplies for the next week.

You may be dealt with medical issues, maybe a trial with a health problem, or maybe a finance issue as well. Whatever type of things that were on your plates, we quickly made the transition back to them after returning home from the feast. But these things can cause the transition in our spiritual race to be difficult. But the professional athlete expects the unexpected because this isn't their first rodeo. Most of the athletes that go out, they have trained for races.

They have ran other races. They may not have ran a full triathlon before, but they probably ran a marathon. They've probably swam in a competitive race. And so they know what the expectations of that would be. And as I consider the group I'm speaking to today, this isn't your first transition back from the feast. This isn't your first rodeo. Many of you have gone to multiple feasts for many, many years. You know what it's like to come back from the feast. You know what it's like to transition back to normal life.

And so you have that experience. And many of us can share stories of good years of making the transition, but also years that that transition didn't go smoothly, that trials hit us since we walked in the door, or that the mind shift just changed because you get familiar with your home, you're familiar with that routine, and quickly, maybe it's not a habit you developed that the feast quickly goes out the window.

We've all lived life. We're all human. We know what that's like. So as we run our race with a purpose, we must also make the transition with a purpose. Not just haphazardly make a transition back to the runners don't. They plan their transitions in that part of the race. We must also, as we come back from the feast and come back from this fall hoyday season, have a transition plan in our mind because we know we already have. Many of us have already started to transition. But we haven't been so far removed from that, that we can't rebound and we can't continue to build a transition for the next year as we continue making this transition point.

It's also during this transition phase that the runners race, in the runners race, that he will take time to refuel. Hopefully while we are at the feast, we received our refueling. I know so many times people talk about that when you focus on that message, you go into the feast maybe with a run and low on fuel for the year because we've been busy, summer's wrapped up, the fall is a busy time in the year. And so the opportunities we have to listen to that many messages can really encourage us if we take the time and we focus on that.

As some have said before, if we took in all the messages of the feast, we would have had about 20 hours of biblical teaching. So just as we're doing here today, it would have been similar to 20 hours of that just for that week at the feast. And if you did the math based on the whole year of Sabbath services and other holy days, that would equate out to about 15% of our year of the Bible study that we got in an educated format at Sabbath services from an elder in the church.

That would be about 15% of our yearly messages that we would receive. Now, 15%, that doesn't sound like a huge amount, but it also isn't small. Would anybody like a 15% raise today at your work? I'd take it. I'd take it in an RV. And would you like a 15% decrease on your auto insurance? In Michigan, I would take that as well. That's a huge chunk of money. So when we think about 15%, it does equate out to a reasonable amount, something that you would notice if it was missing.

Or if somebody gave you an opportunity to have that money back, you would notice that amount of time and that amount of money. So it does add up. The spiritual refueling we receive at the feast is what will give us that boost that we need to start the next portion of our race between now and the spring holy days. The long, cold winter months are long and cold, and it seems like many times it just drags on. It's just that winter time just drags on between now and when the spring flowers start to pop up.

And I can only imagine what it's like to run a marathon after swimming 2.4 miles and then biking 112, and then you hit that transition, kind of like where we're at right now, where you say, I've got a full marathon ahead of me. I've got five months of winter ahead of me. And it can be daunting. It can be overwhelming. Maybe you even hit that transition and you're like, it's going to be a long, long winter. But it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be. Runners many times use energy gels or chews along. And these are like energy chews, kind of like a gummy bear type of thing.

But it gives them fuel as they make a transition point to get them ready for the next stage. They'll take on water and they'll take on maybe Gatorade and things, things that will continue to replenish them, continue to give them the energy they need to continue on. God has positioned the Feast of Tabernacles perfectly in the year to provide us a wonderful opportunity for us to be refueled and to receive a boost for the next five months, that period between now and the spring-hawaii days. Our refueling is so vital to our spiritual health.

And so if you had the best Feast ever spiritually, then that's wonderful. That's an amazing opportunity that you had and that you grasped. Your spiritual fuel tank should be pretty full right now. And you should be ready to take on the rest of the year. Using the race analogy, once again, let's imagine that you are running an amazing race right now. You are, if not at the head of the pack, you're pretty close up front.

You're hitting that transition and you're feeling really good about all the training you've put in, about all the effort you've put in, and you're feeling really good about this marathon that's now ahead of you. You're not scared by it, you're not daunted by it, you're ready, and you're confident that your performance, and you may even be thinking to yourself, Bring it on.

Bring it on. I encourage you that if this was your best feast ever, to keep it up. Keep up your spiritual performance during this transition and into the next part of the year. If you developed a new study habit or maybe a new prayer aspect, keep it up as you continue through this year. If you worked to overcome a sin and you did well and you put a plan together, or you were just steadfast in your approach towards that sin and you really focused and you worked hard at it, keep that up as well.

By doing these things, you are running a successful race. You're doing well. But maybe your feast didn't go as well as you should have spiritually. Maybe the physical aspects of the feast took a front seat to the spiritual. You might have some regrets now that you're home and that your refueling didn't go the way that you quite envisioned it prior to leaving. Back to the race analogy again.

Maybe you're entering that transition period just before the marathon, a little bit further back in the pack than you hoped you would be. And maybe even you're feeling a little under the weather. Maybe you've got a cramp in your side or that spot on your foot that's just nagging at you. It's not feeling good and it's playing games with your mind. You might be wishing you might have a do-over for the feast.

Maybe you could start again and this time it would be different. But like the athletes running a race, there is no do-over. We can't go back and recreate the feast. We can't go back and recoup that time that was lost or that energy that wasn't spent where it should have been. We can't go back to the race and say, Oh, hold up! I'd like everybody to stop running. We're all going to go back home. We're going to train for two more months because I need that extra time.

We're all going to come back and then I'll be ready. Then we'll compete. It doesn't work that way with the race. Sadly, with the feast, once the feast is gone, that time is gone. Now, we can refocus and we can redeem some of what was lost, but that time, that fellowship, that opportunity, the spiritual direction that God brought to those speakers, that's gone. Because we have moved on from that time of our life.

Once you start a race, you can't midway change your mind to decide not to run. Once you start a race, the only option is to either finish it or to quit. And we don't have an option to quit. You can put in your notes Luke 9, verse 62, where Jesus said to him, No one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. We have all placed our hand on the plow and there is no looking back.

We can't look over our shoulder and look at the world or look at things in our past life and wish that that's where we were at. We made a commitment and this commitment has to stay intact. It's moments like these that God through his Holy Spirit can talk to us. If you're feeling this way, that's his Holy Spirit talking to you and making you rethink about your feasts and the decisions that were made.

He's reaching out to our hearts and God is causing us to pause for a minute and to consider our performance. And you know what? That's really okay. That's okay. Because it's moments like these that we can have a fundamental impact on how we go forward and how we handle future feasts.

How we handle tomorrow. It's these moments. That's why it's okay. These are life lessons that we each have to learn. I personally have had my own lessons I've had to learn from ways that I wish I could go back and take away some of the aspects. Not necessarily this year, but some feasts that weren't handled the way that I wish they would have been. And so I've learned and we made an agreement that we're not going to do this again. We're not going to set up the feast site the way that maybe we had in the past.

So we all live. We all learn. And that's why it's okay. And at times we all have to go before God and ask for forgiveness for maybe some decisions we made. Maybe bad decisions, things like that. But He is quick to forgive and He's quick to help us when we do those things. And He will more times than not place us back on that right path and give us the encouragement we need.

Then we choose to follow that and continue on that race and that road that's in front of us. But there might be a third category that maybe you personally fall into this year as you hit this transition period. For some of you, it could have been a strange feast. We've had one before. A really odd feast. And you can't really put your finger on it, but you know it was different.

You went in with the right mindset. You got your study and your prayer time in. Everything you were doing that was within your control was right. But something else happened. Something out of your control impacted your feast. Something that you couldn't control and that you couldn't plan for. Sometimes things in life just come out of nowhere, whether it's an illness or a problem with your car or your hotel room.

There's sometimes aspects that are outside of our control that impact our feasting. Maybe it was the death in the family, or maybe a family member's health problem or your own. But sometimes these things just happen. I know this year we had a friend that was in Florida. And prior to Florida, he got a bad cut on his thumb, a really bad one.

And they thought it was taken care of and everything was getting good. Well, during the feast, it started to swell. And there was an infection. And he had to spend time in the hospital. And he's from international areas, from Canada. And so they have free health care there. We don't have free health care here. And so he was dealing with the expenses that we're adding up. And then they thought they got it. A day goes by and he's feeling better. And then all of a sudden, the swelling comes back. It's not responding to the antibiotics. And so that was out of his control.

It was something that happened. But he didn't have...he had the right mindset at the feast. But it was this nagging, ongoing problem with his thumb that just kept distracting. It was just this kind of this painful thumb that kept him from really being able to focus his attention on the feast. Sometimes we have those feasts. Sometimes we have these significant impacts that just...it takes away. Everything that we hoped for, that we desired, sometimes kind of get blown up. And if you've been in the church for a long enough time, as most of us here have, most likely you've had this type of a feast, or you will have this type of a feast.

And when they come out of left field, it can be frustrating. It can be disappointing. It can be difficult to understand, why has this happened to me? It may be difficult to even put into words exactly how you feel, because you're confused. You don't even recognize, like, why did this happen? But yet it sometimes does. But even through this type of a feast, we can gain insight by going through it.

It's not always easy, but we can work to maintain a good attitude. I've had to do that in past years. I've had to look for the lesson that I can learn. Okay, I can't change what is happening right now, but what does God want me to learn from this? What can I learn from this? Where could I take this that will end up in a positive way instead of the, well, it was me?

Or why me? Because we've all had those times as well. And we've all seen other people that have had difficult feasts where it's, this is not fair. Well, life was never promised to be fair. We all know that. But sometimes we can get caught into that train of thought. But or we can flip it around and say, okay, God, this is what you've brought on this year. I don't, it is what it is.

Help me to learn. What is it that you want me to take away from this feast? What lesson can I then remember and apply for future events like this when they come up? What is it that you want me to learn? It can be a powerful byproduct by changing our thought when we do it. Maybe in a future year you'll be able to encourage or comfort someone who's going through their difficult feast or their strange feast because you know what? You had it last year.

You had it two years ago. And you can use that as an opportunity, maybe help encourage somebody else in a way that maybe you wouldn't have had that mindset before because yours have always been easy. And so you didn't know what it was like to have a major health problem right in the middle of the feast. I know last year, not this year, but last year, one of the local elders in Cincinnati got all the way to Florida and got pneumonia. They missed every single service.

Imagine that's one thing to have pneumonia at home where you got your bed, you got your doctor, you know where everything's at. It's another one to be completely out of state all the way down there and then you miss your whole feast. Like I said, we spend enough time in the church, we spend enough time keeping the Feast of Tabernacles, we're going to have a strange, we're going to have a difficult feast eventually. It's part of what just comes with living life. So regardless of how you are making the transition from your feast right now back into your normal life, the important thing to keep in mind is that you are, and we are all moving forward in our spiritual race.

And that we all have a great opportunity to run a powerful race still today with God's help and with His assistance. Another aspect of making the transition I'd like to look at this afternoon as we've returned home is that we are transitioning back into a world that is not God's. As Jesus Christ was being questioned by Pilate before His death, this is in John 18, verse 36, Jesus answered Pilate and said, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews.

But now my kingdom is not from here. So Christ Himself was very bold in saying that this is not His world, and we all know that. It's a sharp contrast between the words that we see in God's, as we have in our Bibles here in God's words, to what we see going on in the world around us.

We see the lack of instruction, the lack of leadership, and yet we see that if things were different, if things were led by God's Word, how different this world would be. We just experience a taste, just a taste of what the kingdom of God will look like when we observe the feast. And while we partake in this taste, this small amount, we can already see the stark contrast between this world and what will be established on the earth someday when Christ returns with the kingdom of God.

We see clearly that this world is not God's at this time. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul describes who is at fault and who is the cause of deception and lies that permeate our society and why people can't see God's truth today.

This is in 2 Corinthians 4, and I'll read verse 4. I'm going to read this from the New Living Translation. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, Satan, who is the God of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the good news. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

So we know that Satan has blinded the world, and he's actively going around and seeking whoever he can devour, as we heard in the sermon at. He's on a rampage, and he's not going to ever quit until Christ comes back and puts him in his position. While we were at the Feast of Tabernacles, we were presented with an opportunity to step away from the world for a bit.

This is always one of the most encouraging aspects for me, to step away for one week, to not have to turn on the news, to not have to worry about what's going on in the world around, but to focus on what's right in front of us, the people, the opportunity, our families, our friends. The commonality that we have of being of one spirit, one body, one mind, having one word to worship, one God to learn from. It's an amazing opportunity that we get for one week, that compressed, condensed Feast of Tabernacles. For one week, we get to focus on the hope of what's going to come down when Christ returns.

The hope that we have and the promises that we have seen in our Bibles. For one week, we get to rejoice and fellowship with those of like mind, even with new people. For one week, we get to meet new people who immediately we have the most important things in common with, that have the Holy Spirit in them just as we do. The same spirit that just evaporates distance, it evaporates awkwardness many times, because immediately we can talk about the things that are most important. For one week, we get to partake in an abundance of wonderful spiritual food. The sermons, the fellowship, the Bible studies, the conversations at dinner.

For one week, we get to take in all of these wonderful things. But it's also a time of the year that we can see so clearly the contrast between God's ways and Satan's ways. Because when you focus that intently for one week on what is right and what is coming, and the glory that will be with Jesus Christ when he returns, and then all you have to do, I remember one year driving home from the feast and I was trying to find the Bengals game, and I flipped on the radio and it was a news report.

And they were going through normal news stories of Cincinnati, and all of a sudden I'm like, Ugh, I haven't heard this in over a week. It kind of made my stomach hurt. Because for one week, I had ignored all those things. For one week, it wasn't my focus. And for one week, I was really uplifted. But then we realized, it's temporary. We're not of...the Kingdom's not here yet.

We're still of the world. This is still where we live and where we have to lay our heads at night. We are making the transition back into a world that is ruled and governed by Satan and his wicked influence. And there's not a corner of this world that has not felt his influence. Through the feast, we were reminded that we must become less and less like the world around us. And as technology and knowledge has spread without limits, the world has moved further and further away from God at a similar pace.

At this transition point, we must ask ourselves, are we slipping down the slippery slope along with the world, or are we running our race against the world's tide? Are we becoming more tolerant of sin, maybe in our lives, maybe in the world? Sin that we see in the world, but we're becoming more tolerant to.

Are we apologetic of our Christian beliefs? Is our conscience becoming seared or desensitized to the ways of the world that are contrary to God's ways? Mankind has become desensitized to these things in the world that couldn't be stomached just a short while ago. Think about it. Things that used to be viewed as indescribable violence or crimes against humanity have become almost commonplace. And have we become desensitized to certain things? I have to admit, you can't live in this world right now and know the things going on.

I just, right two days prior to the feast starting, the terror that happened in Las Vegas. You can't help if you have the TV on to focus on it for a little bit. But I have to admit, we've seen so much that next thing I knew it was, well, we gotta go and I didn't look into it anymore. And it's a tragedy. It's a horrible tragedy. Yet, I myself have become partially desensitized to these things.

It's the impact that this world is having on just me alone. And it's hard when we really sit down and we think about this. Because so many people have become desensitized to the violence. Things that Satan has stirred up. Things that are not gods. And so we have to ask ourselves these tough questions. Are we becoming more tolerant? Are we just not allowing the focus to be there that it once had? Are we apologizing for our Christian beliefs and our willingness to follow God's words?

Because this world wants us to go that direction. Satan wants it more than anything. For us to give up all of these things. To just not care anymore. To become desensitized to violence. To things that only he stirs up. But as we make our transition, we must be very careful that we don't transition back into a world that is against Godly values and teachings.

There's a passage in 2 Timothy chapter 3 that I'd like to look at.

We often turn to this passage in 2 Timothy when we compare and contrast the state of the world today.

And what God says is going to be eventually.

2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1.

But know this. That in the last days, perilous times will come. And just think of the Swiss. I'll go a little bit slower because sometimes I've breezed through the Swiss in a way that's too fast. But we need to let these words kind of resonate a little bit. Because if we've had a successful feast and our mindset is right, this should hurt a little bit. This should hurt as we read through this list. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money. They'll be boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Does this describe our world today? Unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good. They'll be traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And he finishes up here and says, from such people, turn away. We, and I self-admit many times, have read through this list. Yeah, yeah, it's a bad list. Yep, it describes the world around us. Yep, yep, yep. But when we really pause and we consider that this is the state of the world we live in today, and it's only going to get worse, there should be that sharp contrast that we see between this and what we just came out of, spending that feast with that small taste of the kingdom of God that we were able to get for one week. But what does God expect? He expects that we become like him. While we're still in 2 Timothy, let's look across the page in my Bible to 2 Timothy 2, verse 1. 2 Timothy 2, verse 1. You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. And also, if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. This is a faithful saying, for if we die with him, we shall also live with him. If we endure, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. And in 2 Timothy 2, so if you just look a little bit, one book forward, from 2 Timothy to Titus, chapter 2, there's another list here that is a much better list that we're going to work through as well. This is Titus 2, verse 1.

And then skip down to verse 11.

What an amazing list! What an amazing contrast we see from that list. As we make this transition back, this should be our focus. This should be our mindset. This should stand out, and it does. When we live this type of a life, as described here in Titus, we do stand out. People should be ashamed when they compare themselves with us. Not because of what we're doing just ourselves, but because of the work that God is doing in us. The truth that he has shown us, and the dedication that we are putting in to do the best of our ability to follow. That's what we can do here. The feast days we just finished observing, just again, a little over a week ago, represent radical change for this earth and everyone who lives in it. Radical change must also be occurring in our lives. Keep up any good habits that you started at the feast this year. Keep up any positive change that you might have made in overcoming sin. Keep up any progress you made in any area of your life that doesn't measure up to the example that we have in Jesus Christ. We must keep it up. Keep it up. Making it to a transition point in the race doesn't mean we have already arrived at the finish line. It means that there is more race still in front of us to run. It means we must keep up the pace we have been running so far in this race. We must keep up everything we have been doing to continue the race that we started, whether it was a year ago, or whether it was 15 years ago, or 20 years ago. Whatever that amount of time is, we gotta keep running our race. This also doesn't mean the last part of our race will be easy. Remember, you just finished that 2.4 mile swim, that 112 mile bike ride? You got a marathon still in front of you. That doesn't just look out, and that's not just something to trip over when you're there. It's still a race that is big. I've seen people hit the transition point of the race to run into other difficulties. They hit the transition point, and they switch from the swim to the bike only to get a flat tire a couple miles down the road. Or they transition from the bike portion to the running, and all of a sudden they have a problem with their foot. They get a cramp in their leg because they haven't been drinking enough water or something like that. But a lot of times these things should come out of the blue. They come out of nowhere.

But what do they do? What do these athletes do? They keep it up. They keep running. They keep running their race. They fix the flat. They work through the cramps, and they keep running their race. Our race doesn't have a finish line until God says we've crossed that finish line. So through difficulties that may occur over the next few weeks or months, between now and Passover or whenever, we must keep it up.

Keep up our race. As we make the transition back into our lives, we must remember that our race is also being ran through the power of God living in our lives, through His Holy Spirit. It's through this power that we have all the support that we need. When we are weak, if we rely on Him, then we are made strong in His strength. The Iron Man Triathlon World Championship is held every year in Kona, Hawaii.

So they do Iron Man Links races at different places in the United States, but one time a year they have the championship, the National Championship, or I believe it's the World. Yeah, it's the World Championship that is held out in Kona, Hawaii, getting back to its native roots of being originally started in Hawaii. They hold this World Championship every year. A few years back, I watched a documentary on this one race out there, the World Championship for the Iron Man Triathlon.

The top finishers of this race competed in a little over eight hours. They've narrowed it down. They've performed. I mean, this is what they do. They're professionals. They go from 11 hours or 12 hours that the original one was ran in. Now, the pros are getting it down to eight hours. They're fast, and they know what they're doing. But to be counted as finishing the race, each participant must complete it within 17 hours, because they've got to open up the roads, and they can't just have people out there for days trying to run this race.

So they have to complete it within 17 hours. I noticed something extraordinary at the end of the race, around the 15th or 16th hour. The race starts at 7 a.m. So if you imagine 15, 16 hours later, it's now dark on this course. And if they don't hit the transitions at a certain time, they have to stop, because they know if you didn't make the first transition by this time, you're never going to finish the race in time.

So these people who are still out on the course, they made the first two transitions in a time that allows them to continue competing. But now they're out on this running course, and they're struggling. It's now dark, and they are really struggling, because the pros are already done. They're done in eight hours. And to get to this race, you have to compete in other Iron Mans and finish it in the time that qualifies for this. So we're not just talking to anybody who just wakes up and says, I'll go out to the National Championship, and I'll run it, or the World Championship.

They have ran their races before, and they competed in a good time. But for whatever reason, they are running on the road course now, and they are really, really struggling. But there are people, average people like you or me, that are not competing, but they come out to the race course for one purpose. That's to encourage those lone, struggling runners. When I saw this, it got me a little choked up when you're watching this documentary. Because average people come out with their flashlights to light up the course, because it's dark now, and they're out on some road with no road lights and stuff, and they're struggling.

They're alone in their hurt. They're alone in their disappointment. They're alone just trying to wrap their mind around what has happened to me today. Because I'm a pro.

What has happened to me today that I am struggling like I've never struggled before? But yet, average people come out with their flashlights, and they run alongside with the runners, encouraging them as they run. And when the runners stop because they can't run anymore and they need that break, those running alongside them stop. And they say, keep it up. Keep it up. They can't touch them. They can't help them. They can't carry them. But they can stand there, and they can give them the encouragement of just keep running. Keep running. You're almost there. Don't quit. And they're there with their flashlights. And it was so encouraging, so extraordinary to see that these people who were alone in their pain, alone in their weakness, alone in their thoughts, and yet here are average people with their flashlights running alongside, telling them to keep going.

Don't quit. We have a Savior that gave up His own life for you and me. He's the author of our faith, who is running alongside of us in our race. He gives us encouragement through His Word. He gives us bread and water that feeds and nourishes us our entire lives. He will not leave us. He will not forsake us when we feel like our legs are giving out and we can't continue on. That's what we look at Hebrews 13 as we consider this aspect. Just a few pages forward. Hebrews 13 and verse 5.

Breaking into the thought here, middle of the verse in verse 5, He says, For He Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Is our race hard? Oh, yeah, it's hard. Our race is very hard. But our God is great and His Son is our Lord and Savior and soon-coming King. There is no one greater, no one more powerful. And this is who we have on our side, cheering us on and encouraging each one of us. Christ is not only alongside of us, He's also in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. He is that inner peace we feel when we're on that road alone, in the dark, racing out by ourselves and we call out to Him in prayer. He is the one that is there. He is that extra boost of energy when we are tired and we're ready to quit. He comforts us when we hurt and when we have our scrapes and our bruises from the obstacle course of life. When we have that cramp, when we have that sore spot on our foot that just lingers and it won't get out of our mind and we know we've got to race it, we've got to run and we can't quit. He is the one that gives us the courage and the comfort.

He is the one that helps us. He is the one with that flashlight saying, keep going, don't quit. As we consider this, let's look at Isaiah 43, verse 1.

Isaiah 43, verses 1-3.

But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord, who created you? O Israel, the one who formed you says, do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up. The flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I can't imagine a better analogy than the runners racing there, struggling in their difficulty, but with people coming out to offer their assistance. When you read through Isaiah 43, verses 1-3, you think of the deep water. You think of the trials that come on. Yet it says, for I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Your Savior. This is who we have on our side. This is the author and finisher of our faith. We must remain committed to running our race. There is a finish line ahead. Can you see it?

Can you envision that finish line? Can you envision what's on the other side of that finish line? The promises, the reward that God has for each and every one of us. We have a shared vision of reaching the end of our triathlon, a picture in our mind of what that will be like, a race that we thought was too crazy to start when we first considered running it. And many others, when looking at this race, determined in their mind it was too difficult to run. They didn't want to run the race that you started. And when you first considered the changes that you were going to make in your life, the commitment to God, the ways that you were going to go counter of the world and the life that you knew prior to being here, you made a difficult decision. And even in your own mind, you might have said, this is crazy, but I'm doing it because I got to do it. I have to do it. This is what God says I must do. And here we are in the midst of our race, and we are running it. We are running our race. Don't ever lose sight that we are running our race. This isn't just an idea. This isn't just a pipe dream. This isn't just a, maybe if I get in shape I'll start running it. We are physically running our race. And with the spiritual help that we get, we are spiritually running our race. I do look forward to running this year's segment of my triathlon with you folks here, because you're all going to be running it alongside of me. And as we all run, we are all running alongside our elder brother, who encourages us every day and says to keep running. So I also share the same words. Make this transition in your life as we come back from the feast and go on to things, back into our normal lifestyle, our normal ways. Make this transition, but keep running.