Will You Reach the Goal? Part 3

In the sermon series on Will You Reach the Goal? We've talked previously about the need to avoid distractions and stay focused on the goal. The second was to know the difference between the goal and the reward. The reward being the kingdom of God for reaching the goal of becoming like Christ. It is impossible to become like Christ. It is impossible to develop into divine, perfect-minded children of God in the human flesh, certainly on our own, and even within this lifetime to fully achieve that. And so the result of the first two sermons could be, UGH! I can't do this! There's no way! May as well quit! May as well give up! Well, when you clarify the goal and you really see what it is, you can do one of two things. You can say, well, it's too big. Or you can say, I really like it. It's one of the other. You know, you might say, I like climbing mountains. And you could say, well, this mountain is too big for me to actually climb. But if you like climbing mountains, what are you going to do? You're going to start in on it, aren't you? But if you really don't like climbing mountains, you'll come up with every excuse in the world as to why you shouldn't start climbing a mountain.

God can lift us from whatever place we reach, going up the mountain to the summit. He can take us on to perfection in His time, in His will, His way. It's up to us to expect the impossible because Jesus wants us to. You know, the parable of the meanest. He came back to see what everyone had traded, and He gave a reward for those who had developed using what He had given them. But the one individual said, you know, you asked the impossible here. You asked for something that you didn't really give. You wanted something here that's unreasonable, it's unfair, and so I treasured it, but I didn't do anything with it. And Jesus said, yes, you knew I expected the impossible, and you should have done something. You should have reached the goal. You should have reached out for the goal. You should have made progress towards that goal, but you didn't, so I'm going to take away your reward, at least a good reward. Your success is expected. Your success in reaching the goal is expected by God. It's not wondered about. They're not sitting around up and saying, oh, I wonder if Joe and Susie and Harry and John, Phil, I wonder if they're going to make it. No, it's expected. Your name is already written in the winner's circle in heaven.

Your arrival is anticipated. We need to be successful. We need to be reaching for that goal. The only question that remains is not, will you be successful or can you be successful, but will you reach the goal that God has put for you? That goal is a realistic goal with His help, with His Holy Spirit. It's why you're put on this earth, why I'm here. Today, I would like to give you part three, how to reach the goal. How to reach the goal. It's no good to just sort of set it out there and say, okay, well, the goal is to achieve a Christ-like, godly-minded child doing, believing, and seeking the righteousness of God in our life, and then not define how one does that.

Well, the Bible defines how one does that, and it's a very large book, and I don't have enough time today to cover all the points in here, but I'd like to cover a few. I'd like to cover a few.

Paul refers to the pursuit of the goal as being like a race of running, a race in which we are encouraged to endure in, and it's a long race. It's an endurance race. Jesus says we have to endure to the end. We have to arrive at the finish line. We have to show up. We have to win it, and at the end there is a certificate of completion, as it were, and we are expected to make that particular trip. It's a good analogy, and it's an analogy that I have some personal relationship with that I'd like to share with you from a personal basis. I don't usually like to talk about myself in sermons, but running is something that I've been involved with for my lifetime, and there are lessons that I've learned, and so rather than use somebody else's lessons and experiences and try to work them in, I can be a lot more passionate about them if I use my own.

Paul's analogy of running contains so many aspects of this race that we're in. There are so many integral parts of running an enduring race, a hard race, a difficult race, that are involved in the success of those who reached the crown that he received, or the garland, is what he was referring to. The winners in his time received garlands, and there were four different Olympic events in the Roman Empire during his time. One was up near Olympia, and the reward for that, the winter garland of laurel leaves. It was a kind of a wreath for the head, you know, of laurel leaves. Near the Church of Corinth, where Paul was talking about this running, there was one of the other four, and their winning garland was a head mount of pine needles, a little pine wreath that went around the head. And that's what you got. Back in those days, the winners got more prestige, more economic benefits, and more social status from winning than just the thing that went on their head. The thing that went on their head, believe me, a few leaves, wasn't worth all the effort. But there was a tie-in to the society at the time, and great things came to those who won. It's similar to the race that we're called to run. You know, we don't just sort of run the race and do well and get an applaud, do we? Or just get the garland on our head. There's a reward that God brings to those who successfully run the race, and that is eternal life in his family. But for those who don't finish the race, who are disqualified or for some reason do not participate, there's another reward that is given out for that. And it's not eternal life, and it does not involve being in the family of God. And so, we want to reach our goal, and we want to be given the reward for doing so. How do we reach that goal? When it comes to running, I think many people think, well, you just show up and run the race. You know, there's a track out there, and somebody says, go! Everybody tears around the race course, and the first person across the line wins, and that's kind of it.

In that sense, there doesn't seem much to it. And you can take the scriptures and the Bible and all these things we're supposed to do and say, yeah, well, okay, we're just do it. Just kind of do it, and hopefully we'll win. I don't know. Do we always have to cross first? Paul says, only one receives a reward. What all is involved here? How does this work? I don't really understand. And I don't know running, so I don't get it. Well, I want to clarify a little bit about that today, or at least attempt to. In 2005, I got the second place in the Arizona Senior Olympics, and my division for the 10K run. I was going for first place the next year and would have gotten it had the same runner shown up from around the country. Advanced from that to longer distances, I got halfway to doing a marathon. My time and speed and distance were really growing well, but I got malaria and Africa tick bite fever, and it reacted into fibromyalgia in my muscles, and so it really shut me down. And that's just the way it is. Now I walk. But going back, I'd like to take you back a little bit to high school. Back to high school and talk about running. The first point of reaching the goal, how to reach the goal, is to become a runner. To become a runner. It's different than showing up and trying to run a race. Lots of kids do this. You know, they're going to have a field day. We call it at high school. Annual field day. What do you want to do? I don't know. I think I'll run this or I think I'll run it. No, no, no. Point number one is become a runner. Now that's uncommon for people to become long distance, cross-country, or endurance runners. Those are three terms that essentially mean the same thing.

It's uncommon. How many people do you know that are cross-country runners? Probably not many. How many kids in your high school chose to be cross-country, long distance runners, as opposed to volleyball, basketball, cheerleading, video games? I don't know. Kids don't usually do that. Adults don't usually do that. It's not the most popular sport out there. Similarly, few people in this world choose to run the race that you were called to run. How many people out there are actually involved in this weird religion you have, eating unleavened bread for a week, keeping the Sabbath, going off to Holy Days, and denying themselves pork and shrimp, and all this other fun that everybody's having? Not all of them. Not many. The Bible talks about how few there are.

Very, very few that will be saved at this time and this age.

For those who pursue repentance from God, baptism, receive the Holy Spirit, and want to get involved in this lifelong struggle to become like God, very few. You probably tried it on your relatives and your friends, with probably not many takers. We published the Gospel of repentance and baptism, approaching salvation. Nobody wants it. They didn't want it from Jesus Christ. They killed it. It's not a popular run. It's not a popular profession to be a distance runner spiritually. But a minority do. You see this minority mentioned in Revelation 13, verses 7-8. I just want to point out here what a minority it is that will actually be finishing this race. It will actually be succeeding and reaching the goal. If we look in Revelation chapter 13, verse 7, it's talking about this beast power at the end, and it was granted to him to make war with the saints. So this is not going to be even a popular endeavor for the few that are doing it. They're going to be oppressed and to overcome them. An authority was given to him over every tribe, every tongue, and every nation. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life.

The running is hard. The work is difficult. Most ones succeed. And we just saw that almost everybody avoids the race. That's what distance running is like. If somebody says in high school, hey, you ought to become a runner. They say, are you crazy? Are you nuts? That is ridiculous.

You are invited to be a long-distance runner. Jesus Christ invites you to the difficult race, the difficult path with the difficult door. It's a stretch. You've got to endure. It's long distance. You've got to endure to the end. It takes a lifetime to get there. You'll be a narrow way runner. You'll be on a different diet. You'll be on different hours than the people around you. It's a unique calling. And the first thing you have to do is decide to become a runner. And I'm not sure if you've done that. I have to ask myself, have I really done this? Or have I just piled in a running association and I'm paying my dues and I like to get the magazine? You know how those things are. You have to ask yourself, have I become a runner? It's a good question. I'll give you an example. When I was a freshman in high school, Dr. Lochner gave an assembly to the whole student body. Junior high and senior high got us all in the gymnasium. We're up there in the stands and Doc Loch down there, very energetic. He was telling about how he was the United States Steeplechase champion. Wow! It sounded great. I had no idea what Steeplechase was, but this guy was something exceptional. And he motivated everybody. And after he was done, and they tore down the bleachers and everybody went back to basketball and volleyball. Except they wouldn't let me on the basketball court. In fact, I don't know if it was the coach or just the kid that said, Elliot, off. You're no good at this. Just stay out of the way. So I went in Dr. Lochner, and it's kind of like in the inner sanctum of the administration building where no student ever went, unless you were really, really bad. I hadn't been in there before, so I made an appointment and went into his office and I sat behind his big desk. And I was 14 years old. And I said, I was very inspired by your talk. And I can't do anything sports-wise. And I'm wondering if you could see, if there's anything that I could do, could I be good at anything? I'm good at nothing, and they won't let me on the basketball court anymore. So is there anything I could do? I thought about that. He says, well, hmm, stand up a second and turn around. You know, you kind of have the build of a distance runner. And we haven't had anybody here break our old school mile record in years. In fact, nobody even runs the mile hardly. I think you could be a good distance runner. I'm thinking, are you kidding? What is that? And it sounds painful. And he said, now what you have to do, you have to really commit to this. Be a runner. You got to commit to this. You got to work hard, long hours outside of school. Very dedicated and all this stuff, but I think you could do it. You could do it and maybe some day you could break that mile record. We need to be broken here.

Thank you. I'll think about that. And I went out and looked at all the options that I had doing something sports-wise and entered back in his office. And I said, you know, I thought about it and I'll accept. I'll accept your offer. He says, okay. Well, took out a piece of paper and he began to write, here's what you do to reach the goal. Here's what you do to become a good runner that can beat that mile. He said, wrote down, 5 a.m., get up. Go out before the sun rises and run four miles every morning. For two days, take one day off and do it every other day. Then you come to school and at PE, I want to see you out there on the track running the mile.

I thought, oh, that's terrible. It's worse than terrible. You know how kids are. They like to sleep. You're all dopamine-ed up in the morning or whatever it is. Can't get up. Can't wake up. I've got an alarm clock. I hated the alarm clock. Ring! 5 a.m. every morning. Well, the first morning was the worst. I got up and it was dark. The house was quiet. I got on my shorts and my shoes, laced them. I looked out the front door. It was very dark. Back in those days, nobody moved at 5 o'clock. It was just empty streets with traffic light and these little round globes going down the street. I saw a kind of look down the street. I went, okay, he told me to run down Arbor Street Hill and down by the Arroyo. It's dark and spooky down there. Animals, wild animals, live in the Arroyo. I went, padding off, just here, off into the dark. Finally, at the top of the Arroyo Hill, the street lights ended. It was just a dark chasm going down the hill. This was a steep street. It was horribly steep. The sidewalk was littered with leaves from the live oak trees. There was an acrid smell that came off of those trees and plants. Old houses were built in that area with big old bushes that had overgrown right up to the fences. There were fences woven in the bushes. Here I come, clip, clip, clip, and then the dogs would hit the fence. Big old pincer dogs, roar, shatter the night and just scare you to death right beside you. If one of those fences had ever broken, I would have been dead meat. And you hear somebody yell. On we go. On down through the darkness along the edge of the Arroyo, which is a big valley with a wash down through the middle of it covered in trees.

Go the hard way. Don't come the soft way. Go on downward steep. Go down about two miles and turn around and run back, coming uphill all the way. And in that dark night, you turn the last corner, and there's Arbor Street Hill, looking like a wall. I could never figure out why somebody would pave a cliff, but that's what it looked like every morning. You come running up to it and you think, you've got to be kidding. I'm tired. I've gone three and a half miles. I've got no energy, and I've got this hill, and I'm not supposed to stop. Doc says, don't stop. Don't ever stop on the hill. It's not like anybody's going to know, except me. Never stop going up that hill. At the top, your lungs are burning, your heart's pounding out of your chest, and you clip-clop on, and as you get to the end of the street, about 50 yards from your house, you speed up and speed up until, as you come by the front door of your house, you're just flashing by as fast as you can. And nobody saw you, and nobody was there, and you quietly slip in the house, and you get ready for school every day. Now, what was interesting when field day came around that year, I won the mile.

Blue ribbon, mile race. Shocked everybody in the school. He can't do anything. How did he run the mile? He won it. Well, there wasn't much competition. A few people showed up, but we've been playing basketball, and nobody's been training, and he trained, and he won the mile. Dr. Lochner said, hey, that's pretty good. Didn't run it real fast, but you did win. You know, we're invited to do these things, and if we're interested, if we want to put the effort in, even if it's somewhat against our will, we could make some progress. It's kind of like learning the truth. You're invited to this new covenant. It sounds weird. A few accept. Very few seem to succeed, but it requires commitment, and dedication, and perseverance. Luke chapter 14, verse 26, Jesus talks about counting the cost. Luke 14, verse 26, when we come up to baptism, and even now, wherever you are, even just coming to church, there's a certain amount of commitment and endurance that's required in this calling. Luke chapter 14, verse 26, if anyone comes to me and does not love me more than his father, mother, children, brothers, sisters, yes, my own disciples, his own life also, he cannot be my disciples. This is a very challenging calling. You've got to count the cost for that. Is this what you want to do in life? You really want to separate yourself from your family? Or if you're going to be a distance runner, do you really want to cut yourself off from your friends because you won't be eating? You won't have the same schedule? You won't be doing the same things that they are?

They'll be doing cool things, and you'll be off somewhere at five o'clock in the morning, or by yourself running around in the afternoon. Are you ready for this? Are you going to count the cost for this? He says, verse 33, so likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple. And we look at this race, we've got to say, am I ready to devote whatever it takes to make it to the end? You know, that mile created a bit of a stir in the school, and there was a lot of discussion about it. A lot of the basketballers said, I'm going to get you next year. And it was in my mind that I wasn't going to be lasting as the mile leader. Besides, the mile wasn't really the race, and still has never been the race that I like to run. See, this body, anyway, I don't know about your body, this body doesn't do well the first mile. The body starts screaming at you as soon as you start going. You say, whoa, whoa, hang on, we've got tight tendons here, we've got some muscles here, and you know, ignore those. Yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't breathe. You notice your throat is now squeezing shut, this cold air coming in. That's stop everything. Your heart's hurting. By the time I get to the first quarter of a mile, now I've got some stitch in my side that's saying, oh, you're going to die. Probably something exploded in there. Shut it down. If you ignore this and keep going, still not at a good clip, but just keep going, then the pain starts in. The muscles start to freeze, and the thighs down in the calves, and they say, oh, not today. No, no, no, go home while you still can get there. It's not until the gas pipe that sticks out of the ground, the side of the street, at the one mile mark from my front door, that my body has finally said, I give up. I guess we're going to run today. Okay? I guess we're doing this, and all that stuff is now behind, and the body is up and warmed up and tuned, and you're ready to go. So that's a good thing. So with Doc Locke, I said, you know, I think I'm doing better here with the four mile in the morning than I am with the one mile stuff, the race stuff. So I began to work on long distance and cross country. Now, my sophomore year at the field day, that basketballer who warned me, he took first place.

Sure enough. But I had a little surprise up my sleeve. I was working on 10K runs at that time. So, stretched a little bit. I wanted to win. That was a problem. I declared myself a runner, like you may have done. We're with you here. It got point one. Declared myself a church member. Declared myself a repentance sinner. Declared myself I want to be like Christ. But I had a problem. I was deceiving myself for the first year and a half. I wasn't a runner. I was a medal-winning opportunist. I got the first medal, the blue ribbon, and now I was going to go for something somebody else wasn't doing again. I was going for the longer distance, which nobody was training for. But I had gotten permission to start doing the long distance training off campus.

The 10K Pop Marty run in Anaheim came up. Oh, that was going to be a great race. And the way we went through the streets of Anaheim. Bad thing was all the other kids in school that showed up for the race passed me in the first two miles and stayed ahead of me for the rest of the race, including my best friend that began to run with me, Steve, who could never run as fast as me, even beat me in that race. And that was the best thing that ever happened because, you see, I found out I wasn't really a runner. I did a lot of running, but I didn't like to run. I didn't enjoy getting up at 5 a.m. I was pretty upset that I didn't beat everybody that day in the 10K run, but I hated the streets that we ran on. I didn't like the route, and the worst thing was the lousy route that it took repeated itself. I had to run it twice. It was just a bad day. It really caused time, provided an opportunity, and caused me to sit down and say, you know what? What do you want here? You just want to win. You just want some recognition that as a high school kid, you need some affirmation that you're alive and that you're okay and somehow you succeed at something, and you're looking for it in a ribbon, and it's not working out. I was forcing myself to run 5 a.m. runs for ribbons, and I wasn't being successful.

If you find yourself having an issue with point number one, running but not being a runner, looking like, sounding like, the one who is trying to become like Christ but not really, truly there, kind of running for the reward, running for the kingdom instead of running for becoming like a child of the God family. See, it's this kind of thing that even as a young kid, you can begin to experience through endless days and endless hours and endless effort, and you can begin to see some of the truth about who you are. Point number two is train with the master. Train with the master. Jesus said, probably in some Russian version of the Bible, without me you can do nada. That's a good statement to remember. Nada. Without him, nothing's going to happen. You need to imitate the master. You need to be trained by the master. You need to grow into what the master is, the master trainer, the master teacher, whatever you want to call him. Without me, you can't do anything. I was trying to do this on my own. See, Doc Locke wasn't my trainer. He just was in the office. He'd never been a runner. He gave me some things that helped me go a certain distance towards doing better, but I didn't have a trainer. He also says, with God, all things are possible. So it's really with God, not an individual, and really being taught in a partnering mentorship where he mentors you, but then he partners with you. He comes and lives with you. He doesn't just tell you, go run. He actually gets on the street and runs with you. He leads you, and he shows you, and he pushes you, and he gives you examples. In 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 5, it says, Now he who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. We are expected to win this thing.

The word guarantee, just because you have the Holy Spirit, doesn't mean you're guaranteed salvation. Thayer describes the word arhaban as an earnest, a pledge of money, or a down payment towards the full amount, an assurance that the full amount will be paid. So it's not just sort of a down payment that you can have your money back if the person doesn't go through. No, it's a down payment with full assurance that the full thing will be paid. So he's given us the Holy Spirit with full assurance that the rest, the full spiritual body and the full realization, the family of God, will follow. Verse 9, Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to him. This is a relationship we have with God, doing what he wants.

Verse 10, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. So there's rewards for two mindsets. Now the Holy Spirit put your name in the winner's circle. It's already there in heaven. You're in the book of life. You're in the book of those who will be in the kingdom of God. And as long as that name remains in that book, you will be in the divine family of God. And there's full expectation in heaven for you to arrive there. Malachi 3, verses 16 through 17, shows this anticipation. Malachi 3, verse 16, Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them. And so a book of remembrance was written before him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on his name. They shall be mine, says the Lord of Hosts, on the day that I make them my jewels. In that book of life, your name is there and God says, you will be mine on the day that I make you my jewels. High anticipation. Bringing it down to the personal church level in Philippians chapter 4 and verse 3. Paul here talking to the church members at Philippi, and he names some of them. He says, Philippians chapter 4 and verse 3, And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. God is going to make them, and if your name is there, he'll make you one of his jewels at the return of Jesus Christ. God is there to help you in pursuing that gold. Jesus said in John chapter 16 and verse 7, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. You're going to have the trainer. You're going to have the Helper. You're going to have the guide. It's really going to be him and the Father coming and living in you. That's the mentoring partnership. If you'll listen to it, if you'll follow, he will guide you, and you will be successful. The effectiveness of reaching the goal, which is becoming God-like, is shown in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22 and 23, the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Just notice them once again. The fruit, the result of having the Helper, the Holy Spirit, is agape love. There's the mindset of God and the joy and the bringing together of the peace and the long suffering and the gentleness and the goodness and faith and the meekness and the self-control. It's all there. That's what's going to happen as a byproduct. You need the Helper. You need the guide. You need the trainer. So it was that Doc saw that I needed help. I mean, when you fail the mile run, and he's the guy with the starting gun, Doc Lochner always had the starting gun. I don't know if he packed the whole time, but he was never seen without the starting gun, and he was always the guy to pull the starting gun for every race. It's a cool little gun.

When it went off, your body just shook, and you were off. But when I came in second, he says, you know, John, I guess I'm going to have to get you some help. There's a college student that came to college named Dan, and he has run the mile faster than any human throughout time until within the last 18 years. His time would have beat any other humans up to 18 years ago. That's how fast he was. He ran out, I believe, in four minutes and 11 seconds. And he says, I'm hiring him. He's going to be your trainer and Steve. Whoa! Yeah, he's going to take you to a new level. And Dan came and took us on. It's crucial to have someone like that. First thing he had us do, he took us off campus. He's the coolest guy in the world. He says, hey, jump in the car. Let's go. We went to some other school and then some other university and some other cool place and some other football field. And he said, okay, come on, guys. There's nobody around. Come on out here in this really cool football field. Now, here's what I want you to do. Get on the zero yard line and we're just going to have you jog to the 50 yard line. And when you reach the 50 yard line, you will be running as fast as you possibly can run in your lifetime to the 100 yard line. And when you get to the other end of the field, you'll simply walk back, jog back, whatever you want to do. But when you get to the 50 yard line coming this way, you will be running as fast as you've ever run in your life for the 50 yards back to here. Now, you're going to do this 10 times. It's easy. It was easy, you know, just kind of jog up to the 50 yard line, do this little 50 yard sprint. That was fine. Turn around, jog back to the 50 yard line, do the sprint. That worked fine for about four times.

Fifth time, we decided to walk back to the 50 yard line. Seventh time, we decided to crawl back to the 50 yard line. But whenever we hit the 50 yard line, we had to be running as fast as we'd ever run. By the ninth and tenth time, we were way out of our league, just dying as you walked or whatever you did to get to that line. But he was right there, okay, don't even touch that line unless you're going full bore. We did that about every three days. And he had us dragging. And he said, okay, now let's just relax a little bit and go do it. Five mile run or something, just kind of loosen up. Then there was the 5 a.m. runs up Arbor Street Hill that I was doing on top of that. Things began to change. He then would take us off campus right from school and just say, let's go running. Tracks are boring. Let's go running. Let's go run through Pasadena. Let's go run up to Altadena. Let's go through this town or that town. And then he said, well, I'm a college student. I'm busy. I can't be here all the time. So you go run. Here, I'll get you a pass. Any time you want to go, just show the pass. After a while, they didn't even want to pass. Just go. And then if we had study hall before PE, we got to leave study hall and PE and go. Then if we had lunch before study hall, well, we weren't on campus a lot of time. We were suited up and leaving campus and all the cool basketball guys would look. Where are you guys going? We're going to do Highland Park today. See, after school. Wow. How did they get to do that? One or two of them joined us because they wanted to get off campus. It lasted like two days.

We were doing 10, 12 mile runs all over the place. It's what we did. We came to love running and we had this mentoring partner. One day he told me, you're going to be a junior next year. Get a two-letter sweater. What's a two-letter sweater? Well, the guys at the basketball court, you know, they have these stripes and if you letter each year, if you win enough stuff or you do well enough and the sports department decides you'll letter, okay? And he says, you get one with two stripes. You got two years left in school, so get one with two stripes. I told him, I don't want to do that. And he says, why not? He says, because, you know, those sweaters, here, I'll show you one. Those sweaters, and this is it, they don't come like this. Each of these stripes has a green sonon band over it, okay? So when you get the sweater, it means you haven't lettered yet. You just have two bands, and the bands, when you look at them, he hasn't lettered. I said, I don't want to not letter and wear a sweater in my senior year with two green bands on. Everybody will laugh at me. I said, since I've got two-year crack at it, I'll get one band. I'll get one of these things with a band over it. That way I'll have two chances. But I just can't live with going around with one of these, or more of them, sewn over. He says, no, get two. He expected me to letter. He wasn't in charge of lettering, but he expected me to letter. He expected me to succeed. That's something I had to live up to.

So does God. That's why your name is in the Book of Life. It might have a sewn-over patch or something at the moment, but your name is there. And you're going to be there in God's eyes. You just have to follow the trainer, and it's very crucial to have that trainer. It says in Philippians chapter 1 and verse 6, Being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Being confident. You have to become confident that you're a runner and that you're working with the trainer and he's in you and you're making progress and you will succeed. And one day you will have those letters or you will have that name fulfilled. Now, as you can see, this isn't just sort of some stories or whatever. This is serious stuff. There's some risk involved. There's effort involved.

It takes us up to the next point.

Learn from your mistakes. I'd like to say that that was the end of the story. I ran a race and finished it. Everything was fine, etc., etc. That's not the way it works. We all make mistakes. You're no sooner baptized and moving along or maybe been in the church a long time and you can just fall back and make some dumb mistakes or you can sin, you can violate relationships, you can offend God. I'm not sure how many different things we as humans can do, but there's a lot of opportunities to mess up.

Learn from your mistakes. Part of that is accepting correction. God said he corrects. He scourges every son or daughter that he loves. You have to want correction. You have to say, you know, I'm running or I'm making judgments, decisions. I need to do better. Tell me, show me, correct me. Then, once you're corrected, to repent and say, all right, I want to change what I'm doing wrong now that I see what I'm doing, I want to change what I'm doing wrong, and I want to avoid that in the future. Correction is very eye-opening. The Bible talks about examining yourself to see if you're a runner.

It's kind of my version of Paul's words, since he's the one that talks about running. Examine yourself to see if you're really a runner. Are you really a runner? You're doing things that runners don't do. Do you really want to be a runner? You're doing things that church members, that God's children don't do. You sure you want to be a child of God? You sure you really want to work on yourself and grow away from your old evil nature? Or are you just really wanting to be your old evil nature, but have some stripes on your sweater? What is it you really want to do?

Well, if we examine ourselves and we see, you know what? Okay, I recognize that there are issues and flaws, and you repent of those. God wants you to be clear of that, clear your mind of that, focus on the goal. This Bible is very forward-focusing. It's not about who did what and whether you blew it or blah, blah, blah. It's all about the end. It's all about reaching the goal. You'll see a lot of people reach the goal. You won't necessarily know how they got there.

Let's look over in Philippians.

Book of Philippians chapter 2 is a very encouraging statement.

I'd like to cover this when talking to people about baptism and the road ahead. We'll go to Philippians 3. Sorry, not 2 but 3.

It's talking about verse 12, pressing on that I may lay hold of that, for which Christ has also laid hold of me. He says in verse 13, Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. I haven't reached the goal. I haven't made it. I'm not perfect. But this one thing I do, I forget those things which are behind, and I reach forward to those things which are ahead. You have to learn from your mistakes, get rid of them, repent of them, and move forward from there.

For the goal, verse 14, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God and Jesus Christ. Notice he doesn't press for the prize. The prize is the kingdom of God. The prize is eternal life. He presses for the goal. And the goal is that which he is focused on and is getting rid of the things that are restricting him from getting there.

And then forgetting those things which are behind. He's past those in this race. He's looking to the finish line. I want to learn from our mistakes, break away from them, and get running. The big race that I ran was in my senior year, the very end of the year, the last one of my high school running career.

It was before you get soft and you go to college and you end up swamped and get jobs and you get on with life and you don't have all this time to go out and train. But the last big race was the American Amateur Athletic Union's co-sponsored race with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Academy. The LA Sheriff's Academy each year would put out cadets and as part of their final training would be to run this 10K run.

And this was no sissy flat Anaheim 10K. This involved the first, second, and third steepest streets in Los Angeles County and finished running up to Dodger Stadium. It was unbelievable as far as what a trying race it was. And it was intended to shake out those sheriff's cadets. And the AAU saw it as a fine opportunity to get some of us members an opportunity to run with them. And so we signed up. We signed up. Oh yeah, we did.

Along with 400 other runners, some ambassador college students, these are the big guys. You know, when you're in high school, you're intimidated by the big guys of an ambassador. You don't see them, you don't know them, but you know they're bigger than you are and probably a lot faster than you are.

And all these other cadets and everybody. Well, we had on that day an individual who had just come from the state of Colorado. He hadn't gone through the Imperial School System. He'd never been there with our classes. He was never there for the training.

He never worked out with our trainer, our coach. He had just shown up because his dad had gotten transferred, popped into the class, only been there a short time, didn't say much, didn't know much about him. But he was running in that particular race as well. Now, it was a scary race. All these professional runners, and you have to sign up and they put these numbers on you with official stuff, and they put one on the back, and they tag you or something.

I don't know what all they do. Anyway, you're all officialized. And then you go out and you get in the starting lineup on the street. And just so out of your element with all these other people around, it's very different. It's intimidating. Your body says, you know, I'm outclassed. I'm outgunned. I shouldn't be here. It starts shutting down. You just start feeling intimidated by it. The body kind of slums. It's like you are after baptism. You get baptized and you receive God's Holy Spirit, and you think, oh yeah, I'm now a runner.

And then you open your Bible and the big guys show up. Moses and Abraham and David and Paul and the twelve apostles and Christ and the ministers in your church and the old timers in your church and the deacons and the deaconesses and all the legends. You know, you're going to be like, what have I gotten myself into? I'm just so out of my water, so outclassed. The course is so new. I don't know it. I can't even imagine what the description of those hills were like.

You glance over and Satan gives you a little smirk. You prepare to start. You know, that's just what it's like. The whistle blows. Boom. Starting gun fires. Everybody starts surging forward. Everybody's surging ahead. Everybody wants to win this race. Everybody wants to be up front. So the surge is on and the pace is unreasonable as they start up the grade and you say, this isn't right. This doesn't feel right. I'm not sure where we're going and I don't like the speed and I'm tripping over people, but you're off. You feel weak. You feel slow. You know, running is mostly a solo event. When Paul talks about running a race, you're not actually competing with anyone else except yourself. Distance running is a solo race. You can only do what you can do. You're only out there performing. Every individual is performing at their ability level. You're not competing with you. You may be doing it at the same time, but it's really a solo event and you've got to stop yourself. Don't compare yourself to all these other people. It's not about Abraham and David and the pastor, the deacon and the deaconess and all these. It's everybody's running the race themselves and you've got to stop and focus. You've got to stop and think about the fundamentals. The fundamentals are you, your body, your training, your pace, your breathing, the way that you take a step, how long the stride is, how fast you want your heart rate and breathing rate to be, how you hold your arms and how your legs go at the same time on different terrain. And the pace that you set down with me, it was always the same foot pace. Never changed the pace. Always the same. Other runners were slower or faster. Me, it's always the same. Just change the gear, which was the length of stride. Have to tell yourself these. Ignore what's going on. 300 people go by you and you're only with the last hundred now behind you. You establish the pace, pay attention, think about your training and run. Roll forward off your heels, roll forward off your heels, conserve the motion of your arms, stabilize the breathing, get the pace to one that you're going to be able to endure for 10 kilometers. The first obstacle was the steepest street in Los Angeles County. They threw it at us. Bam! Right out of the pack. And the 300 runners that were ahead were not doing well when I showed up. And a hundred of them were behind me at the top of that hill. Because to me, this is just Arbor Junior, or maybe it's Arbor Senior. Arbor Street, that wall that I ran every morning. These people just unbelievably, it was so steep that the foot, my foot anyway, would not bend at that angle. So you had to run up on the ball of your foot. Some people actually turned around and went backward because their foot could lay flat on the ground. A lot of people were running up it backward. Just threw them. It's just Arbor Street.

Next came the downhill after it. 20 people flew by me on the downhill because I don't do well in downhill. But I wasn't about to start stretching out like they were and do some dumb move and stretch, you know, strain a muscle or whatever. Just let them have it. There's more hills coming. Hills are my specialty. Next obstacle was the second steepest street in Los Angeles County. A little less steep, a little longer uphill. Ah, that's what I love. Passed another hundred, including this new kid, including all the college students, except for my trainer, who was the very front competing for the first place. That began, you see, to feel right. It felt good. The training was working out. Things were going well. Everybody in the school was behind. You forget those things which were behind. You focus on what you're supposed to be doing. You absolutely are committed to the success of the school. Not letting failures of the past limit you, but performing the very best you can with God's help.

The fifth point. You could make the fifth point the first point, or vice versa, but the fifth point is to love running. Nobody ever told me to love running. They just said, go run, you might win.

Well, in the process of all this, I learned to love running.

You have to love running the spiritual race. It can't be something that you do in order to get into the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, as a reward, doesn't even need to enter your mind.

It'll be there, whether you're thinking about it or not. What you're called to do is run. What you're called to do is become like your trainer. Learn to run like the trainer. Love the sport. In other words, love to love others and love God as yourself and love your neighbor as yourself. And learn to sacrifice and serve. If you're doing all of these things and love everything the Bible says and do it and doing God's command, if this is really the fun, you're not focused on the reward, are you? This is cool. It doesn't matter. God's way works so well. If God doesn't put me in his kingdom, I'll run. Because I love your law. Paul says, oh, how love... I mean, David said, oh, how love I your law. It's my meditation all the day. See, he came to where he wasn't banging against it all the time. He came to where he liked it and then he loved it. And he says, you know what? I like this. I like running. I love running. Remember, the goal is to run well. Love to do that. Runners do that. How many people in the world love long-distance running? I don't know very many people. I know a few.

But when you find one, they're really passionate about it. I mean, there's nothing you like better than to just go off and see the world on foot at a good pace, clipping along. It is fantastic. Paul was a spiritual runner. There are few people that like to go out and pursue God's righteousness, just cruise through society and cruise through the world and cruise through life, loving God and loving his way and loving the fellow man and just doing that. Can't wait to get up in the morning and do it some more. We are some of the few people on earth. Paul shares his overview of this race in Acts 20, verse 19. He was beginning to get some reports back as he went to various congregations about what lay ahead of him at a future stop. In Acts 20, verse 19, his ministry involved serving the Lord with all humility with many tears and trials, which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews. We might think of that as, well, that's terrible, not to a runner. Let's put that in running terms. Running the race with all humility with many hills and tears coming out of sweat pouring out of your body and trials and traffic and barking dogs and loose pavements, which happened to me. Verse 20, how I kept back nothing that was helpful but proclaimed it to you and taught you publicly from house to house. I want you to succeed in this race, he's saying. This is what I did to testify to the Jews' repentance towards God and faith towards the Lord. Come on, we've got to run this race. We've got to run it well. Let's go running. Verse 22, and see now I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there.

Except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city. Every place I go, the Holy Spirit keeps telling you guys that chains and tribulations await me. But none of these things move me. It's like you're going to go running. And today we're going to go run from, I don't know, here to there. We're going to run up a mountainside. We're going to run where it's rocky. We're going to run where it's hilly. We're going to run on steps. Oh, okay. None of these things, he says, move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy. He had his own personal race. You have your own personal race. We may be running together, but we're not running each other's race. We can all be winners in this race. I'll run my race with joy. I love this run. And the serving, the ministry, which I received from the Lord Jesus Christ to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And even now, I know that you all among whom I have gone preaching, the kingdom of God will see my face no more. Sad. We're going to cry over this, but I can't wait to keep running. To love spiritual running is really to love Isaiah 58, verses 6-8. Ask yourself, do I love Isaiah 58 verses 6-8? Then you'll know if you like running. Spiritual running.

Is this not the fast I have chosen? We should be serious about this. This is what should be on our mind. We should wake up in the morning and say, hey, here's what we want to do to loosen the bonds of wickedness. Is that what I really get jazzed about? Getting rid of the bonds of wickedness in my life? To break free of those enslavement and various sins and thoughts? To undo the heavy burdens of other people. Yeah, I want to undo the burdens of my spouse and my kids and my employer and my friends, the stuff I lay on people. I want to undo that and take it back. My customers, who knows who all. I want to undo the heavy burdens. I want to let the oppressed go free, that I'm oppressing, that I've somehow held down. I want to free them up, that I'm not forgiving or I'm putting down or whatever. I want to encourage them and to break every yoke that I'm putting on somebody else, controlling, micromanaging, ridiculing them, or somehow putting a yoke on them.

So not to share your bread with the hungry. To go and say, how can I help? I want to go find somebody today that I can help somehow. To bring to your house the poor who are cast out, or when you see the naked to cover him. Verse 8, then your light will break forth like the morning.

You know, if this is what you love, you're a spiritual runner. If this is what jazzes you when you wake up in the morning and you say, I'm going to get to bed early tonight, so I can get up early and start in on this because I like doing this. Then you know you love running.

Many will try to get you to stop it. Chill out, man. Take it easy. Get back in the recliner. Have a beer.

Don't sweat it. People around you, you'll bother them. Quit doing well. Quit being nice. Quit being an example of what I should be doing that I don't want to do. Be like me. Cuss more. Do something. Quit this run that you're on. If you go physically running, I guarantee you, you will get pushed back by your friends, by your family, by people closest to you. When you start looking better than they do, feeling better than they do, they're all going to say, oh, you know, it's horrible. What you're doing is bad. Stop it. But if you love it, you're just going to keep on going. You love it so much, nobody can take it away from you. Love running means you seek every opportunity to run. You're a consistent runner. You think of running. Running is what makes you excited. You think, oh, look here. There's places I haven't been. There's towns I haven't seen. There's hills and mountains. I wonder what's over there. Or I'm taking a trip. I'm taking a trip. I'm taking a trip. I'm taking a trip. I'll pack my running outfit so that I can travel and run in those various places. You know, running really becomes a big part of you. It's what you crave. It's what you do. You do it well. Now, remember, the reward is in someone else's hands. It's not about the reward because you don't control that. It's just about running. Now you're a runner. It becomes a big part of your life when you're a runner. And when you really, really are a runner who loves it, it's how you see yourself. It's part of your identity. You're an explorer.

A cross-country runner has a certain fearlessness to him or her. You prefer challenge. You seek new horizons. You're very independent, and you've developed an efficiency where you can go a long way and keep going because you've developed this efficient means of transporting yourself. You can just go anywhere. You just keep going. It's a wonderful thing. And then you can take it to various places as well. A runner connects with things differently than a non-runner. You connect by running there, in it or with it. You probably wouldn't understand this, but you can go to other places as a tourist or you can go as a runner. This probably sounds odd. Think about it for a minute. Most people show up on the bus, check the place out, leave. A runner will go suit up and run through the place, not because running through the place is different, but he's a runner, and so that's his or her connection with the place. I ran there. It's kind of like, I don't know, I have this thing with that place because I ran there.

If you're a runner and you keep a log, as I have, I ran through this particular town. You can go through the towns. They're very different. Like Jerusalem, you run through the city and you go to the Temple Mount. You kind of feel that bonding. Because you're a runner and I ran there, therefore I was there, kind of running. You run to places like Shanghai, China, and as you run through the city streets with the Chinese people, you feel like a connection there. Auckland, New Zealand, down Brisbane, Australia, various places, national parks, Russia, Norway. When you actually run there and you log it and you say, I ran in this place, or through a national park, you feel kind of a connection. It comes through doing. It's the same thing with spiritual running. You can say, I see these people. I live here and I move and I go to various places. But if you come spiritually running, getting rid of sin and serving and loving and helping, you show up and you're a spiritual runner in those places. I went here and I served. I did what I loved and I prayed to God and I bonded in that way. I touched that place that I went to as I traveled or as I visited. You log it. You love it. It connects you. Many spectators in the 60s would go and watch Jim Ryan run. Jim Ryan was the world's fastest miler. I believe his time was 357.6. He beat the four-minute mile and he was a tall, thin guy from Kansas that just ran miles and miles out in Kansas. He got very, very fast. People would come and watch Jim Ryan. But to me, as a runner, he was on the track and I was in the stands and that wasn't a connection. I didn't feel any connection to Jim Ryan until I ran beside Jim Ryan when he was warming up to beat the indoor world mile record. Now, as a runner running next to the runner, you see a little connection there. Let's look at Ezekiel 33 verse 31. There's a lot of people who come into the church that don't run the run. They don't make the connection. They just come as tourists. 33 of Ezekiel in verse 31.

Notice, so they come to you as people do. They sit before you as my people and they hear your words, but they don't do them. For with their mouth they show much love. Yeah, we're runners. We like running. But their hearts pursue their own game. Indeed, you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument. For they hear your words, but they do not do them. That's how we can be. We can be spectators.

And we can sort of be tourists of representing Christ as we go various places. But a runner will go and run and he will run the spiritual race there. Not just feel like he's on a team supporting it, sacrificing for the reward, paying tithes, etc. But not like running. You've got to love running. Be a runner. Love the greatest runner. Jesus Christ. Run next to Jesus Christ. Feel the connection with him as your trainer, with him as your guide.

Point six. Keep increasing your performance. A lot of people think, well, I've reached a certain state.

Picked up some achievements along the way. I'll just hold it right here. Always keep increasing your performance. We are not here to stop in this journey.

Put off the old man. Increasing your performance means you've got to change. You've got to keep doing things better. Less TV. Less staying up late.

Runner needs a good schedule. He needs a certain amount of exercise and sleep. You've got to eat the runner's diet. You can't just be slopping around, eating a bunch of pizza and what all your friends do, and fast food and candy and all this junk.

You've got to really tweak the performance. You've got to put away those things. Anything that will slow you down. And believe me, a runner will know what will slow him down. I can tell you exactly what slowed Stephen me down. It was very enjoyable, very popular, but we came to loathe it. We said, look, that cannot be in our lives. That particular thing should not come into our bodies because every time we touch it takes us two days of hard training just to get back to where we are today.

You know what that thing was?

Young boys pumping out there, giving it their all, fine-tuned.

Beer. My dad said, you guys have been working so hard today. It's Sunday. Why don't you just jump in the pool and have a cold beer? We're like, yeah, thanks, dad. You're the coolest guy on the planet.

And that nailed us for two days.

Just one beer. I don't know why. He didn't know why. He had beer before, but not since we were training. And we both said, any time a beer was offered, I was like, no.

We're not going to go back for two days of training just to get back to where we are now. We're going forward. We're going to increase. And so that is in life. You don't see certain things. This is a setback. If I touch this or do that or think this, that's a setback. It's going to set me back.

You've got to keep moving forward.

Cold water from your own fridge was much better for you. And you can have lots of it. And it's good for you. It's the same with the spiritual race. Eat the bread of life. Eat it every day. That's good for you. Don't eat the stuff that's out there on the internet. Don't eat the stuff that the world is selling and Satan's selling. That'll knock you back. It'll slow you down.

Remember what Paul told Timothy, from childhood you've known the holy scriptures. Verse 16, all scripture comes from God. Verse 17, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. You know, this is the the word, this, and God living in us. That's the food that we need.

You know, runners will do things to ignore distractions, such as a good set of earphones and something to listen to takes the distraction off the pain the body's going through.

Other distractions are, don't let your stride get broken. Your stride is everything. Your stride is the whole sink that you're in. It's the rhythm of the lungs, the heart, the arms, the legs. It's all going together. It is in a syncopated, unique motion that it's all one unit. And when a dog runs in front of you and you go, huh? You've just shattered everything. And now you've got to somehow put it all back together mechanically. And it takes a long time, a lot of effort. You've now slowed yourself down. You'll never get back to where you were before that stride was broken.

Let no man take your crown. You've worked hard. Don't let something fumble you along the way. Peak performance. We were made to continue to grow towards that goal. You'll never get complacent. And don't let things come and interrupt you. You can see them coming. It's like a cross-country runner runs through traffic. You can see the traffic coming. You can time the traffic lights. You can see the kids playing. You can see the rocks coming. You can see the change in pavement and adjust your course. You can see all kinds of things and do it well.

Just like in this life, you can see things coming. You can anticipate them. Don't just say, well, I don't know, it was my fault.

Don't let anybody take your crown.

Two more points. One is obey the rules. Running terms include don't jump the gun, don't cut corners, stay in your lane, get the inside track, and don't trip up anyone. You can get disqualified. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, 27, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others I myself should become disqualified.

We shouldn't do that. We should not break any of the rules. People who don't like running will break the rules. People who don't like riding the tour de France on their own will break the rules. There's always somebody out there cheating. There's always somebody cutting corners. There's always somebody trying to get the goal or the glory who doesn't want to do it according to the rules. We cannot approach God, and we cannot approach the goal by breaking the rules, breaking the laws of God, thinking that somehow it's going to be okay.

Can't do that. The seventh point is, take heed, lest you fall. Take heed, lest you fall.

It's easy to get conceited. I've been in the church a long time, you might say. I've come a long way. I'm the runner. I'm fast. I'm invincible. I am, I can, I will, I, I, I.

You've got adversaries who want you to fail at all costs. You've got other competitors who want to beat you out. You've got Satan the devil who wants to take you out. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 12, Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall. I was in my senior year double-lettered. All the stripes were off. I mean, these things are...

Then came the final field day. I was the runner. I'll set my new mile record, finally. I'll beat the old mile record. Perfect cap off was the school decided to hold it in the rose bowl, on the rose bowl track. That was fitting for my final run of the runner with the stripes. Yeah.

So the race took off. Around we went. I delayed it by the book, just the way it should. Came around, crossed the finish line, broke the high school record. Five minutes and 20 seconds, I believe, was the time.

Steve didn't quite pass me. He was pushing me just right when I crossed the finish line. One little problem. I just have to sort of rewind back to the 100-yard line. Remember, the flat-footed kid came in from Colorado. Turned out he'd been living up there about 6,000 feet, training in high air, never trained with us. We didn't know who he was, anything about him. He came flying by us at 100 yards to the finish line and left us in the dirt. Yeah, I broke the mile record, but he broke mine by five seconds. Just wasn't fair.

He hadn't grown up in the school. He didn't have the training. He hadn't put in his dues. He had just gotten there. He came flying by, and it was over.

Wow.

That was stunning. Stunned and done. Steve and I just looked at ourselves. Twelve years, eclipsed by this kid. Didn't even have an outfit on.

Well, I repented.

I had a couple of three weeks left, probably, in school.

I got with my trainer, trained harder than ever, and now we come to that last hill of the AAU Sheriff's Academy run in the 10K, and I'd passed him. He was somewhere back there behind, and we came up to the last long winding hill up to Dodger Stadium. 303 runners were behind me, 97 were in front, but I was ahead of everybody in the school and everybody in the college. Except the trainer was pushing for first place up front. I was in a good position, and we were going uphill. Worked really hard, was exhausted, felt just right for where I was in the race. I was about 100 yards out. I could feel the blood in my socks. I knew that I'd given all that I could give. Just a matter of getting up there. Then the crowd was yelling along the side of the street.

You don't hear this. It's like mousing. You don't hear that. Somewhere out there, one voice came through. It was my brother's. He said, he's going to pass. Who's going to pass? Who could pass? I passed everybody. He's going to pass. Hardly came out of his mouth, and here comes flatfoot. Right over my right shoulder. Not even enough time to think about it. He's already passed me.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Nope. This is not going to happen.

In 2 John 1, verse 8, it says, Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things that we worked for, that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. So he abides in the doctrine of Christ as both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, don't receive him into your house or greet him. Just don't even go there. You know, don't lose those things that you've worked for. Don't let somebody else take your crown. You're responsible to win. You've invested everything. Run! I never ran so fast in my... I did a quick calculation. It was 75 yards of the finish line. We'd always practiced 50-yard sprints. That kid had never practiced with us through the years. 50-yard sprint, no matter how tired you were, you could always run as fast as you've ever run in your life for the last 50 yards. I left that guy standing there. I heard... I never looked back once he got to here. I took off at a full tilt for 75 yards, went across the finish line. I heard he was so demoralized that he walked. I don't know. But I'll tell you what, when you run well, you're pursuing the goal. You're anticipating the reward. The booklet, What is Your Destiny, says, God is creating in his children his holy righteous character. That's what we're running. That's what the race we're in. It's the pattern of life ingrained through habit, of choosing the right way, the way of love, even against temptation and self-desire.

This present life in physical, temporary human bodies is our training ground toward this end, a time for God's children to develop righteous character, to become like the Father and Christ in our minds and lifestyle. That is the race that's before us. We have to be serious about it. And if you achieve the goal that God gave you, he'll reward you for doing so.

Paul pursued the goal with gusto, and he said in 2 Timothy 4, verse 7 and 8, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Paul strove for that goal of holy righteous character, and it gave him confidence that he would also get a reward. Finally, he says, verse 8, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, not to me only, but also all who loved his appearing. So, rather, know the goal and repent and obey and put your mind towards developing the nature of God, the humility, the love, the serving, the sacrifice. Let it be with the objective, 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 5, agape from a pure heart, from a good conscience and sincere faith. When you run like that, and you want to run, and you love the run, and you love the trainer, and there's a connection, and you're learning and growing along the way, you will reach the goal, and there will be a reward. Next time would be part 4. Why the reward? Why is God giving us the reward of eternal life in his family?