Run

Interview with Denise McQuillin, Lis LeBlanc, Henry Vlaar and Bryon Wiebe.
What do these folks have in common?
They’re runners.
What do you enjoy about running?
What’s hard about it?
What’s the best way to dress for a long run?
When is running the best for you?

I can’t run any more. But sometimes I walk, and sometimes I don't. Which is the problem, isn’t it, with most of us who need exercise? Is it that way with us as followers of Christ? When we think about Christianity being this race that we're running, sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't. I’m indebted to Pastor Joseph Stowell as he helped me with this outline of the 11th and 12th chapters of Hebrews.

All of Hebrews chapter 11 is about what faith is. Hebrews 11 leads us to the beautiful metaphor of the Christian life in Hebrews 12, which is "Therefore, based on faith, run this race for Jesus."
Do you know that there are several different word pictures in the Bible for what it means to live for Christ? In 1 Corinthians 3 we’re shown a building where Jesus is the chief cornerstone. In that picture, I build an house through my life for His glory.

Then in 1 Corinthians 12, there is a picture of a human body. Jesus is the head; we are the parts of His body. It’s a picture of a heart that beats in obedience to the directions of Jesus. I don't know about you, but for the most part I like it when my hand follows my head. When my brain tells my hand to do something, it does it. My grandsons run circles around me at Game Boy and Play Station 2. What’s their secret? At their age, their hands and eyes quickly do what their brain tells them. And that's the picture if Jesus is the head of my life. Think about that. It's a picture of what it is that controls my every-day decisions and actions.

Another part of the Bible describes the Christian life as a prize-fight. I don’t like boxing. Don Cherry won’t like me saying it, but sometimes it looks like a brawl once in a while breaks out into an NHL hockey game. But as a picture of living out the Christian life, St. Paul says, "I buffet my body that I might win the fight." The Christian life is, at times, a fight against some heavy duty powers.

I hope that all of us will come to grips with the reality that a life lived for Jesus is like a race. How do we run that race? How do we run it well? How do we run it so that we hit the finish line with the words of Jesus, "Well done, good and faithful servant" ringing in our ears?

If your kids were honest, what would they say about you as a dad or mom? If your parents were honest, what would they say about you as their child? What would your best friends say about your life? What would colleagues at work say? More important than all of that, I've got to ask myself the question, "At the end of it all, what would Jesus say about me?"

When we were little kids the big-time question was this - people came up and said to us, - "What are you going to be when you grow up?" Remember? Once, after church, the little kids were coming through the line to say, "Hi," and sometimes to hug. I love it when that happens. That day in Sunday School, they had been talking about firemen and policemen and teachers, and what the kids were going to do when they grew up. One of them looked up at me standing there. Do you know what he asked me? "What are you going to do when you grow up?" But for most of us, that's not the question of life any more, is it? Now that we're growing up, the real question of life is, "What are you becoming now that you're growing older?" Question number one, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" is about getting a career or a job. "What are you becoming now that you're growing older" is about getting a real life.

There is all the difference in the world between those two things. Once we have come and embraced the wonderful gift of grace in Jesus Christ, we have an ongoing, daily major choice. The choice is, "When I get a career, or a job, will I also get a life?" Nobody makes that choice but you. Has it dawned on you yet? Our lives are made by the choices that we make. So this is the ultimate question about life: - "How will I run the race?"

When God thinks of your life, He most often speaks of it as though it were a race. And that's a very powerful metaphor. Let me explain.
It involves training, it involves discipline, it involves running, it involves getting rid of useless baggage. It involves a finish line. But did you notice? He goes on to say that I’m not alone in the race, but there are grandstands jammed with people. So who are these spectators? They are all the great people of faith who have run the race before us, who have faced all the same kind of challenges, who haven't quit and have succeeded for Christ. Would they include your grandparents and your parents?

So who are these successful runners who have run the race and won? Look at what they did! Hebrews chapter 11 tells us that by faith they conquered kingdoms, . . . shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, . . . others were tortured, . . . experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about . . . destitute, afflicted, ill-treated. These were people of whom the world was not worthy."

Now listen to this: "And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us" - get this! - "apart from us - they would not be made [complete]." All these people who ran the race before us didn’t complete the race, because you and I complete the race that they have run. So it’s a relay race. My race is connected to all of those who have gone before and all of those who come after me. The Holy Spirit hands me a baton, and we step up to the line, and we hear the gun crack, and suddenly we realize, It's my turn. What David did, and what the prophets did, and what Jesus did at the cross does not become complete in the world in which I live unless I run my race. I've got kids who will compete after me. I hand the baton to them. I hand my baton to my friends, and to my colleagues. So this is a crucial race. Why do you run this race for God? I mean, if it was just you, you could bail on the race. You need to know that you're part of a huge picture. All that has gone before is completed in your life. As you run the race, you hand it to those who come after you.

But how we run this race, how we go the distance, is equally as important. So when you come down to chapter 12, the text gives us four ways that you run to go the whole distance for Jesus. Four ways that you stop living just to get into college, four ways that you stop living just to get a career or a job, but start living to get a life. The week after next, we’re going to begin to look at those four ways to go the whole distance in this race for Jesus.

Do you remember that movie, - maybe you’ve rented the video - it was called "Chariots of Fire." It was a great movie. In it, Olympic runner Eric Liddell said, "God has made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure." We need to know that God has redeemed us at the cross, and He has made us runners for Himself. It's when we run the race for Him that we feel His pleasure and begin to build something out of our lives that will count for eternity.