August 1, 2004

"Going for the Gold Part 1: Training Day"

In our modern litigation-crazy era manufacturers have gotten extremely cautious about the warnings they put on their products to protect themselves from lawsuits. Here are just a few real-life warning labels to be seen today:

On a bar of Dial soap: directions—use like soap.

Swanson frozen dinners: serving suggestion: defrost before consuming.

On a package of bread pudding: warning—product will be hot after heating.

On an electric iron—caution, do not iron clothes on body.

On a string of Christmas lights: for indoor or outdoor use only.

On a can of peanuts: warning—contents may include peanuts.

On a chain saw—caution: do not stop chain with hand.

On a blanket from Taiwan: Not to be used as protection against tornadoes.

On a mirror mounted on a motorcycle helmet: Objects in the mirror are actually behind you.

On a bottle of milk: after opening, keep upright.

Warnings like these are always good for a laugh. These are things that fall well into the area of common sense.

But so too do the words of the Apostle Paul to the infant church at Corinth. Common sense words about training hard before you compete. Now you have to understand that the members of the Corinthian church were so cantankerous, so reluctant to take Paul’s advice, they were like trying to herd a roomful of cats. (I wanted to use that analogy for Dick and Helen, who are stepparents to five cats currently living in their house.) Paul was trying to tell the Corinthians, “Have some discipline. No pain, no gain. If you want the crown that lasts forever, you’d better be ready to put the work into training.”

This week I received my copy of Sports Illustrated’s Olympic preview issue, and that made it official. It won’t be long until the Olympic Games get under way in Athens, Greece. How many people here get excited about the Olympics? Most people do. There’s something very stirring about watching young men and women training for years to reach their goal and then striving for it in a few seconds that will validate or ruin that effort. It’s especially stirring because, for the most part, the medal is all the athletes will win—that and the chance to stand on the top step as your country’s national anthem is played.

The plain truth is that nobody reaches that top step and receives a gold medal without years of training, sometimes a lifetime of training. The last American to win the gold medal in the marathon run, Frank Shorter in 1972, ran over 100 miles per week, rising at 4:30 a.m. daily to start his run.

Who here remembers the movie “Rocky?” Do you remember the scene where the alarm clock went off at 4 a.m. and Rocky dragged himself to the icebox to crack half a dozen raw eggs into a glass and chuck them down? THEN he would go for his run. I remember when that movie came out, you could hear the whole movie theater going “Ewwww!” when Rocky chugged down those raw eggs.

In the ancient Greek Olympic games, an athlete would train for years before the games were held, and then the month before, he would move to Corinth, the site of Paul’s church. There he was assigned a personal coach, and the real fun started—early rising and long days of lifting weights, exercising, pushing himself to the edge of his strength. All this denial—Frank Shorter’s 100 miles, Rocky’s raw eggs, the Greek’s month of preparation, was done so that when the time came, he could run the race of his life, fight the fight of his life.

Of course, there are always those who want to take a shortcut. Great human stories come out of every Olympics, and one of the best stories from the 2000 games was that of Eric Moussambani, a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who competed in the 100 meter freestyle. Eric didn’t even learn to swim until a couple months before the games started, and then he worked out vigorously from there. Well actually, not so much. He swam three days a week, an hour at a time, at a 20 meter hotel swimming pool. The problem is that Olympic events are held in an Olympic-sized pool, 50 meters.

So in the 100 meters, Eric had to swim the 50 meters twice, and in front of 17,500 screaming people. Well, Eric had never come close to swimming 100 meters at one time. Halfway through his preliminary heat, he started to flail around in the water like he was about to drown. People actually were about to jump in and rescue him. Can you imagine an Olympic swimmer who has to be saved from drowning? But he hung in there and dogpaddled his way home to the loudest cheers of any swimmer. He finished in about 1:53, which was twice the time of the next-slowest swimmer.

It was, as I said, a great story. It turns out that Eric Moussambani had learned that the Sydney Olympics would fly any competitor to the games for free, house and feed them and in general treat them like royalty. He wanted in on the action, and figured swimming was the easiest gig he could find.

Now obviously, Eric was the exception that proves the rule. For 99 percent of the thousands of Olympic athletes, training has consumed their lives for years in advance. And Paul would approve.

Paul had a mindset much like Vince Lombardi, the great football coach, who said “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Of course, Lombardi, whose Green Bay Packers won the first two Super Bowls, believed that the victory was won by emphasizing the basics. Every year he would open his training camps by standing in front of the biggest, baddest veteran players in the country and saying “Gentlemen, this is a football.”

That’s why Paul uses sports metaphors in his writing, talking about running, wrestling and in First Corinthians, boxing. He was a sports fan. If he lived today he’s be at Heinz Field waving a Terrible Towel. He uses the language of training: pressing, straining, pushing, stretching, words that make us sweat just listening to them. And at the end of it all, victory. The crown that will last forever. “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,” Paul writes, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize toward which God has called me heavenward in Jesus Christ.”

So how do we get to the finish line? How do we do our part to ensure that we live a victorious life? I’m glad you asked. I’d like to share three thoughts with you this morning.

First, you have to have a goal to win. What’s your goal in life? What are you trying to accomplish? Our goal is to reach heaven, right? But many people think of heaven as some kind of social club with an open enrollment policy. Everybody gets it, they think. God will say, “Well, you tried your best. It’s OK that you quit halfway through, come on in anyway.” That’s not what scripture says in any number of places, folks, but Paul writes that you have to go for the gold. The good news is that all who enter the race can win the crown, but it takes discipline.

Do you think of life in terms of reaching a goal, or are you just drifting? Some people wait until late in life to take the race seriously, and they fall far, far behind as a result. Others think they can coast when they get older, and tragically, fall short at the finish line. But when we become Christians, our goal is clear, or should be: to get right with God, to clean up the mess caused by our unbelief, to know forgiveness for our sins, to get control of our life, to make a difference in somebody else’s life, to walk humbly, do justice and live in peace with God until he calls us home.

Sound like a tall order? It is. That’s why you need to train hard to win.

Second, it takes endurance to win. It’s hard for most of us to even imagine what it’s like to endure the pain of running a marathon. Basically what it takes is stringing together 26 straight one-mile runs, each in under five minutes. I have trouble walking to the mailbox in less than five minutes. Marathon runners are not flashy. They’re not sprinters. But they have the endurance to last, thanks to their training. And that’s what the Christian life is all about. Eugene Peterson wrote that the Christian life is not a 100-yard dash, it is “a long obedience in the same direction.”

My brothers and sisters, God wants us to endure and keep running no matter what pain we encounter, no matter how many times we feel like we have “hit the wall” and can’t go on. So many times we are tempted, when we get into trouble, to say to God, “Get me out of this, Lord. If you love me, take this pain away.” And God replies, “My precious child, it’s because I love you, it’s because I want you to win the prize, that I ask you to endure. But I’ll help you.”

I look around this room this morning and I see so much endurance all around me, What I know about your life stories and your faith stories are that you all have already dealt with so much—health problems, money problems, job problems, family problems, on and on. And I know—I don’t believe, I know—that you have endured to this point through the grace of Almighty God. Now he has this to say to you this morning: “I’m so proud of you. I love you so much. Now I ask you to endure to the finish line.” It doesn’t matter if you’re in the first mile of your marathon or the 15^th or the 25^th, God asks you to endure to the finish line. And for that, you need training.

Finally, it takes hope to win. You need to believe that you have a chance to win, that the pain is worth the prize. Christians must have a steadfast confidence in the future. In a word, hope is confidence—confidence that I have trained hard, I have prepared well, and the race will go well, too. If I discipline myself, I have reason to hope that one day I will taste God’s victory. But more than that, I must have hope that God will be there to catch me if I fall, and help me to the finish line.

I’m sure that the name Derek Redmond means nothing to you, but I bet when I recount his story you’ll remember. Derek’s story was one of the most dramatic in the whole history of sports competition.

Derek Redmond ran for Great Britain in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. His specialty was the 400 meters, and he had poured his life into training to win the gold medal. He advanced to the semi-finals, and when the gun sounded he took off like a rocket. He was on his way to an easy win and a berth in the finals when he went down as if he were shot, clutching his leg.

Redmond has pulled his hamstring, and I’m told that it one of the most painful injuries an athlete can suffer. You can’t even put weight on the leg, but Redmond got back up on his feet and started to hobble forward, only to fall back down. Out of the stands came a burly man in a t-shirt who pushed past a security guard and raced to Redmond’s side. It was his father Jim. He told Derek, “You don’t have to do this,” and his son gasped back, “Yes I do,” and his father replied, “Well, then we’re going to finish the race together.” Leaning on his father, his head buried in Jim’s chest, Derek limped all the way to the finish line to the wild cheers of everyone in Olympic Stadium.

Derek didn’t win the gold medal, but he learned that his father would always be there to catch him when he fell.

What Paul says in the First Century is still true in the 21^st Century. It takes discipline in all things to run the race to win. Paul writes to Timothy, his young assistant, “Set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Till I come, attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have. Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Take heed to yourself and to your teaching, hold to that, for by so doing you will save yourself and others.” (1 Timothy 4.)

Peter Ueberroth was the chairman of the 1984 Olympic Games, held in Los Angeles. That was one of the most successful Olympics ever, and Ueberroth was given much of the credit for its success. Later he was asked, what was the defining moment of the games for you? People expected him to talk about one of the sports events or even the closing ceremonies, but instead Ueberroth said the Olympic torch relay across the country was the most defining moment. People of all walks of life are selected to carry the torch, and every town sees it as a major event.

Ueberroth talked about the torch passing through one small town out west. A village, really. More horses than people. The torch relay was the biggest thing to happen there in years, and they decided to pick the torch bearer by lottery, but the townsfolk were aghast when the mayor picked the name Amy, a little girl who had been physically and mentally disabled all her life. She could walk, but not very well. She could go only a few steps before needing to sit down again in her wheelchair. The committee didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t tell Amy she couldn’t carry the torch, she’d be crushed.

So the word got around that maybe they should downplay the event, maybe it was too big a deal anyway. The morning of the relay arrived, and the mayor and only a few others gathered for the relay. Amy was handed the torch and took a step. Everybody gasped. Then another step and another gasp and another step and another. Soon word got around about what was happening, and more people came out to watch. Amy, with both hands clutching the torch, was taking it one step at a time until people started to chant, “A-my, A-my,” until she stepped over the finish line and handed over her torch.

To these eyes, that’s what real victory is all about. Triumph over long odds.

 Gold medals are never achieved by accident, or by half-hearted measures, or by wishful thinking. Neither is the crown of eternal joy in heaven with God and his son Jesus Christ. Treat life like your personal Olympic Games. Train to endure. Endure to win. Many enter the race, but few are victorious.

Jesus said in Matthew 7, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

The road to life is narrow—narrow as the cross on which Jesus died. He died for you and paid the price to wipe away your sins. He only asks that you put your faith and trust in him. What would Jesus have to say about the way you’re running the race today? Are there any mid-course corrections you need to make?

By our baptism we enter the race. By training hard, by enduring, persevering and finishing strong, we win the race.