Endurance Archives | The HUMFREYS

More people are becoming racers these days. Spartan races. Ironman races. Marathons. Road races. Few Sundays pass when there isn’t a group of people wearing bright stretchy shirts trying to remind themselves that they are still alive.

But on Sundays there is another group of racers. They don’t have sweat-wicking shirts, though they might carry a water bottle. These other racers are fighting to finish the race of life. And they are committed to doing it within the boundaries of the path of faith.

The Other Endurance Race

The second group of racers have it harder, not easier than the first group. The fight of faith and the endurance to finish the race requires continued faith in Christ. An eight-month training regime will not do. To race the endurance course of faith means that you give your life to the race, and you run it until your running days are over.

The Christian believer continues forward through pain and trials, while still believing in Jesus Christ. To stop believing is to quit the race. But to keep on believing is the greatest challenge of all the obstacles a believer encounters.

Paul’s Strategy for Racers

The first-century Greco-Roman world was well aware of marathons, olympiads, races, boxing matches and other contests. Paul of Tarsus, a Roman citizen, frequently used the metaphor of these contests to illustrate Christian faith.

When he spoke to the leaders in the Ephesian church he expressed his desire to be more than a race participant. He wanted to be a finisher. He said:

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Acts 20:24

Paul was prepared to sacrifice his own comforts in order to finish his course. Since the opportunity to race was given to him by his Lord Jesus, he treated the privilege of participating in the race with the honour it deserved. To be permitted to run was a higher privilege than the mayor Boston could give to a marathoner.

Paul’s goal was not a perishable wreath (1 Cor 9:24-27). Unlike the winners of the Boston Marathon or the Tour De France, Paul’s name would not be forgotten. The reason is that death makes all our earthly achievements to be short-lived and perishing. Only the rewards that are granted in the heavens by an ever-living Lord are the victories that can last.

The Racers’ Reward

Paul was committed to winning this imperishable prize. He would fight to the end to attain it because it was so valuable, worthy and honourable.

He possessed the single-minded focus of a long-distance runner. Paul explained his manner of running in a letter to the Philippian church:

…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Phil 3:13-14

Paul’s running strategy sounded similar to the best strategies of marathoners through the centuries. The great difference however was the track. Paul was running in the race of faith, desiring to persevere in crossing the finish line still believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Racing with Jesus

No feature of the road race analogy differs more between the sporting marathons and the biblical life of faith than the inclusion of Jesus himself.

Although races have fans, and even the Christian life is surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses”, (Hebrews 12:1), there is nothing that compares to the presence of Jesus running before the Christian.

In fact, Jesus has already run the course, and has ensured that all who follow him will finish it. So the final key strategy which the Christian marathoner must employ to simply to look to Jesus. The result of this focus is that Jesus himself will lead us to victory. Looking to Jesus holds the key to crossing the finish line. The writer to the Jewish Christians told them they should run in this way:

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2

Unlike any Spartan race, Jesus himself is the trailblazer (archegos, Gr.) who guarantees the finish (teleiotes, Gr.) of all the racers. No marathon organizer can make that personal guarantee. And the race of faith is utterly impossible without the gift of faith being given by the trailblazer and brought to completion by his power too.

It’s no wonder then that the Christian in the race of faith is called to endurance. Jesus himself took delight in the reward of being vindicated as truly God. His delight in the finish was greater than the shame of sacrifice and suffering.

Finishing the Race

The Christian must have the reward in their eye. They are called to single-minded focus. Christians are instructed:

…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
Hebrews 12:1

Christians may not go to church in logo-covered lycra but they are in a race. They live in faith until the end when they can say, as Paul did, “I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7) since the one who started them in the race is the one who guarantees their finish (Phil 1:6).

iamSherise

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Outlasting Your Enemies

First, you’ll be surprised to see “the downfall” of your “enemies” (Ps 92:11). Now Jesus commanded us to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). This action of love doesn’t change the fact that you will have enemies. What the 92nd Psalm is telling us is that the believer will outlast his or her enemies.
Charles Spurgeon had confidence in the Lord, that even though his theological stances were unpopular with his contemporaries, he would be vindicated in the future. He said, “For my part, I am quite willing to be eaten of dogs for the next fifty years; but the more distant future shall vindicate me.” (An All-Round Ministry, 360-361).

Some of your enemies might outlast you on this earth. But if you are a Christian believer, you can know that you will look on the downfall of your enemies, since you will live forever before the face of God and they will not. Truly, God is “not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you” (Psalm 5:4). If you believe in Jesus Christ, you will have a front row seat to see and hear “the doom of [your] evil assailants.” (v.11). This is why it is so important for us to “forgive our debtors” (Matt 6:12). We cannot overpower our enemies, but we can outlast them in love.

Spiritual Success in the Church

The second way you might be surprised by your future involves the place you will be most successful— the church. According to verses 12-13:

The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.

Psalm 92:12-13

Like healthy trees, the believer will prosper most in “the house of the Lord”. In the Old Testament, that would have been referring to the temple. But in the New Testament, Paul says that “we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Cor 5:1). The church is like a house in which believers are tools or vessels (2 Tim 2:21) or even spiritual stones (1 Peter 2:5), but Jesus is the builder of it (Heb 3:3-6).
The place where the healthy tree grows is in the midst of the wise landscaping of the architect, and builder of the house, Jesus Christ.
As a godly person gets older, they see more of their successful living in connection to the church fellowship. All of their other achievements will fade away, but the life of the church will cause them to keep growing, even into old age. Fellowship will be sweet. Worship will be sincere. The Word will be received like bread from heaven.

Old Trees With New Fruit

Most people are afraid to get old. They fear a future of weakness that age brings. But the 92nd Psalm promises that believers will “bear fruit in old age”. (v.14). We know that it doesn’t make sense. The end of your life is when you shrivel up, not ripen up. But like Sarah giving birth in old age, God is able to make women and men grow in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22), even when logic and biology would assume that their lives are nearly gone like an old orchard long since dead.
I was in a meeting and I heard one well-known pastor ask for prayer that his seventies would be the most fruitful years of his ministry! Following that, another well-known pastor said that he was in his seventies already, and he could testify that God was making that decade his most fruitful ever!

God has a surprising future in store for you, Christian believer. Maybe it’s time for you to trust in what God can do. He can even make your future “ever full of sap and green”.

May it be so among us all.

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