Running the Christian Race

OK, well, today, if we have an apropos topic, we're going to talk about running the race, the Christian race. And Paul's going to talk about, actually, what I found in looking at these verses we're going to read here shortly, that Paul, he relates something that I think applies to us. And then he relates something that seems particularly focused on his ministry of proclaiming the gospel. So we're going to see both those today. OK, so let me see here and get myself together here. So let's go ahead and look at the overview, the outline first. And I've been utilizing Chester Macaulay's outline.

Basically, he titled this section in chapter 9, basically, Surrender of Liberty or Clearing the Way for the Gospel. And he talks about, this actually starts, this part of the outline starts in the beginning of chapter 1 talking about, the first part is Paul's position.

He talks about that he's free, he's an apostle, he's seen Jesus Christ in the flesh. And he talks about how the Corinthians are his work. God's given him the Corinthians, and that's his ministry field, if you will. And he talks about his defense, defending his right to act as he does. And he has a right to do many things.

But then he's going to talk about how he constrains himself for the sake of the gospel. And we've covered most of this already, obviously. And he talks about how the fact that it's right and proper to take money, to be compensated, but he personally has chosen not to do that. And his whole focus that we're going to see in this section is that the gospel is so important to get out that Paul doesn't want to do anything to hinder the presentation of the gospel and that anything might hinder it in the sense that someone may get the wrong impression from where Paul is coming from. So he goes to great lengths. I think actually we'll see in this verse, verses that he goes to great lengths to make sure that the gospel is free from any false claims or accusations.

And we'll see how that develops. We kind of get down to the section a little closer here. The principle of service. And that's kind of basically that I think verse 19b talks about, I have made myself a slave to all that I might win all. So again, focus on the gospel. Winning people for Christ. And the goal of service is basically verse 23, and we're going to cover that shortly, presenting the gospel.

And then the last part is this idea of disciplining, beating our bodies, roughing them up, so to speak, like an athlete would do for a race. And we're going to see a lot of terms that imply that. And I was thinking about this, treating your body harshly.

Are there any bicycle fans in here? You guys watch the Tour de France? A younger crowd you might, not like my sons. Both my sons are into bicycling. They love watching that. It's very apropos for today where people just exhaust themselves to gain the slightest advantage. Every hundredth of a second makes a difference. Have you ever watched the end of one of these bicycle races? They've been riding for three or four hours, and they come down to the last hundred yards, and they're just going as hard as they can, and they're bumping into each other, and people are crashing.

And finally one guy gets across, and he's the winner. So fortunately, our Lord in Christ, we're all winners. And we're going to learn there's a difference between the human Olympics, so to speak, and the Christian Olympics, so to speak. So we'll see about that. OK. So could someone read this section? You can read it off the overhead or from your Bible.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we are imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way as not without aim, I box in such a way as not beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified."

So I want to point out one thing here, and it took me a while to pick up on this. If you notice in verses 24 and 25, Paul talks about you and we, so he's talking to us, he's talking to the Corinthians. But then as it comes down to 26 and 27, he puts himself, I, he uses I several times, a couple times in 26 and three times in 27. So at first I didn't pick up on that.

I think that really is helpful in understanding and answering when it gets down to the end that he's concerned about being disqualified. And you scratch your head and you think, well how in the world If anyone would not be worrying about being disqualified, and certainly not in the spiritual sense of losing their salvation, since Paul through all his epistles, all his writings, is so clear on the fact that it's Christ and me, the hope of glory, it's Christ doing the work, how could I ever be disqualified?

So I'm going to try to answer that question. I'm not sure I'll be successful, but I'll give you my thoughts on it at least. But I do think it's interesting you see the you and the we in the first two verses. So I'm going to teach those as that's something we need to see what other parts of scripture talk about. But it's going to kind of change when we get down here to 26 and 27. I think it's a personal thing for Paul. And he's going to point out why this is so important. And it has to do with presenting the gospel, I believe. OK. So let's just look at.

This is the Amplified Bible. There are several Bibles I like. I'm not trying to sell Bibles here, but the Amplified Bible is really good. And I like the Wiest translation. So when I study, like for this class, I'll look at the New American Standard, which is my preference, like King James you could use, or New King James, or whatever you like. But then the other two that are helpful is the Wiest translation, which is only New Testament. It's available in hard copy or electronically. And then the Amplified Bible. So I'll use those and look at what they have to say. And I find them helpful. in understanding what's being said.

So the Amplified has this, I do this, so this is verse 23, the previous verse to our section, and as I do this, Paul says, I do this for the sake of the good news, the gospel, in order that I may become a participator in it and share it and share in its blessings among you all. So that's what the Amplified said. And I like what Macaulay had to say about this. He says, this verse shows, and this is kind of one of my themes here this morning, this verse shows that Paul has a singular priority in his life and everything else was made to serve this singular end. This points to the full and proper use of volition. Paul had a capacity to choose and his choices were of the highest order in terms of quality.

Okay, so let's just kind of jump into verse 24. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run? And first of all, if you hadn't already kind of picked up on this, whenever you see that little phrase, do you not know, it's something you should know. That sounds kind of funny, but that's kind of a way that we'll see. And I want to look at a couple of verses just to kind of show you that pattern.

So could someone read Romans 6.3? Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Okay, so what he's trying to communicate here is, you know, my version of it is, do you not know, same phraseology as here, and the thing that he wants them to know, that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death. piece of information that Paul communicates to us about our death, burial and resurrection with our Savior. And then actually in Romans 7, could someone read that 7.1, another important thing to know. I do you not know brethren, for I am speaking to those who know the law. That the law is jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives. That's something that as believers, so that's the way Paul communicates.

And then James does a similar kind of thing in James 4.4. Could someone read that? To adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Great. Thanks, Randy. So there's another important thing to know. So the takeaway here is that when you see that little red light that goes off, you say, OK, the following part is something I know. And in this case, it's almost a piece of logic here.

He's going to say, have you ever seen the 100-yard dash? Wouldn't it be interesting, a 100-yard dash, If they didn't follow this rule, that we should all know. Let's say there's one who decided that he was a walker. He decided to walk the 100 yards. So the guy would shoot the gun, boom! And everybody would start running his path. And one guy would just walk. He's got a brisk walk. Would he have a chance to win? No. So it says, what this verse is pointing out, that everyone in a race runs. Some fast, some slow, but they all run, they don't do something else. So that's kind of the point. His point here is that those who run in a race all run.

So let's just kind of dissect that. And that was kind of an intro to that. So it's literally, and it's kind of interesting, there's some words here that without the understanding of the New Testament in terms of the original, it would be a little hard to see. So literally it says, the ones running, and it's actually more than just a race, it's a race course, is the original All Indeed Run.

And this race course was this standion, or that's just our word for stadium. It actually has two aspects to the meeting. One is the physical location of the stadium, and the other thing is a measure, it's how long That word was also used for a length.

In this case, it's the length of a Olympic course at that time. 600 Greek feet, which I'm not sure I know what that means. One-eighth of a Roman mile, which I don't know. Supposedly it's around 200 yards. It's a 200-yard dash. That word standion could mean the physical stadium or it could mean the 200-yard dash. It's saying literally the ones running in a stadium, or a 200 yard dash, all indeed run.

And all indeed, they all compete. They aren't the walkers, they're the runners. They aren't the swimmers, you know. You're going to swim the course? No, they're going to run. So the message here is that, and this is a logical statement, they're all going to run. So now he wants to tell us, how should I conduct my run? How should I engage in this run? He's going to give us more information about that. The next piece of logic is in a race, in the 200 yard dash or whatever the race is, there's only one winner.

In our current Olympics you have gold, bronze, and silver. So they give consolation prizes. But the gold is still what everybody's working for. You hear very few people say, I'm going to work for the bronze. I want to get that bronze medal. Well they do if they can't get the gold and silver. I've got it reversed here. Actually, it's gold, silver, bronze, right?

Thanks. So anyway, they don't work for the lower ones. I'm working for third place. People don't say that. No, I'm working for first place. That's what they're working for. And the Lord, in the spiritual sense, doesn't want us to work for third place. There's very little meaning to that. There's not a third place in the kingdom of God. There's only first places.

OK, but only one, OK, let's go back, OK, but only one receives a prize. So this word receives is the idea lambano, to receive what is given or imparted, to partake of. So in this context, let me see here, Before I look at the definition, what's a prize here? I think there's actually two prizes. There's two level of prizes. Are you kind of with me here? In that series on Greece that they're doing, on Channel 6 right now, they said in the Olympics there was only one prize. Right. Only the first prize. Exactly. That's what I read too.

There's only one prize and actually what's even more They were so serious about this that the losers were disgraced. They were physically harmed. It wasn't just like, you get some runner up, they get a little glory too. No, the losers were disgraced. You had to win. It was just imperative. Let's keep going here.

The prize is, in the earthly sense, there is some metal or a wreath placed on their heads. But there is a sense in the spiritual sense we are going to see here too. There is a prize for us. We are going to see some verses that talk about the prize. And actually the prize, if you think about it, is our Savior, really. That is a prize.

We are engaging in this Christian race, if you will, to please our Lord and Savior. That's what it's all about. Our whole life is focused on our interaction with Him and our life with Him. So we're very singular minded and we don't want anything else less than what Christ would have us do. So we're very focused too, but in a different sense. Any other thoughts on that?

I'll show the definition here. The definition is going to say the same thing. It says, to assign a prize in a public game, a prize such as a wreath or garland, bestowed on victors in the contest of the Greek games. And metaphorically, it talks about, here's a very familiar verse, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upper call of God in Christ Jesus.

That's a wonderful verse. I was thinking about that verse. Let's look at a similar verse talking about pressing on. Let's look at Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 1. Can someone read 6.1 for us? Therefore, leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity. not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. In this context, in the Hebrews passage, it's talking about pressing on to maturity, learning more about Christ, growing in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you think about it, we're as singularly focused on our Lord and Savior as the athletes are for the gold prize. We are We don't want anything to get in our way of knowing the Lord Jesus. When we come down to the bare essentials of what we want, we want to know Him. We want to understand Him, we want to be focused on Him, to do His will. That's our focus.

Someone brings something else along and you say, well that doesn't sound like it's going to help me know the Lord. Most believers push it away and say, I don't want that, I want Christ. So we're very focused too. So now, like I said before, you don't run in such a way that you may win. In the Olympic Games, like I said, they don't run to get third place.

I like this actually better. You may obtain it. Or actually, probably the best definition is to look at the original word. And this is going to help us immensely because it's going to bring in another phraseology that will remind us of some other verses. And it's actually that same phraseology is there. So it's catilombano. That's approximately the pronunciation. So it properly signifies to lay hold of. To lay hold of so as to possess. to appropriate, you could call it.

And there's just the following verses we read. We read verse 14, which is, well, let's read the prior two verses, which talk about this laying hold. So I'm going to read Philippians 3, 12 and 13. Brother, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.

Okay, good. You have the King James, right? Does someone have another translation that has Le Holdo? The New American Standard does. Does someone have that? I'll read it from mine. 12 and 13? Yeah, New King James has it too that way, I think, maybe? Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. So those two verses there, bring across this same idea of laying hold, of appropriating, in verse 12 has, but I press on so that I may lay hold. We're laying hold, we want to follow what Christ has us, would have us do if you will, lay hold of that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Then verse 13, brethren, I do not regard myself as laying hold of it yet. He's saying, I have some work to be done. I'm not mature yet. It's a process. It's an ongoing process.

So in the earthly situation, they desire to win. In our situation, we desire to lay hold of what Christ would have us do, the place where we should be, how we should be interacting and doing. A lot of it is pretty straightforward. A lot of it is already told us in scripture. We don't have to make it up. We're to grow in grace and the knowledge of him. We're to understand what his word says. We're to share the good news. It's all there for us to do.

So actually, I kind of answered this question already. How is winning different in the Christian life than in an athletic competition? So one is, we're both in a race, but it's for a different object, a different goal. Any thoughts at this point? Just another translation.

OK, go ahead. OK, OK. It actually has what I have right there. It has obtained it. Yeah. So, OK, that's all. You know, in some ways it's helpful if everybody decides to translate the same. Otherwise, you have to kind of know what were the possibilities. So some people will render it rather than when they'll have obtained it, which is, you know, obtained it, lay hold of it. So that's good. So that was the new King James. So this is 24, we're going to move on to 25 now. Remember, like I pointed out before, we have the Usen.

25. Everyone who competes in the games, notice the games, exercises self-control in all things. So everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control. Apparently there was this thing called the Isthmian Games that was every two years.

People would prepare for it. I'll have a little thing later on about that. Apparently a large segment of the population would prepare for this. But it was once again, incredible amount of time and effort would go into it. Ten months straight, did nothing else but prepare for this game and then you had to win. Second place was not an option. Pretty amazing.

What's interesting is that everyone who competes, this word compete is actually this word agonizami, to contend for victory in a public game, to take pains, to wrestle, as an awards contest, straining every nerve to the uttermost toward the goal. And it's the English word agonize. So can you think of some verses that maybe bring across the idea of, I wouldn't say agonizing so much, but maybe straining or striving. I have a bunch of verses. to follow here, but you have one up top of your head that you can think of. Also, he labors for the Lord. OK, I'm not sure what the reference is. That's good. All right. That's good. So other ones. There's no pain, no. Why don't we go to the first work, and that was Christ's own agony. That's good, that's good, excellent.

How about if you look at Paul's, he describes what happened to him in his life. He was, you know, you read through this and he was left for dead, maybe he was stoned. I mean, you go through and you think, why wouldn't I have just given up about after the first three or four of those? I said, Lord, this is too much. I can't handle this. But he realized it was Christ in him that was going to make this happen. So he endured terrible pain and suffering. So actually, here's some verses that I kind of came across. So let's kind of look through some of these. The first one is in Luke, Luke 13, 24. And some of them, being the Gospels, have a little different application, but Luke 13, 24.

Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, you seek to enter and will not be able. Right. OK. And then how about Colossians 1, 29? And it's good to see how they're accomplishing this striving and this effort. This is a particularly good one right here. 129 in Colossian. I'm sorry, Colossian.

I also labor striving according to his working which works in me. So you caught the last part of that. Mine has, I labor striving according to his power. We're not striving in our own strength, we're striving in his power, in his might. And then 412 has a similar, here's a laboring for, I'll let you guys read that, 412.

Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. So here's laboring in prayer. And laboring in prayer is work. Especially if it's something that is so important and so vital, that's a labor Then how about the ones in Timothy?

Timothy 4.10? For this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of the laborers. Okay, excellent.

And then the last one is pretty familiar, 6.12, 1 Timothy 6.12? Fight the good fight of faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, for you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. That first fight is the same word we've been tracking to translate as strive or labor or fight. So there is a striving and laboring. And actually what I found according to Macaulay, actually they would call I don't quite understand.

Like it was a running event? Every event was considered an event of agony. So they would just call it... Agon was any event they entered in. It was sort of like... Every event was agony. And it was the running agony or whatever it was. Or boxing. We're going to see boxing comes in here in a short bit. But every event was considered something that you would have agony in. So I thought that was kind of uninteresting.

So let's continue on here. So the second part is that you exercise self-control. To have power over oneself. So basically Kosovo has, we also need to exercise self-control. Competitors, there's the Istvian Games, had to train for 10 months and athletes in train deny themselves or herself of lawful pleasures to gain an extra edge of superiority.

So there are some areas that scripture talks about where we exercise self-control. I didn't include it on here, but I have the verses we're going to talk about. Can you think of some areas where believers exercise self-control? What's what you say? Okay, that's good. Something else? The lust of the flesh where the lips go. That's right. Okay, alright. Well, one kind of came to my mind is the topic of wine.

And in Ephesians 5.18 it says, do not get drunk with wine. And if you trace that through, it talks about how it doesn't forbid the use of wine, but it says you need to use it in a self-controlled manner.

Does someone read Romans 14.21? It is good neither to eat meat, nor drink wine, nor do anything by which your brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak." Here's a case where exercising self-control is for the sake of your brother. And actually, think about it, that's what Paul has been talking about a lot here in Corinthians, about doing things, controlling yourself for the benefit of your brother, or in deference to your brother, because you care for him, that you're not to cause him to stumble. So that's an area of self-control.

And then, if you look in Titus there, it talks about overseers, not addicted to much wine, and it talks about older women, not enslaved to much wine. So there are, and that's, you know, so I didn't really expand this. I'm not sure. There goes what we're going to do next time. I wanted to put in that was more than just, you know, I was trying to get a broad brush here. I didn't really think exactly what that was going to do. But anyway, let's see here. I'm losing my train of thought here. Anyway, so that's one area, or a topic of drink or whatever.

So we are to exercise self-control. They exercise it, and we're going to see here, the rest of the verse says that, They do it, speaking of the athletes, they do it to receive a perishable crown, which is this Stephanus crown, and it's perishable. It can fade away. Versus we do it for an imperishable crown. The self-control is done for different reasons. The athlete does it to receive an earthly crown. We do it to receive a perishable crown.

Okay, okay, so let's let's go on. So now, okay, so now we've kind of finished the track through here. We talked about everyone who competes and you know, so it's. We talk about the perishable and we frame perishable. So now Paul is going to switch here. He says, therefore I run in such a way as not without aim, I box in such a way as not beating the air. So now he is going to switch from the running events to the boxing events, if you will. He is going to talk about boxing here.

He says, I run in such a way as not without aim. So without aim is uncertainty, without attending or staying within the prescribed marks. So Weiss kind of brings that across. As for myself, therefore, I run in no uncertain manner. You run in a prescribed manner. It wouldn't do much good If you did zigzags, right?

If you want to run straight, you want to stay within the lines. In fact, I think actually, in some of the relay races, the first part of the relay race, they have to stay within the lines. Then after a while, after a certain distance, they can go and run whatever they want to do. But at the beginning of the race, they have to stay within the lines to make it equally fair for all contestants. If they go over the line, they would get disqualified.

So, Paul is saying, I run in such a way as not without aim. Next, he switches to the boxing. I box in such a way as not beating the air. I like the Weiss translation here. I so swing my fist, not as one, when fighting, misses his opponent. It wouldn't do much good if you just just flailed your arms, hoping that your opponent got in there somewhere. That wouldn't be too cool. Merely being in the air, not striking a straight blow, which finds its target.

To my mind, this kind of brought back what Paul has said in earlier parts of this chapter. He's focused on presenting the gospel. He doesn't want to expend his energy going off in a different direction. He doesn't want to waste his energy doing something that doesn't promote the gospel. So let's go on to verse 27. But I discipline my body, and make it my slave.

So there's two things here. He's doing two efforts here. He's disciplining his body. The disciplining of his body and the making a slave of his body are both in the present tense, which means he's continually disciplining his body and making his body a slave. That's an ongoing action. Discipline is the idea to strike, to strike under the eye, hence to beat the face black and blue.

It's used metaphorically in this verse he's speaking of here. So he's not hitting himself in the eye, that's what the literal meaning, he's doing that in the sense that he's training his body, he's alluding to that's what the effort takes. And then the passage in Luke, it only occurs at one of the time of the passage in Luke. Actually, I didn't find too helpful. It's the idea of the, in fact, let's just read it for a second here.

Let's look at Luke 18.5. It's going to seem a little, how about 18.4 and 5? It's a little bit off our topic here, but. Thanks for a while, he was unwilling. But afterward, he said to himself, even though I do not fear God or respect men, because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection. Otherwise, by continually coming, she will wear me out. I always find that funny. So anyway, so actually it's the word wear out. So it's that word used in a different context. So it's not real helpful there.

So in the second part, the second continuous action, besides beating his body and keeping his body in good shape, so to speak, it's the idea of making a slave. He brings it under control, brings it under bondage, subjection. Okay, so now let's go on here. So the last part of the verse, so that, or basically with a purpose that, after having preached to others. So preaching here is the idea to preach as a herald. He's heralding the good news. I myself will not be disqualified. Disqualified is the idea, signifies not standing the test or rejected. So before I do that, let me just go down here.

So what do you think? I've seen approaches to this. I find this is a tough verse. I hope you do too. So what's Paul concerned about here? And I kind of allude to it early on. Go ahead, Tom. Well, in the end, even though it's not mentioned, it's yet not I, but Christ who lives in me who makes this all possible.

Okay. Okay. That's good. That's good. All right. So, Gary, you had something? He won't be the stumbling block or lose the prize. Okay. Other? That's what I was going to say. So he's a good example to other people. I thought that I agree with you. That's good.

Let's look at Galatians here for a second. And I was looking around for something that, and I want to read, actually I want to go back and kind of summarize some of the things that he said earlier in chapter 9. But let's first look at the passage in Galatians. Galatians, and let's read Galatians chapter 2 verses 1 and 2. So Galatians 2, 1 and 2. If someone could read that.

Then after an interval, is that it? Yes, that's it. Then after an interval of 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also. It was because of a revelation that I went up, and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles.

But I did so in private to those who were of reputation, for fear that I might be running or had run in vain. Okay, so we see in verse 2, Paul has, I think, a similar concern. Here's what happened the Lord directly Revealed to Paul the gospel the good news, and we kind of learned that you know we're going to be carrying that verse We learned that in the account of the Lord's table.

That's a personal revelation to Paul so when Paul meets up with the disciples I mean he you know he doesn't want to They didn't have a chance. He wanted to do some teaching with them. So he went to them privately. He didn't want to have to be in conflict. While Paul is saying this, and Peter is saying this, and John is saying that, he wanted to be on the same page. So he went to them privately.

And his concern was, as he said, for fear that I might be running, or had run in vain. So he knows he has all this wonderful revelation from the Lord, but if he doesn't come to it and and show the other disciples that this is truly what God has in mind about the good news, then there could be a problem. That could bring dishonor to the message of the gospel. So he's concerned.

So I kind of saw a similar thing in this account. Now let me tell you, I'm probably the outlier here on this passage. Most people will take this passage as a loss of rewards. I struggle with that. I struggle with Paul who teaches us grace upon grace, that he's struggling with rewards. I just didn't see how that fit. So I apologize, but I think it's worthy of consideration. I want to show you some other verses that hopefully may add to that. Paul is concerned about bring any harm to the gospel. He'd rather die than bring harm to the gospel. I think this is just the fact and being disqualified, I just struggle with that in terms of even rewards. God wants to reward us, but in my mind, that's something that happens in the background.

I don't get up tomorrow and say, what kind of reward do I want today? No, I get up tomorrow and say, how can I serve the Lord? How can I keep my focus on Him? Because I realize, if I don't keep my focus on Him, I'm going to go off in different directions. If I keep my focus on Him, then as the rewards come, Thank you Lord. You allowed me to keep my focus on you and I'll be rewarded as he works through me. So I can't see Paul being concerned about rewards.

I don't know. Maybe there's other verses. Go back to verse 24 in such a way that you may obtain the life that God has for you, the plan God has. So maybe in this sense, I will not obtain the life and the purpose that I could have obtained, but could already accomplished.

Okay, alright, well that's a thought. That's an interesting thought too. Okay, good. I thought through all of these, versus the red, the focus was almost the main thing, how important it is to to keep our focus on what we're about. Right. You're going to get off the track. That's great.

So let's look at, I have like three verses, let's look at, in chapter, let's all turn to chapter 9, 1 Corinthians chapter 9, and look at a few verses here, and this is all going to be about Paul's overriding desire to get the gospel out and how he's willing to go to any extent. Verse 12, 9-12. Can someone read 9-12 for us?

If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? Nevertheless, we have not used this right. but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ. So it's that last part that I kind of picked up on there. He doesn't want to hinder. Here we go. So the last part, we endure all things. Doesn't that sound like self-control? Doesn't that sound like we endure all things that we might cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ? So he doesn't want to hinder it in any way. And I kind of felt that he would see if he did hinder it, He would be in a sense, he didn't, you know, the test was there. I was trying to tie it into this. Maybe I'm a little bit weak on that. Okay, let's look at 16. Verse 16, 9-16.

For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion. for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. I also thought, I'm not sure I can have the fervency that Paul has here. He was to preach to the Gentiles. That was God's plan for Paul's life, to preach the good news to the Gentiles. I think he's describing it here, the links he'll go to. And I said, can that be me? And I guess I didn't see that as me. I mean, not that I don't want to get the good news out, but I didn't see it. God wants me as part of my Christian life to like the Great Commission. As I'm going, as I'm conducting my life, I share the good news. But Paul had a special ministry, a special mission.

And the last one is in verse 19, 9-19. And we actually read this earlier, I think, too. Do you want to read? Yeah, 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 19. 9, 19. Yes. Although I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. Right. So here he says make himself a slave. I don't know. Hopefully, think about this verse and we can talk some more. I teach that we can talk some more next week if you want to.

But I just really kind of came away that that Paul is just so focused and that this is the mission the Lord's gave him and he won't and he doesn't want to do anything that would harm the gospel in any way. I think that's the most compelling interpretation of disqualified. He's focused the whole purpose of this chapter and the analogies he's bringing out are focused on the presentation, the delivery, of the gospel as an apostle, despite his liberties, he's not compromising anything anywhere so that he can clearly preach the gospel. Disqualification as rewards doesn't make sense in context. That's what I have too. I had to go back and examine what I thought I understood about this verse. I think it fits within the context of chapter 9.

His central focus is the gospel. He talks about constraining himself, keeping all his faculties in line to accomplish that. Nothing would mar the gospel. You tie it back to the revelation he was given. He didn't just start going out and saying, I was with the Lord, I got the gospel here, everybody here listen. Now he went privately and said, hey guys, I had the wonderful privilege of talking with the Lord and here's what, don't you see how he taught you? And he connected the dots. And they said, yeah Paul, you're right. And they didn't have a problem with that. I mean, there was no big ripples. And so, you know, so it's pretty amazing.

Go ahead. The other thing I think that's just kind of an interesting contextual observation The illustration of boxing, a lot of the boxing or physical combatant activities in training were basically to intensify scar tissue. Do extremely intense things to your body so that when you actually go in to compete, one minor blow wouldn't take you out. I mean, I'm a software developer. I don't do anything outdoorsy. I'm an indoorsy kind of a guy. You wouldn't have calluses on your hands, so you go out and... Yeah, the only calluses I have are from my guitar strings.

That's pretty minor. But it's one of those things where from a competitive perspective, Paul saying I have to do these things and with with the analogy this intensification. So that if I were to if I'm going to compete I won't just get knocked out. Exactly. No I agree with you. Well that's like if you can't think who it was.

Did someone in here ride with Hal Malloy on his bicycle. I think it was Harry Schaefer who used to attend here. Hal liked to go on these long bicycle rides, hundreds of miles and multiple days. So he invited Harry Schaefer to go with him. Harry hadn't been riding a bicycle very much.

And you can kind of guess what kind of happened. After a while, it was hard to get on that bicycle seat. And it was painful. Because he hadn't trained himself to build the scar tissue. You're used to it. So I think you're right. Paul wanted to make sure that something easy wouldn't take him out. And he didn't. So anyway, that's great.

Hopefully that's been good for today. Hopefully you see the direction I'm going here. Okay, so next week we're going to talk about, we'll start with chapter 10 next week. So there's some good things about chapter 10 of the study too. Okay, so let's close then.

We thank you, Father. We thank you so much for this day. We thank you for the blessings we have, Lord. Thank you for our Savior, Lord. Thank you for, Lord, just that you desire that we keep our eyes on you, keep our focus on you, Lord. Thank you that that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It's your life lived through us who will accomplish your purposes. Thank you for that. In Christ's name, Amen.