Running the Race

Sunday, July 18th, 2004
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Philippians 3:10-20

10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained. Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

On April 6, 1923, in a small town hall in Armadale, Scotland, Eric Liddell spoke for the first time of his faith in Christ. Eighty people came to hear Scotland's famous runner give his testimony. "Shyly, he stepped forward and for a few seconds surveyed his waiting audience, then he began," writes Catherine Swift in her biography, Eric Liddell.

"There was no lecturing, no fist thumping on the table, no wagging or pointing a finger to stress a point, no raised voice to impress on them what he thought they should be doing. In fact, it wasn't a speech at all. It was more of a quiet chat, and in his slow clear words, Eric for the first time in his life told the world what God meant to him. "He spoke of the strength he felt within himself from the sure knowledge of God's love and support, of how he never questioned anything that happened either to himself or to others. He didn't need explanations from God. He simply believed in Him and accepted whatever came."

News of Liddell's talk was reported in every newspaper in Scotland the next morning. God was preparing Liddell to honor Him, and his testimony still reverberates today.

"The Lord Guides Me"

Liddell was an unorthodox sprinter. Coming out of trowel-dug starting holes, Liddell ran with abandon, head tilted toward the skies, knees thrust upward to his chin, feet rising high from the ground. Before each race, Liddell shook hands with each competitor, offering his trowel to fellow runners who struggled to dig their starting holes in cinder tracks with their cleats.

When asked how he knew where the finish line was located, he replied in his deliberate Scottish brogue, "The Lord guides me." As word of his faith in Christ spread through England, many wondered if he would display the same zeal on the track. Liddell silenced any skeptics in the AAA Championships in London in July 1923, by winning the 220-yard dash and the 100-yard dash. His time in the 100 stood as England's best for thirty-five years.

He won the Harvey Cup for the best performance of the meet and readied himself for the Paris Olympics in the summer of 1924.

"I'm Not Running"

Liddell waited excitedly for the posting of the Olympic heats for the 100 meters and the 4X100 and 4X400 relays, his best events. He was stunned upon learning the preliminary dashes were on Sunday. "I'm not running," he said flatly and then turned his attention to train for the 200-meter and 400-meter dashes.

He considered Sunday to be sacred, a day set apart for the Lord; and he would honor his convictions at the expense of fame. On Sunday, July 6, Liddell preached in a Paris church as the guns sounded for the 100-meter heats. Three days later, he finished third in the 200-meter sprint, taking an unexpected bronze medal. He quietly made his way through the heats of the 400 meters but was not expected to win. Shaking hands with the other finalists, he readied for the race of his life. Arms thrashing, head bobbing and tilted, legs dancing, Liddell ran to victory, five meters ahead of the silver medalist. "The Flying Scotsman" had a gold metal and a world record, 47.6 seconds. Most of all, Eric Liddell had kept his commitment to his convictions of faith.

"It's Complete Surrender"

The next year, Liddell returned to China, where he had been born to missionary parents, as a teacher and missionary. In 1932, he was ordained as a minister and married in 1933. He ministered pleasantly and plainly, often traveling on bicycle, braving constant fighting between Chinese warlords and Japanese in their growing conquest of China.

His decision to share Christ in isolated communities, forcing him to leave his wife and children behind, was the result of insistent prayer. "Complete surrender" was his description of this attitude.

In March of 1943, Liddell, along with other Americans and Brits, entered a Japanese internment camp. He was appointed math teacher and supervised a sports program. He arose each morning to study his Bible and was the cheer of the camp.

But his health deteriorated rapidly. A brain tumor ravaged his body with severe headaches. Shortly after his forty-third birthday in January 1945, Liddell collapsed. His last words, spoken to a camp nurse, were, "It's complete surrender." Upon learning of Liddell's death, all of Scotland mourned. Heaven rejoiced.

Run The Race

Eric Liddell ran, spoke, and lived with great faithfulness and solid commitment to Christ. The movie, Chariots of Fire, chronicled his faith, influencing yet another generation for Jesus Christ. You do not have to be famous or skilled to make a difference for Christ. God asks only that you serve Him faithfully and wholeheartedly in whatever you do.
God has "appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain" (John 15:16).

Honor God in all you do, and He will honor your obedience with a life that counts for eternity. "Complete surrender" to Christ is total victory.

(With thanks to InTouch.org, and their 'portrait of great Christians, Eric Liddell, and the Eric Liddell Center Website)

Eric Liddell is for me a modern-day example of what Paul was for 1st century Christians.

His focus was on his calling, and the goal that God had set before him. He didn't let anything get in the way of that. Neither did Paul.

Most scholars agree that Paul wrote Philippians a relatively short time before his death. Reading the letter, there is a sense of Paul's looking back over his life and, in a sense, re-living the blessings.

Eric Liddell never gave up hope. He never let discouragement overrun his delight in the Lord, even until the day he died, because he knew where his hope came from-it came from God through Jesus Christ.

There are times in reading Paul where he simply sounds arrogant. Verse 17 could be one of those times, if it is taken as a separate verse from the surrounding text. Paul says, "Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us." basically, it could be read as Paul telling people to copy HIM. But before that, he is saying … confessing, really, that he has not yet attained the goal he is after, which is to be like Christ.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Paul says in verse 13, 'Forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."

"Forgetting" does not mean obliterating the memory of his past, but it was a conscious refusal to let it absorb his attention and impede his progress. He never let his Jewish heritage - including his early persecution of the church, or his earlier attainments as an apostle and a missionary to the gentiles, get in the way of what he needed to be doing. That means he didn't dwell on his failures OR rest on his … laurels.

Jerusalem has a lot to be proud of. Simply by virtue of the fact that this family of faith has been meeting here or near here since 1834 and continues to do so, there is reason to be thankful to God for his faithfulness. That is not to say that we should pat ourselves on the back and say 'good job, well done.'

What we can learn from Paul is that he never did that. He never considered his job "done". He was born a Jew, a member of the chosen people, as well as a Roman citizen, but those were not the things that defined him. What defined him is what he mentions in verse 20 - "our citizenship is in heaven".

We are surrounded by several flags from different nations. Baron de Cupertain, the man who instituted the modern Olympic movement, originally intended the games to be individuals against individuals, each athlete wearing a standard uniform, if they wore anything at all … he originally wanted the oldest competition, the footraces, to be run as they had originally been in ancient Greece, where the runners were unencumbered by clothing of any kind. But De Cupertain's vision was one of a competition in which individuals competed against each other as members not of nations, but as common members of the human race - the bottom line common denominator for everyone.

Paul worked in a similar arena, so to speak. He came face to face with Greeks, and Romans, and people from any number of other places in the known world. And he reminded them that, if they were followers of Christ, their ultimate loyalty and common citizenship was shared - they were citizens of Heaven.

So for Jerusalem, let's never lose sight of the fact that we may have minor differences while here on earth, but ultimately, our allegiance is to our one and only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.