Red Stone Church
Running The Race
Well, good morning, redstone church. How are we doing this morning? Good. Well, kindergarten through the year, you're all going to stay in here this morning, excited for VBS this coming week. It's going to be a really, really special week. I got to say, we missed a really great opportunity to host baptisms today on this stage, right? Come on. Michael, what are we thinking? I also have to say in my nine years of ministry, I've preached under tents. I've been in backyards. I preached on stages and in gymnasiums, but I've never done it in an ocean, so first time for everything. So it's going to be a really, really special week. If you've got your Bibles or your ax journals, turn with me to ax chapter 20. Ax chapter 20, it's going to be on the screen as well. We are going to start in verse 17. Next chapter 20, beginning in verse 17. This is God's Word. This is Paul speaking to the Ephesian elders. He says this, or this is Luke, excuse me, writing, talking about Paul speaking to the elders. It says, now from my lead us, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time. In the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now behold, I am going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and affliction await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself if only I may finish my course in the ministry that I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God and then jumped down to verse 36. And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. Very words of God. And we say back together to the Lord for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flowers of the field, the grass withers and the flowers fade. The word of the Lord stands forever. Amen. Amen. Well, in both high school and college, I had the opportunity to run track. My primary events were hurdles, believe it or not, five foot eight guy over here. And sprint relays. And when I came to ETSU to run, it was coming up on our outdoor conference championship. And if you're familiar with track, how it works is for every event you get points. And so the higher you score on a particular event, the more points you get. And so we were pretty much all as a team wanting to pitch in and say, hey, what do we need to do, coach, to win this outdoor conference championship? And he said, well, we're sure on decathletes, it's a foster. I know you're not a decathlete, you're a hurdler and you're a sprinter. But I need you to run the decathlon or compete in the decathlon for this outdoor conference championship. And if you're unfamiliar with that, the decathlon is 10 different events. So you've got sprinting events, you've got distance events, you've got field events ranging from 100 meters to 1500 meters, the pole vault, high jump, javelin, a whole range of events. So because we needed points and we all wanted to be good teammates, we said, all right, let's do it, coach, put us in, you're now decathlete. So it came around to the conference championship and overall, we had just a few weeks that we had to prepare for this event. I didn't do half bad except for the 1500 meter race. You see the 1500 meter race is almost a mile, it's four laps, almost four laps around the track and it may not sound like a big deal unless you're a sprinter. A sprinter don't do long distance runs, sprinters have fast twitch muscles, they're good in the blocks, they're used to their event lasting no more than a single minute, they give it all they've got for a few quick bursts and then their race is done. And so my mentality was, well, if I just start the 1500 meter race strong and lead the pack, I think I can win this race. And so with that logic as a silly little freshman, I took off the 1500 meter race leading the pack for the entire first 400 meters of the race, feeling good, feeling confident of my decision and the way that I had prepared. And then it came around to the second lap and I wasn't feeling so strong and so confident. And I quickly realized I used a whole lot of gas on that first lap to stay in the lead. And then the third lap came around and I went way, way back. In the running world, there is a term called oxygen debt. It's when you run so fast that your body can't pump enough oxygen to your legs. And so you get what's called oxygen debt, which means you immediately slow down having zero energy to kick for the last final lap in my case, embarrassingly finishing at least a minimum of 300 meters behind all of my competitors in that race. I learned a valuable lesson that day. And the lesson that I learned is that I focused all of my attention, all of my energy on how I would start the race. But little did I give attention or energy to how I would finish the race. For those of us who are in Christ, our race has started. For some of you, that was when you were 10 years old, some 20, 30, 40, 50, others of you even later in life. In the Christian life, it doesn't really matter when or how your race started, but what does matter is how you finish your race. And so the passage that I read a moment ago is Paul's farewell speech to the Ephesian elders and the speech it contains encouragement, warnings, commands, and tearful goodbyes. And you have to remember that Paul had just spent three years investing his life in ministry into the church at Ephesus. He is pouring out his life as a drink offering unto them. He's building up. He's strengthening the church at Ephesus. He has significant influence on their life. So he was not a distant preacher that they saw on Sunday mornings in the synagogue, right? He lived his life amongst them, serving as an example to the Ephesians of what it looked like to follow Christ in both word and deed. And there's one particular thing that I want you to feel and to catch and to hold on to in this passage, and it's the tone in which Paul speaks. I want you to understand Paul's heart here for the Ephesians. This wasn't any normal missionary journey that he was on. This is a farewell speech that he's giving. It's what I would call a gospel goodbye. It's laced with beautiful examples of Paul's love and gospel-centered truth, but it also carries deep, deep sorrow and sadness and pain, knowing that these would be the final words that they would receive from him face to face. Paul was about to depart never to see these Ephesian elders again. So this speech that we're about to read is both beneficial. It's going to build up the church, and yet it's excruciating. It's deeply sad. It is deeply painful. Perhaps you understand what that feels like to depart, to say goodbye to someone that you love, a friend, a sibling, a parent, a child, wishing that you could just keep that person next to you side by side forever, sharing meals with them and laughing with them and able to see them and hug them and hold their hand walking alongside of them, but you had to say goodbye to that person that you love so deeply, knowing that it's better, that it's more beneficial, that it's more valuable for the sake of the kingdom to watch them walk out the door and pursue God's purpose for their life. In this farewell speech that we're going to read this morning, I want to highlight one particular verse that's going to be kind of our anchor. It's in verse 24, Paul says this, "But I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself, if only I may finish my course in the ministry that I receive from the Lord Jesus to do what, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." So Paul's coming to the end of his race, and he's looking back on his life and his ministry and he says, "My life has no value, no worth in and of itself if I don't finish my race. If I don't run this race that I have been entrusted with," now let me be clear here. The Apostle Paul's race is uniquely distinct from our race. Here's what I mean by that. If you go back to Acts chapter 9 in his conversion story, the way that God called the Apostle Paul to himself, he gave him a specific command. The Lord called him a chosen instrument to carry his name, the name of Jesus, before the Gentiles and the kings and the children of Israel. So that's not our story, that's not our race to run, God specifically chose Paul to carry the name of Jesus to both Jews and Gentiles and the kings of Israel, kings and children of Israel. And he tells him, "I will show him, Paul, how much he will suffer for my name." That was unique to Paul and the call of God on his life. And so for each of us, you and I have a unique call, a unique race to run. Yours is different than mine. Mine is different than yours. Yours is different from the people beside you. And places within each of us, unique giftings and passions and desires to know him, but also to make him known. There's no doubt about that. And yet what we have in common is that we all have a race to run, don't we? All throughout the books that Paul wrote, he made these kinds of exhortations to the church, telling them, giving them sports analogies, encouraging the church, press on to the very end, he said to the church at Corinth, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified." What's Paul saying here? He's saying we all have a unique race to run, but let's not run it aimlessly, right? Let's run it with intentionality. Let's run with our eyes fixed on Christ Jesus, step by step, mile by mile, year after year, our eyes fixed on the one who is our prize, Jesus Christ. He said to the church at Philippi, "Not that I've already obtained this or I'm already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, 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." Just before Paul died, he wrote this to his son in the faith, Timothy. Paul told him, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." I know it's the desire of many of you to not only run your race well, but to finish your race well. We wouldn't be here if that wasn't your desire, and yet as we all know, we don't know how many days we have on this earth, right? We don't know how many days that we are entrusted with this race. So let me remind you, brother to brother, brother to sister, today's July 7th, 2024, we're already halfway through this year, believe it or not. How are you doing? How are you doing running your race? Have you gotten off track? Did you start off strong, but then you hit oxygen debt, gasping for needed air, struggling your way through your race? Have you kept your eyes fixed on Christ, being empowered by the Spirit, fueled by His Word? Would encourage you wherever you are in this race, if this is year one with Jesus or year 40 with Jesus, I would encourage you to finish your race well. How do we do that? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11, he says, "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." That word, that Greek word for imitate is called "memeitai" and it means become a person who copies the words and behaviors of another. If you grew up with a little brother or sister, you know exactly what this word means, right? They just want to be your little shadow. They want to say and do everything just like you. So what's Paul saying here? He's saying, "Follow Christ ultimately, but as you do that, follow me. Let me be an example for you, a tangible expression of what it means to follow Christ. As a result, these Corinthians, and for us, we will greatly benefit from following Paul's example. God will mature us. He will help us as we seek to finish our race well. And so in this farewell speech, I want us to think about the life and the ministry of Paul, and particularly he's going to use a few phrases that I believe are going to help frame this message this morning. He starts off in verse 18. When they came to him, he said to them, "You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time. From the first day, I set foot in Asia." So Paul tells the Ephesian elders here that he's been an example to them and both word and deed of what it looks like to follow Christ. Could you say that as you think about the race that you have ran up to this point? Could you say with great honesty and boldness, you know how I lived among you the whole time? You know how I lived among you the whole time. There's no doubt in my mind that you've heard the words of Christ come from my mouth. You felt the love of Christ come from my heart. You know the good works of Christ through me, how I lived among you. I believe Paul gives some really tangible examples here to finish well. If you're going to take notes this morning, I'd encourage you to write this down. First one is this, to finish well, we must run with humility. If you and I are going to finish our race well, we must run with humility. Paul says in Acts 20 verse 19, "I serve the Lord with all humility." This is how Paul lived his life, right? He used his time, his energy, his resources serving the Lord. That word serving comes from the Greek word dualos, which means to be a slave. Someone who sets aside all of their rights of his own to serve another. Thankfully this doesn't have the same kind of connotation that slavery does and what we view it as today. In ancient times slaves were purchased or born into a slave family and they served their master until they died or until the master just decided to free them. As some slaves had developed such a strong and intimate close relationship with the master and his family that they didn't want to leave. They wanted to continue to serve this master even if they could be released and go free. That's the kind of language that Paul is using here in this passage. He tells the church in Corinth. He says, "You are not your own." Why? Because you are bought at a price. What was that price? That price was the cost of Jesus' life. His sacrificial death on the cross on our behalf. It was the greatest price that anyone could ever pay so that we could be free so that we could have the desire to know him and enjoy him and live with him forever having the freedom in Christ that we all desperately need. When we talk about this idea of serving with humility, we talk about it in the context that Paul does, desiring to give all of our rights to Christ Jesus, choosing to serve him faithfully. Why? Because he paid a great cost. He paid a great price for us. Paul gladly submitted to Jesus his master with humility. It's one of those things that we all desire and yet we often struggle with. Humility is being meek. Humility is being lowly, recognizing that you and I have nothing to offer in and of ourselves apart from Christ. In the scriptures, the opposite of humility is pride. Pride can be defined as improper and excessive self-esteem. Other words that could be used are conceited or arrogant. So let me ask you, as you are running your race, consider is your heart marked by humility or pride? Is your heart and your life marked by thinking of yourself less or more concerned about your own desires? Do you admit your own faults and weaknesses or are you quick to point out the speck and your brother or your sister's eye? Do you give others the benefit of the doubt or do you have a harsh critical spirit towards others? If you and I are going to finish our race well, we must serve the Lord with humility. Second way that we must run is with love. You and I are going to finish well, we must run with love. Paul says, "I serve the Lord with all humility and with tears." It's a really interesting way to describe how you serve the Lord. Ask somebody what they do for their local church. How many of them are going to say, "I serve with tears." It's a unique description of the heart of Paul. I'll never forget sitting across the table from two of my friends, one of which was crying, and me and my other friend had no idea why she was crying. Just as tears streamed down her face, we looked at each other and said, "Probably say something, right?" We looked at her, my friend did, and he leaned in, and he said, "What do your tears say?" She had no words, right? She had no words to communicate how she was feeling at the moment, but her tears communicated something. Her tears communicated strong emotion. Sometimes that's from anger, sometimes that's from sadness, or joy, or gratitude, or grief. Have you ever considered how often Paul cries in his letters? It's pretty remarkable when you take a look at how often he does. I don't know about you when I think about the apostle Paul. I don't often think of being, of thinking about weepy Paul. I think of strong. I think of passionate Paul. I think of fiery, diligent, responsible, visionary, fearless Paul, right? Calling out sitting, calling people to repentance, interesting cries. I don't think about weepy Paul. What would bring a grown man, like the apostle Paul, to tears, so often? It was love. It was love for Jesus. It was love for his people. Paul grieved over those who were unsaved because he loved them. He hated the idea of someone being separated from God. He grieved over this reality in Philippians 3. Paul said for many of whom I have often told you and now tell you, even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Paul cried over the well-being of the church. He called the Galatians his little children, seeing himself as a spiritual father to them. He just, his heart aches over the reality of his kids turning from Christ and going to the ways of the world. He said to the Corinthians, "I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears not to cause you to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you." Do your brothers and sisters in Christ know how much you love them? Do your brothers and sisters in Christ know how much you love them? Because I've been studying this passage, I've been convicted of how little I say that. How little I express my affection for the family of God. Let me just start now, I love you church. I love you church. It is a great joy to be your brother. It is a great joy to be one of your pastors. It is a great joy to pray for you, to encourage you, to keep running your race. Many of you, many of you, if I were to ride a journal of my life at the end of my days, I would include you because you have helped me pursue Jesus Christ and see him as the ultimate prize. Jump back with me to verse 20. Paul gives the Ephesian elders another example of how he lived among them. He says in verse 20, "I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you." Verse 27, he uses similar language. He says, "For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God." Paul didn't hold back the hard parts, didn't he? He didn't hold back from these difficult to swallow passages and often confusing books in the Bible. If you're new to Redstone Church, you can expect that we're going to preach the whole counsel of God. And Genesis to Revelation, you're going to get it on Sunday mornings. Your kids are going to hear it in Camp Redstone. Your teenagers are going to hear it in youth group, adults. You will hear it in community groups and men's and women's Bible study. We're going to learn from the books of Obadiah and Joel and Matthew and Romans in Revelation. Why? Because we believe that all Scripture is God breathed. It is profitable for teaching, for repuking, for correcting and training and righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. We believe that. We really do. So here would be my encouragement to you this morning just as we desire to declare the whole counsel of God to you, let it be an encouragement to receive the whole counsel of God. Not to stray away from the hard passages. Not to flip over the confusing books of the Bible. Genesis to Revelation, study it, memorize it, reflect on it, meditate on it, memorize it, discuss it with other believers. And we'll bear much fruit in your life. In 2023, me and a handful of other men at Redstone, we got to read through the Bible in a year and it was so encouraging at the end of that year to look back and I just asked them just to reflect on their time in the Scriptures together and they shared things like this. I loved being able to see Jesus in all of the Old Testament. I sensed that my personal spiritual growth is growing deeper. I've never read through the Old Testament before. That was rewarding. I found myself reading in front of my children at nighttime. I saw how the Scriptures speak powerfully to me in my everyday life. Reading through the entire Bible has marked my year. It's the whole counsel of God, Genesis to Revelation, that Paul didn't shrink back from declaring that we must not shrink back in receiving either. That's running the race well. Third, to finish well, we must run with endurance. To finish well, we must run with endurance. Paul said this, "I served the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials." He says in verse 21, "This is the message that Paul proclaimed, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now behold, I am going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and affliction await me." To Paul clearly preach the good news of the gospel, everywhere that he went declaring who Christ is, that was the call that God put on his life, to go and declare the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth. Throughout Paul's life and ministry, there was no shortage of afflictions. There was no shortage of trials that he faced. Paul faced imprisonment, beatings, stoning, shipwreck, hunger, thirst, sleepless nights, just to name a few. The Christian life is not an easy one, is it? It's not without trials, it's not without sufferings, and certainly Paul faced severe persecution in his life, and likely, you and I will not face this type of persecution in his life. However, you and I living in America know good and well that there is growing opposition to the message of Jesus Christ. You and I are going to need an increasing measures, endurance, for this race, with trials, with persecution, when opposition comes our way. That's why the author of Hebrews, he tells us, "Therefore, since we are surrounded," I can picture this, I love this truth, "since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely." Here's the command, "Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." How do we do that? We look 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. This race, thankfully, is not a sprint. It is a marathon, you and I need endurance for this race. How do we have endurance? We keep our eyes fixed, eyes fixed on Jesus and Jesus alone. Verse 24, "But I do not account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course in the ministry that I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." From all that Paul endured in his lifetime and his ministry, he was able to lay aside and press on towards this specific call to share the good news of Jesus. Although Paul's audience and his context were different from ours, the command is still the same for you and I. Just before Jesus left, he gave his disciples this command to go to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, the name of the Father and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. That was Paul's one aim to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. First may this be our one aim, to go to make disciples of all nations, amen. Fourth, final point, to finish well, we must run with one another. If you and I are going to finish our race well, we must run with one another. I want to show you a photo. Have you ever seen one of these people in a marathon before? They're called pace bunnies. They look absolutely ridiculous and that's the point. Their job is to stand out in the midst of a sea of runners and keep you on pace. So if you want to run a marathon in four hours, you run behind or next to a pace bunny so that you can keep on pace with your four hour goal. Some pace bunnies are faster, some are slower, but they not only run ahead of you with their sign, but they also run next to you, giving you encouragement along the way. Saying, come on, don't give up. You got this. Let's finish. Marathon runners say that it's extremely helpful to follow a pace bunny because it's easy to start off the race really strong and then midway through and three quarters way through and definitely at the end of the race, not have the stamina, not have the encouragement, not have the endurance to run and to finish your race well. The other thing about pace bunnies is that multiple people follow them. You often see them in little groups huddled together side by side of what you could call little community. You can probably see where I'm going with this church. We cannot run this race alone. You and I need one another. Paul shows it throughout his letters. We desperately need one another. There is no such thing as Lone Ranger Christianity. If you are on an island, talk to someone, talk to me, talk to a pastor, talk to a trusted Christian friend, you cannot do this race alone. Paul had many brothers and sisters that accompanied him in his life and ministry. Men and women who he prayed with, worshiped with, spent time in God's word with, ate meals with, laughed with, cried with, suffered with, rejoiced with, all for what? So that he might testify to the gospel of the grace of God alongside them. He's not doing it alone. He's doing it with his brothers and sisters hand in hand. It's a gospel partnership. And so this farewell, goodbye that we're about to read, I just want to tee that up a little bit. The relationships, the kind of brotherhood and sisterhood that he's saying goodbye to here. His relationships, this family that he's built over the last three years, his life being poured out to them, leads to this moment with the Ephesian elders in verse 36. When he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. There was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful, most of all, because of the word he had spoken that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. Gospel goodbyes are beautiful because we know that Jesus is at the center of it, that doesn't make it any less hard, does it? Paul kept running his race after this, so he doesn't die in this moment. However, this particular interaction with the Ephesian elders would have been hard because this was their final goodbye here on earth, knowing that they would never see Paul again. Gospel goodbyes are also hard because you're parting ways with a member of your family, more than an acquaintance, more than a friend, a brother, a sister in Christ. Thankfully, Gospel goodbyes are beautiful because for those who are in Christ they are just simply temporary, knowing that our eternity in heaven is where we will be gathered together in the presence of Christ. Paul finished his race well because he ran with humility, love, endurance, and with his brothers and sisters alongside of him. As you consider the race that you are running, I want to point our affections, our hearts, our minds to Jesus who not only finished his race well but finished his race perfectly. Paul said this about Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Here in just a moment we are going to partake in communion and I want to encourage you to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Perhaps you're here and your race has been rough. You said man I hit oxygen debt three months ago and I'm just barely making it. Looked to Jesus. He's the perfecter, the finisher of your race. You can't live this life without him. Remember his sacrifice on your behalf. Celebrate the goodness of God that he invites you to his table, that he welcomes you. For others of you maybe you need to consider being a pace bunny and as you think about finishing your race well you need to say hey I've got some people that can follow behind me, I've got some people who can run next to me but I can carry along and say come on let's go, let's finish our race well. This table of remembrance is one of great importance. We celebrate the fact that Jesus really did die on the cross and so that's represented in the crackers that you will eat here in just a moment, his body that was broken on your behalf and then the juice represents the blood of Jesus that was poured out for the forgiveness of sins and so just as an act of worship we're going to take communion now. We encourage you to continue to stand as well for singing. As you are ready for those who are in Christ we encourage you to partake in communion now. [BLANK_AUDIO]