Romans chapter 12, we're looking at, remember, God is expecting fruitfulness and we're looking at what fruitfulness he's expecting in our lives. We've seen he wants to abide in our time, he wants to abide in our treasures, he wants to abide in our attitudes, and now God wants to abide in your and my actions. In other words, our bodies, what we do, not just what we think, our attitudes, but what we do, the actions of our body. Romans 12 has perhaps one of the most well-known verses about our giving our body to the Lord. But perhaps the context that Paul wrote in will help capture this scripture in a new and maybe a more forceful, powerful, personal way than perhaps you've thought of before. In just a minute I'm going to read it to you, but let me tell you about the old-fashioned, I don't know if this Bible has, but the old-fashioned Bibles, yeah, used to have at the very end it would say, written by Paul from somewhere to somewhere. I notice mine doesn't, this edition I have. But this letter, the letter to the Romans, was written from the city of Corinth. And I can just imagine that as the Apostle Paul was writing chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, he perhaps paused and glanced out the window. Now that's frequently said when we are in chapter 1, when it talks about all the decline and fall of the human race and all the sin in Romans chapter 1. But most of us don't think he was still looking out the window in Romans 12. You say, looking out the window, what does that have to do with Romans 12? Well, think about where he was living. He was living in Greece. He was living in the land of the Olympics. When we think of the Olympics, we think of the world-class athletes, and some American just won a gold medal in swimming, and yeah, that's great. But in Paul's day, the Olympics were ancient. They were already 800 years old when Paul sat to write this. And as he looked out the window, he would have seen streaming through the bustling streets of Corinth, the athletes on their way to the gymnasiums, the gymnasiums. You see, Corinth was a part of a federation called the Pan-Isthmian Games, those who lived on the Isthmus of Greece. And all the Isthmian cities that lived in that Peloponnesus area of Greece would collect their athletes and prepare and train them to send off to the ultimate games, which were the ones that were at the foot of the mountain where the gods resided, Mount Olympus, the pantheon of the Greco-Roman world gods. And those players offered themselves to the gods and their bodies to the gods. Now think of that context as Paul is writing these words that we're going to read about the true God and the true desire that that God, the God of heaven and earth, our living and true God, has in his design for our bodies. As Paul sat to write the words of Romans 12, 1 and 2, as he glanced out the window of his room along the busy streets of Corinth, as he watched the flow of athletes relentlessly pursuing Greek athletic glory. Each day they devotedly streamed to the Greek gymnasiums to train their minds and their bodies to be completely given over to the mastery of their sports at their local Isthmian Games that fed the first century Olympics. Paul lived in the land of the Olympics. Paul lived and worked every day among the sights and sounds of athletes who were a part of the already ancient tradition of the Olympic Games. And in the middle of the first century, Paul served right there in the heart, in Corinth, just outside Athens. in first century Greece. As he was writing, he wrote of sports. The Olympics, having been launched 800 years earlier, saw tens of thousands who made their way to the games. And no doubt, in Paul's many travels, he had been surrounded by those who were on their way to Olympus. Those who were on their way to either participate or to spectate. those incredible games. And for 2,800 years, except for the lapse that the Olympics took, the world has equated the Olympic Games with the ultimate demonstration of human bodies that have been mastered by a disciplined mind to run, to jump, to perform better than anyone else in an extraordinary demonstration of athletic prowess. Well, anyone, including Paul, who had lived in the first century Greece, had seen these athletes. Either they saw them practicing, and the huge fields, when you travel the ancient world, they are still there. In fact, some of the most continuous remaining ruins are those of their huge sites for their athletic preparation of every form of sports. They still remain to this day. and comparing the best of the best, the athletes in sports, Paul exhorted those early followers of Jesus to participate in the Christian life the way that the Greeks competed in the Olympic Games. Now most of us, when we read the Bible, we don't really see the underlying language, because it's Greek language, but the wording that Paul chose, and I'm going to show you several passages, actually describe the prime games of the original Olympics. He uses the exact words for the competitions. He uses the exact terms for the events of the games. And he takes those terms and he uses them to encourage these saints to so give their lives as those athletes gave their lives. And so Paul, sitting, looking out the window as he wrote the epistle to the Romans, he had to look at those people who presented their bodies in unreserved devotion to the gods. And he says, Oh, I beseech you, present your body. in unreserved devotion as a living ongoing sacrifice that your actions that come from this body glorify and magnify and and actually personify a living picture of the God that you serve. That's what Paul was writing. Basically what he said is, give your body to Christ. Keep Him in control. Fight anything that will hinder you from pleasing Him. He used a blend of worship ideas. He said, a living sacrifice. He actually used the word for an offering of worship, which was so common. All the athletes of the ancient world would come in, they would offer their sacrifices, a token sacrifice to the Mount Olympian gods, and then they would say that we are at your service, oh gods. And of course their gods were gods of their vices. They had the god of drinking, they had the god of debauchery, they had the god of revelry, they had the god of immorality, they had the god of money. And they say, we are giving ourselves to you, which was true, and they were. But those images of worship are coupled with athletic images, a living body in devotion, and that's truly what the Greeks did. They emphasized the body and they said, we devote our body. And Paul says, use those ideas to convey how we are to look on life. for Christ. I don't know if you've ever been near Olympic athletes. When I grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, there was a girl in our junior high and high school that was in training. From her earliest days, her parents had forced her to become a figure skater. And I always remember, all the way through junior high and high school, this red-faced, runny-nosed, weary girl that was in school with me. And she always told us that her parents got her up at 3.30 every morning. At 4 o'clock, they dropped her off at the rink where her trainer was. And she would skate from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. every single day, seven days a week. And all the way through junior high and all the way through high school, her constant sinus problems, her constant kind of windburn look was a reminder to us who went to school with her that she had absolutely devoted her body to learning how to skate. Now, I don't know. I've forgotten her name, and I don't know if she ever made it, but I know that she was devoted. And from the age of three, all the way through 18, when she got out of high school, for 15 years, she skated every single day, and trained, and disciplined her body. That's the devotion of an Olympic scholar. Someone who learns how to have their mind make their body comply. And she wanted every fiber of her being to focus on skating. Well, Paul says, you may never skate or do a discus or wrestle or ride a chariot, but he said your body should be devoted with every fiber of your being. Let's listen to his words, Romans 12, 1 and 2, and I'm going to read them and we're going to pray them and ask God to help us learn how to be allowing Christ to abide in our actions as we come before him and say, we before you, O God, present this body and we want this body utterly devoted to you. Let's listen to what he says he wants for us to do. Romans 12, 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, so this is only for believers, brethren, those who are in the family, those who are brothers and sisters in Christ, by the mercies of God, if you've experienced His mercy, His gracious leading us to salvation, if you know that, that you present your bodies. These words frame what I would call the invitation to the ultimate games. He says, I want you to present your body. I want you to enter the arena for me. A living sacrifice, that's total devotion. Holy, which means set apart. Acceptable, which means obedient in the things that He's looking for. It's to Him that we are to be acceptable. Which is your reasonable service, that's the true offering of devotion and worship in our body. as a servant to Jesus Christ. And do not be conformed to this world. I've told you before, that's the first imperative. The rest is an exhortation. I beseech, he's asking us, but now he commands us, do not be conformed to this world. What is he saying? He's saying, resist the breaking of any rules that the heavenly umpire has laid down for your life. Remember, in the context, Paul's going to say he lived his whole life not wanting to be disqualified. That's 1 Corinthians 9, 27, we're going to look at in a moment. And the exact word he used is the word that was used in the Greek games for when they would come forward and declare who could participate in the games. And at the end of the games, they declared who had kept the rules. Even if you won the race, but had broken the rules, you had not stayed in your own lane, if it was a foot race, or you had cut around in the chariot race in an improper way, then it was named off publicly, you were disqualified. that you could not receive honor for what you had accomplished. So he says, I want to not be conformed to this world, I want to resist breaking any of the rules the heavenly empires laid down for my life, but be transformed That's basically get in shape, cut the junk, work out till you're able to complete regularly. He says, I don't want you just to know everything you're not supposed to do. I want you to know what you're supposed to do and I want you to conform to me and allow me to transform or metamorphosize your mind. How? By the renewing of your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind as we exercise each day our minds, our lives for godliness that you may prove that we can win for our life's work. What is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God? You know what that means? Getting the gold at the beamless seat of Christ. And not having Christ say, you are disqualified, as Paul so feared. Let's bow before our great God. Father in heaven, I thank you this morning that your mercies are extended to us, that if we will acknowledge that you are right, that we are a sinner, that we will believe that it's true that Jesus died for sinners, if we will comprehend the vastness of grace that salvation is a gift which cannot be earned, And if we will call upon the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are brethren, that we are your children, and so because of that, because of that ownership you have, buying us with a price, your precious blood, Lord Jesus, you can say, I want you to present your body to me. O Lord, I pray we might, this morning, consider whether or not we are truly in training, if we are truly running the race, if we are truly staying in our lane, if we are truly pressing toward the mark of having your well done and fearing and avoiding at all cost being adokimasu, as Paul said, disqualified Oh Lord, may we realize citizens compete in the games. Disqualified people just forfeit their reward, but it doesn't mean we forfeit our citizenship in heaven. We're still saved, but yet so as by fire. I pray that some young people would decide now that they will stop feeding the lust of the flesh, which is a cancer for their soul. And some of the not-so-young people would decide that they are going to live not for self, but for you, and not to allow any of the attitudes of the flesh to dominate. We don't want to be having cancer rotting the soul. We want you to find us to be good and acceptable and perfect. as we seek to follow you all of our days. Teach us how, through your word. Open our hearts. May you find willing obedience as we allow you to transform us this day. In Christ's name we ask it. Amen. Remember where we are? We're looking at fruitfulness. God expects fruitfulness. We saw that when we began in Mark chapter 4, the good heart receives the word and the word bears fruit. Then we looked at John 15 and God explains what fruitfulness is and basically fruitfulness is the Lord Jesus Christ abiding in me. And He energizes, and He empowers me, and He directs me to allow my life to bear what He wants, the product of my life, the product of my time, the product of all the resources He gives me, the product of my attitude, and now the product of my actions. And that is a body that's given over to Him. When we give our bodies to Jesus Christ, God has outlined for us the fruit He wants to bear. Now from each of these divisions that I've shown you from John 15, the time and treasure and attitudes and actions, each one of them called us to something. When we began a few weeks ago, I said Christ wants to abide in your time. He wants us to take out of the river of life flowing by at the speed of 60 minutes an hour, time for Him. Time invested for Him. He wants us to stay with Him. To start our morning, to eat our lunch, to ride home, to spend our evenings with Him. Allowing Him to inhabit our time. Acknowledging He's with us. Acknowledging His ownership of our time. And asking Him, what do you want me to do with my time? How can I invest it most wisely for you? That's Him abiding in our time. Then we went through Christ's many different words about our money and how we view our possessions and Jesus said that the summary of what we're supposed to do with our money is not lay it up and to be rich toward God. And that's Him abiding in our treasures. And last time we saw that Christ wants to abide in our attitude. It's what we do with our mind. How we mentally relate to people and to circumstances. That's our attitude. How we look upon people, how we look upon life and all the various circumstances that come upon us. He wants to captivate our thoughts. We saw 2 Corinthians 10, that He wants us to bring every thought in captivity to Him. And I challenge you, you ought to check how long you can go without certain things in your life. Take a fast. See if you can make it a whole week without cruising around and checking everything online, all the news. Or if you can make it a whole week without your music that you constantly listen to. Or can you make it a whole week without playing games? Especially video and computer games. Can you make it a whole week without watching television? Can you make it? Or do you just kind of start falling apart without watching television? I'm now in my fourth week and in 2 Chronicles. I've gone from Matthew to Revelation to Genesis and all the way to 2 Chronicles in four weeks by just not listening to the radio in the car. That's the only place. And it's unbelievable what you can do if you just take one little segment of your life and say, I'm going to captivate my mind in that area. Can you imagine if you gave your television time, or your internet time, or your gaming time, or your movie time, or your radio time, if you just gave one segment of your life to the Lord? What a transformation he could make. And so, we should let him captivate our thoughts. He wants to draw our affections, as Colossians says. He says, I want you to seek things which are above. I want you to put your affections on things that are important to me. And then, God wants to transform my personality. Galatians 5 says, when God's Spirit is at the helm of my life, there is a remarkable change in my personality. Our homes, our churches, our lives change when the Holy Spirit is at the helm of our lives. We're in the same family. We realize that God is our Father. And those around us, we're headed to the common goal of heaven. We have a common Master Jesus. We follow the same guide, His Word. We have the same passion, that Christ get all the glory. And then what happens? He starts bearing this attitude fruit. And moment by moment, as we appropriate God's power, the pests that irritate and nag us in life, those things that make us angry and selfish and jealous and envious, start subsiding. Because the application of the Holy Spirit can free us from frustrations and irritations, because the Holy Spirit quiets us, controls us, so that we say no and begin to mortify and see ground being gained in our attitude. Christ wants to abide in my actions. What are we supposed to do with our body? Look at Romans 12. Christ wants to abide in our actions. What we do with our bodies He has said something about. He says, I want you, verse 2, to not be conformed. That's an imperative. I want your body not to get squashed into the mold of the world around you. What is the world? It's everything that God is not energizing on this planet. And he says, if I'm not energizing it, you should not allow it to shape your life. We do so many things unconsciously. It's called the herd mentality. We just kind of flow along with what's going on. And he says, I don't want you to flow along. If I am not energizing, prompting, if I'm not glorified by that, if that does not fit in my plan for your life, then I want you to not be conformed to that. Now they had great ramifications in the first century. When Paul proclaimed this in the authority and power of Jesus Christ, the early church took him up on it. And what they began to do is they began to examine what their lives had been like. And they testified, we've spent enough time, as Peter said, in the former things, as Paul said to Titus, for once your lives were characterized by all of this, and now it's time for you to shed the things of darkness and start living for the things of light. You know what happened in the first century? the worldlings, the lost people started saying, why won't you go with us to those parties? Why won't you go with us to this and that? And they said, because we have been transformed and we no longer can be conformed. The persecutions of the first century, the Colosseum, the wild animals, the being burnt on stakes, the being wrapped in animal skins and eaten by wild dogs. Those things are directly linked to the fact that the first century Christians began to not love the world or the things in the world, as John told them. And they began to be seen separate from the way the world was going. For example, the gladiatorial games. which were so universally popular in the first century and second and third century of the Roman Empire, the Christians said, we can't go to that, because God does not like bloodshed, especially gratuitous bloodshed. That means not for war and not for punishment of evildoers, but for entertainment. He said, you are not supposed to put your body in a place where you watch bloodshed that is entertaining. And so the first century Christians said, we will not be conformed. The whole world was, they were building coliseums that would fit 100,000 people in them so that the people could chant and cheer and jump up and down and watch people being killed. Think about it for a minute. Has much changed? What's the most popular venue? Action movies, we call them, right? And what happens in action movies? People pay and sit in large coliseums to watch people getting what? Killed. Think about it. Think about whether God is pleased with watching gratuitous bloodshed. And he says, don't be, I command you, don't be conformed. Just because the whole world is going to the Coliseum, just because they're all going to, by the way, they didn't just go to the Coliseums, they also went to the theaters. The theaters are still present. Every time we go to the Holy Land, we take people to the great theaters. Be it the theater at Ephesus or the theater that's in Jerash that is so completely, beautifully, or the theater at Oman or Bethshean or wherever that is. The theaters were there. Did you know what the course of programming at the theaters were? The Greek plays that involved complete sexual license. It was acted out, it was spoken, it was performed on stage. And again, when the Apostle said, your body should not be conformed to what the worldlings do. They are into watching grisly, gruesome, bloody entertainment. Don't do that. They're into watching sensual, immoral, adulterous, fornicatious, suggestive, nudity stuff. Don't do that. And they didn't. And because of that, do you know what the charge was? Nero's first charge when he started killing the Christians was, he called them, in the official language of Rome, haters of humanity. Do you know why? He cited, they do not go to the games, they do not participate in the theater, they do not participate, and he started naming what they didn't do, and he says, rather they go and they eat flesh and drink blood. Well, that was communion. And of course, it was a perversion of what the truth was. But what I'll never forget is Nero's accusation of the church. Haters of humanity. Nobody loved more than the Christians. But the Roman civilization was guilty if you wouldn't come to their Colosseum. And they were more guilty if you wouldn't go to their theater. You know what's amazing? The same truth is before us every day. When the Apostle Paul says, your body is to be presented as a living sacrifice, verse 1 of Romans 12, a holy, that's a set apart, acceptable, that's pleasing to God, which is your worship. He says, wherever you seat your body, wherever you stand your body, wherever you lay your body, wherever you drive your body, is to be an act of worship to God. That's what reasonable service, our true spiritual worship. That's what he wants us to do with our body. He wants us to realize that we are priests. He wants us to remember that our body is to be an offering to God. And he says, the way you offer your body to God in this reasonable service is, verse 2, of not being conformed, that's an imperative, but being transformed. Let me show you another chapter 12. Go to Hebrews chapter 12. Wherefore, verse 1, seeing we have encircling us, And by the way, the word for encircling speaks of the athletic. It's actually the word that's used for when you came into the middle of the stadium. or stadium, we call it. They call it a stadion, S-T-A-D-I-O-N. It would be a huge round or oval shaped, depending on if it was chariot racing or whatever was going on there. And when the performers or the players or the athletes came in, they were encircled. And so he's actually, the writer of Hebrews is grabbing the term of the stadium, the athletic contest. He says, wherefore seeing we have encircling us like a stadium or a circus where they did their horse races, a crowd of saints and prophets encircling the athletes competing in their contest. And so we are looked on as athletes and all of the saints of the past encircling us are looked on as spectators. Now, it doesn't mean that that they are actually, each one individually is watching and they can all see everything we're doing. It's a generic type of thing. Harkening back to chapter 11. But the picture though is of an athletic contest. So greater cloud of witnesses, now look what he says, let us put off all bulk weight and the loosely fitting sin. You say my version doesn't say that. I know, but the Greek wording. is take off the weights. They used to train with their weights. You ever see these people doing the power walking? You know, they're carrying these weights around and what they're trying to do is have added resistance and some of them really get into it. They put it on their feet, they hold these things and they're really trying to increase their muscles and their aerobic activity. And the word that he uses in Greek is the added weights that they would run with in the games. So that when they competed and pulled those off, they felt as light as a feather and could even more perform. And then he says, the loosely fitting sin. And what he uses is the concept that the Greeks had that when they did their athletic sports, they let nothing stand in the way. Remember, the Greeks were the heartbeat of the homosexuality of the ancient world. And the reason that they were the epicenter, the Greek games were the epicenter of homosexuality is because their athletics were performed in gymnasiums. Gymnas means naked. And so a gymnasium means a place where people perform sports nude. And they did. All those statues you see of the discus thrower wearing nothing, they weren't posing for that. That's how they did it. And because of that total devotion to not having any loose fitting stuff on, they just stripped completely. And the athletes would come in the ring and they would take all their clothes off and they would run. They would take all their clothes off, they would wrestle. And that produced a lot of vices. And so he says, you who are aware of that, he says, you need to strip off your loosely fitting sins and run with patience the race. Now look what Hebrews 12 says, the race. You know what that word is? Agon. A-G-O-N. Agony. It's the endurance race. They used to have in the Greek preparation the agon. The one that seemed endless. I remember cross country. Any of you ever in cross country? It seems like we had to go up and down so many hills and it just about killed me. I think it did. So I just cut out that part of my life. I didn't want to die out on the cross country track. And so they ran the agon, the agony. And look what Hebrew says, let us run with patience the race, the agon, the games. In fact, he's starting to use all the words of the games here. The agon, the long endurance race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the archagon, and finisher, talaitan. Do you know those were the two words, the two words, the one for the man that began the games, the author or the archagon, the high official that started the games, and the talaitan is the one that ended them and said, that's who finished the line. He actually uses the two words from the games of the one that shoots the gun and they all go, and the one that's at the end and saying who won and clocking him. He uses that and he says, all of life is like a race. And he says, Jesus, who is it? We are to look unto Jesus. He is the leader and finisher. He ran and finished the race before us. He is above the games. He's governing them. He is the one who honors those who finish the games. He said, do you realize that the moment that you and I got saved, we were enlisted in this agon, this agonizing endurance race. And what we're supposed to do is make sure we strip off any weights, any good things that hold us back, and also any sins. that are loosely fitting to us. What does that mean? Because we're saved, no sin has power over us, so all sins are really loose. They're only there by choice on our part. They are not any longer attached to us. We have been set free from our sin by Christ. We are dead. When we were buried with Him, our sins were buried with Him, but we allow them to reconnect. And he's saying, I want you to push off all those loosely fitting sins, and I want you to get rid of the bulk, all that good stuff that's blocking up your life. I want you to turn to the book of Philippians with me, because now we get in the heavy-duty Olympic verbiage, starting in chapter 3, okay? Because what Paul does is, he singles out four of the original Olympic game events. He actually names them. The Greek words he uses are the actual words for the original games, the chief games of the Olympics were the throwing of the discus, discabolia, the throwing of the spear, akantismos, jumping, halma, and then he goes into the individual foot races, the boxing, and the chariot riding. And all of those He begins using those words, and let me show you what I mean in Philippians 3. Now the context, look at verse 20. This is very Olympic, Philippians 3.20. The context of the world of the New Testament is what? It's the Greco-Roman world. And so in order to participate in the Greek games, the athlete had to be a citizen. So that disqualified from participation anyone who wasn't a citizen. So you know what Paul says? Look at verse 20. For our citizenship is in heaven. And so he, right up front, sets the tone, because he's talking about athletic activity. And everyone knew that non-citizens couldn't participate. So he says, you're a citizen. Our citizenship is in heaven. And because we're already children of God through faith in Christ, we have the responsibility of running the race that he's going to describe for us. All the metaphors that Paul uses for the Christian life here in Philippians and in 1 Corinthians allude to the opposing forces we struggle against. The word agonizumai is constantly used. His words picture warfare, races, and struggling. And he says, all of our Christian life is an agona, a long-term endurance race, an agonizing race to get to the finish line where Christ is waiting for us. See, what he's saying is Jesus is over, he's watching over the games, but he's also the telaitas, the person at the end, the person that's waiting to watch you cross the line. So he said, he's the one that launches you and says, now you're in my family, go! and he's the one that watches over the game to make sure you're protected, and then he's at the finish line waiting for you to finish. So he says, he is the author and the finisher, the writer of Hebrews says. And here, the Apostle Paul tells us that we are in an agony to please Christ. So, before I show you the verses, let me read to you this summary. The entire New Testament is a description of the life of a believer in the world, and it reads like a many-sided picture of the Olympic Games. Think of me of the picture of the games and their special counterparts. I'm going to list everything that Paul talks about and the counterpart in the Greek games. We live life in the arena. That's the stadion that he uses. We live life in the arena of faith. Holiness is our training of our bodies to obey Him. Just as they had training, our training is in holiness. God offers His Spirit to build us in self-control. They learned it by grit and hard work. We learned the ruthless denial of self. Remember what He says? Just as the athletes, by the way, the Olympic athletes had to agree that during the time of their preparation for the Olympics, they would not eat certain things, drink certain things, or do certain things. And they gladly did it. for the glory. of their little laurel wreath crown that they got. It was, by the way, a fading crown that would get brittle, and the bugs would eat it, and it would be gone. And they almost killed themselves to get a little tiny circle of leaves placed on their heads. And they ruthlessly denied themselves for that. Christ's Word is the herald that signals what we're to do. And at the games, the herald would tell you where to line up, and what the course was to be, and how you could win. The entrance to the race course It's still there. You still would go in through these gigantic archways that would herald you entering the race course. That is what every day is for us. Every day we enter the race course. Life circumstances are the different kinds of contests. They had wrestling events. They had running events. They had chariot events. They had all types of foot races. What we're doing for our games is we're going through life. And there are rules from the Herald, from the Word of God, how you're supposed to participate in sorrow, and how you're supposed to participate in prosperity, and how you're supposed to participate in loss. And that's the different kinds of contests. We are all racing toward the same goal. As Paul says, In chapter 3 of Philippians, verse 14, I pressed toward the goal. That was the exact word that's used for the finish line. He says, I am running toward the goal, the finish line. Our flesh must be constantly receiving boxing. Paul says, I'm beating my body. He uses the word palle, which means to box. He says, I'm trying to box my body. And he actually uses the word for hitting himself under the eye. We must remember God's word is the rule of the combats. We must remember Christ is the umpire. You know, it says in the scripture, let the peace of God rule in your hearts. The word rule is the word for umpire. When you're playing a game, when those guys pull out those rags and throw them down, or they blow the whistle, everything's supposed to stop. And you wait and see why they threw their colored whatever it is on the thing, or blew their whistle. And you know, everything you do after they blow the whistle doesn't count. And what he's saying is, let the Spirit of God, leading in your life, rule. Be the umpire, the one that calls whether the serve went out or the serve went in. And so the same words are used for the umpire. We constantly remind ourselves of the danger of being disqualified. If you did something wrong with your chariot, or if you ran outside of your specific lane, or if you did something wrong in your wrestling, you were disqualified. always enduring for the supreme purpose of the appearance. In the Roman Games and the Olympic Games, you always appeared, and we still do that. They're going to have the highest and the next and the next, where the gold and silver and bronze, and they appear, and they receive their award, and that place they stood was called the appearance. where they appeared and received their honor. And so we are always waiting for the appearance of the victor before the throne of the divine judge on the great day when he distributes the prizes. He hands the victors the wreath and the palm. The list of the victors is the book of life. Christ's coming is a triumphal entry. When the athletes came home, they had a triumphal entry for them. They would come to a festival. They would sit at a banquet. All of those are the terms of the Scripture. The triumphal entry of the homeland is Christ coming for us. The Mary's Supper of the Lamb is the banquet. The festival is when we cast the crowns before Him. And the place of honor is we get to stand and bow in worship around His throne forever with the crown. that we constantly cast before him, and if you read Revelation carefully, we gather them back up and we cast them again. It's not a one-time, it's an ongoing thing. So, scarcely one essential feature of the whole course of the games has escaped the writers of the New Testament, and every element is employed in their figures of speech. Okay, now let's go back to 1 Corinthians 9. I'll just introduce 1 Corinthians 9. I want to show you the four games, because I mentioned it. The four games that Paul references, the first one's in 1 Corinthians 9, 24, and it's the foot race. And the foot race looks forward to the heavenly prize, starting in verse 24. And what he says is this, he says, 1 Corinthians, do you not know that those running in a race course, that's en stadio, actually the word, in the stadium. He just grabbed that word right out of the games. All run indeed, but only one attains the prize. Run thus that you may win. Everyone who contends, agonizomenos, is self-disciplined in everything, that they might indeed win a perishable victor's crown. But we, Thus run therefore I run and that's the word for racing treco not as if uncertainly I box There's the second Olympic event. The first one is the foot race, the running that starts this passage. Then he says, I box, or I beat my body. Not as if shadow boxing, but I punch my body and I treat it harshly, lest perhaps, having proclaimed to others, I myself should become a failure. So first, he says we're in a foot race. Secondly, he says we're boxing. He says we're in a foot race looking forward to the goal. We're in a boxing beating our enemy within. You see, we have an internal traitor, our flesh. And so we're saying no to our flesh while we're running toward the goal. Continuing, in Ephesians 6 it says we're wrestling. He uses the word for wrestling. And finally, back where we started in Philippians 3, when he says I press toward the goal, he uses the exact word for chariot racing. Did you know what a chariot race was back then? It's not been her. A chariot race in the Olympics was a platform with two little tiny wheels on it and a small railing and all the horses and two reins. And the skill of chariot racing was not having knives on the edge where you could incinerate the guy next to you. The skill of chariot racing was staying on that little tiny platform. And the way you did it was you totally stretched forward your body to go with the horses and to be leaning forward toward the goal. And that is exactly the picture when Paul said, I press. The word he uses in Philippians 3 is the word of every fiber of his body being engaged in totally holding his balance to go for one purpose to get to the goal. And he says that goal is I want to cross the finish line and have the prize of the upward call of Christ saying well done. Every element of the New Testament description of our lives parallels the games. I wonder this morning, are you in the games? Have you started the very beginning at the mercy of God? Have you even entered the family? Only citizens can participate, only those who know Christ. Number two, have you listened to the one who is judging the games, the umpire himself? He said, the only way that you can do this is if you present to me your body. Have you presented your body? And if you said, I don't want to be conformed, I don't want to be pressed into the mold, I don't want my life following the herd, but I want to be metamorphosized, I want to be transformed as I exercise my mind to cause this body to respond God's way. Are you in the game? Is Christ abiding in your actions? Is your body under His supreme command? That's what He wants us to do. Let's bow before Him in prayer and yield ourselves anew and afresh to Him. Father in Heaven, I thank you for the race course, for the metaphors, for the games, for the passion that the Apostle Paul said. He said, I keep this body under your control. I beat it like boxing. I train it like a runner. I wrestle against the powers within because I don't want to be disqualified. Every fiber of my body is leaning forward on the little platform as I move through life and I'm pressing toward one goal. and that's the prize of the upward call. I see that glassy sea, I see your throne, and I want to have a crown to cast at your feet. I pray all of us would examine our lives and see whether or not we are really in the agonizing race of endurance to please you. If we're not, help us to start today. Help us to remember You're the God of new beginnings, and that because we are already citizens, that we can have a new beginning, a fresh start. We can have You cleanse and wash and make us white as snow over and over again. But it all starts with Your mercies. And for any who have never partaken of those mercies, who have never turned to You, O Christ, from the world and the flesh and their sin in their own way, I pray that they might And for us who know you, may we turn anew and afresh your way. And may we declare our allegiance to you as you have invited us to your table to a meal. We want to eat. We want to proclaim you and love you. May we gather, should you tarry, in the greatest celebration of our hope and our cleansing through your blood, O Christ. In the name of Jesus and all God's saints said, amen.