CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 24, 2023 – Paul urged us to run the race to win. He didn’t say we’re fine just being in the race – he said we need to win it.

But what does it mean to run a race to win? Or rather, what does it require of us to run a race with the sole intention of winning?

I’m not an athlete, but I have spent time around athletes, and what I learned about them is this: They are single-minded and totally focused on sports. Everything they do, say, and think is somehow connected to sports, especially their chosen sport or the one they particularly excel at. A former professional hockey player once told me he’d sacrificed his body to hockey, and I believe him because he openly bears the facial scars to prove it, along with several missing teeth, a broken nose, fractured bones, bum knees, and sloped shoulders from stickhandling from the time he was old enough to hold a hockey stick. But he doesn’t regret it and doesn’t resent it and he wouldn’t have lived his life any other way. He’s retired now, but when he’s not playing “old-timer” hockey, he’s coaching kids’ teams at a local arena or hunched over in the bleachers somewhere, intently watching a game. At home, his TV is always on the sports channel, and he raised his kids to likewise worship hockey.

And yes, I did say that his kids were raised to worship hockey, because that’s what it is when something is so all-encompassing – it’s a form of worship.

So when Paul tells us to run the race to win, he means we have to be like an athlete who devotes everything he has, body and soul, to his sport. Such devotion becomes a form of perpetual worship that is inseparable from the worshiper. Whether on the track or off, a runner is still a runner. He lives his life with racing in mind, weighing whether or not to do this or that according to whether or not doing this or that will positively or negatively affect his racing abilities.

This should be the same for us, as Christians – whether in a church building or not, a Christian should still be a Christian. Being a Christian is not something we do haphazardly for an hour or two on the weekend and then go off and live our “real life” the rest of the week. Being a Christian is a full-time occupation that includes mandatory overtime and always being on call. We don’t get any time off. There’s no such thing as being a part-time Christian or taking a holiday from being a Christian. You’re either all-in for God and Jesus or you’re not a Christian at all.

And yes, I did say that you’re either all-in for God and Jesus or you’re not a Christian at all.

Being all-in means God and Jesus are always on your mind or not far from it. Everything you do and think is done and thought somehow in relation to God’s Kingdom. You don’t do or think things that you know are against God and his Kingdom, unless you do so unknowingly (bearing in mind that temptations rarely come labeled as temptations, and being a Christian can be a steep learning curve for some).

But I’m not saying that if you’re not all-in for God and Jesus you should just give up and drop out of the race. I’m just reminding you that you need to be all-in for God and Jesus, the way the athlete I described above is all-in for hockey. Reminding you to be all-in for God and Jesus is a reminder, not a rebuke.

It’s a reminder, not a rebuke.

It’s a reminder for you, if you’re a Christian, to keep running – to get on the track and stay on the track and run with everything you’ve got. If you’re a Christian, you’re in the race by default. We’re all in the race. I’m in the race, and I’m running to win. I’m not going to say: “That’s far enough, I’ve done enough, I can stop now” and then count on getting a participation trophy on Judgement Day. There are no participation trophies for this race. We either run it all the way to the finish line or we don’t win.

This is a peculiar kind of race, though. It’s not about how fast we run it but that we stay on the course and don’t give up. We win it not because we’re the first across the finish line but because we cross the finish line. Each of us is racing against ourselves, and the race starts when we give our lives to God and Jesus and ends when we finish our time on Earth.

So I ask you again: Are you running the race to win, or are you still aiming for the participation trophy that Satan’s ministers promised you’d get just for showing up on Sundays?

I hope you’re running the race to win.

I pray you’re running the race to win.

“Run the race to win!”

Amen.