Welcome to The Daily Platform. Almost eight years ago this December, and I felt like I was jumping on a fast-moving train.
And as soon as I jumped on, it just picked up speed. And, you know, it's at the point of the semester where you're tempted to think, you know what, I am done with this. You may feel that way this morning. I am done with this. I don't even care anymore. I just want out.
I just want this to be over. And don't think that only students ever feel that way. But faculty and staff feel that way also. You commit to different things along the way and you start thinking, this is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. This is harder than I thought it would be. Or maybe I thought I would enjoy this more. Or I thought I would do better than I'm doing right now. And along the way, you know how it is, there are other challenges that are going on besides school work. And sometimes those challenges are more important than what you are doing here. There's challenges back home, perhaps, or there's health challenges or financial challenges or challenges in your relationship and things happening in your family. And the Bible reminds us all the time that the Lord strengthens us as we push forward to do what He wants us to do.
And He does. And many of you could probably get up here and share a testimony about a difficult time and you're looking back and saying, God was faithful. God helped me through that. But if your life is like a race, which many passages in the New Testament tell us this, you start out running really well with high hopes to finish the race with a strong performance. But after a while, your energy starts draining and you get really tired and you just want to quit. If you've ever allowed one of your more athletic friends to talk you into running a 5k with them, you know exactly what I mean.
I've been there. You practice a little bit and you're like, yeah, you know, I mean, I'm kind of slow, but I can run three miles, you know, that's not that big of a deal. Then you have to spend a lot of money because, you know, you got to get really nice looking shoes and you got to get new running clothes. You always can tell the people who are the first time racers as they look all shiny and new when they show up to the race. And then you actually pay, I don't know, 35, 40, sometimes $50 to run in one of these races.
It's like paying your executioner to torture you. And you show up on race day wearing all your shiny new stuff. And because you're inexperienced, when they say go, you burn off because of the adrenaline, so much more energy than you should. Running in a long distance run is about reserving energy, but you burn up all this energy and you're thinking that first mile, hey, I'm doing pretty good.
You know, this isn't so bad. I passed a bunch of people, you know, maybe I could have a career in running and all these thoughts are going through your head. But by mile two, most of the people you passed are already far ahead of you. And you're winded and you're thinking to yourself, why am I even doing this?
Why did I agree to this? And by mile three, you're sore and you're tired and you're like, this is the stupidest thing in the world. I'm never doing this again. I can't believe I let them talk me into doing this.
I wasted all this money. And you're having all these thoughts and you're thinking about what you're going to say to this person when you finally get to the finish line, because they're already going to be there waiting for you, smiling, you know, like, how was it? But you know, there's something about crossing that finish line. No matter what your time, no matter what state you're in, there's this certain euphoria when you realize I made it.
And then the craziest thing goes through your mind. You actually start thinking about your next race. You know, when it comes to the spiritual race that the Lord has given us to run, we're all inexperienced runners.
We've never done this before. This is the one and only race we get to run. And we can get tired and we can get discouraged, but the scripture encourages us to keep running because the Lord Jesus Christ himself knows how much joy is waiting for us at the finish line. That's why Hebrews 12 cheers us on at the beginning of that chapter, calling us to run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who because of the joy that was set before him at the finish line, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews says, consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary and faint-hearted. Because if the Lord is your savior, you are in this race. And the most essential part of the race is not so many things you are doing in your life, as important as some of them are.
The most essential part of the race is the part that no one else sees. It's your obedience to the Lord. It's that commitment you've made to grow in the knowledge of God by daily spending time in his word. It's that commitment you've made to be more consistent in prayer. It's the commitment you've made to live a holy life, a life separated from the world and unto God.
It's the commitment you've made that everything else you are doing in life, the classes you're taking, the job you're working, all of the other things you spend your time doing, you're doing every one of them because you believe this is how the Lord has called you to invest the time that he has given to you for his glory. That's the real race that you are running if you're a believer in Christ this morning. And many of you earlier this semester may have been running like you were on mile one. In fact, maybe you even renewed your commitment to the Lord this summer sometime or maybe at the beginning of the school year and you were doing really well and you're like, you know, I've got this and I think I'm figuring out the Christian life and you even look back at some people, you know, you're like I'm way ahead of them.
I'm running I'm running really really well. But if we could see your heart this morning, the picture may be much different. Because you got busy and tired and discouraged and you're thinking why am I doing this? And when you get busy and tired and discouraged one of the first things to go I'm afraid is the part that no one else sees.
The essential part of the race. And in those commitments you've slowed down or stopped all together and this morning the Lord encourages you through his word to get back into the race. I want you to listen to some words here from Galatians chapter 5. This is my my key verse this morning. Galatians chapter 5 verse 7. The Apostle Paul says to these believers in Galatians 5 7, some of them Jews, many of them Gentiles, saved out of pagan idolatry from an area in the south of Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey.
He says literally to them in verse 7 of Galatians 5, you were running well. Who hindered you that you should stop following the truth? Who got in your way? Who tripped you up?
That's literally what it says here. The Greek word that's often translated hinder in various translations here in context really means to cut in on someone. To to trip them up in the race.
To cause them to stumble. See Paul had journeyed to the region of southern Galatia on his first missionary journey. He preached the gospel of faith in Christ alone.
Faith alone in Christ alone. And living a new life through the Holy Spirit of God. And even though there was great opposition and threat of persecution, I mean this is where Paul got stoned.
One of the places that we know of anyway. There were so many who came to know the Lord. And before Paul left that part of Asia Minor, he went back to every city and every church and saw the people and made sure they were running well. And it says that he ordained elders in all of the churches so that they would continue to run the race well.
And then he left. And sometime after he left, false teachers came into the region and preached to them a different gospel. A gospel of works. A gospel that did not liberate them. A gospel that bound them. A gospel that was antithetical to the Lord's will.
And many of them were impeded. They were tripped up or they dropped out of the race. And Paul in Galatians is pleading with them to get back in the race. And he comes to this emotional part of the letter where he dramatically says to them, you were running well! Who tripped you up?
Who cut in on you to knock you out of the race? So that you stop following the truth. That's exactly what can happen to us if we stop following the gospel.
Or the life that we're supposed to be living for Christ because of the gospel. 1984 was the first year that I personally paid attention to the World Olympics. It was my summer. It was the summer before my senior year in high school, actually. You're already thinking, well, that's like a lot more than 20 years before I was born. Yeah, good for you. I get depressed every time I think about that. But I know some of you may remember some Olympic highlights if you're really into track and field.
And this is one year for it. Because in 1984, the Olympics were held in Los Angeles and nearly every American was tuning in. And among all of the drama that year, there was this American runner named Mary Decker, who was expected to win the gold medal.
In fact, more than one of them. I had a church member, actually, who told me she met Mary Decker when she was running track and field for Ohio State years ago. Mary was an American darling in the running world. Everybody loved her. She had started beating the fastest women runners in the world when she was only 14 years old, running in pigtails.
Too young even to be allowed to compete in most of the competitions. They called her little Mary Decker. She was the first woman to break the 420 mile. She set 36 U.S. national records and 17 official and unofficial world records. She was the Sports Illustrated Woman of the Year in 1983. But in 1984, this was her first opportunity as a young runner to grab Olympic gold. She was easily the favorite to win in the 3,000 meter.
And we were all crowded in the living room watching our television, zooming in as closely as we could to all the action at the Olympics. And with three laps behind her, Mary was out in front as everybody expected. It's in the last lap with many runners behind her crowding in on the track. When a runner by the name of Zola Budd, representing the UK, tried to take the lead and she cut into Mary's lane. And then the unthinkable happened. Their feet collided. Mary tripped over Zola's leg. And I vaguely remember seeing this because it was replayed in slow motion again and again and again on the television as we watched from the living room.
Mary flailing and just going down over the side rail, into the infield, sprawled out, injured. That was the end of her Olympic run that year. And you can even see this collision today on YouTube.
Some of you may be watching it now. And if you look up her roster, all of her race competitions are listed online. And up to that point in her career, the position column reads, first place, first place, first place, 1984 DNF.
Did not finish. She was running so well. But she was hindered. Someone tripped her up. And there was a lot of drama that followed Mary's fall and blame and Zola was threatened to be disqualified.
And eventually Mary and Zola shook hands and made up and all of that. But maybe today, in some way, for some reason, you've been like this. You've been sidelined. You're running well.
And you're in the race. But in some areas of your life, you've tripped up. How do you get back in? How do you get up and keep running?
There's some really practical coaching lessons we can learn in the Word of God that answers that question. First of all, if you look closely again at Galatians 5.7, Paul says you are running well. Who hindered you? Who tripped you up? Who cut in on you to knock you out of the race so that you stop following the truth? You see, very often the reason we fall by the wayside is not because of a what. It's because of a who?
A person. Someone who has impeded your spiritual progress. The pressure from a peer group or a single friend to compromise your spiritual integrity or your purity. Someone who sneers at your commitment to the Lord and causes you to be discouraged from following the Lord so closely.
After all, you don't want to look like somebody who's too eager, right, to follow Christ. Is there a friend group or an individual in your life? And except for the presence of those friends, you know you would be running the race the Lord has given you much better than you are right now. Then you need to say to those people in your life, I'm running this race and I would love for you to run it with me, but if you won't, I need to find somebody else to run it with. Which brings me to the second part of this implication here in verse 7. If it's a person who can cause us to stumble, it's also a person who can help us to get up and run the race. Do you realize that God never intended any of us to run the race on our own? In fact, if you look down at verse 13, Paul says to them, don't use your freedom in Christ to satisfy the flesh, that is to serve yourself, but rather through love, serve one another.
And then if you go a few more verses to the beginning of chapter 6, Paul explains what should happen if anyone is caught in a transgression, he says, you the spiritual person, meaning simply somebody who's faithfully in the race, somebody who's following the spirit, you restore that person, you help them get back up, you help them get back in the race. Do you want to know one of the reasons some of you have dropped out of the race? It's because you're not running with anyone. Or the people you're running with are not running the right race.
You need a running partner, someone to encourage you, and you them. Someone who can say each week, hey, how are you running this week? Don't get sidetracked. Don't give up. What did the Lord teach you this week?
What are you going to do about that? Can we pray together? Are you being faithful this week?
If you think that this is just some little running tip, you're wrong. Why do you think Jesus always sends his disciples out in pairs? Why do you think the Christian life is framed in the New Testament in terms of discipleship or life on life journey with one another? Why do you think we're told in the New Testament, comfort one another, pray for one another, encourage one another, restore one another? In fact, this truth is so pervasive in the New Testament that we should be convinced that we cannot run the Christian race better alone than we can running it with someone else. If you don't have this already, find a godly friend or say to a close friend, can we run together? Can we encourage one another? See, if you want to know how the New Testament coaches us to get back in the race, lesson one is find a running partner who's interested in running the right race and encourage one another.
Here's another lesson. Remember why you began running in the first place? What persuaded you to be a runner? What truth from God captured your imagination and compelled you to run? One thing is that you came to faith in Jesus Christ. You got in the race to begin with.
And some of you may need to actually just become a believer in Christ and get in the race. But as we begin to run, there are certain truths on the word of God that capture our attention, capture our imagination, and compel us to run well. Paul says in Galatians 5-7, who cut in on you?
Who tripped you up that you should stop following the truth? Some translations say stop obeying the truth, but it's not the normal word for obey in the Greek language. Nor is it the word for follow.
It's a word that we normally translate persuade. In fact, if you look at a couple of the words later in verse 8, you see that there? It says this persuasion in the next verse, that's the noun form of the same word. And then if you look just two verses later in verse 10, where the verse begins, I have confidence, that's the same verb again. That's the same verb we see in verse 7. I have confidence or I am persuaded. You'll see this verb translated in the New Testament as persuaded or having confidence or trusting. The meaning of the verb is that we are compelled forward by conviction. We were running from the heart. We believed in what we were doing before someone caused us to stumble.
And if you want to start running again, you've got to pray that God will rekindle that fire in you that gave you the strength and the courage and the drive to run well in the first place. Whenever we see the New Testament, authors use an athletic metaphor, like running. We in the modern West, we think, hey, I understand the illustration. It's about sports. I see sports everywhere. I get that one because we're in a culture of sports and games. And that's true to an extent, but we really don't understand sports or athletics the way that the ancients did.
You know that? When all the city states would call for a time of peace and bring the whole world together for these races near Mount Olympus and other places as well. Olympus was the most famous. The games were held in honor of the gods. There would be sacrifices made to the gods and the runners would run in honor of a particular god. In the wide world of sports today, oftentimes athletes are getting the glory.
That was not the way people thought when they had the games. They were running for something outside of themselves. Oftentimes it was for Zeus. And if they won the race, they earned great glory for their city and they earned the favor of the god on their city. Paul knows this tradition as he's writing this metaphor. He's aware of the fact that when we run a race, we are never running for ourselves. We're running for the honor and glory of the one who put us in the race, the one who bought us with his blood, the one who loves us and called us, the one who not only runs with us, but the one that we will meet face to face at the finish line.
When we stumble in the race, we can take our eyes off the reason we are running in the first place and we become severely distracted by the cares and attractions of the world, the things that are seen. But you began running once upon a time because you were convinced about things that are unseen. And one of the surest ways to rekindle that conviction is to allow your imagination to be recaptured by things unseen, by immersing yourself in God's word and believing exactly what it says. We all hear this sermon about reading God's word. It is one of the most preached and the least lived.
Every page of scripture pulls back the curtain to reveal what is really going on. Go back to that scripture the Lord used in your life to stir your conviction, to cause you to see who he is and what you are called to do and pray for his grace to run again. So you need a running partner. You need to rekindle the conviction that was once compelling you to run.
There's one other lesson and it's simply this. Get back up and start running again. Get back in the race.
I mean that might sound very easy but it's true. Don't wait around to start feeling the conviction before you start running. You might be waiting a while.
Don't wait to feel good again about running. The reason we often fail in matters of faith is that we have this false notion that in order for us to live for the Lord I have to feel it first or it has to be sincere. And if I don't feel it, if I'm not really into it, then I can't do it.
That is false. The Bible never calls us to feel anything. It calls us to believe God and to obey him. You want to get back in the race? You start doing the things that you were doing when you were running well.
Do it as an act of obedience to the Lord who called you, praying for and trusting in his strength. By the way, there's another reason I think that we don't just start running again. The first reason is that we're waiting around to feel like it. That's the way our culture is. But the second is that we don't think the Lord is pulling for us.
I mean, really. Some of us have the idea that because we dropped out of the race or we slowed down, we got distracted, and we've tried to get back in before, and we keep falling down, and we keep getting tripped up, that the Lord is not really pulling for us at all. And we come back and try to run again, and the Lord's like, oh, it's you again. I've seen you here before. Haven't heard from you in a while. Oh, so you're coming and you're going to try again.
Okay, well, we'll see how it lasts this time, how long it lasts this time. That's your mind talking. That's someone from your past who didn't encourage you talking. That's not the way the eternal son of God who loved you and died for you thinks about you. If you're a child of God, He loves you as His own. He always wants to help you in the race.
He is your biggest supporter. He has given you everything you need to run with success. The word, the power through the Spirit, and now He calls you to run. I've taken personally a lot of comfort in my life from Proverbs 24 16, the verse that says, for the righteous falls seven times and rises again because the righteous in Christ are not marked by the fact that they never fall. In fact, Proverbs 24 16 says they fall seven times, which is Hebrew code for a whole lot of times. The righteous in Christ are not marked by the fact that they never fall. They never get knocked down. They never stopped running.
Rather, they are marked by the fact that they keep getting back up. And maybe you've dropped out of the race this morning in some area of your life. Maybe you're looking back in a time when you were running well and every one of you who is in here, if that is the truth, can be running well again before the hour is over. The Lord Jesus has already run this race, and if you will cling to Him, if you will find your support in Him, He will give you everything you need to get back in the race. Father, I pray that you would give us your grace through the Lord Jesus Christ manifested to us as we continue to run for your honor and glory in Christ's name.
Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached at Bob Jones University by Dr. Greg Stikes. If you want to hear this sermon again or share it on social media, go to our website, thedailyplatform.com. You can also learn more about Bob Jones University, a conservative liberal arts Christian university in Greenville, South Carolina. Driven by our unshakable faith in Christ and powered by experiential learning, BJU inspires and shapes students to lead lives of influence and purpose. Thanks again for listening. We look forward to the next time as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform.
