A humble parent is simply thrilled to see their children walking with Christ. A humble businessman wants to share the credit with the team.
A humble teacher is just thrilled to know his students are now prepared a little better for life. This is the humility of Paul. He's going to consider his race run well as toiling not in vain.
Not because he's reached the tape or because he's stayed at it, but because they have. Have you ever wondered what it would look like to live a life of unwavering commitment? No holding back, no turning away, and no regrets. In today's message, we're in a section of Philippians where Paul describes his own life as a race well run. A labor that wasn't in vain and a sacrifice joyfully offered. Stephen will tell you the inspiring story of a young man who left behind wealth and opportunity to follow Christ. He lived by the motto, no reserves, no retreats, no regrets.
This message is a powerful reminder of what it means to live fully for Christ with no regrets. In 1904, William Borden graduated from a Chicago high school. His mother had come to faith when he was eight. They were attending Moody Church, what is now Moody Church.
He was the heir to the Borden Dairy Estate, which is alive and well today. And when he graduated from high school, he was already a millionaire and his parents decided to give him a gift and to send him on a trip around the world before he entered college. And so as a 16-year-old, he's traveling throughout the Middle East and Europe and Asia. And he had come to faith himself earlier in life and he began to have a growing sense of a burden for unreached people. He wrote in his Bible while he was on that trip the words, no reserves. And he committed his life vocationally to ministry and he wrote home to tell his parents about it. Many thought it was kind of, you know, youthful zeal and did pass over over time, pass away.
It didn't. He began his college studies at Yale University and openly lived for Christ and made it clear that he was headed for some mission field one day. In fact, as a freshman, he started a Bible study group and that ultimately impacted that university at the end of his freshman year. He had 150 guys in Bible study and prayer groups.
And when he graduated from Yale, it had so influenced the student body that out of the 1,300 students then attending Yale, 1,000 of them were in these Bible study groups meeting for prayer. His ambition never let up and he eventually narrowed his sights on Muslims in northern China where he wanted to go. And so after graduating from Yale, he wrote two more words in the back of his Bible, the words, no retreat. No reserves, no retreats. Borden turned down every lucrative offer. He even turned down leading the Borden enterprise. Instead, he entered seminary and after completing his studies, he immediately went to Egypt to learn Arabic to prepare to reach the Muslims of China.
No reserves, no retreats was his motto. He would never make it to China to the shock of the Western world that had sort of chronicled the unusual story of this young man willing to turn his back on all of that wealth and go to the Middle East to learn Arabic. While he was in Egypt, he contracted spinal meningitis and within a month, William Borden passed away at the age of 25. The newspapers headlined of course the news of Yale's most famous graduate dying like that.
Pundits and reporters all kind of weighed in on the tragedy of a wasted life, et cetera, et cetera. As if anticipating the upheaval, knowing he was going to die, William Borden opened his Bible and went back to the back fly leaf where he had written those earlier words, no reserves, no retreats, and he added two more words that were found after his death, no regrets, no regrets. By the way, he didn't write no mistakes, no need to confess sin, no problems, no, no regrets. There would be things he and every genuine believer would like to do over, but dedicating your life to Jesus Christ and the things that you do for Christ in whatever way you do them will never be regretted. No one will ever say on their deathbed, you know what I really regret is that I didn't put more hours in at the job. I wish I'd landed that contract.
I wish I'd, I regret I never caught that 10 pound bass. I regret that I didn't lower my golf handicap, or I regret that I didn't pay off my house, or I regret that I didn't care enough about my lawn. I won't regret that. You listen to somebody who gets close to the goal line, close enough to see it, and you hear in that believer's testimony what matters most. No reserves, no retreats, no regrets. The only life worth living frankly is a life that surrenders to the truth of the gospel of Christ, a life that daily bathes at the foot of the cross and the blood of Christ, that daily lives within sight of the empty tomb, that daily grows in anticipation for the return of Christ. You will never say no failures, no sin-needy confession, no disappointments, but you will say I having given everything I could to Christ and that those moments when I did, no regrets. You're about to hear an aging apostle who can smell the goal line talk about anticipating a life like that, no reserves, no retreats, no regrets. Turn to Philippians chapter 2 and we pick it up at that last paragraph or one of the last paragraphs in chapter 2 beginning in verse 14 where Paul has been urging the believers, you remember, to hold out the word of life, to offer it to a dying dark world, to shine like stars, to a sin-darkened world, to stop complaining but to join together in shining. And now Paul adds this deeply personal testimony about his own perspective on life.
Let's listen in. Look at verse 16, holding fast, literally holding out the word of life so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. You catch what he's saying?
I want you Philippians to live out the gospel because if you do as far as I'm concerned, my life will have no regret. Would you notice how he describes his life here? There are going to be three different images he gives us to describe his life as he looks over his shoulder and even his present life. The first one you'll notice he mentions here that he's a runner. He's a runner. He's not going to run in vain. You'll notice by the way as you read Paul's letters how often he reaches into the world of athletics to make a point and it's obvious he witnessed many of these.
He uses a verb here, trecho, which means to run as if you're in a race, to run a race. In every Greek city, Philippi is one of them. They had a very dominant building in the city and it was the gymnasium. The gymnasium, unlike what we typically think of, it actually included more than sporting events.
It was the intellectual club of the city. This is where philosophers would come. This is where Socrates would have taught on his views of eternity. This is where pundits came, teachers arrived. Paul would have taught in the gymnasiums of these cities.
Of course, it was also the place for athletic training contests. Paul witnessed them. He'll refer in his letters to boxing, First Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 26. He'll refer to athletes being summoned to the starting line, First Corinthians 9, 27. He'll refer to runners pressing on as they see the goal line, Philippians 3, 14. He'll use that word there. He even refers to watching the judge award the athlete who's won and places on his head that laurel wreath of leaves.
This is the idea. Paul is drawing from here. In fact, the Greek city states were often in disputes and at war with each other, but every four years, no matter what, they would call a 30-day cease fire and they would gather to compete in the famous Olympic events that carry on to this day and philosophers would arrive and poets to read their latest writings and sculptors would arrive to carve statues of the winners.
Athletes would come and compete and then back to war they go, which like today. Paul writes about running his race in order to win a prize in First Corinthians. He writes to the Galatians and he says, look, don't abandon the gospel so that I have run my race in vain, Galatians chapter 2. And now here to the Philippians, he once again refers to the strenuous effort of an athlete who has given his life and is running his race brief as it is and Paul says, I hope that this race is not in vain and I'm convinced I'll have no regret if you, Philippians, live out the gospel. This is the humility of Paul, which is rather shocking to me.
It's as if he says, look, if you demonstrate the gospel, my life is worth living. You need to pick up here in verse 16 that Paul not only talks about running, he uses the word toil, toiling in vain and now he pulls a picture off the construction site as it were out in the field for a migrant worker. Kapio is the word that refers to working intensely. It is difficult labor, strenuous effort. In fact, one New Testament scholar wrote that both of these images, to run and to work, have the idea of exertion and exhaustion.
It's all combined. Has the idea here of stress and sweat. So if you might think that, you know, my Christian life must not be working out all right because it's filled with stress and sweat and exertion and exhaustion, join the ranks of Paul, who was running his race. And it's worth it. He effectively writes here, it isn't in vain.
As long as you, Philippians, can get along in unity and stop complaining and display the light of the gospel to your culture, which is lost in the dark. And so this becomes the opposite of pride. This is the opposite of pride. He found a reason to rejoice in the success of another. A proud parent wants praise for raising children and every success they view as their own, you know, credit.
A proud businessman or woman wants all the credit for the uptick in stock value. A proud teacher wants accolades for every graduate that walks across the stage. A humble parent is simply thrilled to see their children walking with Christ. A humble businessman wants to share the credit with the team that makes it possible.
A humble teacher is just thrilled to know his students are now prepared a little better for life. This is the humility of Paul. He's going to consider his race run well is toiling not in vain, not because, you know, he's reached the tape or because he hasn't fallen or he's stayed at it, but because they have sacrificed their faith in service. It's like the Apostle John. Paul says, you know, there's really no greater joy than seeing my children walk in truth. It's all about the mission. It's all about the gospel. Such a demonstration of humility to them. How can Paul put their needs in front of his like that?
How can somebody surrender their life to others like that? Well, part of the answer is found in the fact that Paul knows that his stress and his sweat and his exertion and his exhaustion isn't the end of the story. In fact, go back and notice the phrase right before it.
I skipped over it until this point. Notice what he says, holding fast the word of life so that in the day of Christ, I will have reason to glory in the day of Christ. Paul lives today in light of that day. He knew what was waiting. He knew who was waiting. He plans to glory in the fact that Christ was glorified in them. How's that for humility?
His glory will be that Jesus was glorified in them. He says, I can't wait. This is the same kind of, you know, pride or joy of a mother sitting out of the audience as her child rehearses or repeats those lines just perfectly in the school play. There's nothing quite like that feeling as a parent.
It might be just the fact that her kid didn't knock the set down or hurt some of the other actors or whatever. We're just thrilled. It's kind of like a parent with a middle schooler who, you know, makes the honor roll or a high schooler in a couple of weeks that the pride of a mom and a dad and the fact that their son or daughter is going to walk across the stage with the braiding of honors or maybe as the valedictorian. Some parents, like mine, just thrilled that I graduated.
I was in line with everybody else. I don't know what your joy is going to be. But Paul's chains around his wrists as he's writing this letter don't matter. See from outward appearances, it would be, the world would say you ran in vain. You toiled in vain, Paul. Look at you.
He says, oh, no, no, no. If the Philippians, if you would just demonstrate the grace of God as you hold out the word of life, none of this matters. I will glory in that moment when I see Jesus Christ. Paul does have a little bit of an advantage.
I will tell you that. And I think this is why God would use him and how God would use him in the way he used him. He had seen heaven.
This isn't one of the spurious accounts. He had literally seen it. He'd given a tour of it early in his ministry as he was prepared by the Holy Spirit.
He'd seen the Father's house. Can you imagine? This will be what God uses, among other things, to enable him to persevere like few in human history have ever had to persevere. And you see that even when he speaks of suffering, he speaks of joy. This is the same kind of joy that Jesus Christ, it's spoken of him, who for the joy set before him endured the cross. We tend to think only of enduring the cross. He says, I did it with joy.
Why? Because of what was set before him. He knew. He knew where he'd come from. Can you imagine that the celebrating, the singing, the joy, and the noise that Paul must have heard, if in fact it would have happened and we have no reason not to believe it didn't, but as he's touring he would have heard the eruption of singing and rejoicing because Luke's gospel in chapter 15 tells us that the angels, the hosts of heaven, break into praise whenever a sinner on earth is converted to the gospel of Christ. So, you know, somewhere along that way he's probably hearing this eruption. Can you imagine the rejoicing that it must be and what he more than likely heard as well, the celebration as one redeemed sinner after another arrives safely home. If they rejoice that one has come to Christ, imagine the celebration when they arrive safely home.
Let me illustrate for you what that might sound like or be like. Rick Hansen was a paraplegic athlete and he circled the globe to try to raise awareness of spinal cord research. He would literally take two years to make it along the path selected. It was a grueling trip.
The article I read said this. You could see pictures of him in all kinds of weather, burning heat, slashing rain, blizzard, wind, traveling on all kinds of terrain as those interstates or roads took him through deserts or forests or farmlands or over mountains. Pictures covering the event would show him with his head strained back, his neck bulging with muscles, his arms taut, his fists like stone as he climbed mountain roads and wheeled through rain-blackened streets of small cities where their inhabitants, indifferent or unaware as most were, especially in the early days. But over the course of the events of these two years, the news media would pick it up and more and more people began to find out about it.
On May 23rd, 1987, he heads home on his final leg of the journey. And while he's still quite a ways away from Vancouver, which is his home place, people are already in little pockets just kind of gathering to cheer him on as he comes to a little neighborhood or a city. As he got nearer, the crowd thickened. The news was talking of his arrival and along both sides of the highway there would be hundreds of people and then as he got closer, thousands of people and then even closer, tens of thousands of people clapping and cheering, some of them weeping, throwing in his path flowers. Rick wheeled his way toward the arena where he originally thought maybe a reporter or two would pick up the story and yet it was filled to capacity with tens of thousands of people. National and international dignitaries, television crews, movie stars, family, friends waited inside and as Rick got nearer to the stadium, the streets grew impossibly dense with people, others are hovering overhead, police in cars and on motorcycles are flanking him, other wheelchair athletes joined him, coming up behind him like a legion of charioteers. And even above the din of the crowd along the roads, the roar could be heard from inside the stadium. It was like a hurricane brewing. As he wheeled through the wide lower gates and glided out onto the stadium track, to his surprise tens of thousands of people immediately went crazy, leaping, singing, cheering, dancing, exploding with applause, swelling with shouts of welcome and triumph.
One reporter said it was wild, the celebration was incredible. That's a little bit of the picture of when you arrive home. We have no idea, the apostles said, of the glory that he has reserved to display upon you. And Paul says in the meantime if you will demonstrate unity and live for the sake of the gospel as a body of believers and as individual believers, my life will have no regrets. I'll not only have no regret as a runner, as a laborer, but notice thirdly as a sacrifice. Verse 17, but even if, even if he's not expecting to be martyred, that will happen later, but even if it happens now, he didn't know, even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me. Joy, joy, joy, joy.
Wait, what are you talking about? Death. What are you talking about, Paul? The ultimate sacrifice, which is nothing compared to the glory that awaits. If by chance I'm called to lay down my life, that is, my race is over, my labor is now completed, notice, even if I am being poured out as a drink offering, I rejoice. He's already picked out an image from the athletic world, the gymnasium, and from the field or the construction side, and now he pulls out an image from the sacrificial system from the altar. Now the unbelieving world would have some understanding of what he meant because they would pour out just a little bit of their wine before eating.
It's like saying grace to their Greek goddesses or gods. Paul has something more significant in mind. If I can take just a moment, the Old Testament sacrificial system could be easily divided into two kinds of sacrifices. This simplifies everything for you.
We'll get an A on the quiz tomorrow, okay? Here you go, two categories, sweet smelling or sweet savoring, and non-sweet smelling, non-sweet savoring. The non-sweet pointed to the defilement that Christ would be atoning for our sin. The sweet smelling offered, along with the blood sacrifice, this element of joy, this element of thanksgiving. And so God would prescribe that upon that altar, as that innocent animal was being sacrificed, they would pour out a little wine on that sacrifice.
And it would flare up and then become sweet smelling smoke. It represented thanksgiving. It represented joy.
In fact, we're told in this dispensation to effectively do the same thing with our lips. The writer of Hebrews says, let us offer up the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit that is the wine of our lips, our words, our thanksgiving praises. And again, here in this context, the humility of Paul is astounding. He has here in mind the effect of the wine which would cause that sacrifice to burst for just a moment into a brief flame. It would flame up and then disappear into smoke.
It wafts its way upward. So Paul was basically saying here in verse 17 that your sacrifice and service of faith, that's the major part of the offering. That's the main thing.
That's the main focus. But my life is just this little added libation upon your sacrifice. In other words, even if I lose my life, it won't be wasted. There will be no regrets because I'll be just a little wine upon your sacrifice unto Christ.
I'll burst into flame for a little while just for a moment and then turn into smoke and I'm happy with that. I'm satisfied with that. You'd think you'd say I'm the main thing and you guys are just passing.
He says the opposite. You're the main thing. The sacrifice of your faith by your service. I'm just thrilled to be a little offering added on top of yours flaming out ever so briefly for the glory of God. So rejoice, he says. Let's share our joy together as we offer ourselves as sacrifices unto God.
No reserves, no retreats, no regrets. Living with no reserves, no retreats and no regrets is possible when we surrender to Christ, live in the light of his resurrection and give ourselves fully to the gospel mission. This is Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey.
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