You can start the race but never complete it. Why? Somewhere along life’s path you can begin to disbelieve what you had been taught. Something or someone can get in the way and get you to run differently or even stop completely.
Ever been cut up? Driving your car and someone overtakes you and then swerves back into your lane and you have to slam on the brakes? You know the feeling!
“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” (Galatians 5 v 7-9)
The biggest crash of the Olympics 2024 came in the first of two men’s 5,000 heats when Britain’s George Mills and France’s Hugo Hay traded elbows, triggering a pileup involving Mills and three others who came crashing down like dominoes. There was a lot of angry voices!
The Apostle wants to know what has happened to these people who were doing so well. He uses the analogy of a race of which is familiar to him. In Acts 20: 24 “ I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”
Paul was born for the gospel of Jesus. He ate, slept, breathed and talked all the time of the gospel of Jesus. His every waking moment was spent thinking about the impact of the gospel of Jesus. When he went to sleep he dreamt of the gospel of Jesus. He was consumed with the gospel of Jesus.His only aim in life was the gospel of Jesus. Nothing mattered, no other interests or concerns even for his own life because his only want and need was the gospel of Jesus. He cannot understand why anyone would want to go back to a lifestyle of works when the gospel has been understood by them.
He says to the Galatians the person who has misled you is not Christ. This is not the gospel, He goes further and says that now they’re wandering away from the gospel, it is like yeast, the influence will spread and who knows where they will end up.
The Suffering Church do not have the luxury of leadership conferences and worship-fests. They don’t have the shelves of books and the access to the latest ideology. They only have the gospel.
I think of one of our Pastors who works in a desert and who walks 20km every day in extraordinary temperatures with a book of drawings that illustrate the bible stories (a book that when I saw it was falling apart!), he does it because he considers his life worth nothing to him compared to being a gospel worker. He has nothing. He doesn’t have qualifications. He has no transport. He has very few possessions. In the eyes of the world and even the Western Christian world he is nothing. But this beautiful man would agree with that opinion. He has become nothing for the gospel. But this amazing gospel-carrier is richer, more experienced and effective than many.
When the gospel consumes us then nothing else really matters. It is the gospel of Jesus and He becomes all in all. We keep to it. We run this race. We don’t allow any elbowing to knock us off course. If people cut us up we adjust and we keep going. Our eyes are on what Christ has done. We run the race!
Missions Paul 