The Crown of Life Received by Those Who Obey
20To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain those who are under the law; 21to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law. 22To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. 23Now I do this for the sake of the Good News, that I may be a joint partaker of it. 24Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win. 25Every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. 26I therefore run like that, not aimlessly. I fight like that, not beating the air, 27but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.
A few years ago I happened to watch the final of the 10,000-meter speed skating race, with Lee Seung-hoon on the ice.
Sven Kramer of the Netherlands, the last to skate, gave a striking performance and crossed the finish line a full four seconds ahead of Lee, so I was thinking our country would take the silver.
Then suddenly the arena began to stir. An announcement said that the Dutch skater had broken a rule, and the live broadcast showed his face, so sure of victory a moment before, twisting as he tore off his goggles and flung them down.
Kramer was disqualified because he entered the inner lane twice in a row. In the 10,000 meters, skaters must go around a 400-meter track 25 times.
They are to take the outer lane one time and the inner lane the next through all 25 laps, but he made the mistake of entering the inner lane twice in a row.
With the winner disqualified, Lee Seung-hoon took the gold medal.
As the world-record holder, Kramer had no one who could beat him, and yet his own mistake took the gold medal from him.
Kramer must have trained as hard as he could for this race. But a small mistake meant that, even after setting a world record, he never stood in the winner’s place.
However hard he had trained, however much the hopes of so many rested on him, he did not keep the rules, and in a single moment it all came crashing down.
I can understand how empty he must have felt.
Of course, he has other races ahead of him, so he will likely wear a gold medal at some point in his career.
In the same way, in any contest, those who do not keep the rules cannot stand in the winner’s place, even if they finish first. Lee Seung-hoon came in four seconds later, but because he raced by the rules, his chance came when the man ahead of him fell, and he received the gold medal.
If even a medal of this world can be won only by keeping the rules, then to receive the crown of gold God gives, we must live out our faith according to the rules God has set.
That skater can simply win the next race, but for us there is no further chance once life is over. So we must be faithful now.
Once life ends there is no turning back. So whether you are poor or ill, wealthy or healthy, may you live by faith while you still have breath, knowing that this is your opportunity.
As I said last week, Paul had a faith that could eat even food from the sacrifices and walk freely with God within his law.
Because he stood spiritually within the truth, his faith was free; yet for the sake of those weak in faith, and of those who had not yet received Christ, he did his utmost to be patient, to restrain himself, and to live as an example.
This is what a mature Christian looks like.
Those who serve in the church need to understand this: if they work not according to God’s law but by their own ideas and plans, they may look spiritually full to others and seem to accomplish a great deal, but they bear no fruit.
It is like the Dutch skater: once he broke the rules of the race, he could not receive the gold medal, even though he crossed the finish line first.
Likewise, if we break the law God has set for the saving of souls and put human righteousness first, we will receive no reward when we meet God at the end of our lives.
Athletes who win a competition gain great prize money and honor.
Sadly, though, spiritual rewards cannot be seen with human eyes.
When Thomas could not believe that Jesus had risen, Jesus told him to see his nail-pierced hands, and to reach out his hand and put it into his side.
When it came to Jesus himself, Thomas was not to be unbelieving, but believing.
Jesus did this because salvation matters that much, even though the Kingdom of God is a world human eyes cannot see.
To those who do not believe in Christ, salvation may mean little; but for Christians who believe in heaven, salvation is life itself, the one thing they must not miss.
If we will believe only when we see Jesus’ nail-pierced hands, only when we put our hands into his side and touch the wound of the spear, then in the end we should not expect any unseen spiritual reward.
For this reason, Jesus said that to insist on seeing before believing is, in the end, to fail to believe that God lives. It is the unbelief that does not accept Jesus as Savior, and a great sin that grieves the Holy Spirit even now.
True faith, he said, believes in the unseen spiritual world as though it could be seen, and lives out the path along which the Holy Spirit leads.
The spiritual world is invisible to human eyes.
That Kingdom is an eternal world, seen only when God calls us in a special way, or only after we have put off this body.
That is why there is no chance to turn back once we have left the body.
For as long as we live, then, we must obey the law God has laid down for us.
To receive a spiritual reward, we must live with greater patience, self-control, and obedience; only then will we see our reward for ourselves on the day we meet Christ.
By God’s grace Paul had been to heaven, so he knew how good the rewards God gives are.
He knew that the reward received in heaven is more precious than worldly power or honor. So in verse 27 he confessed that he, too, was beating his body and striving to obey the word in order to receive this reward.
Paul said he was afraid that after preaching the gospel zealously to others, he himself might be rejected.
The reason is that our sins are not sorted into great and small. There is no such thing as a big sin or a little sin; sin is simply sin.
Someone may look full of faith at church, but if their life has not actually changed and they speak and act in ways that hide God’s glory, that is the sin of disobeying God’s word.
Because Jesus embraces the holy ones who obey his word, he gives no reward to a double-minded soul like this.
We must not, then, worry only about the salvation of other people’s souls.
If you claim to believe in Jesus but are always flaring up in temper, raging, lying, and living by your emotions apart from the truth, you may be rebuked by the Lord, because that is not the life Christ desires for his people.
People live as they please outside the word, yet they think they will be saved simply by attending church.
But only eight people entered Noah’s ark, and that tells us what matters: not knowing the word as information, but living by it. In other words, obedience matters more.
Heaven and hell are real, so we must learn from the Bible what kind of people go to heaven and what kind go to hell.
Suppose you proclaim the word to thousands of souls, teach the Bible, and make Jesus known well. Those who hear you may well be saved, but if you yourself, who preached the gospel, live like the people of the world, you will not be saved.
That is how much your own salvation matters, more even than saving thousands.
It was with this in mind that Paul confessed that although the salvation of others is important, he was striving even harder for the salvation of his own soul.
Romans 6:1-2
1What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
In Romans, Paul said that we are those who died to sin.
In other words, the flesh in us that would sin has already died with Jesus on the cross, so even if we wanted to sin, we could not.
You are God’s holy people, born again through Jesus Christ.
However much Satan tempts you with worldly power, fame, and sexual immorality, you have no flesh left to give in to that temptation, because you have been made new as saints, children of God.
If people still sin along with the world, it is because they did not die with Jesus on the cross. They still have a body that sins, which means they have no holy soul for Jesus Christ to save.
By now you will have understood clearly who is saved and who is judged.
I hope you will never forget that God the Son came to this earth to save each one of you, and that you will live a holy life.
Romans 6:12-13
12Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Paul commands us not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies.
Since sin can rule only the body, never the soul, we must, like Paul, beat our bodies and make them submit to the word.
He also says that you must not hand your body over to sin as an instrument of unrighteousness.
When you sin, your body becomes an instrument of unrighteousness in Satan’s hand; when you are held by the Holy Spirit, it becomes an instrument of righteousness that God uses.
Whether you become an instrument of unrighteousness or of righteousness is your choice. You must therefore always work to keep far from sin, and by the word you must push back against your own temper and the pull of the world.
If you become an instrument of unrighteousness in Satan’s hand, he will rule over you, and however much you long to break free of sin, you will not be able to.
So we must take up the cross with Jesus. Only when we become instruments of righteousness, as saints who have been born again, can we live as God’s children.
No sin is great, and no sin is small.
In Jesus’ sight, the murderer and the one who brushes aside the Spirit’s leading to speak and act on their own thoughts and feelings are sinners alike.
The murderer’s sin is no greater, for both have caused the Holy Spirit to groan and have wounded him.
If you fear sin, sin will not have dominion over you.
The reason is that you are not under the world and its unrighteous law but under the grace of God, where Satan has no power to rule you.
Hebrews 10:26-27
26For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice for sins, 27but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries.
In the Old Testament, when the people sinned, they brought an animal for atonement to the tabernacle, laid their hands on it to transfer their sin, and then killed it and sprinkled its blood.
Every time they sinned, they killed an animal, again and again.
But since Jesus came into the world, the sacrifice of animals for atonement in the tabernacle has no effect. Jesus offered his own body once for all as the sacrifice for sin, which leaves no need to offer animals any longer.
The writer of Hebrews says that those who know they are forgiven through Jesus’ sacrifice, yet have no fear of sin and sin again and again, are sinning willfully; such people have nothing to do with Jesus.
God made heaven so that people of faith might live happily forever, and he made hell to judge Satan and the demons.
But foolish people have fallen for Satan’s temptation rather than obey God’s word. They live by human reasoning, and in the end they meet the tragedy of falling, together with Satan, into the hell that awaits him.
Jesus Christ never stops giving you chances so that you will not fall into sin; through the word, through people, and through the Spirit, he keeps urging you to turn back.
Jesus gives everyone ample opportunity to hear the gospel, which is why no one will be able to plead, on the day we meet the Lord, that they never heard.
2 Corinthians 1:10
10who delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver; on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us;
Paul proclaimed the gospel with all his might because he longed to save even a few souls.
Wherever he could preach the word, he did not refuse, even before the council; and he gladly went even to places where death might await him, to proclaim the gospel.
Preaching the gospel cost Paul so much that he spoke of being burdened beyond his strength by suffering in Asia, so that he despaired even of life. For the gospel’s sake he went hungry, was imprisoned and beaten, was shipwrecked and nearly died, and was mocked.
Paul came from a good family and had a fine education, yet because of the Christ he met at Damascus he abandoned a comfortable life and walked a hard and fearful road.
It was not that Paul was needy for lack of property, or persecuted for lack of Roman citizenship. He had the finest education, the finest family, and the Roman citizenship everyone envied in those days, and he was a zealous keeper of the law, held in high regard by the Jews.
Such a man, for Christ’s sake, gave up all the power, wealth, and learning that people so long to have, and chose the path of suffering.
What Paul had seen, though, was heaven, more certain, holier, and more beautiful than the finest learning, family, law, or wealth.
When he met Jesus face to face, the Lord of heaven and the King of kings, he realized that everything of the world he had possessed would decay.
Once he understood that only the crown of life Christ gives is an incorruptible crown of glory, he could offer even his own life with joy.
No one lives in this world for hundreds of years.
We must all leave this world one day, so those who live knowing where they will go after death are blessed. That is the reason Paul is doing his utmost to send every soul to heaven.
What, then, have you given up for Christ?
Pride, temper, human wisdom, greed for the world: which of these will you name when you say, “This I gave up for Christ”?
You would do well to think about this now, because the day will surely come when you must make your confession before Jesus.
1 Corinthians 9:21
21to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law.
To those under the law Paul acted as one under the law, to those without law as one without law, and to the weak as one who was weak, because he was doing his utmost to save even a few.
I once heard someone misunderstand this passage. They said they had gone drinking with people who drank in order to evangelize them, and had gone on outings with someone who played on Sundays instead of worshiping, in order to share the gospel with that person.
But this is not preaching the gospel. It is a sinful act that keeps the other person from coming to Christ.
A follower of Jesus who drinks and stays away from church is already no example. Even if they did tell an unbeliever about Jesus, simply being there together has already watered down the gospel and caused people to mock Jesus.
That is why an evangelist must live a life of self-control.
Paul had the spiritual authority to lead people, but he approached them with an understanding of their circumstances.
A mature man, he met the physically frail with understanding for their frailty, and he wrapped those of weak faith in a love that held even their weakness close.
And because Paul knew the law perfectly, he could explain Christ, the fulfillment of the law, more simply and accurately than anyone to those devoted to the law. He opened their hearts not by worldly methods but by the gospel alone.
1 Corinthians 9:24
24Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win.
As I mentioned at the start about the 10,000-meter final, every earthly contest reviews the video to determine a single winner.
But when Paul says that one receives the prize, he does not mean that only one person is rewarded. He means that everyone who runs by the rules in their own lane receives the prize for running that lane to the end.
Whatever lane they ran in, God will place a crown on every one of those who obeyed his word, and he will commend them.
So telling yourself, “I’m too poor, too frail — I can’t,” is a wrong choice: it means giving up your own reward. Even if your circumstances are harder than other people’s, you must run with all your strength.
The world competes for its own glory, but the spiritual race is run for God. Because of that, everyone who belongs to Christ can win, even though they do not all run under the same conditions.
How patient are you for Christ’s sake, and how much self-control do you exercise?
Do you really want eternal life?
To set the example of a Christian who shares the gospel, how well are you holding your temper in check and governing yourself?
If worship moves you not at all, and serving God brings you no joy, then now is the time to pray for fullness of faith.
God wants to bless you not with the things of the world, which quickly wither and decay, but with the things of heaven, which never perish.
When Adam had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and covered his body with leaves, those leaves soon withered. God saw it, and though Adam and his wife were sinners, he made them garments of animal skins and covered their shame.
The world weaves wreaths of laurel leaves, which soon wither, and sets them on the heads of its champions; but God blesses us with a shining crown of life that will never fade.
We who believe have a clear reason for our faith.
This finite world serves as the place where we receive Christ in order to live in a world without end. So if we obey the word, a day of marvelous blessing will surely come.
We must never let go of Christ until the day we put off the body and meet God in the spirit. If, the harder life becomes, we lift God higher in praise, and the more afraid we are, the more we call on his name in prayer, the Holy Spirit will accomplish it all.
On the day you see God’s face, the obedience you offer now will be waiting for you, heaped up before you as rewards beyond counting.
May you live looking forward to the day you receive the crown of life, running with all your strength, your eyes fixed only on what lies ahead.