SPIRITUAL CHAMPIONS
The following is a condensed version of a sermon series delivered over three Sundays by Rev. Fr. Stephan Baljian during the weeks of August 7-21. The first two parts were delivered at St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church in North Andover, Massachusetts, where Der Stephan serves as pastor. The last part was delivered at St. Illuminator’s Cathedral where he was the guest preacher for the day. The theme has to do with the 2016 Summer Olympic Games that wrapped up recently in Brazil. In it, Der Stephan explores the analogy between physical and spiritual fitness, the importance of being trained for godliness and of running the spiritual race to receive the crown of the Heavenly Kingdom.
INTRODUCTION
For the past two weeks, as we do once every few years, we have turned our attention to the greatest gathering of international athletes the world has ever known: the Olympic Games. There is an air of awe and majesty that accompanies these games. We marvel at the amazing feats the Olympic athletes accomplish. We are wowed by their physical skills and athletic prowess. We watch in anticipation as they compete on the very highest athletic level and deliver incredible performances, shattering world records and personal bests, giving it their all for the gold – the highest honor they could hope to be graced with – after a lifetime of preparation for those awe-inspiring moments.
It is no secret that as a society we love our sports competitions and, in general, highly value physical fitness and agility, admiring those among us with athletically fit bodies and penchants for exercise and physical activity. Indeed, I would argue that our society places an inordinate amount of importance on the body, to the detriment of that of the soul. In many ways, the human physique has become everything to us, much as it became to the ancient Greeks and Romans.
While this outlook is not anti-Christian per se, it should raise some red flags for us, who value above all the human soul enjoined to the body, the faith and character of the individual and the imprint of God’s Holy Spirit on his/her heart. Without a doubt, the body is certainly important as far as being a blessed creation by God, to house our soul and through Baptism to become the Temple of the Holy Spirit. We are not among those who would denigrate the body for the sake of the soul (as some early Christian heretics did), but rather, according to the Scripture, would call this unique creation of God “good,” something a human being “tenderly nourishes and cares for.” (Ephesians 5:29)
Yet, we must recognize the “order” of importance given to body and soul. First the soul, then the body. This is not to say that caring for or training the body is not important, simply that caring for and training the soul is more important.
In fact, our Church Fathers spoke of the gradual mastery of the mind/heart/soul over the body as part of the discipline of Christian life. Although difficult, a Christian is called upon to strengthen his/her soul through training and “spiritual exercise,” and ultimately to become master over the whims and desires of his/her own body, which (as St. Paul points out) are sometimes completely at odds with those of the soul (more on that later).
Suffice it to say that just as there is a path laid out before each Olympic athlete, contingent upon giving the utmost importance to training in his/her own event, there has to be one for us as well if we are to become spiritual “athletes” and ultimately champions of our Christian faith. And so, I’d like to offer my humble observations on how we must undertake this training if we are to compete in the arena of spiritual life.
TRAIN FOR GODLINESS
I mentioned before that part of the process (the first step, I would assert) is to recognize the primacy of the soul over the body, and realizing the primary importance of this training as something that will be of greater value than any laurels or medals awarded for physical aptitude.
St. Paul, writing in his first letter to Timothy, states the following, “Train yourself in godliness (meaning spirituality). For while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” (I Tim. 4:7-8)
Speaking about athletics here in only one of many occurrences (many scholars believe Paul may have been an athlete himself in his youthful days), the Apostle asserts the importance of approaching the faith with the mind and determination of an athlete, and in this case an athletic discipline whose ultimate prize is more than just a gold medal or a crown of laurels.
I may only speak for myself, but I am drawn to the Olympic Games for two main reasons:
1) As I mentioned before, the incredible amount of skill and athleticism that takes place during those games are truly remarkable, so much so that I find myself wishing (as I assume many of you do) that I could be as physically fit and singularly focused as the athletes.
2) As a Christian, as an Armenian priest and as a human being, I am constantly amazed by how easily and intuitively a powerful metaphor can be concocted between the physical training of an athlete and the spiritual training of a Christian. It practically writes itself (although it was most definitely coined by St. Paul the Apostle in his New Testament writings). Furthermore, the mere premise of this metaphorical connection is enough to remind me of the gargantuan undertaking that this “training for godliness” represents, and how often I myself fall short of key training goals!
After all, Olympic athletes didn’t get to the Olympics in one day. A person can not simply wake up one morning and decide “I think I’ll go compete in the Olympics today.” It takes years and years of training, hard work, determination, honing of skills and making hard decisions about coaching, training methods and time allotted, etc. before even beginning to realize the dream of competing in the Olympics.
It also takes great sacrifice. Throughout the Olympic Games’ television coverage, we are constantly regaled with stories of athletes who have trained from a young age (unable to remember any other lifestyle), forfeiting a “normal” childhood, pursuit of entertainment and other hobbies or time with friends and family.
In actuality, it’s the same way in our spiritual life as well. We can’t expect to become champions of the Christian life in one day, and certainly not if we neglect to put in the requisite training time and exercises.
One must train daily in the exercise of prayer and meditation on the Scripture. Weekly attendance at Sunday Badarak should go without saying, because it affords us both the spiritual nourishment of our Lord’s Body and Blood and the fellowship we need with our fellow athletes. Lastly, and perhaps the most difficult (although to remain persistent in prayer is no easy feat as anyone who has ever tried quickly finds out), we must train for that most gigantic of all feats, putting aside our own desires in order to serve God and others. Whew! Just take a minute and contemplate that last paragraph in its deepest meaning!
These are things that are the metaphorical equivalent of Olympic level athleticism, yet it is for these things we as Christians must train ourselves… and not only train, but be ready to compete for.
RUN THE RACE… RECEIVE THE CROWN
Once we are committed to training and competing at this level, we can expect the challenges of the Christian life – our spiritual obstacle course, so to speak – to come our way. As Christians, our whole life becomes one long competition. Don’t get me wrong… I do not imply that we are competing against each other as the word is traditionally understood, but rather, as the Apostle reminds us, “against the rulers, against the authorities… against the spiritual forces of evil.” (Eph. 6:12)
Fortunately, we have God the Father as our coach and Jesus as our mentor and inspiration (he really is the undefeated world champion, all-time record holder of godliness, you know!). The Holy Spirit is our trainer and the Holy Mother of God and all the Saints are our devoted fans cheering us on in the stands! What remains for us is to get out onto the track or the balance beam, into the pool or the ring and compete!
St. Paul emphasizes the importance of “running the race” and doing so in a ferocious manner in his first letter to the Corinthians, where he writes the following, “Do you not know that in a race, the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.” (I Cor. 9:24) To this he adds, “Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath [crown], but we an imperishable one.”
Notice once again how beautifully St. Paul draws the analogy between physical and spiritual training by drawing attention to the nature of the awards each one respectively earns. Furthermore, he also acknowledges that merely being trained or being a runner does not suffice. In admonishing the Corinthians to “run in such a way that you may win it,” he reminds them to “get out there and give it their all,” so to speak.
Indeed, the Christian life can be seen as one long spiritual race, at the end of which awaits us not a medal made of valuable elements or a crown weaved from fine laurel branches, but an immaterial crown, a “crown of glory” weaved from the many precious jewels of the trials of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.
Consider the Holy Mother of God Mary (Soorp Asdvadzadzin), whose Dormition/Assumption we celebrate during this season. Mary is the classic example of the spiritual champion. From a young age she was trained for godliness, having been dedicated to the Temple and brought up to lead a life of prayer and service to God. At a very young age still, God chose her to have a part in the salvation of the entire world, by bearing his only-begotten Son. Although I am sure it presented her with much fear and consternation, she did not hesitate to accept her coach’s new training initiative for her – even though I’m sure it seemed like she had been bumped up a few notches in competitive categories!
All kidding aside, Holy Mary is the shining example of spiritual fitness for us because she was called to train and compete spiritually on the highest level, with complete faith and trust in the will of God for her life, earning the admiration and devotion of her son’s followers for generations to come. She endured many hardships, overcoming unthinkable obstacles (imagine watching your son and the Savior of the world die on a cross!) with total godliness, and at the end of her life she was awarded her imperishable crown – her assumption into the Father’s heavenly kingdom and her place of honor therein. The lives of many of the other saints and martyrs throughout history serve as a similar inspiration to us.
LIVE BY THE SPIRIT
Now that we’ve accepted the call to train for godliness and the challenge of “running the race” for our Lord, we must be resigned to the fact that we will not be able to continue seeking after our own physical desires and the comforts of the material world. The transformative power of God’s Spirit is such that once we are trained by Him for the spiritual life of his kingdom, there really is precious little left in the world that we should want to or even be able to give our minds, our faculties, our energies or our desires over to.
If we are intent on strengthening our spiritual lives and truly experiencing the joy and gratification that come from receiving the reward from our heavenly Father, there will no longer be anything made of physical matter that can gratify us in the same way. Sure, we may still enjoy our lives and be aided by our possessions, but they will no longer be the most desirable or important things in our life. In fact, we will begin to see more and more that when we lived only according to the whims and desires of our bodies, we were in mortal danger of becoming ensnared by those desires to live a life of servitude to sin and covetousness. Not so with those who live by the Spirit.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, admonishes them to do the following, “Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.” (Galatians 5:16-17)
The trained spiritual athlete must be a transformed being, with little interest in what the other side of the fence has to offer, much like the Olympic athlete has little to no interest in what’s taking place on the other side of the arena or in an altogether different venue. An athlete must be singularly focused on what the athlete has trained for. He rarely has interest in other sporting activities beyond what he has trained for throughout life. A swimmer is interested in swimming and refines all of his/her talents, skills and resources to be a swimmer and not, for example, to be a mountain bike racer or volleyball player. After the swimmer has spent thousands of hours learning how to make his body the most efficient in the water, practicing timed breathing, shaving time off of dismounts and flip turns and working on body placement (to name a few things), the swimmer will feel at home only in the pool, as opposed to the volleyball court or the bike track. This is not to say that he won’t ever play a friendly game of volleyball at the next family reunion, but he will never come to feel the same in that particular arena.
The same is true with Christians who have honed their skill in seeking after the spiritual gifts of God’s Kingdom – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, righteousness and self-control. Seeking after money, power, prestige, sex, material comforts and other temporary thrills would be distracting at best and detrimental to the spiritual athlete’s entire career at worst. Remember, the swimmer’s place is in the pool; the Christian must stay in the pool.
This brings me to my next point: In his pursuit of the Kingdom promised to him by his Father, Jesus gave up his very body and life in order to become that champion… I assure you, Jesus is staying in the pool.
The Apostle Paul goes a step further and declares that not only Jesus but, “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires!” (Gal. 5:24) How powerful a thing it must be then for him to explain it in those terms! That Jesus, the ultimate champion of the spiritual life, to whom was given the Kingdom itself, through his crucifixion and resurrection can bring such a powerful game as to defeat the very enemy that seemed to defeat him in the first place! After all, it was Jesus who was crucified in the flesh, by entirely ungodly men, and died in his physical body, yet so powerful was his resurrection in the Spirit, that even those who train under him can be declared victorious over that very enemy – the godless “flesh” with its sinful passions and desires. Our great hope in Jesus Christ then is that just as he was crucified in the flesh so that the Spirit would emerge victorious, we who simply belong to him in faith and worship can emerge so similarly victorious as to be able to declare that we are indeed living by the Spirit and that passions and desires of the flesh have been subdued in us. It is a moment to moment struggle, sometimes pushing us to the far reaches and limits of our athletic capacity, but it does strengthen us in the end.
So, today we are reminded again to live “according to the Spirit,” which means to seek the Spirit of God for our lives and order them around our Lord’s commandments and truths, not around our own aspirations and interests, and by doing so we will be able to elude the impending demise that comes from only living for the flesh.
CONCLUSION
Dearly beloved brothers and sisters, while most of us (including myself) will never have a shot at Olympic greatness, all of us today have a shot at achieving greatness through Christ in spiritual training. And while the 2016 Summer Olympic Games wrap up and will soon become a distant memory, the images of athletic greatness and achievement that they have provided us should continue to serve as an inspiration for us in the future. We should keep alive the dream that if we persevere with God, train with him, remain steadfast in our faith in him, and follow the course of our Lord Jesus Christ, we will be equipped to “run the race” in such a way as to win the crown of our Father’s heavenly kingdom.
Then we will be able to lend our voices to our old stalwart athlete, Paul the Apostle, who at the end of his life said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day.” (II Timothy 4:7-8)
O Spiritual Champion, I say again: live by the Spirit. Amen.
The following is a condensed version of a sermon series delivered over three Sundays by Rev. Fr. Stephan Baljian during the weeks of August 7-21. The first two parts were delivered at St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church in North Andover, Massachusetts, where Der Stephan serves as pastor. The last part was delivered at St. Illuminator’s Cathedral where he was the guest preacher for the day. The theme has to do with the 2016 Summer Olympic Games that wrapped up recently in Brazil. In it, Der Stephan explores the analogy between physical and spiritual fitness, the importance of being trained for godliness and of running the spiritual race to receive the crown of the Heavenly Kingdom.
INTRODUCTION
For the past two weeks, as we do once every few years, we have turned our attention to the greatest gathering of international athletes the world has ever known: the Olympic Games. There is an air of awe and majesty that accompanies these games. We marvel at the amazing feats the Olympic athletes accomplish. We are wowed by their physical skills and athletic prowess. We watch in anticipation as they compete on the very highest athletic level and deliver incredible performances, shattering world records and personal bests, giving it their all for the gold – the highest honor they could hope to be graced with – after a lifetime of preparation for those awe-inspiring moments.
It is no secret that as a society we love our sports competitions and, in general, highly value physical fitness and agility, admiring those among us with athletically fit bodies and penchants for exercise and physical activity. Indeed, I would argue that our society places an inordinate amount of importance on the body, to the detriment of that of the soul. In many ways, the human physique has become everything to us, much as it became to the ancient Greeks and Romans.
While this outlook is not anti-Christian per se, it should raise some red flags for us, who value above all the human soul enjoined to the body, the faith and character of the individual and the imprint of God’s Holy Spirit on his/her heart. Without a doubt, the body is certainly important as far as being a blessed creation by God, to house our soul and through Baptism to become the Temple of the Holy Spirit. We are not among those who would denigrate the body for the sake of the soul (as some early Christian heretics did), but rather, according to the Scripture, would call this unique creation of God “good,” something a human being “tenderly nourishes and cares for.” (Ephesians 5:29)
Yet, we must recognize the “order” of importance given to body and soul. First the soul, then the body. This is not to say that caring for or training the body is not important, simply that caring for and training the soul is more important.
In fact, our Church Fathers spoke of the gradual mastery of the mind/heart/soul over the body as part of the discipline of Christian life. Although difficult, a Christian is called upon to strengthen his/her soul through training and “spiritual exercise,” and ultimately to become master over the whims and desires of his/her own body, which (as St. Paul points out) are sometimes completely at odds with those of the soul (more on that later).
Suffice it to say that just as there is a path laid out before each Olympic athlete, contingent upon giving the utmost importance to training in his/her own event, there has to be one for us as well if we are to become spiritual “athletes” and ultimately champions of our Christian faith. And so, I’d like to offer my humble observations on how we must undertake this training if we are to compete in the arena of spiritual life.
TRAIN FOR GODLINESS
I mentioned before that part of the process (the first step, I would assert) is to recognize the primacy of the soul over the body, and realizing the primary importance of this training as something that will be of greater value than any laurels or medals awarded for physical aptitude.
St. Paul, writing in his first letter to Timothy, states the following, “Train yourself in godliness (meaning spirituality). For while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” (I Tim. 4:7-8)
Speaking about athletics here in only one of many occurrences (many scholars believe Paul may have been an athlete himself in his youthful days), the Apostle asserts the importance of approaching the faith with the mind and determination of an athlete, and in this case an athletic discipline whose ultimate prize is more than just a gold medal or a crown of laurels.
I may only speak for myself, but I am drawn to the Olympic Games for two main reasons:
1) As I mentioned before, the incredible amount of skill and athleticism that takes place during those games are truly remarkable, so much so that I find myself wishing (as I assume many of you do) that I could be as physically fit and singularly focused as the athletes.
2) As a Christian, as an Armenian priest and as a human being, I am constantly amazed by how easily and intuitively a powerful metaphor can be concocted between the physical training of an athlete and the spiritual training of a Christian. It practically writes itself (although it was most definitely coined by St. Paul the Apostle in his New Testament writings). Furthermore, the mere premise of this metaphorical connection is enough to remind me of the gargantuan undertaking that this “training for godliness” represents, and how often I myself fall short of key training goals!
After all, Olympic athletes didn’t get to the Olympics in one day. A person can not simply wake up one morning and decide “I think I’ll go compete in the Olympics today.” It takes years and years of training, hard work, determination, honing of skills and making hard decisions about coaching, training methods and time allotted, etc. before even beginning to realize the dream of competing in the Olympics.
It also takes great sacrifice. Throughout the Olympic Games’ television coverage, we are constantly regaled with stories of athletes who have trained from a young age (unable to remember any other lifestyle), forfeiting a “normal” childhood, pursuit of entertainment and other hobbies or time with friends and family.
In actuality, it’s the same way in our spiritual life as well. We can’t expect to become champions of the Christian life in one day, and certainly not if we neglect to put in the requisite training time and exercises.
One must train daily in the exercise of prayer and meditation on the Scripture. Weekly attendance at Sunday Badarak should go without saying, because it affords us both the spiritual nourishment of our Lord’s Body and Blood and the fellowship we need with our fellow athletes. Lastly, and perhaps the most difficult (although to remain persistent in prayer is no easy feat as anyone who has ever tried quickly finds out), we must train for that most gigantic of all feats, putting aside our own desires in order to serve God and others. Whew! Just take a minute and contemplate that last paragraph in its deepest meaning!
These are things that are the metaphorical equivalent of Olympic level athleticism, yet it is for these things we as Christians must train ourselves… and not only train, but be ready to compete for.
RUN THE RACE… RECEIVE THE CROWN
Once we are committed to training and competing at this level, we can expect the challenges of the Christian life – our spiritual obstacle course, so to speak – to come our way. As Christians, our whole life becomes one long competition. Don’t get me wrong… I do not imply that we are competing against each other as the word is traditionally understood, but rather, as the Apostle reminds us, “against the rulers, against the authorities… against the spiritual forces of evil.” (Eph. 6:12)
Fortunately, we have God the Father as our coach and Jesus as our mentor and inspiration (he really is the undefeated world champion, all-time record holder of godliness, you know!). The Holy Spirit is our trainer and the Holy Mother of God and all the Saints are our devoted fans cheering us on in the stands! What remains for us is to get out onto the track or the balance beam, into the pool or the ring and compete!
St. Paul emphasizes the importance of “running the race” and doing so in a ferocious manner in his first letter to the Corinthians, where he writes the following, “Do you not know that in a race, the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.” (I Cor. 9:24) To this he adds, “Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath [crown], but we an imperishable one.”
Notice once again how beautifully St. Paul draws the analogy between physical and spiritual training by drawing attention to the nature of the awards each one respectively earns. Furthermore, he also acknowledges that merely being trained or being a runner does not suffice. In admonishing the Corinthians to “run in such a way that you may win it,” he reminds them to “get out there and give it their all,” so to speak.
Indeed, the Christian life can be seen as one long spiritual race, at the end of which awaits us not a medal made of valuable elements or a crown weaved from fine laurel branches, but an immaterial crown, a “crown of glory” weaved from the many precious jewels of the trials of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.
Consider the Holy Mother of God Mary (Soorp Asdvadzadzin), whose Dormition/Assumption we celebrate during this season. Mary is the classic example of the spiritual champion. From a young age she was trained for godliness, having been dedicated to the Temple and brought up to lead a life of prayer and service to God. At a very young age still, God chose her to have a part in the salvation of the entire world, by bearing his only-begotten Son. Although I am sure it presented her with much fear and consternation, she did not hesitate to accept her coach’s new training initiative for her – even though I’m sure it seemed like she had been bumped up a few notches in competitive categories!
All kidding aside, Holy Mary is the shining example of spiritual fitness for us because she was called to train and compete spiritually on the highest level, with complete faith and trust in the will of God for her life, earning the admiration and devotion of her son’s followers for generations to come. She endured many hardships, overcoming unthinkable obstacles (imagine watching your son and the Savior of the world die on a cross!) with total godliness, and at the end of her life she was awarded her imperishable crown – her assumption into the Father’s heavenly kingdom and her place of honor therein. The lives of many of the other saints and martyrs throughout history serve as a similar inspiration to us.
LIVE BY THE SPIRIT
Now that we’ve accepted the call to train for godliness and the challenge of “running the race” for our Lord, we must be resigned to the fact that we will not be able to continue seeking after our own physical desires and the comforts of the material world. The transformative power of God’s Spirit is such that once we are trained by Him for the spiritual life of his kingdom, there really is precious little left in the world that we should want to or even be able to give our minds, our faculties, our energies or our desires over to.
If we are intent on strengthening our spiritual lives and truly experiencing the joy and gratification that come from receiving the reward from our heavenly Father, there will no longer be anything made of physical matter that can gratify us in the same way. Sure, we may still enjoy our lives and be aided by our possessions, but they will no longer be the most desirable or important things in our life. In fact, we will begin to see more and more that when we lived only according to the whims and desires of our bodies, we were in mortal danger of becoming ensnared by those desires to live a life of servitude to sin and covetousness. Not so with those who live by the Spirit.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, admonishes them to do the following, “Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.” (Galatians 5:16-17)
The trained spiritual athlete must be a transformed being, with little interest in what the other side of the fence has to offer, much like the Olympic athlete has little to no interest in what’s taking place on the other side of the arena or in an altogether different venue. An athlete must be singularly focused on what the athlete has trained for. He rarely has interest in other sporting activities beyond what he has trained for throughout life. A swimmer is interested in swimming and refines all of his/her talents, skills and resources to be a swimmer and not, for example, to be a mountain bike racer or volleyball player. After the swimmer has spent thousands of hours learning how to make his body the most efficient in the water, practicing timed breathing, shaving time off of dismounts and flip turns and working on body placement (to name a few things), the swimmer will feel at home only in the pool, as opposed to the volleyball court or the bike track. This is not to say that he won’t ever play a friendly game of volleyball at the next family reunion, but he will never come to feel the same in that particular arena.
The same is true with Christians who have honed their skill in seeking after the spiritual gifts of God’s Kingdom – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, righteousness and self-control. Seeking after money, power, prestige, sex, material comforts and other temporary thrills would be distracting at best and detrimental to the spiritual athlete’s entire career at worst. Remember, the swimmer’s place is in the pool; the Christian must stay in the pool.
This brings me to my next point: In his pursuit of the Kingdom promised to him by his Father, Jesus gave up his very body and life in order to become that champion… I assure you, Jesus is staying in the pool.
The Apostle Paul goes a step further and declares that not only Jesus but, “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires!” (Gal. 5:24) How powerful a thing it must be then for him to explain it in those terms! That Jesus, the ultimate champion of the spiritual life, to whom was given the Kingdom itself, through his crucifixion and resurrection can bring such a powerful game as to defeat the very enemy that seemed to defeat him in the first place! After all, it was Jesus who was crucified in the flesh, by entirely ungodly men, and died in his physical body, yet so powerful was his resurrection in the Spirit, that even those who train under him can be declared victorious over that very enemy – the godless “flesh” with its sinful passions and desires. Our great hope in Jesus Christ then is that just as he was crucified in the flesh so that the Spirit would emerge victorious, we who simply belong to him in faith and worship can emerge so similarly victorious as to be able to declare that we are indeed living by the Spirit and that passions and desires of the flesh have been subdued in us. It is a moment to moment struggle, sometimes pushing us to the far reaches and limits of our athletic capacity, but it does strengthen us in the end.
So, today we are reminded again to live “according to the Spirit,” which means to seek the Spirit of God for our lives and order them around our Lord’s commandments and truths, not around our own aspirations and interests, and by doing so we will be able to elude the impending demise that comes from only living for the flesh.
CONCLUSION
Dearly beloved brothers and sisters, while most of us (including myself) will never have a shot at Olympic greatness, all of us today have a shot at achieving greatness through Christ in spiritual training. And while the 2016 Summer Olympic Games wrap up and will soon become a distant memory, the images of athletic greatness and achievement that they have provided us should continue to serve as an inspiration for us in the future. We should keep alive the dream that if we persevere with God, train with him, remain steadfast in our faith in him, and follow the course of our Lord Jesus Christ, we will be equipped to “run the race” in such a way as to win the crown of our Father’s heavenly kingdom.
Then we will be able to lend our voices to our old stalwart athlete, Paul the Apostle, who at the end of his life said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day.” (II Timothy 4:7-8)
O Spiritual Champion, I say again: live by the Spirit. Amen.