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Let’s shift now from the question of focus to the question of desire by going to I Corinthians 9:24. Paul, who seems as fond of athletic imagery as he is of war imagery here centers on running and boxing.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, Lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Now, let me see if I can flesh out this example of the runner. Paul tells us that whoever competes for a prize must be temperate in all things, just as he tells us in II Timothy 2:3,4 that the good soldier of Jesus Christ does not, “[entangle] himself with the affairs of this life.” Being a soldier and being an athlete both require significant levels of self-denial, in the present, to achieve great reward in the future. As such, when I feel exhausted and have little desire to get up and spend time in the Word, the Bible must then compete with the bed in the same way that the 21st mile of a marathon must compete with the desire to quit. Though I have never run a marathon, I can imagine that there are plenty of times along the way, where quitting the race seems a lot more appealing than finishing it. What is it, then, in that moment, that pushes the marathoner on? Is it delight or duty? I would argue that it is determination to get the delight, the greater delight, which pushes him at that moment past the lesser delight of quitting. They sacrifice the small, though immediate, pleasure of quitting for the greater, and lasting, pleasure of finishing. So too, there are many times when fighting the good fight of faith can only compete with the promise of immediate rest in the long run of expected reward. Let us not forget, after all, that we are competing for a crown, and crown’s go to those who finish the race!

Before I move to the final point of my analysis, I must here pause and try to give some practical direction to this charge of “Get in the game!” Such commendation has a nice ring to it, but what does it mean in the context of the Christian life? Here is my council, to me first and also to you. Overextend yourself for the kingdom of God. Bite off way more than you can chew. Until we come to the end of our own abilities, we will never experience the desperation necessary to drive us to our knees in any meaningful way. If we live a “small” and manageable Christian lives, avoiding all the extremes, we will likely be able to survive in our own strength and won’t have to trouble with anything like getting up in the morning to wrestle in prayer with the King. However, if we place ourselves in situations which put us in over our heads, we will, by necessity, be driven into constant and focused fellowship with the only One who can satisfy our souls. If we don’t delight in prayer, if our mind cannot focus on He who is an ever-present help in time of despair (Psalm 46:1), then we are obviously risking way too little for the kingdom of God. If we want to get into the game, we need to get in over our heads.

III. I confuse my present life in the world with my future life in heaven.

Finally, it occurred to me that one of the reasons I’m not always in the game is because I don’t want to suffer the price that such involvement requires. I want to enjoy the fruits of heaven while I’m still living on earth, but that, of course, is not what I’m here for.

The reward, or the satisfaction of salvation, is not primarily immediate. It is a long-term dividend that may never pay out until the life to come. That is precisely why Paul speaks of the Christian life as wrestling and running and making war. Such endeavors are painful and exhausting while they last. If there were no finish line, no rest, no relief, such pursuits would be futile and foolish. My problem is that despite all my talk, I am forever looking to the immediate yield, and the satisfaction offered in pursuing the Lord (as we saw above) can rarely compete with the satisfaction offered by the things of the world, if you look only to their immediate yield.

When my alarm goes off in the morning, and my heart longs to stay in bed, sleep is more appealing to me at that moment than the Lord. Therefore, I am in danger of either not getting out of bed at all, or getting out of bed for all the wrong reasons (for duty rather than delight). However, if I would just consider the long-term return rather than the immediate yield, my desires would be right every time. The question comes back to this, am I trying to be satisfied now for a little while or satisfied later for all eternity? If we want an easy life now, we shouldn’t be Christians. Eat, drink, be normal, get lots of rest, don’t take any risks. Don’t worry about prayer or study or making war. Rest now and perish later. But, if we’d rather sacrifice leisure in the here and now for an eternity of perfect peace and rest, we must learn to look long.

It struck me a couple of years ago that heaven is described in the Bible as a place of rest. “Enter into my rest,” we hear in Hebrews chapter four. By implication, then, we should be wearing ourselves out in this life, in preparation for the rest that is promised. Our rest is to come in eternity, not now. And if I waste my life in perennial rest, then what do I have to look forward to in heaven? Rest is not much appeal to a rested man, is it? But oh how appealing is rest to one who is spent and worn out! Do we sleep better at night after a day of lounging in front of the TV or after a day of activity and work and toil? The rest is coming, but not now, so let’s not begrudge God if we have to wait for it.

So long as we’re talking about rest, let me tell you a story about Jon Gruden. Jon Gruden is the football coach of the Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the youngest coach in the NFL, and ever since he took his first coaching job as a graduate assistant at the University of Tennessee, he has made it a practice to be in his office before five o’clock every morning. He gets up, in fact, at 3:17 each day, and works often till nine, ten or eleven o’clock at night. Is that not amazing? I read an interview with Coach Gruden in an American Airlines magazine article last year that blew me away. I tried to find the original quote so I could get it just right, but I couldn’t track it down. Here it is in paraphrase:

Too many people are living life without purpose or passion. I live every day to the fullest, knowing it could be my last. Life is too short to not pursue your passion with everything you’ve got.

Were that I had the passion for the kingdom that Jon Gruden has for football. And you know the saddest thing for Jon? He’s already won the Super Bowl, thirty-nine years old and he’s already attained to the highest calling of his life. And it’s vanity. Now what? He’s poured out everything in pursuit of this one thing, and now he has it, and it won’t satisfy. It’s utterly and completely meaningless, and he’ll know it soon enough, if not already. And yet he’s pouring his life out at 3:17 in the morning for nothing, while I’m still in bed, too tired to pursue the only thing in life which isn’t vanity. How’s that for a wake-up call? Each time I fight to get out of bed, I can think of Jon Gruden, sitting in his office, watching his tapes, diagraming his plays, disciplined and devoted, willing to sacrifice to achieve his goals. He may stand on the sideline, but his head is in the game. I pray that Jon Gruden will one day get his head in the real game. In the meantime, he competes for a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown, so let’s get in the game!

In closing, I want to remind each of us, that there will come a day, for we who are united to Christ, when the alarm clock will sound no more, when the battles will all be over, and when competing desires will cease forever! But do not expect such things now. We are not home yet, so let’s not try and live like we are. If we don’t prepare to meet the enemy, then we’re not going to make it. I mean, what did Jesus warn Peter? “Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation,” he says in Mark 14:38. Peter failed and fell. Christ restored him, but there was another disciple who failed and fell, and his torment continues to this day. The stakes are high.

At the end of the day, we should be motivated both by love and desperation, and that in large measure, will be our focus for the next two Sundays...love that God has rescued us from warring against him to warring with him (rescuing us from death to life), and desperation at the knowledge that there is a world, a flesh and a devil trying to destroy us. Therefore, let us resolve to forsake excess amounts of leisure in the present, so we can spend more time in the game, so we’ll better realize that the stakes are high. If those three things are true in our lives, how can we not delight to spend time with the Lord in prayer and how could we not afford to give him all our attention?

Let’s pray.