In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of having a purpose in life and living with earnestness and seriousness. He highlights the need for concentration of effort in order to achieve this purpose and encourages listeners to make a conscious decision to pursue it. The speaker also emphasizes that life is not meant to be aimless or routine, but rather a serious journey with a specific direction. He uses the metaphor of a running track to illustrate that the world is moving away from God, and urges listeners to align their lives with God's purpose.

In reading the New Testament, and particularly the letters of the Apostle Paul, I'm sure you have noticed how very often he makes use of language and metaphors from the athletic field in order to indicate something of the seriousness of the Christian life. There are quite a number of passages in which the Apostle does this, and indeed there are other writers in the New Testament likewise who do the same thing. I want to take two of these this morning, the one more as a background and suggesting the main title of our message, One Thing I Do, and the other perhaps enunciating the principles underlying that title and underlying the thought of the Apostle when he said concerning himself, One Thing I Do, against the background of the games as we shall see. So I would like to read first of all from Philippians chapter 3, verses 12, 13, and 14. Not that I have already obtained all this, says the Apostle, having spoken about the maturity and the mature aspect of Christian life, not that I have already obtained this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Now that is one, and the second we have already heard in our reading this morning, but I want again to read the relevant verses. In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verses 24 to 27, Do you not know, asks the Apostle, that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we, we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly. I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave. So that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. This language does not simply imply the exclusion of other alternative goals for living. One thing I do. It also and very particularly implies the harnessing of all the faculties of the soul. All the limbs and members of the body, all the powers innate in mind, spirit and body and soul. It involves the harnessing of everything together and the mobilizing of all our possessions as well as our persons to do one thing. So that there is no dissipation of effort, no division within ourselves, so that with our hands we do one thing, with our lips we do another, with our possessions we use them for one end whilst we sing the glory of God on the other hand. Everything is harnessed and everything is used, everything is mobilized to one, one solitary end. Paul's own being was entirely dedicated to the achievement of one thing. Now you might well be tempted to think that that is narrow-mindedness. Well, not really. Because he brought the whole universe of his life, the gigantic abilities and gifts and powers that God had given him from every area and used them to the one end for which life had been given him, for which he had been not only created but redeemed. And in so doing he became a man who was capable of bringing blessing to Jew and Gentile, to rich and poor, to cultured and illiterate, to men and women of his own day, and let it be heard down through the centuries of time to this very day. If by that you mean narrow-mindedness, God give it me, God give it you. If two thousand years from this morning men and women will bless your name and mine for our contribution by the grace of God, then let us be called narrow-minded in our day. Taking Paul's affirmation in Philippians 3.13 then as our subject, I want to illustrate some of the principles that are involved in living life as the apostle lived it. This one thing I do. For this he lived. For this he taught. For this he died. And for this we bless God on his account today. Three things very simply, three things I want to focus on this morning. I think they challenge us at the beginning of a new year. At any rate, let me confess that they challenge me. And I cannot look at these passages and miss the note of earnestness, the note of appeal, the sense of seriousness here. And I trust that something of that will come through to all of us and bring us alongside of the apostle to be prepared to abandon things that are unnecessary and to harness all the energies of our souls and of our lives to this one thing for which God first created us and then in Christ made us anew. Now the first thing is this. The apostle is aware of the fact that there is a purpose to achieve in life. There is a purpose to achieve. Now you and I have heard this many times before. I'm sure all of us have faced the challenge of it. But let's look into the face of it again on this first Sunday morning of a new year. Brothers and sisters, you and I are not here to go around in circles. You and I were not made just to go on sauntering through life. Neither have we been kept for it. Neither were we redeemed by blood for that purpose. God has a purpose for you and for me. And I suggest to you that the overriding question for every honest Christian today is am I involved in the fulfillment of God's plan and purpose for my life? My main concern should be not whether I'm having a good time, not whether I am happy or sad. Now that may be terribly hard to hear. It is equally hard to say. But my main concern should be whether I am fulfilling the purpose that the Creator had for me and the Savior had for me when he brought me up out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, set my feet upon the rock. And according to principle, establish my going. You see, life is not meant to be an aimless dawdle, a sauntering through quietly, calmly, just having a good old time. It has a serious element to it. Neither is it meant to be a merry-go-round in which we simply pass through a series of routine experiences or activities always coming back to the same point. In the graphic language of the Apostle Paul, used in a number of places, whether we like it or not, when we were born, we were born on to what he speaks of as a course, a running course, a running track. Now there may be a mixture of metaphors here, but this is it. He tells the Ephesians, categorically, that they were born on to the course of this world, the track of this world. You see, there is a track. This whole world is moving in a certain direction, whether we realize it or not. This whole universe is moving away from God. It is moving in a direction of godlessness, toward chaos, toward disaster. That's the biblical understanding. And says Paul, we came into this world, we were born on that course, we were moving with the world, and the power of Satan had his rule over us and his reign over us, and believe it or not, he says, we were born dead, spiritually, not physically, of course. And like dead people, we are moving with the tide, and we're going with the crowd, and we're on the course of this world. Now the Christian life begins by changing courses. We're summoned to halt, and to repent, and to turn around, and to change sides. And this is the gigantic decision of life. It's to change courses. It's to move from the course of this world, and to begin to walk what the New Testament says, the way. Jesus said, I am the way. And in Acts chapter 9 and in other places, Christian people in New Testament days were called, sometimes, the people of the way, you see. They've come off the course of this world, they've turned right around, they've moved on to another, and they're moving in the opposite direction, they're the people of the way. Now, are you on that course? This is how, you see, the apostle uses the image of a race as indicative of the Christian life. We have left the course of this world, we've come on to the race that God had prepared for us. But now the sad thing is this, you see. Even when we get on the course that God has ordained for us, and we've joined the people of the way, and we're moving in the right direction, we can quarrel among ourselves, and we can get caught up with stupid little things on the way, rather than run the race that is set before us. And each one of us can make little things our idols, and even ourselves, even when we're on the course, even when we're facing the right direction. And so we've lost the sense of seriousness that the New Testament has to life. Oh, there is joy in the New Testament. You don't need me to repeat that, and I'm not meaning to deny that. But you do not have Christian joy until you take things seriously in the first place. Any joy you have when you don't take the calling of the New Testament seriously is not the joy of the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit's joy is always a joy in fulfilling the will of God, never in anything else. And there is much joy to be had today just in doing our own thing. That's the only joy that some people have. They say, oh, I'm doing my own thing. And they jig and they sing and they talk about it. But the New Testament joy, the joy of the Holy Spirit, is quite different from that. Not I, but Christ. Though all Christians are thus placed on this course by virtue of their calling and of their redemption and of the work of the Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters, it is possible for us to saunter and to dawdle and to move with a snail's pace. Though we say we are fleeing from the wrath to come and we say we are going to a heaven that is blessed, and yet we move like snails, neither eager to get away from hell, nor to go into heaven. And you see, it contradicts everything we believe. Or we say we believe. This kind of thing happened to a number of churches in the New Testament. And it certainly happened to a number of individuals. Oh, they're on the right road. They're moving with the people of the way. They're moving in the right direction. But their pace was slackened. Paul, writing to the Galatians, for example, poignantly, painfully asked them, who, he says, has bewitched you? You were running so well, he says. Who's bewitched you? Somebody's cast an evil eye on you. You know the picture is of people running on a racetrack. And there's somebody on the side of the racetrack who's doing something to catch their attention. And the runner looks at the person on the side. He gets all wrapped up and he forgets where he's going. And he stumbles and he falls. Who's bewitched you? He says. Are you a bewitched saint? Have you been caught by something on the sidetrack? And you're stumbling and you've never been able to get over it. And life thereafter is like a wounded animal trying to run. Never healed. The Christian life may be legitimately described under the image of a race. The Christian life is a race which we should run with a set purpose, says Paul, of winning the prize. Now, in the Greek games, which serve as a background to these four-line passages, as in our games and in the Olympics and any others, it's generally only one person who wins the prize. Of course, that's a truism. Unless, of course, two people may come in and press the tape simultaneously. Well, they share it. That's a rarity. So, generally speaking, unless it's a team effort, one person wins the prize. But now, says Paul, to all the saints, all of you run, he says, but all of you may win. You say, that doesn't make sense to me. Well, no, no, because we're dealing with eternal dimensions, you see. And this is not in accordance with the principles of the games that we have down here. But the marvelous thing about our Christian life is this. The fact that you win doesn't rob me of anything. I can also win. As a matter of fact, if you win, you help me to win. You know, the people that hinder me in my life, they're the people that are not going to win. And the people that are hindering you in your Christian testimony are men and women that are not going to win. They're dawdling. They're wandering. They've lost heart. They've lost the vision or something. And because of that, they're slowing down. And they're influencing you, you see. But the people that are going out to win, they're the people that influence us. And you see, God's prize is so big. It's so large. It's so infinite. It's so eternal. It's so much like himself. But the fact that you win the prize doesn't mean to say that I'm robbed of anything. On the contrary, there is a sense in which one without the other cannot obtain the fullness of the prize. For we are all one body in our Lord Jesus Christ and we shall be glorified together. Now, what is this prize? Well, we've indicated already, but let me just say a word here. Preaching the gospel to sinners, to unbelievers, we say, the most wonderful thing in the world is eternal life. The gift of eternal life. Isn't that so? Sunday school teachers, this is what you tell your scholars. I trust. Men and women who witness on the roadside or in the bus or wherever, this is what you tell people. The most precious thing in this world is the gift of God, eternal life possessed, because he gives it to those who receive it. Here and now, there's nothing to be compared with it. Riches, honors, pleasures, there is nothing to compare with it. But when the New Testament preaches the gospel to saints, it equally insists that the least, the least treasure that a believer has is eternal life. Yeah, I haven't made a mistake, that's what I meant to say. I see you're a bit stupefied. The least you've got, believer, is eternal life. You say, what can be greater than eternal life? I'll tell you. Life in all its vigor. Eternal life manifesting itself in my body, in all its fullness, in all its power, in all its glory, in all its greatness, in all its dimensions, taking the mind, taking the intellect, taking the conscience, taking the will, taking the emotions, taking the members of the body, taking the time I live, taking my possessions, mobilizing everything, so that I'm using everything to the glory of God, and God is glorified in me. That's the prize. It's to hear Him say at last, well done, good and faithful servant, you enter into the joys of your Lord. Now that's a dimension of joy the man of the world will never know. The Lord is joyed in you as He sees you bringing honor and glory to Him, fulfilling the purpose of your creation and redemption. Now you come and share the joy of your Lord. That's the prize. There's nothing greater than this. Let me hurry to the next thing. If we are aiming at that, then there is a principle to adopt. The Revised Standard Version, in translating this verse, puts it like this, and I rather like it. So run that you may obtain. And it puts all the emphasis on that little word, so. The NIV puts it, run in such a way as to get the prize. Well, that's all right. It says what needs to be said, but I don't think it's as pungent. So run, says the Revised Standard Version, so run that you may obtain. And at any rate, it gets me. You should run in such a way that you get the prize. Now, what kind of running is this running? This so running that we get the prize. May I say three things about it very briefly? You're allowed to fill in the gaps this morning. In the first place, there must be concentration of effort. In order to live according to this overriding goal and motive, there must be concentration of effort. You must decide to. You must will to do it. And you must continue to will to do it. If you just go with the crowd, you'll not live like this. You'll not die like this. If you are more attuned to people than you are to God and His will, then you'll not walk this way. You'll not run this race like this. To run the race like this, you see, there has to be concentration of effort. It will require an act of unqualified dedication to begin with. And it will need constant acts of rededication afterwards. A Christian who means to fit, to keep fit spiritually and to keep going spiritually, in order to achieve the highest glory, will require no less discipline than a sportsman. Everything will have to be considered in the light of this. Now, go back to the sporting world. You're a runner or you're whatever. Doesn't really matter for the moment. If you're going out for the Olympics, you look at everything, and this is the test. Does it help or does it hinder? What you dress. Perhaps I shouldn't start there. You know, there's no harm in wearing an overcoat in a hundred-yard sprint. There's no rule against it, I'm told. And you could go in for a hundred-yard sprint and have two overcoats on. You couldn't be disqualified, I don't think. But it wouldn't be convenient. And it would be pretty evident that you're not out to win. Even down to what you wear, in order to achieve the end in mind, the end in view. What you eat. What you drink. When you go to bed and when you get up. The company you keep. The habits you form. Everything, everything is important. Nothing is unimportant. And you weigh them all. This is the first test. Do they hinder or do they help? One first, then the other. But both must be considered. And so, all your life is considered in this one, in the light of this one issue. Does it help, does it hinder? If it helps, right, I must undertake it. It may be costly. I may not be used to getting up in the early hours. I may want to eat more than is good for me. There are many things that perhaps the old nature in me would love to do or to have. But because I mean to win, I must deny it. And that's my second point. Not only must there be concentration of effort, there must be the crucifixion of the self. And here's another, here's another area that is not always easy to face. But you see, there is still in you and in me that old nature which longs to have it easy. Someone wrote a book in England a few years ago on the cult of softness. I gather that someone in the United States has written a book on this age of softness. Are you soft with yourself? You see, the opposite of that we have here in the experience of the Apostle Paul. He says, this is a battle for me. He moves now from the running, he mixes his metaphors, and he comes to the boxing field. And he says, I'm fighting. He says, I have to fight with my body. My body and its passions, they rage for attention. And they want this and they want that. My bodily desires, not that the body is wrong, but the body, we are fallen. And we can't give the body everything it wants. The instincts and the emotions can't have everything they want, when they want it and how they want it. Now says Paul, I'm not beating the air. Now, I don't think anybody misses that metaphor. Sometimes a boxer in training, of course, is only shadow boxing, you know, hitting the air. But he doesn't deal with any foe. He doesn't climb the ladder by beating the air. Now it may be decent exercise for a boxer. Go through it a couple of times a week. Spend 10 minutes, 20 minutes on each occasion, fighting the air. But says Paul, I have to concentrate on my real enemy. And my real enemy is the body. Not that the body is evil, but the body has become the occasion for sin. And so he says, I beat it. Now, he doesn't mean that literally, of course. But I subject it, and he uses, one of the translations says, I beat it black and blue. What he means is this, I subject my physical being to my spiritual welfare, and doing what God has called me to do. Brothers and sisters, do we know anything of that? The crucifixion of the self. Is there a cross in your experience? Have you dispensed with a cross in what you call Christian experience? The cross was central in the ministry of our Lord, and the cross is central in the ministry of the gospel, and the cross becomes a principle in the experience of the saint. And you can't dispense with it without losing something invaluable on the way. Concentration of effort, crucifixion of self, and of course, the completion of the course. You don't get the prize at the beginning, the prize is given at the end. You don't breast the tape at the beginning, but at the end. And in order, you see, to win the prize, we've got to exercise this concentrated effort. And we must go on like that. And we must be prepared to count all things but, Paul says it, done. Refuse. For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things, and count them but refuse. Last thing I want to say, just a word about is, there is a peril to avoid. It's a sobering note. So that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. Disqualified for the prize? Paul enjoyed a very wholesome certainty concerning his soul's salvation. You'll notice that. He begins to write the great epistle to the Romans, and he starts off on this marvelously triumphant note. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God unto salvation, right into and unto salvation. Not a power to reveal that there is salvation, but it's the power of God that brings us into it, as well as it into us, if we may so speak. It's the power of God that brings us into the experience of being saved by God. You move on through the epistle to the Romans, for example, and over and over again you have this note of certainty from Paul. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we've already received the reconciliation, and he goes on in chapter 5. You'll read it. He's full of this certainty. Indeed, the classical theme, against the background of which he expounds the good news, the theme of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, involves an act of the judge, whereby he passes sentence once and for all, and when the sentence is given, he does not change it. God doesn't change his mind. And when a person is justified, he's justified for all forever. You see, God knows all your future when he deals with you in the past, or when he dealt with you in the past. He knew all your future. And when he justifies a sinner on the basis of the blood of his son, he does something that he does not need to consider again. It is finished and done with. So you see, involved in Paul's doctrine of justification is the assurance that God will not change his mind. And when you come to Romans 8, of course, he's full of the same great certainty again at the beginning of the chapter, and at the end of the chapter. I've no time now to go through it. Just you read it. It's music to our souls if we are yearning for assurance. You read it there. But now, my friends, the great apostle Paul also had an uncertainty about something. Lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified from the prize. Now, I find this a missing note in evangelicalism. And I believe it is largely because we are not theologically astute enough to see that we can have both and. And we should have both and, as the apostle did. There is a certainty that the apostle had concerning his ultimate salvation. Nevertheless, he was not sure about winning the prize. And it kept him humble. The kind of assurance that we all too often have makes us proud, arrogant, priggish sometimes. But the kind of assurance that Paul had was, you see, it was balanced by this. He was uncertain of the prize. Lest that having preached to others, I myself be disqualified from the prize. He kept him humble. And if I understand my own soul, I need something to keep me humble. Don't you? The great apostle then, sure as he was of his ultimate destiny by the grace of God, experienced in his soul this uncertainty of winning the prize. Perhaps the fear he expresses here is also to be understood, or perhaps it's to be wholly understood, in terms of another usage from the games. Paul uses the word keroux for herald. He used it of himself as a preacher of the gospel. There was a keroux in the games. And his job was to get all the competitors lined up. And then he would read the rules and regulations to them. And he would tell them all the details, go through all the rules and regulations, right at the beginning, so that every competitor knew when to start, what was the sign, the off, and so forth. He needed to know everything before he started. And the keroux, the herald, told him that. It wasn't called herald by the Greeks, but it was called keroux. They translated it slightly differently from us. Anyway, what Paul is saying here is this. Imagine me, he says, the one moment I'm the keroux, and I've been telling all the competitors what to do to get on the race, and how to run the race. And then he says, I get on the race myself, and I am disqualified, who's been telling them all the rules. And I don't get the prize. They get the prize, and I don't. Now, my friends, the New Testament and the Old Testament has a number of illustrations of men and women that had to be disqualified from the prize. Oh, they were facing in the right direction, all right. They were on, to use our New Testament language, they were on the track. They were involved in the race, they were moving in the right way, they were God's people, they were called, but they did not get the prize. You say, who were they? Well, if I were to start, I'm not quite sure, I'd probably start with Moses. The great Moses, you say? Yes, Moses. Did you know that Moses was prohibited from entering the promised land? Moses? Moses was a gigantic man. Moses was the lawgiver. Yes, yes. But God had to say to the great Moses, Moses, he says, I'm not going to allow you to go into the promised land. Come up onto Mount Nebo, and you shall see the land from a distance that I'm not going to let you go in. Now, let me give you the Scriptures. I'm reading from Deuteronomy 32, verses 48 to 52. I'm just culling out the relevant words. Because, says God to Moses, you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, and did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites. You will die this side of the land. Now, Moses did not lose his salvation, but he lost his prize. Moses was on the Mount of Transfiguration in conference with our blessed Lord Jesus and Elijah. Moses did not lose his salvation, but he lost something, men and women. And you and I can lose something too. And I think of that very sad man in the Old Testament, Eli, an Old Testament priest. And we're told that at certain periods of his life, he ordered himself magnificently. But then he had some boys, and he was too soft with them. And he allowed them to do things which desecrated the sanctuary and dishonored his God. And the Lord said, Eli, your time has come to an end. I've got to get someone to take over from you. And the boy Samuel was given to his praying mother, who was incapable of bearing a child. And the boy Samuel was sent by God to take over from the old man, and he did. I mean to say his soul was lost, but he lost something. Come into the, come later on, you have the great, the classical illustration, perhaps, of Samson. You read the story in Judges 16.20. Dear old Samson lost his eyes, his eyes gouged out. He's lost his power. He's lost almost everything. And here is the laughing stock of the Philistines. Not quite, because his hair began to grow again, and the Lord had not forsaken him completely. And he prayed at the very end of his life, and God heard his prayer and answered it. He lost something. Certainly he'd lost the opportunity of serving his God faithfully in this life. And perhaps even more classical, if that's the right word, was King Saul, who died because, I quote from 1 Chronicles chapter 10, he was unfaithful to the Lord. He did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance and did not inquire of the Lord. So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse. You see what's happening? God says to the man, look man, you've got to clear out. You've got to get off the stage. You're not doing my will. I'll bring a man onto the stage of life who will do my will. You've got to get off. My friends, there's nothing more terrible than this for a saint. If you're not a Christian, then it doesn't terrify you. But if you've first known love for God in your soul and the desire to please him, this is terrifying. The apostle says, I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. One thing I do. Brother, sister, believer, God does not kindly take to men who rob him of what he's created and redeemed. You will lose the prize. I don't know whether you are familiar, and with this I close, with the old Jewish tale of the vulture in the sacrifice. I don't know whether it's apocryphal, whether it was true or not, I can't tell you. But so it goes. In the days of the Old Testament when the tabernacle was erected, a vulture was seen hovering in the sky and down it came. And lo and behold, where should it go to but on to the very altar where a sacrifice was being burnt for the Lord. And this vulture got its talons right into the sacrifice. And after some squawking and squabbling as it were, it left with a whole chunk of the meat of the sacrifice between its talons and its legs. And it flew up into the sky. And people watched it of course. But suddenly something unexpected happened. They heard an awful squealing and they saw something dropping and it was the meat dropping out. And then suddenly they saw the bird itself coming down as it were in a dive-bombing attack upon the earth and died. People went to see what had happened. And when they examined it, they discovered that when it stole the meat from the altar, a little call was also on the altar. A little call got lodged in its feathers under its wing. And it began to burn and burn and burn. And it burned so much, it had to leave go that which it had stolen and it lost its life. You and I stand at the beginning of this year of grace, 1985. Brothers and sisters, let us not rob God of what is His. Rather let us see the altar of the cross before us with our eyes closed this morning and place upon it afresh all that we are and all that we have and all that we hope to be and lay it there and give it over, hand it over and count it our joy, our honor, our crown. So to do and to live that out by the grace of God through another year. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may know, yes, undo the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we bow before your throne and your word and indeed before the elements that remind us of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is in the glare of this atmosphere and of this background that we look at ourselves at the beginning of a new year. Some of us are very much aware of the enticements of the flesh and of the power of Satan. Maybe others of us are not quite as aware of it and yet we know that it is so even when we are not daily involved in such gigantic trials as some of our brothers and sisters. Father, we desire to please you. It would be our most precious crown to hear you say to us at last, come you blessed of my father. Enter into the joys of your Lord, the joys prepared from before the foundation of the world. Oh God, grant us your grace now in that you have come into covenant with us. Help us to respond and to live as men in covenant with you. Help us afresh. Help us anew today to take up the cross and follow after him who died our redemption to accomplish, our salvation to procure. Forgive our sins, have mercy upon us, and renew in us your grace.