Heb. 12:1-2; 2 Tim. 4:1-8, We are in a race! (2)

Today, let’s survey the uses of the Greek term agown (race or contest) and it’s cognates in the NT.

·       Epaphras and the race, Col. 4:12.  This brother and bondservant of Christ “labored fervently” for his brothers in Christ as he prayed for them.  Think about that, and I’m speaking to myself!  Where is this kind of praying.  Epaphras, in this regard, was like his Lord, Jesus Christ (Heb. 5:7).

·       Paul and the race.

o   Phil. 1:29-30: Paul was encouraging the Philippian believers as they were experiencing affliction for the sake of Christ.  Paul told them they had the same “conflict” that they had seen in him and that he was presently experiencing in a prison in Rome.  When the way is hard don’t complain; remember that we are in an agown, a contest, not a party.

o   Col. 2:1: Paul also had a great “conflict” for the Colossian believers, and the Laodicean believers, and even for people who had never seen him.  Ministry is part of the conflict.  Teaching a Sunday School class, a Bible study, or one-on-one discipleship is part of the conflict.  Satan hates those things.  He doesn’t want to see people established in the faith.  Be suspicious if you are finding it to be a “piece of cake.”

o   1 Thess. 2:2: Paul preached in Thessalonica with “agown.”  Go back and read the account in Acts 17:1-9.  They were opposed by a mob of evil men.  If you call it quits when there is opposition to your service for Christ you are not going to win the race.

o   Col. 1:28-29: These verses come immediately before 2:1 above.  But it says something about the entirety of Paul’s ministry. He did not just work to teach and preach; he taught and preached with agown so as to present every man perfect.  The key was that through the filling of the Spirit and in fervent prayers he was working by the grace of God that worked in him.

o   2 Tim. 4:7: At the time of his death Paul could say, “I have agowna (fought) the good agownizomai (fight); I have finished the race.”  Remember that there is a course laid out before us; this is the race we run.  At death we have finished the course in the sense that we can do no more running or fighting.  The question is, will we have completed the course?  Paul did, because when he was warned that there would be trouble if he followed the Lord’s leading on his course, Paul’s attitude was this: “None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

Ron!  You are in a race, on the course the Lord laid out for you.  “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it” (Col. 4:17).