August 11, 2024
Good morning! And welcome to Harding Street Church of Christ! We are so glad you can take time out of your busy life to join us for worship today! The past couple weeks, everywhere you looked all you could see were the Olympics. You see who won yesterday, who is competing today, who is ahead in medals for today, and everything else to do with the Olympics. If you enjoy sports, this has been a great couple weeks for you. If you don’t care about sports, you can be happy that today, August 11th, is the last day of the Olympics and we can finally start going back to our normal lives. I personally kept up with medal counts, but didn’t watch any of the events. But, I did watch some of the highlights from the track events. There were some athletes that you knew would win, and some athletes that shocked the world to win as the underdog. The one that stood out to me was the men’s 1500m race. Two men were viewed to win it all, and it was truly only a battle between them. It was a runner from Great Britain, and a runner from Norway who had a bitter rivalry and were seen as the favorites to win the race. The race started, and some stayed back keeping pace, some tried to move past other runners, and the two favorites climbed quickly to the front and set the pace for everyone else. As the race went on, some fell back losing steam, some kept their pace, and others still tried to push themselves ahead of other runners. Then, in the final stretch, a runner from the USA, Cole Hocker, Gave a final strong push and ended up winning the gold and setting a new Olympic record for the 1500m race. The two favorites ended up in second and fourth place, with another United States athlete, Yared Nuguse taking third place.
When watching this race, I was reminded of Hebrews 12:1 which tells us to leave behind every weight and run the race set before us. To ignore the temptations of this world and run the race that leads us to eternal life in the end. Many times in life, people will show off themselves like they are strong christians, like they are the favorites to make it to Heaven. They will say they know they are making it to Heaven, people around them will look up to them as model christians. They start off strong, setting the pace for others to follow. While others will just be following, figuring things out, trying to keep up with those around them. But in the end, those who are leading the charge, running the race, will run out of steam and be passed by those who no one expected to show up. Let us first make sure we are running the race set before us, make sure we are on the path that leads to eternal life. Then let us make sure we are moving at our own pace so we don’t get burnt out before we reach the goal. And finally, let us make sure we don’t count someone out just because they are not the favorite to win, because sometimes it is the people we least expect who will end up leading us in the end.
-Geoffrey Bane
Leave a Reply