Daily Devotional By Desiringgod Ministry – John Piper Ministry 30 OCTOBER 2024 | Topic: Do You Look to the Reward?
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Do You Look to the Reward?
Southwest Baptist University | Bolivar, Missouri
Not many of us are farmers. Not anymore. And relatively few in this room have served as soldiers in combat. But many more of us have tried our hands at competitive athletics — the kind you train for, and not just show up to play.
You may not have been aware of it at the time, but if you have been a soldier, an athlete, or a farmer, you have been challenged, like increasingly few modern people, to learn how to really work. That is, you were presented with some objective, concrete challenge — train for battle, plant the field, practice for game day — and you either put in the required effort to be successful on the field, or you grew weary, cut corners, and eventually gave up. You either demonstrated you didn’t have it in you to keep straining forward, to persevere and achieve the goal, against the obstacles and challenges; or you found it in you, no doubt with help from coaches or teammates.
Soldiers, Athletes, Farmers
However firsthand your experience as a soldier, athlete, or farmer, the Bible stands ready to fill in, supplement, recast, or override our personal experiences (or lack thereof) and teach us a Christian work ethic — for our own joy, the good of others, and the glory of Christ. This is not only relevant for you as a student, hoping to complete a degree; this is relevant for you as a Christian, in pursuit of joy in Jesus. And one of the classic places in Scripture to ponder our work ethic mentions the very concrete and objective occupations of soldiering, athletics, and farming:
You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. (2 Timothy 2:1–7)
What Paul has in view in 2 Timothy 2:1–7 is gospel advance through disciple-making. The gospel of Jesus Christ that he has entrusted to his disciple, Timothy, he now charges Timothy to “entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). That’s four generations in view: Paul to Timothy, to “faithful men,” to “others also” — and implied is that the “others also” will disciple still others also.
But as simple as the plan for gospel multiplication seems on paper, the work will not be easy. It will be opposed by the world, by our own flesh, and by the devil himself, almost constantly, and often at the most inconvenient times. Paul himself writes from prison. Timothy can read the writing on the wall: if such efforts dedicated to gospel advance landed Paul in jail, how long until it catches up with Timothy? But rather than shy away from the task of disciple-making, Paul calls his protégé to “share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3).
Costly Discipleship
This is very relevant for “discipleship week.” Do you think discipleship will be easy? It will not be. There is a cost to count. Count the cost, and count the benefit: real joy. Real satisfaction. Greater nearness to Jesus. Greater joy in seeing others becoming more like him through your own investment. Like the apostle John says in 3 John 4, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children [in the faith] are walking in the truth.” Do you want joy? Invest yourself in others. Disciple others. What you’ve heard in the presence of many witnesses — that is, the big, central truths of the faith, especially the gospel — invest those things in faithful disciples who will later disciple other disciples. That will be hard work, and rewarding work — like farming, soldiering, or athletics. Look again at 2 Timothy 2:4–6:
No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.
So, let’s consider these three: the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. And to do that, first, we’ll look at the requirements of soldiers and farmers, which may be foreign to many of us. Then we’ll turn at greater length to the one that’s better known in this room and at this school: athletics.
Persist Like Soldiers and Farmers
Even if soldiering and farming are foreign to you, as they are to me, the broad nature of the work is plain enough.
Soldiers are men “under authority” (Matthew 8:9; Luke 7:8), who do not serve alone but alongside other soldiers (in bands or battalions). Why are uniforms so important? They show that an individual soldier is not alone; he’s part of a group. If you mess with him, you mess with others. And what power there is in numbers!
A single trained champion with a weapon may be a formidable foe — until he’s met by hundreds or thousands trained to act as one. The power in soldiering comes from this collective force: men trained together, to act together, under the authority and clear direction of an able commander. And to do so — to both get battle-ready and stay ready — soldiers must overcome the temptation of getting “entangled in civilian pursuits.” That is, you can’t live like a civilian and be a good soldier.
“The key to enduring discomfort is looking to the reward.”
The soldier is one who has been called out of normal civilian life and received into a new company, to train and stand ready to act to defend civilians. And good soldiers, Paul says, aim “to please the one who enlisted” them. They deny themselves the immediate pleasures and comforts of civilian life to endure in their calling and, in the end, enjoy greater, more enduring satisfaction than abandoning their mission for trivialities.
Similarly, though distinctly, farming requires the hard work of both foresight and physical labor. Farmers plan, till, sow, weed, wait with patience for rain and growth, and in the end, engage in the arduous labor of harvesting. In doing so, the farmer holds in his hands and enjoys the reward, as he ought: “the first share of the crops.” Farmers have much to teach us, not only about hard work and anticipating rewards, but also patience: “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient” (James 5:7–8).
So, in your pursuit of joy, persist like soldiers and farmers.
Persist Like Athletes
The apostle Paul may have more to teach us through athletics than we might expect. In addition to 2 Timothy 2:5, he takes up athletic imagery in 1 Corinthians 9:24–27 and 2 Timothy 4:7–8 (which we’ll come to in a minute). Philippians 3:13–14 also says,
Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
And 1 Timothy 4:7–8:
Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
The lesson in 2 Timothy 2 is consistent with the portrait of athletics elsewhere in Paul’s letters. Let me highlight three lessons from athletics for the Christian life.
1. Maturity Through Training
First, maturity comes through training, not through coasting or indulging desires for immediate comfort. That is, even before the competition, even before the discomfort of enduring on race day or game day, is the obstacle of training. Effective training requires discomfort (Hebrews 12:11). The body is not conditioned for better performance by leisure but through stress and strain, and especially through persisting in discomfort. Both body and mind are “trained by constant practice” (Hebrews 5:14), leading to maturity. “Those of us who are mature,” Paul writes, “straining forward to what lies ahead . . . press on toward the goal for the prize” (Philippians 3:13–15). All training, whether bodily or spiritual, requires some measure of toil and striving (1 Timothy 4:7–10).
2. Endurance Through Discomfort
Second, then, in the competition itself, athletes press on through weariness, frustration, discouragement, and pain to get to the finish. Learning to press through and endure discomfort in training readies the body to press on through resistance on race day or game day. Second Timothy 2:5 highlights a specific temptation to overcome: cutting corners. “An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” Whether in training or competition, the successful athlete knows that his subjective desires do not rule over the objective rules of the contest. He is not bigger than the race or the game. He cannot train or compete simply as he pleases, according to his momentary wishes, but he must exercise self-control. Which is Paul’s own testimony in 1 Corinthians 9:24–27:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
3. Perseverance Through Anticipation
Third, and most significantly, across the New Testament passages, the key to enduring discomfort is looking to the reward. Whether in training or in the event itself, Paul and Hebrews emphasize the reward, the crown, the prize, the victory, the fruit — a vital element that makes the lesson for work ethic particularly Christian. Paul explicitly commends the prize: “So run that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24). The imperishable crown that awaits is not icing on the cake but the reward to be kept in mind, and remembered, to keep us going when met with obstacles and resistance.
Paul himself, as he comes to the end of his “race,” is not ashamed (but intentional) to draw attention to the reward, which, through anticipation, has fueled his perseverance:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7–8)
But it’s not only Paul. Where did he learn it? Did he go rogue with this Christian Hedonism? No one teaches us to look to the reward like Jesus, in his teaching, his example, and more.
Look, Like Jesus
In his teaching, Jesus again and again draws our attention to the reward that is “from your Father” and “great in heaven.” In just the first half of his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–6), he explicitly mentions the reward some nine times (and then does so again in Matthew 10:41–42; see also Mark 9:41 and Luke 6:23, 35). Perhaps it was this plain, almost hedonistic thread that prompted Paul to capture an aspect of Christ’s teaching as “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
Yet every bit as clear as Jesus’s teaching is the power of his example. The climactic eleventh chapter of Hebrews (the faith “hall of fame”) turns our attention, several times, to the coming reward (10:35; 11:6, 26) and then presents Christ himself as the paradigm of pressing on, and persisting through pain, by looking to the reward:
Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2)
When we look to Jesus, we look to one who himself endured the greatest of pain and shame by looking to the reward, for the joy that was set before him — that is, his being seated at his Father’s right hand. He finished his course, looking to the reward. And so too, like him, and looking to him, Hebrews would have us run our race with endurance — not grow weary or fainthearted, but lift our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees (Hebrews 12:1–12).
Look, Like a Christian
But Jesus not only taught us to look to the reward and then practiced what he taught. In finishing his course and achieving the victory of the cross, he secured us, who have faith in him, as his own.
Mark this: we do not earn him with our holy grit, but he earned us with his. We press on, as Paul did, “because Christ Jesus has made [us] his own” (Philippians 3:12). Don’t reverse the order. Slavery or freedom hangs on the sequence. Christ’s perfect grit comes first, which then makes our imperfect but growing effort possible. Or, you might say, Christ’s full acceptance of us comes first; then he goes to work on our work ethic, by his Holy Spirit who dwells in us.
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)
So, a common thread links the work ethic of soldiers, athletes, farmers, Christ himself, and Christians alike: we recognize and own the particulars of our calling; we exercise self-control to overcome the immediate desires of the flesh for comfort; and we endure in discomfort, with God’s help, for the reward, the greater joy promised at the end, which streams into the present to give meaning and strength to keep us straining and striving.
What makes it particularly Christian, and not simply human, is this: we do all our pressing on from fullness and security of soul, not emptiness and insecurity, knowing that Christ Jesus has made me his own.
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