“The Amazing Race”

Series – Life Lessons from Reality TV

Scripture - 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

© Rev. Joseph Liddick

Introduction:

My message today is about the amazing race of our spiritual lives. There are a number of Bible passages that make an analogy between our spiritual lives and running a race. The one we want to look at today is 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.

Last week I began a series of messages that I call “Life lessons from reality TV.” One of the reality TV shows that I got hooked on several years ago is called The Amazing Race. Teams of two people, which have some form of a preexisting personal relationship, race around the world in competition with other teams. Contestants strive to arrive first at "pit stops" at the end of each leg of the race to win prizes and avoid coming in last, which carries the possibility of elimination or a significant disadvantage in the following leg. Contestants travel to and within multiple countries in a variety of transportation modes, including planes, taxis, rental cars, trains and boats. The clues in each leg point the teams to the next destination or direct them to perform a task, either together or by a single member. These challenges are related in some manner to the country or culture where they are located. Teams are progressively eliminated until three teams are left; at that point, the team which arrives first in the final leg is awarded a large cash grand prize, usually one million dollars.

If you’ve ever watched this reality show, you know that it is actually quite compelling. I, along with millions of others, have been a fan of this Emmy award winning show ever since the first race aired in 2001. And along the way I think I have picked up a few important lessons that could be very helpful in my ongoing spiritual race as well.

Pace Yourself

I’m always amused at the outset of The Amazing Race, as well as at various check points along the way, to see contestants going all out, like the whole race depended on that one sprint. It’s a long race, covering many weeks and tens of thousands of miles. Some contestants have even put themselves in a great disadvantage in the race by injuring themselves in one of these sprints. The race is not generally won by the youngest and fastest runners. It is usually won, though, by contestants who use their heads and take time to think through their strategy for a particular leg of the race.

Races are not particularly won by the first runner out of the blocks. I actually learned this lesson back when I was in high school running for my school’s track team. I was not a distance runner back then. I was a sprinter and jumper. I only knew one speed – full speed (which unfortunately for me was not exceptionally fast). One day my coach asked me to fill a spot for the team on a distance run, 800 meters. I shot out of the blocks and led the whole field past the 200 meter mark, but then my wind started to fade. Then my legs started to give out. By the 400 meter mark half of the field had already passed me. By the time I crossed the finish line the whole rest of field had already recovered and were standing around. It’s important to pace yourself.

Failure to pace yourself in your spiritual race can frequently result in burnout. I’ve witnessed it over and over again among colleagues in ministry, some of who crashed and burned somewhere in the middle of the race. “I’d rather burn-out than rust out,” they were fond of saying. But how many ministers’ families have been destroyed as a result of the good intentions of a man who failed to pace himself? And how many years of good service have been lost to a church because the pastor’s health failed long before he reached the finish line? Unfortunately, many churches don’t allow their pastors to pace themselves. They only encourage an all out sprint from the beginning of their service until they eventually crash.

Burnout happens among lay people in their amazing Christian race as well. Some people just take on too much at the church, and then after a few years of service they are done doing anything. More common, though, is that most of us are prone to fill our lives so full of everything else that we have no time or energy at all for the things of the Lord. We go through the whole week in an all-out sprint with the things of the world, and then are too burned out to take on any responsibilities for the Kingdom of God. Learn to pace yourself by saying “no” to the things that have no eternal value.

Know where you are going

I always get a big chuckle whenever I watch this show and see people struggling with directions. Maybe that’s because I have a pretty strong sense of direction myself along with this perverse delight of laughing at other people’s misery. Some people just don’t have any idea where they are going, or how to get there.

The people who do well in The Amazing Race are the ones who quickly figure out how to navigate themselves in uncharted territory. The good competitors do that in one of two ways. One way is to stop before they get very far along and obtain a map. Maps can be very useful because they show directions, roads, points of interest, distances between two points, and various other things that can be helpful in getting a person from point A to point B. The Bible is like a roadmap for life. The Psalmist remarked, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps.119:105). The Apostle Paul added, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim.3:16). When you don’t know where to turn in life, pick up your map and start reading.

The second way to figure out where to go in the race is to enlist local people to assist you by showing you where you need to go or even taking you there. I love it when competitors in the race do this. Locals know the language. They know the area. They know the landmarks. They know the roads. They know the quickest ways to get from point A to point B. I remember getting off a subway train in Melbourne a few years ago and was very confused when I started looking at the landmarks and street signs, trying to correlate them with my map. I’d never been there before. Fortunately, though, a local resident quickly noted my confusion and offered to help me get where I wanted to go. Without his help I would undoubtedly have headed in the opposite direction.

Sometimes we need the assistance of “locals” in the amazing race of life as well – people who know God and are eager to point us in the right direction. I had a few people like that in my own life when I was just getting started in my Christian journey. I was lost. I had a map, my Bible, but it just seemed too confusing to me when I tried to read it. Fortunately I was able to find some people who could help me make some sense the map. We have people here at GWC who are committed to helping you find your way as well.

Get along with the people on your team

I am always intrigued when the teams on the Amazing Race are profiled and I see the relational dynamics begin to surface. Whenever you put people into a highly stressful, competitive environment, their nerves will inevitably grate on one another. Some teams just seem to fight amongst themselves until they are eventually eliminated. Others, though, like the father/daughter team of Ron and Christina in last year’s race, learn to eventually get along with each other. You see, when they first started out, Ron was terribly abusive toward his daughter whenever she made a bad decision. But one reason he entered the race was to use it as a means of developing a good relationship with her, and by the end of the race (they finished a close second) they functioned like a well oiled machine. Last year’s winners, TK and Rachel were a dating couple that had a great relationship. They smiled and laughed the whole way through the race, no matter what went wrong on a particular day. Both of these teams really discovered how to get along with each other.

I’m also amazed when I discover people who can’t get along with each other within the church. Life is hard enough, but we make it a lot tougher when we spend our energy fighting with each other along the way. We’re supposed to be team mates in life’s race. That means that we need what each one brings to the table in order to accomplish our objective in the race. “You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians. And as members of Christ’s body we need to learn to love one another, to forgive one another, to bear with one another, to encourage one another, and to exhort one another. We just can’t win the race all by ourselves. We need each other, so we’d better learn to get along with the people on our team and nurture those relationships.

Don’t panic when you encounter road blocks, detours, yields and U-turns

One thing that makes The Amazing Race interesting is that it is full of road blocks, detours, yields and U-turns. These are unique challenges that are put in front of the competitors that they must complete before they are able to move on to their destination. A road block is a challenge that one of the team members has to accomplish alone. A detour is a task that they work on together. A yield is where a competitor can impose a 30 minute waiting penalty on a team that is behind them. And a U-turn is where a competitor must complete an additional task. Each of these obstacles can slow a team down to where they might end up arriving last at the pit stop and risk being eliminated from the game.

Life is full of road blocks, detours, yields and U-turns. As we saw in the video a few moments ago, Alex discovered a few this morning on his way to church. I heard a great story about a couple of preachers who were out fishing on a river bank. A large sign near where they were standing had just fallen over, so when a car came zooming by they waved their arms and shouted at the driver, “The end is near.” “Cooks!” the driver shouted as he sped down the dirt road. They listened and heard a big splash. Another car came zooming down the dirt road, and again they shouted, “Beware, the end is near.” “Why don’t you nuts go back to church where you belong,” the driver shouted back. Again they heard a splash. Finally one of them turned to the other and said, “Do you suppose instead that we should warn them that the bridge is out?”

I hate roadblocks and detours because, as a control type of person, they immediately put me in a position where I am no longer in control. These interruptions in life have a tendency to mess up my well laid plans. Just when I think that things in my life are going along well, they present me with a challenge that brings with it uncertainty. Like when our first child was born ten weeks prematurely. Or like when the IRS sent me an audit notice and demanded around $10,000 in back taxes and penalties (It took two years, but fortunately we were eventually exonerated). Or when my father suddenly died from an aortal aneurism while visiting us in Michigan. Maybe for some it will be the notice of cancer, or notice of unemployment, or a devastating fire, or a tornado, or an earthquake, or some event of cataclysmic proportion like Katrina, or 911.

How do you respond when life throws a roadblock at you? I have to admit that I haven’t always responded as I should. I’ve panicked, I’ve gotten angry and uptight, I’ve even occasionally lost my cool (just ask my wife about some of our driving experiences in big cities). But how is it that we should really respond at life’s roadblocks, though? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4). We can do that because, even though that roadblock may take us through the valley of the shadow of death, we do not have to fear any evil because the Lord is right there with us. “Don’t be anxious about anything,” Paul wrote, “but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). So don’t panic whenever you encounter roadblocks, detours, yields, and U-turns in your life.

Enjoy the pit stops

Each leg of the Amazing Race ends at a pit stop where the contestants are all required to rest for 12 hours before starting their next leg. Inevitably this pit stop is located at some exotic location famous to the country they happen to be in at the time. Usually the team that arrives last at each pit stop is eliminated from the race. Elimination is certainly on the contestants’ minds as they race to the pit stop, but it is also where they can catch up on some much needed rest and nutrition and gear themselves up for the next leg. It is often where strategy is formed and strained relationships are mended.

God has built a pit stop into the very fabric of our grinding race through life as well. And fortunately, there is no elimination awaiting us when we get there. God’s pit stop is called a “Sabbath.” He actually thought it was important enough for us to stop what we are doing long enough to refresh ourselves that he set one day in seven aside and called it “holy.” God himself even modeled Sabbath for us in Creation by creating the world in 6 days and resting on the 7th. So what do we do? We cram everything into our Sabbath that we couldn’t find time to do the other 6 days. Our bodies, not to mention our souls, were not made to go non-stop. We just don’t give them enough time to recuperate and recalibrate.

But as any good race enthusiast knows, races are won and lost in the pits. That’s one reason why I regularly take a day off besides Sunday. Sunday for me is generally a high energy day, often non-stop. Friday, on the other hand, is my day to come in for a pit stop where I sit back, read, play a round of golf, nap, listen to music, and retune my inner being. Then once or twice a year I also get away somewhere for a few days to just read and spend time talking with the Lord. I always come back to work refreshed and renewed to take on the world. I don’t want to get eliminated from God’s amazing race because of failure to come in and take advantage a pit stop.

Conclusion:

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Cor.9:24). We’re all in an amazing race, but we’re not in a race to win a million dollars. We’re in a race to gain the prize of heaven. We’re in a race to impact the world for Christ and win souls for him, so that they won’t be lost for eternity. At GWC we’re in a race to KNOW Christ, and GROW in him, in order that we might SHOW him to others. We’re in a race to become fully devoted followers of Christ. That’s a race we all can win.

So start running. And as you run, make sure that you pace yourself. Make sure you know where you are going. Make every effort to get along with the people on your team. Don’t panic when you encounter road blocks, detours, yields, or U-turns. And be sure to come in and enjoy the pit stops along the way.