The second mile worker knows a secret that the first miler doesn’t understand. He knows that if he accepts the compulsory first mile and then volunteers for the second, he is no longer a slave!

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. "

These verses, included in the text of what we call The Sermon on the Mount, contain some of the more difficult sayings of Jesus.

1. The First-Mile Compulsion of Work.

Beneath everything we need is the requirement of work. Behind everything worthwhile is work.

Work to many people today is considered a dirty word. Their most coveted accomplishment would be to go through life without working. Isn’t that the goal of most retirement plans? "Take this job and…." You know the rest.

Yet even if people were to achieve such a goal, we must not forget that someone, somewhere, would have to work to sustain them. Work is a necessity. There are no free lunches. Someone will always have to work. It has been that way from the beginning. God told Adam after the fall, "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground…." (1)

But even before the fall of man there was work. In Genesis 2:15, we read: "Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it." Work is and always has been a part of God’s plan for man.

We can face the compulsion of work in either of two ways. We can bear the load for one mile grudgingly, griping and complaining all the way, dragging our feet and hating every minute of it, or we can do as Jesus teaches here: volunteer for the second mile.

"What, are you crazy?" someone says. "You have no idea how miserable my job is! I’m not going to volunteer for anything, much less to go any second mile!"

It’s very true that I don’t know how miserable your job might be, but I do know how miserable it was for these people to be forced by a hated Roman soldier to carry his pack. I also know that it was in the face of that very disagreeable situation that Jesus gave this second mile teaching.

The second mile worker knows a secret that the first miler doesn’t understand. He knows that if he accepts the compulsory first mile and then volunteers for the second, he is no longer a slave! He is in charge.

I met my first "second mile" worker while I was in school in Nebraska. God blessed me with a good job – perfect for a student with a schedule like mine. After working in the warehouse of a farm machinery factory for a time, I was promoted to a desk job at which I had an average of two to three hours each night to work on my own studies – and I got paid for it! Since I was still a part of the warehouse crew though, occasionally I would get the call that everyone seemed to hate. The call would come to show up on the lower end of the complex, down next to the spur track, and unload boxcars full of large tires – eleven or twelve full-sized cars at a time.

About once a month we got the call to deal with these tires – actually they were tire casings destined for the company’s recapping facility. Like nearly everyone else, I dreaded thay call to unload tires. They were heavy. They were dirty. In the summertime it seems that they were filled what smelled like swamp water, probably from some holding pond somewhere. It was green and slimy. In the winter they were usually frozen together and we had to pry them apart with crowbars. The call to unload tires would come to the warehouse crew and all of us would take our time wandering down to the work site, dreading our lot in life, not wanting to get there any sooner than we had to.

But there was one guy among us who was different. Actually, he was one of the Bible College students who attended the same school I did. He was always the first one to arrive at the dreaded tire site and he unloaded tires like a wild man. In fact, if he was on the boxcar, it usually took two or three of us down on the ground to keep up with him. My point is, that this guy actually seemed happy to unload tires and though most of the workers probably thought he was nuts, we all had to admit that his attitude was kind of contagious.

One day I asked him about his strange attitude toward such a dreadful job and he told me about the second mile. He said he used to dread the job, too, until one day when he connected it to this passage. From that day his attitude changed. He said he began to enjoy his work and could actually see some purpose in it. It served him well. He was the best known Christian in the plant and was ultimately promoted to be the first assistant to the Day Foreman of the plant.

I decided to attempt to adopt his attitude, as did several of the other worker/students. Strange as it sounds, we discovered that the time began to fly by. We no longer dreaded the job! And the best part was that group of Bible College students gained quite a reputation as good workers. Before I left there were over twenty of us working in that factory. If you came there looking for a job, all you had to do was say you were from the Bible college and they would usually hire you on the spot.

I’m reminded of Paul’s teaching in Colossians 3:23-24: "Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men; knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve."

It was no longer a dead-end job we were doing. We were serving Christ! We were going the second mile.

Another dreaded "first mile" obligation is:

2. The First-Mile Compulsion of Limiting Circumstances.

Some people have had their fondest aspirations snuffed out by broken health or old age. It is as though the Roman soldier comes and says, "You must live out the rest of your life confined to this small plot of ground."

Life becomes unbearable for those who live only in the first mile of this compulsion. They wake each morning to a growing bitterness concerning what "could have been" and "what used to be." Every day is worse than the day before. Life turns sour and some even wish it would end. "I’m washed up," they think to themselves as misery is compounded with misery. For some it is a wheelchair. For some it is retirement. For some it is a limiting disease.

But there is another way. There is the second mile. It is possible to say, "Old Roman, I’m not like the others you have known. I won’t be content to live with the first mile. I'm going to go a second. I refuse to lie here and die without a fight. I’m going to make what life I have left so beautiful that those who pass by will take inspiration from it. You may require me to live here, but I’ll go twice as far as what you require. I’ll not only live here, but I’ll make living here worthwhile!"

The great Apostle Paul was a second miler. When he was free, he set the world on fire with his teaching. When confined to jail, he wrote letters and set the world on fire with his teaching. In the latter part of his life, when confined to house arrest and chained to a Roman guard around the clock, the Roman guard became his audience, as did later those in Caesar’s own household. (2) (Confined so that I can no longer get to the world audience you had before? No problem! I'll get to those I can reach!)

There are others who have been second milers in this sense. History is full of the names of men and women who have conquered their limiting circumstances by the principle of the second mile – men and women who refused to give in, often soaring above the heads of even those without handicaps.

Louis Braille was blinded as a boy when he accidentally poked a leather awl into one eye. The infection that followed spread to the other eye, leaving him completely blind. Braille went to a school for the blind and excelled. After he was grown, he spoke once to an Army officer who told him about night writing - a way to communicate without speaking in battle.

Louis Braille took the idea and developed an alphabet for the blind to read, using their fingers. Though not accepted until after his death, the Braille alphabet represented freedom and great advancements in education for the blind. Interestingly, the tool that Louis Braille used to develop his alphabet was a leather awl, the same device that blinded him as a child. (3)

Fanny Crosby lost her eyesight at six weeks of age by a doctor’s mistake. Later it was determined that she would have had her sight had not it been for this man’s carelessness. Her first mile compulsion was total blindness, which given the circumstances, could have left her a very bitter woman. But she refused to be so confined. She accepted her first mile and then went the second. She went on to be a teacher of the blind. She married a blind musician. Between the two of them, he supplying the music and she the words, they wrote some of the best-known hymns of the church ever written. !

Confined or restricted by a first mile situation? There's always a second mile!

3. The First-Mile Compulsion of the Christian Life.

While I hesitate to include this as a possible first-mile compulsion since we aren't forced to become Christians, we all know that there are things Christians must do. And the thing that spells either victory or defeat in the life of faith is a "second mile" spirit.

The Scribes and Pharisees were first milers. Careful to fulfill the law and traditions exactly, they were unwilling to do any more. They prayed three times a day and no more. They gave

10% and no more. They grudgingly went the first mile and no more.

Jesus took a look at these first milers and said that unless our righteousness exceeded theirs, we shouldn’t figure on being a part of the kingdom. (4)

Christians should be more willing to serve than God is to demand. The whole genius of the New Covenant of grace is the second mile principle! You know you are getting in the groove of the Christian walk when your sense of joy in serving God overflows your sense of duty. No longer do you always ask, "Do I have to?" Rather you begin to say, "But I want to."

There are first and second milers in every congregation. First milers want to know exactly how far they must travel. They want to know the absolute minimum that is required and then do no more than that.

"Let me know exactly where the line between the world and the church is and I’ll walk just inside that line. Don’t expect me to do more."

Such a person is a slave. He or she doesn’t know the joy of the Christian life. Being a Christian to such a person is a burden.

The second miler delights in pleasing God. No matter what the situation calls for, it is met joyfully. The concern is not "What must I do to get by." The concern is "What can I do for God?"

Consider your own life. Are you living in victory? Are you a happy Christian? If not, perhaps you’ve not learned the secret of the second mile.

Look again at Paul. His first mile was bitter. He was beaten several times. He was thrown into prison. Many of his brethren hated him. Yet listen to his second mile spirit: "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has considered me faithful, putting me into service." (5)

Titus was another second miler. In 2 Corinthians 8:16-17 we read these words from Paul’s pen:

"But thanks be to God who put the same earnestness on your behalf in the heart of Titus. For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest, he is going to you of his own accord."

Paul had gone to Titus and asked him if he would make a trip to Corinth for him. Titus had already planned to go on his own accord!

Conclusion

Hudson Taylor, the famous Chinese missionary, dressed in Chinese clothes and was waiting on a jetty for a boat that would take him across a river. After a little while a local Chinese man came and also stood waiting. As the boat came near the jetty the man, not seeing that Taylor was a foreigner, hit him over the head and knocked him down into the mud. Mr. Taylor said the feeling came to him to hit man back, but he decided against it. When the boat came up, the local man looked at Taylor and suddenly recognized him as a foreigner. He could hardly believe it, and said, "You're a foreigner, and did not hit me back when I hit you like that?" Taylor said, "This boat is mine. Come in and I will take you where you want to go." The man was shocked. On the way to their destination, Taylor spoke to the man about the reason for his action - that he was a servant of Jesus Christ. He left the man with tears running down his face. (6)

Such is the power of the second mile attitude.

"And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two."

Are you a first or a second miler?

Footnotes: (Use your "Back" button to return to your place)

1. Genesis 3:19
2. Philippians 4:22 "All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household."
3. Rick Henson, Proclaim 1. Alvin Kugelmass, Louis Braille, (New York: Juian Messner, Inc. 951), 17-18, 116-122.
4. Matthew 5:20 - "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."
5. 1 Timothy 1:12
6. From The King's Business

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

[Archive]    [Home]   [Comments]   [Search]