How to Live A Significant Life
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
By Dave Redick 

Paul didn’t settle for mediocrity in his spiritual life. We shouldn’t either.

Our text for this message is 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. Please join me there in your Bibles as I read.

24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. 25 And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; 27 but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.

Have you ever noticed that during the eulogy of any funeral, the minister talks about how the deceased person’s life impacted those around him? We have a tremendous need to assign significance to a persons life before we lower that casket into the grave. Perhaps the worse thing that could ever be said at a funeral is "This person’s life had no meaning whatsoever."

Most of us would probably like to know that our lives counted for something before we leave this earth. Some, seeking to fill this need, may go about it the wrong way. Others may, for various reasons, give up on trying to attain it, but significance remains a basic human need and desire.

I believe God means for us to live lives that have meaning and are significant. Jesus said, "I came that they might have life and have it abundantly." (John 10:10) Of course, the obvious application of that is the eternal life that He has offered us, but I believe He also spoke of meaningful life here and now. That meaning and fulfillment that we crave doesn’t come by accident, however. If we wish to live significantly, we must do it on purpose.

The Apostle Paul lived a significant life. From the Christian point of view, I don’t believe we could find a person mentioned in the Bible who lived more significantly than Paul unless, of course, we included the Lord Jesus in our consideration. If the Christians conducted a funeral for Paul after he died, can you imagine what the eulogy must have been like? "Here is a man who started out with nothing - who worked hard and climbed to the top of his profession. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, according to the strictest discipline of his people. Then, in the middle of life, he met Jesus and threw it all away. He started all over from nothing. No, he started over from less than nothing. No one would even accept him - not his Jewish countrymen - not his Christian brethren. But that didn’t stop him from living a significant life. Even though he started over with life half gone, he lived significantly."

Do you suppose Paul had a philosophy of living? Do you suppose there were some principles he lived by that governed his life that caused him to live significantly? I believe there were, and I’d like to point out four of them that aren’t hard to spot in the text we're considering. These principles will serve each of us well if we wish to live lives of significance.

The first one is:

Verse 24 says, "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win."

Some years ago Auburn was playing Syracuse in the Sugar Bowl. The score was 17-14 with Syracuse in the lead. Auburn had the ball and was driving down field. With only 7 seconds remaining, Auburn had the ball on the Syracuse 12-yard line, third down. Coach Pay Dye was faced with a decision: go for the touchdown and win or lose the game or kick a field goal and settle for a tie. Auburn kicked the field goal. They didn’t lose, but they didn’t win either. After a whole season of blood, sweat and tears by players and coach alike, in a nationally televised bowl game, when they had their chance to win, they settled for a tie!

"So what? I can hear someone say. "What’s wrong with a tie? At least they didn’t lose. There’s no shame in that!"

That's true, but what we're talking about here is living significantly. Listen to Paul again: "Run in such a way that you may win."

Paul wasn't talking about winning football games. He wasn't telling us how to live our business lives. He was talking about running the race called the Christian life. Paul is saying to us here, "When it comes to living for God, don’t settle for a tie! Don’t settle for mediocrity!"

Elsewhere, in Philippians 3:14, Paul said, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." There’s no slacker described in that sentence.

Yet though some may see the need to live this way in their other endeavors, few ever attach this attitude to their spiritual walk. It has to be a great tragedy from God’s perspective to see someone who possesses talent and brains just drifting along through life because they have no spiritual ambition, no drive. They never hook up their ambition to the things that last for eternity. They’re happy with mediocrity. More than that, they're probably spiritually lazy.

It’s like the guy whose boss asked him, "How long does it take you to get to work in the morning? He replied, "About an hour after I get here."

Paul didn’t settle for mediocrity in his spiritual life. We shouldn’t either. In Acts 14, he was preaching to a crowd in Lystra. Some of his opponents managed to turn the crowd against him. They stoned him, dragged him out of the city, and left him for dead. As soon as he came to, probably with some divine help, the Bible says that he arose and went back into the city. Talk about ambition! He had a burning desire to preach the gospel. Even the threat of physical violence didn’t deter him. No wonder he could say at the end of his life in I Tim 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith..."

Paul was running his spiritual race in order to win. He was not willing to settle for second best. In these verses, he is telling us to do the same thing. What are you driving for spiritually?

Secondly, if we would find life with significance, we must have

Verse 26 says, "Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air..."

In Alice in Wonderland there is a scene where Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" The cat replies, "That depends a good deal on where you want to go." Alice says, "I don’t much care where..." and the cat replies, "Then it doesn’t matter which way you go." Alice says that she just wants to get somewhere, and the Cheshire Cat tells her, "Oh, you’re sure to do that if you only walk long enough."

Every one of us will end up somewhere. The question is, "Where?" The even greater question is, if we stay on the course we are on presently, where will we end up?

Paul uses both running and boxing to illustrate his point of direction. He boxes in such a way as not beating the air. Picture a boxer who really doesn’t care where his punches fall. With one he hits the ropes. With another he just misses the referee’s head. The next two or three don’t hit anything. Just swinging is all that is important to him. He thinks, "If I can just go down swinging." And he does... go down, that is!

Paul is using sports here to make his points. So am I. Every coach enters the game with a plan designed to help his team win. If he has to make changes, fine. But his initial plan continues to provide the foundation of his strategy. In the same way, we aren’t able to blueprint our whole lives. God doesn't expect us to do that. We can’t see the future. But it is crucial for each of us to have a plan by which we can accomplish the most in life. If it has to be fine-tuned or changed, fine. But even after we make a minor adjustment, we still have a plan. You cannot adjust what you don’t have.

A guy pulled his car over to ask an old man on the side of the road how far it was to a certain town. The old man said, "Well, sonny, if you keep on going the way you’re headed, it’s about 25,000 miles. But if you turn around, it’s about three miles.

1 Corinthians 15:58 says, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."

Someone has said that success is just getting up one more time than you fall down. There is much truth to that in both the physical and the spiritual realm. It's probably easier for us to understand it in the physical realm. That's why Paul used running and boxing to make his point.

Jesus told a story in Luke 11 of a man who came to his friend’s door and asking for three loaves of bread. The man inside didn't want to be bothered, so he tried to send him away. But he didn't leave. Finally, Jesus told His hearers in verse 8 of that chapter, "I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs."

If we wish to live life with spiritual significance and meaning, we must have an aim. That aim is defined by a plan and is achieved by persistence. Thirdly, if we want to find life with meaning we need to have:

Verses 25 says, "And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable."

Then verse 27 says, "but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified."

When Benjamin Franklin was 27 years old he decided to take control of his life. He selected 12 virtues to acquire and kept a daily chart of his progress in the development of each one. Whenever he missed the mark, he put a black dot beside that virtue. His goal was to ultimately have no dots on the chart. You and I might not identify with his method, but do we have a better one? Do we have any method at all of self-discipline in our spiritual lives?

You and I won’t experience personal holiness without some effort on our part. Yes, I know that God counts us holy because of the sacrifice of Jesus, but we are told in 1 Peter 1:15 that we are to strive for holiness in all our behavior. Self-control is the road that will take us there.

Paul said elsewhere on this subject, in 1 Timothy 4:7, "On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness..."

Still in the spirit of using sports to make a spiritual point as Paul has done here - If you want to learn to play golf, you have to get out there on the course and hit the ball over and over again. If you want to be a winning runner, you have to be out there running laps when others are at home in front of the TV. If you want to lose weight, you have to make an eating plan and force yourself to stick to it.

The same is true here. I have heard people with habits they know they shouldn’t have say, "Well, when God want’s me to quit this thing, he’ll take it away." Oh yeah? What verse in the Bible says that? The answer, of course, is none! On the contrary, Paul says here that it is necessary sometimes to "buffet our bodies" to "make them our slaves." Our trouble is that usually it is the other way around. We are the slaves of our bodies. They scream at us and we jump to their bidding. Paul indicates that it can go the other way if we discipline ourselves.

Finally, if we want to have life with spiritual significance and meaning, we need to be putting this ambition, aim, and self-control into the right purpose. We need to have

Paul says in verse 27 that he did all these things lest, after he had preached all over the Roman world to thousands of people, he himself might be disqualified! He himself might miss the mark of eternal life.

I'm told that when the Imperial Japanese army occupied Hong Kong in 1937, they confiscated all the Hong Kong dollars and replaced them with the Japanese yen. They imprisoned and even executed anyone who was caught with currency other than the yen. After the war, they claimed they could not redeem the currency. Then, after 1970, they declared that they would not do so. Millions of worthless wartime Japanese yen. This money is non-transferable. You cannot cash it in on valid currency.

At death, we are reminded that there are riches that are non-transferable. The Apostle Paul said, "For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either." But there are things we can send ahead!

The first three principles Paul says he lived by in this passage will work with just about any goals of life. They work in boxing and running. You can use them to get rich or famous or strong or smart or whatever it is you set your mind to. But without this last point, a focus on God, all the accomplishments drop off when you leave this life! They’re non-transferable and as worthless as pre-war Hong Kong yen!

Like most ministers, I do my share of funerals. Some of them are great. Others can be difficult. You see, when it comes time for the eulogy, I usually search for something I can mention that this person still has now that he has gone on to the next life. Yes, there is his bank account, but that is worthless to him now. In fact, the relatives are usually fighting over it. There is his worldly fame, if he had any, but where he lives now, that counts for nothing. There is the nice house he lived in, but it has now become a big, empty cavern that mocks his widow in his absence. There are all his drinking buddies. They usually show up for the funeral. Some of them get a bit "soused" in order to get through it. But you know, they don’t drink booze where he is now. Buddies don’t get to sit around and laugh with each other. I search for something - anything that I might be able to say he sent on ahead and is now enjoying. More often than not, I search in vain. More often than not, I sort through mounds of treasures here that won’t help him a bit where he is now. I find nothing that has been transferred into the next life. What a pity! What a waste!

Paul says in verse 25 that we run to win an imperishable wreath. He’s speaking of eternal life. Something that imperishable survives the transition between this life and the next. That is so important!

The rich young ruler that wanted to be Jesus’ disciple was told to use what he had to buy treasure in heaven where it couldn’t be taken away. We need to do the same.

Robert Ballard was a man with a quest. He wanted to find the Titanic. And on September 1, 1985, he discovered the sunken ship in the North Atlantic, more than 350 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. I got chills when I read his description of the first time he sent down that bright probe light and saw that sight more than two miles below the surface of those cold waters. He wrote, "My first direct view of Titanic lasted less than two minutes, but the stark sight of her immense black hull towering above the ocean floor will remain forever ingrained in my memory. My lifelong dream was to find this great ship and during the past 13 years the quest for her has dominated my life."(1)

What is it that dominates your life? Something will, even if you don’t think about it. We all live for something, whether it is a race horse or a rocking chair, fame or failure, luxury or laziness.

Why not stop for just a moment and ask yourself where you’re headed? Take out a piece of paper and write it down so that you can’t ignore it. Then ask one more question: Is that where you really want to go? Is that what you want them talking about at your funeral? More importantly, will you still have what is on that paper on your first day in eternity?

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. Robert Ballard, "A Long Last Look at Titanic," National Geographic 170, no. 6 (December 1986): 698-705. Cited in Charles R. Swindoll, Laugh Again.

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.

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

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