“LOOKING TOWARDS THE GOAL”
J. Gaskin
1 Corinthians 9: 24–27; Hebrews 12: 1, 2; Philippians 3: 8–14; 2 Timothy 4: 6–8
I was thinking of the goal, beloved; we have been singing about it. ‘Faith’s eyes are on the goal’, the beloved hymn-writer has said (Hymn 228). I do not think we know who it was who wrote the hymn. It may well have been Mr. Darby. His eyes were on the goal, and the beloved apostle’s eye was on the goal. I thought the Lord might encourage us to fix our eyes more on what is lying before us. Of course, it would involve this matter of having Christ for our gain. It would involve, I suppose, all that God has in His purpose for everyone who loves the Lord Jesus Christ, everyone who has been redeemed by His precious blood. Every blood-bought saint has a great, glorious purpose in view, and faith’s eye is to be on the goal. What an athlete the apostle was! a spiritual athlete; he was one who could run the race. I do not know how many of us here have ever run races, but if you are going to run a long distance you do not start off at a high speed. We are to run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking steadfastly on Jesus. It is a good thing to be able to go on quietly and steadily in the, pathway of faith. I think the Lord would encourage our hearts to do that. Mr. Darby, as you know, was unknown and yet well known.
That is what the Lord would have, I believe; all these exercises through which the beloved saints have passed are in view of leaving this world behind and having a greater link with that world of which the Lord spoke.
So here is a man who is prepared to run in the race-course. It does not mean that all may not receive the prize. It says, “but one receives the prize”, but that is how you run, how you set your mind to it, that there is something to be gained, some great matter in view. I think perhaps we should be more concerned to run in this way, “everyone that contends for a prize is temperate in all things”. It would be a word to some of us as to how far we can say we are
“temperate in all things”,
not stretching out too much in one direction or another, but just here in a simple way as believers on the Lord Jesus Christ. I think this simplicity, the blessed simplicity of the Christ, is something to be really concerned about and coveted. We may say with great reverence, how blessedly simple that wonderful Saviour of ours was when He was here on earth. He did not make any pretence. He did not come into very wealthy circumstances, indeed we are often reminded that He had to ask to be shown a denarius. The Lord was not here in the favourable circumstances with which God has blessed us, but going about as “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”, having nowhere to lay His head. Yet He owned everything. He was the Lord of glory, everything was made by His hands. He came into the world which He had made, “and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not”. How touching to the heart, beloved, that that blessed Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was the rejected One!
So it comes to us now that we should be “temperate in all things”. It says they run “that they may receive a corruptible crown “. I understand it was a crown of laurel leaves with which they crowned the victor in the race. Of course, it was all right for a day or two, but then they hung it up, I suppose, at home as a kind of tribute to what they had done, and it just faded away. “They may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible”. Think of what God has in mind—an incorruptible and unfading inheritance, reserved in the heavens for us. Peter speaks of the amaranthine crown, “the unfading crown of glory” (see 1 Peter 5: 4). What glorious things God has in mind for all those who love Him, and He would encourage our hearts that we might be reaching out today, reaching out indeed in the little time the Lord leaves us here, if it is His will, running the race that is set
before us, “looking stedfastly on Jesus”.
Paul says he does not run uncertainly; he is not just “beating the air”. It happens in the world, you know. Politicians make all kinds of promises and speeches, and all of it is something of a vapour because no one knows what they can effect even if they get put into power. It is a sad and empty thing in this world that people make great and wonderful promises, and often it just comes to nothing, the whole thing falls down. “They may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible”. So Paul says he buffets his body. That is quite a word to many of us as to being “temperate in all things”. May the Lord help us that we may practically face up to these exercises, so that there is something more for Himself.
I think it is very touching when we come to Hebrews 12 how the apostle speaks there of the race. He brings in this beautiful touch as to Jesus—“looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith”. We may say with reverence, beloved, that Jesus set the whole matter on.
It could not have been set on by anyone else. Many things that have been for the general benefit of mankind, such as certain institutions which are of God, have resulted from the incoming of Christianity. They would not have been there otherwise, and yet how much more precious the spiritual side of things, “looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith”. Then think of what it cost Him, and how He looked on to the joy that was lying before Him. I believe it means that He was looking on to the assembly. Our brother was speaking just now of how Rebecca was brought to Isaac. Isaac’s whole desire and longing and outlook related to her. Christ has sought one who could share those longings with Him. As the hymn says, ‘We Thy longings know, and willingly respond’ (Hymn 381)—for she is the one who really understands the heart of Christ. It is a very precious thing into which to be brought.
It says, “He endured the cross, having despised the shame”. How much it meant to Jesus, beloved! How much do we really come into the understanding of it, what it really was to the soul of that blessed Man? He felt things most deeply; He had those feelings as a Man here, His longings, His desires as to all the things for which He was looking, and yet the shame and reproach meant so much to Him. Think of what they did to Jesus, how they reproached Him, how they spat in His blessed face, covered His face and buffeted Him, and mocked Him.
These things are very real. Some of us have known just a little bit of reproach, a very little indeed; but compared with what Jesus suffered, beloved brethren, we do not know anything about reproach and shame. Some of us are very much affected by what people think about us.
Well, let us look on to the goal a little more. Let us look on, as the blessed Lord Jesus could do, to “the joy lying before him”. Think of the compensation! How worthy He is to receive that compensation! I think as our hearts are set more on the goal there will be a greater Outpouring of what is just to satisfy His own blessed longings. It says, “who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God”. Glorious, worthy Saviour, there at God’s right hand! Well, let us “run with endurance”. It is not ‘walk’, you note. Walk with God indeed, but here it is something a little bit more vigorous than walking, a little more stretching out than walking.
That is a very fine passage in Philippians as to how the apostle is stretching out. If you have ever run in a race like that it is the last little bit that matters, as you come round for the last lap,
then it means you have really to increase the pace. I believe, in one way, as we come round, I speak figuratively, to this last lap the Lord would look to our increasing the pace. Paul says,
“but one thing—forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. It is a marvellous thing that God has Himself called us, “the calling on high of God”. What a scene it is to which we are called, beloved! What things there are that God has in reserve for those that love Him! Yet the blessed Spirit of God is delighting to make them preciously known to us even now, so that as we stretch out, as we pursue, as we go on towards the goal, we have some greater impression of what they really mean. It is the earnest of the Spirit, as though He would make what is soon to be our eternal portion a very real and present matter with us. We come into the present enjoyment of it, and I believe one of the greatest things is that the Spirit would make Jesus Himself more precious to our hearts so that we really come to know the One whom we love, the One who has given His all for us, the One who is looking for some response from our hearts now.
Paul says, “I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”. One man did it, did he not? The apostle, in a way, sets the pace. If you have ever trained on a race track, the way you train is to get somebody to set the pace for you, and they go round with you. They are not going to race, but they give you the pace, so that you are quickened at the right time, and you keep going. The apostle Paul is the one, we may say simply, who has set the pace for us. He himself stretched out, he pursued, he looked on to the goal. He had all this before him, he had Christ before him; he says, “that I may gain Christ”, or ‘have Christ for my gain’.
Think of the things he gave up—a Pharisee of the Pharisees, I suppose possibly one of the greatest persons at that time in the Jewish hierarchy. He had been more keen and more anxious than any of them, more ready to carry out what he then believed was God’s will for him, a man who must have been very well taught from a Jewish standpoint, and yet all that he gives up. He gives up everything of which he thought anything; “of the race of Israel? of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, persecuting the assembly; as to righteousness which is in the law, found blameless”. So you might say from a natural standpoint there is a perfect kind of man here. But then, you see, all that was of no account when he had Christ.
O, beloved, that we might really have a deeper desire in our hearts really to have Christ for our gain! How precious it is that God has not given us just merely a system of things, but a glorious, living Person who is the whole expression of what God is in Himself, the One in whom we shall see all that God is expressed to us eternally, for it is in Jesus we shall see all these things in the coming day. Yet we can have the real understanding and appreciation and blessedness of it at this present time, as we have Christ for our gain. Paul is stretching out. I feel the pace is being quickened. May we be found as those who are pressing on, and as he says, pursuing, “looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”.
In 2 Timothy 4 the apostle presents to us somebody who is finishing the course, getting to the end—“I am already being poured out”, he says, “and the time of my release is come”. How beautiful that is! He was facing martyrdom, I suppose, and looking to the moment when his earthly course would be run, but what he says is, “the time of my release is come”—a very beautiful way to be found. Peter, about to suffer for the Lord’s sake, speaks of “the putting off of my tabernacle”. How these beloved men looked on to the end of the journey! Something was in their hearts as to being in Christ’s presence, having Christ for their gain. So Paul says, “I am already being poured out”, a kind of sacrifice, or libation. Think of the life of every saint being precious to the Lord Jesus. We have seen, as some of our beloved brethren have been taken, that they were being poured out, something precious to the heart of God being poured out as a libation. I just think of our brother local with us in Aberdeen who was taken recently, how at the end he came out gloriously triumphant. He could say, ‘As to this body in which I am, it is finished with now’. He was looking on to the glory.
Well, beloved, let us be pressing on, pressing on to the goal that is before us. Paul says, “I am already being poured out, and the time of my release is come. I have combated the good combat”. It would be a great thing if in all the little combats, in all the little trials, in all the little things which come up, we really had Christ in view so that we ‘combat the good combat’. Sometimes the combats into which we enter are not the good combat; some things about which we get very concerned we could just leave with the Lord. Things that loom so large sometimes, maybe it is all just some personal matter that could simply be dropped, because who are we anyway? Paul says, “I have combated the good combat, I have finished the race”. He had been striving to get there, he was pursuing towards the goal, and now he says, “I have finished the race”. Paul has finished the race, he has kept the faith. What a thing that is to say and he is saying it in simplicity; he is not boasting, he is just saying that in the power of the Spirit God has brought him
through and he has come to the end of this race in which he has been stretching out to gain Christ.
Well, beloved, let us be like the apostle, let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus. How wonderful that is! We do not have to wait to get Jesus, so to speak.
He is present and we can gain Christ now. Looking on Jesus you can get that fresh impression of all the glories that are there, and that fresh impetus to be found pursuing, to the end that we may reach the goal, “the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. May it be so with every one of us, for His name’s sake.
Address at Cardiff
21 May 1983