'That I may finish my course.' Now 'course,' in our modern English, is
far too feeble a word to express the Apostle's idea here. It has come
to mean with us a quiet sequence or a succession of actions which,
taken together, complete a career; but in its original force the
English word 'course,' and still more the Greek, of which it is a
translation, contain a great deal more than that. If we were to read
'race,' we should get nearer to at least one side of the Apostle's
thought. This was the image under which life presented itself to him,
as it does to every man that does anything in the world worth doing,
whether he be Christian or not--as being not a place for enjoyment, for
selfish pursuits, making money, building family, satisfying love,
seeking pleasure, or the like; but mainly as being an appointed field
for a succession of efforts, all in one direction, and leading
progressively to an end. In that image of life as a race, threadbare as
it is, there are several grave considerations involved, which it will
contribute to the nobleness of our own lives to keep steadily in view.
To begin with, the metaphor regards life as a track or path marked out
and to be kept to by us. Paul thought of his life as a racecourse,
traced for him by God, and from which it would be perilous and
rebellious to diverge. The consciousness of definite duties loomed
larger than anything else before him. His first waking thought was,
'What is God's will for me to-day? What stage of the course have I to
pass over to-day?' Each moment brought to him an appointed task which
at all hazards he must do. And this elevating, humbling, and bracing
ever-present sense of responsibility, not merely to circumstances, but
to God, is an indispensable part of any life worth the living, and of
any on which a man will ever dare to look back.
'My course.' O brethren! if we carried with us, always present, that
solemn, severe sense of all-pervading duty and of obligation laid upon
us to pursue faithfully the path that is appointed us, there would be
less waste, less selfishness, less to regret, and less that weakens and
defiles, in the lives of us all. And blessed be His name! however
trivial be our tasks, however narrow our spheres, however secular and
commonplace our businesses or trades, we may write upon them, as on all
sorts of lives, except weak and selfish ones, this inscription,
'Holiness to the Lord.'
The broad arrow stamped on Crown property gives a certain dignity to
whatever bears it, and whatever small duty has the name of God written
across it is thereby ennobled. If our days are to be full-fraught with
the serenity and purity which it is possible for them to attain, and if
we ourselves are to put forth all our powers and make the most of
ourselves, we must cultivate the continual sense that life is a
course--a series of definite duties marked out for us by God.
Again, the image suggests the strenuous efforts needed for discharge of
our appointed tasks. The Apostle, like all men of imaginative and
sensitive nature, was accustomed to speak in metaphors, which expressed
his fervid convictions more adequately than more abstract expressions
would have done. That vigorous figure of a 'course' speaks more
strongly of the stress of continual effort than many words. It speaks
of the straining muscles, and the intense concentration, and the
forward-flung body of the runner in the arena. Paul says in effect, 'I,
for my part, live at high pressure. I get the most that I can out of
myself. I do the very best that is in me.' And that is a pattern for us.
There is nothing to be done unless we are contented to live on the
stretch. Easygoing lives are always contemptible lives. A man who never
does anything except what he can do easily never comes to do anything
greater than what he began with, and never does anything worth doing at
all. Effort is the law of life in all departments, as we all of us know
and practise in regard to our daily business. But what a strange thing
it is that we seem to think that our Christian characters can be formed
and perfected upon other conditions, and in other fashions, than those
by which men make their daily bread or their worldly fortunes!
The direction which effort takes is different in these two regions. The
necessity for concentration and vigorous putting into operation of
every faculty is far more imperative in the Christian course than in
any other form of life.
I believe most earnestly that we grow Christlike, not by effort only,
but by faith. But I believe that there is no faith without effort, and
that the growth which comes from faith will not be appropriated and
made ours without it. And so I preach, without in the least degree
feeling that it impinges upon the great central truth that we are
cleansed and perfected by the power of God working upon us, the sister
truth that we must 'work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.'
Brethren, unless we are prepared for the dust and heat of the race, we
had better not start upon the course. Christian men have an appointed
task, and to do it will take all the effort that they can put forth,
and will assuredly demand continuous concentration and the summoning of
every faculty to its utmost energy.
Still further, there is another idea that lies in the emblem, and that
is that the appointed task which thus demands the whole man in vigorous
exercise ought in fact to be, and in its nature is, progressive. Is the
Christianity of the average church member and professing Christian a
continuous advance? Is to-day better than yesterday? Are former
attainments continually being left behind? Does it not seem the
bitterest irony to talk about the usual life of a Christian as a
course? Did you ever see a squad of raw recruits being drilled in the
barrack-yard? The first thing the sergeants do is to teach them the
'goose-step,' which consists in lifting up one foot and then the other,
_ad infinitum_, and yet always keeping on the same bit of ground. That
is the kind of 'course' which hosts of so-called Christians content
themselves with running--a vast deal of apparent exercise and no
advance. They are just at the same spot at which they stood five, ten,
or twenty years ago; not a bit wiser, more like Christ, less like the
devil and the world; having gained no more mastery over their
characteristic evils; falling into precisely the same faults of temper
and conduct as they used to do in the far-away past. By what right can
_they_ talk of running the Christian race? Progress is essential to
real Christian life.