Castaway

Upper Room Church - Pastor Steve Logan

“The price of discipleship is obedience and self-denial. Being a disciple and being a child of God are two different things.” – Pastor Steve Logan

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receives the prize! So run that you may obtain, and every man that strives for the highest position must have the greatest of self-control. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. Therefore, I do not run uncertainly, or fight like one shadow boxing and beating at the air. I keep my body under the greatest control. I bring it under subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

The Apostle Paul is reminding us of the Isthmian games, which was held in the spring of the first and third year of every Olympiad. They were a part of the periods dedicated to the Greek Gods of Poseidon and Palaimon. Each person that would take park in those games had to be of the greatest of shape. These athletes had to be competitive. Their proficiency required that their bodies be under the greatest control. They exercised for hours each day, over and over, knowing that only those most dedicated would win the crown; and so they run knowing only the greatest would win.

There were rules that determined the outcome of each event. If you did not finish you were disqualified. If you did not play by their rules you were disqualified, or castaway, as the King James Bible would say. Another word for castaway would be shipwrecked. You run a ground. These athletes were still athletes; they did not cease to be that. They were only disqualified from the events that they were in. These scripture have nothing to do with salvation, but they have everything to do with servitude. If you were a castaway, it meant that you were disqualified from being a disciple.

Remember what Jesus said, how that if a person did not take up his cross and follow him, he could not be his disciple. The price of discipleship was obedience and self-denial. Being a disciple and being a child of God are two different things. Jesus said, “How can you help your brother get a splinter out of his eye when you have a beam in your own eye? First remove the beam out of your own eye so that you can see to get the splinter out of his.”

If we have a beam in our eye that doesn’t automatically disqualify us from service unto our brother, who only has a splinter in his own eye. The teaching is that before we can truly be His disciple, we must lay down our lives first. Paul said, “Do we preach thou shalt not steal then asks do we steal?” Again he said, “Do we preach thou shalt not commit adultery then asks do we preach and commit adultery?” We must live of the gospel, for if we don’t then it is for certain that we shall soon lose all respect and honor to where there is no cutting edge. No one honors us. We must live the WORD or it’s for certain we will not be His disciples, we are castaway.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all. We are in a race where we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us. Let us run this race with patience looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. We need to consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest we be wearied and faint in our mind. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

Do this that we be not as castaways whose faith has become shipwrecked and whose service is disqualified because of the lack of ability or faithfulness that it takes to compete in such great events, as these our Lord has called us into. Remember, no man that wars entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who hath chosen Him to be a soldier. If a man also strives for the masteries, yet he not crowned except he strive lawfully.

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