1 Corinthians 9:24 Know you not that they which run in a race run all, but one receives the prize? So run, that you may obtain.… I. NOTHING IS MORE UNDENIABLY TRUE THAN THAT RIVALRIES ARE AMONG THE MOST FRUITFUL SOURCES OF EVIL IN EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LIFE. 1. People are agitated by heated political contests which, for a time, absorb every other interest. 2. Commercial rivalries. The rivalries of the street, the shop, the drawing-room, when and where do we not hear their echoes? II. HOW UNIVERSAL IS THE TRAINING THAT PRODUCES THESE RIVALRIES. It begins in childhood and runs all through life. How many people are there who covet a thing because it is intrinsically good, compared with those who covet it because it is better than somebody else's. The race of competitive display we see on every side. No place is so sacred as to be free from it. III. YET COMPETITION, A STRIFE TO EXCEL, NAY, IF YOU CHOOSE, DOWNRIGHT RIVALRY, HAS A JUST AND RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE PLAN OF HUMAN LIFE. 1. It is the equitable thing that the best man should win. 2. But the rivalries of our daily life must be exercised under manly and Christian sanctions. 3. But having said this, let us see to it that no eagerness for victory persuades us for one moment to forget that greater than any other triumph is the triumph of inflexible principle. 4. It is just here that we touch what may be called the heroic side of human rivalries. 5. In the eagerness of business competition, in the race for a prize, whether it he social, or commercial, or political, what a rare field for that magnanimity which will not take an undue advantage of another. 6. And even so, nay, still more, when there comes that harder strain upon the nobility of our nature which comes with our successes. How hard to bear meekly and generously the intoxication of success. (H. C. Potter, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. |
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