When you arrived this morning, did you try to answer the Winter Olympics Quiz? Well, the French word for sled is “luge”, and the luge has been an Olympic sport since 1964. The match to the sport that “Originated in Scotland” is curling. That’s when one person aims the stone on the ice then two sweepers help direct it.
It’s skiing that dates back at least 6,000 years. In fact, an ancient Russian artifact pictures a hunter on crude skis alongside
reindeer. That leaves just one pair remaining. So the biathlon, or the combination of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting, goes with “First a survival tactic, then a sport.” The 
Northern Europeans hunted for food this way, and later used the technique to defend their homelands. So, how did you do?
Just four years ago, the Winter Olympics were held in our country, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Overall, 2,399 men and women from 77 countries competed.
Until recently, most people probably thought of Turin, Italy as the home of the famous shroud bearing the image of a crucified man, which some are convinced was Jesus. But this is not what has recently focused the world’s attention on this city up in the mountains of Northwestern Italy.
No, it’s Winter Olympics time again. The events begin this weekend and continue through Sunday the 26th, with athletes from ever so many countries competing for the honor of being recognized as number one in their sport in the world.
Here is the apostle Paul writing his first letter to the church in Corinth and drawing on just such a picture. His point is that strict training is essential for those serious about winning an award that will last forever.
It’s really not all that difficult a truth to understand. The Olympians who swelled the population of Turin, Italy this week, arrived there after years of strict training. Their bodies weren’t out of shape or their minds unprepared. Their training regimen has no doubt been the most disciplined they have ever gone through, and Paul likens that toughness to where those of us competing for a crown that will last forever need to be. Here are his words again. “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.”
We are going to look at 5 spiritual trainings that simply make you better at life. Isn’t that a good thing? And because we all need encouragement, I want you to choose one of these regimens to practice during the Olympics. That way, each time you see the news and hear about the Olympics, you will be reminded to do your spiritual training for the day. So get ready, get set …
I believe we all understand what the great apostle is driving at. It’s the specifics we’re not all that sure about. What would the equivalent look like in spiritual terms? What kind of regimen do we have in mind?
What I want to do this morning is recommend three, not all that easy, but also not all that hard, spiritual exercises. Then I want you to choose one of the three you will commit to working on in the time from now until the end of the Winter Games. That would mean for the next three weeks I want you to take up one of these spiritual exercises.
Here are the choices. I’ll call the first exercise “Truth Telling”.
It’s surprising how careless all of us can become in our use of words. So a three week spiritual workout that checks up on whether or not we are truth tellers can be extremely beneficial.
What you would do is covenant with the Lord this morning that you are open to the Holy Spirit pricking your conscience every time you say something that isn’t really true. Maybe it’s a matter of exaggeration, or selectively telling about an event in a way that makes you look better than how you acted in real life, or learning to recognize your own self-deception.
A guy at my last church did not like to hear about tithing. He was on the Finance Committee too. I thought he was there in part because he was faithful in giving. Later, I decided he got on the Finance Committee hoping that there might be cash at the meetings. And at one meeting, he shouted at me, I’ve tripled my giving since you came to this church and you’re still not satisfied. It sounded dramatic. Even I felt embarrassed. Until I actually looked at his giving. His statement was factually correct but not true. He wanted us to think he was over the top in generosity. The truth was he could have stopped giving and the church would not have realized it.
This is so important to God. If we indulge self deception, we hurt ourselves. How many people here have friends who don’t understand why they fail so much? I just had a guy this week reflect on a failed relationship and he said, I looked over everything to see where I was wrong and I wasn’t. Now, you don’t know another thing about him and already you can sense that he has a problem. And unhappily, our friends don’t often challenge us when we deceive ourselves.
I have told you several times about the Hartman profile we use when people are hired. The first thing it measures is your emotional ability to accept whatever thoughts and feelings you have.
Truth is so critical to our lives. Its another word for justice. How can we live without it and yet it pierces us and can leave us exposed and ashamed. That’s why our friends don’t tell us.
So that’s exercise choice number one I’m offering as we consider Paul’s words in First Corinthians 9:25, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.”
Option Two. The word I’m going to use is “journaling”. In the most simple of terms, this is your daily recording on your computer, what’s happening in your spiritual walk. And because we are looking at a three week time frame, you would begin today and continue the practice for a total of 22 days.
This is not a diary of what you do for the next three weeks. Instead, your entries are more a reflection on how you are doing spiritually. “Felt near to you today, Lord. That’s probably because it’s Sunday and I sensed your closeness in church. I have no question but what you were challenging me as our minister preached.”
The purpose of journaling is to help you hone in on what’s actually happening in your walk with the Lord. Sad to say, many people don’t have all that good a handle on where they are spiritually speaking. Journaling should put you in touch with just how intimate a relationship you have with the Lord.
I know people who write out prayers when they journal. Others confess their sins. Some compose music. Journals have been known to contain lists of people being prayed for, and answers to prayer. Many read like an ongoing phone conversation with the Lord. If this is the exercise you choose, however, know that it is to be done daily for 22 days, starting today.
Let’s move on to Spiritual Exercise Three. This one may not seem all that difficult. But why challenge people who haven’t been all that spiritually active with disciplines that result in injuries or discouragement or more pain than seems worth the effort?
Scripture Memory – that’s the next exercise, committing a verse or two to memory. Here’s a discipline some of you haven’t done for years and maybe decades. “But what verses?” you ask. Well, a big part of what will give you motivation to do this is choosing a passage that has special meaning to you. What about a blend? One verse on peace to remind us that God will win in the world. One verse on a promise you want to claim as your own, and one verse about the faithfulness of God.
Three of my favorite verses are Psalm 85:4 and 10 ‘Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; justice and peace will kiss each other’ [Psa 85:4] Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us.
[Luke 4:18] "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Write out the verse on a 3x5 card and carry it with you so you can review it again and again. When you see references to the Winter Olympic Games, bring these words of scripture to mind.
Here they are in review: Truth Telling, Journaling, Scripture Memory By now you should have decided on which spiritual exercise is most appropriate for you to work on for the next three weeks.
Why should you do this? I mean you could be thinking, “I didn’t come to church with
the intent of taking on such an assignment.” It is hard. Of all the millions of people on the planet, we are talking about only 2,000 disciplining their bodies in Turin. And of course, for many here, our 
bodies are broken. We could not get ready for the Olympics, no matter how much we willed it.
You may feel that same way about your spirit. Has life been tough and emotionally left your hurt? Too weak to stop self deception? Too anxious to write a journal? Too fretful to stop to memorize?
The bread on the table is already broken this morning to remind us that Jesus’ body was also broken. The truth is that Jesus’ body is always broken that you and I might know life. So life is always this combination of accepting Jesus’s strength as we come to communion while acknowledging that our bodies and spirits too are broken. If you take a step towards God, God will bear you up on the everlasting arms. You do not memorize or journal or face the truth by yourself. Jesus, the great high priest, is with you, praying for you, helping you through the Holy Spirit. You can do a spiritual discipline.
Once more, here is 1st Corinthians 9:25. “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”
