Pick Up Your Baton

During the 2004 Athens Olympics, the American team was fastest qualifying team in the women’s 4x100 final. They should have won; but didn’t. There’s a 20 meter exchange zone where’s it’s legal to hand over baton. If you don't hand it over the right way, the whole team gets disqualified. During the race, between runner 2 (Marion Jones) & 3 (Lauren Williams) the race was lost because of a bad exchange.

In a relay, it doesn’t matter how fast, how big, how strong or how fantastic you run your leg of the race… an entire team can get disqualified because one person doesn’t hand the baton over right. [Paul likens our life to a relay race in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.]

God has a purpose for your life as part of a bigger plan than you even realize. You're not running this alone; it’s not an individual sprint. The church is interdependent; we're all on God's cosmic relay team,running this together. It’s our time in history and we have God's baton of faith in our hand. So what are we to do?

STRIP DOWN

Hebrews 12: 1-2 Runners strip themselves of any unnecessary weights so they can run unencumbered. What do we need to strip? It might not even be sin, it could be another type of weight that holds you back: culture, tradition, extended family expectations, etc.

Or, unresolved issues in your heart: anger, fear, insecurity, jealousy, etc. The baton exchange between Saul and David should have been seamless, but Saul didn't deal with issues of his heart so it became complex affair.

LOOK AT THE TEAM

Don't forget others have come before you. You better remember this, because if you don't, you just might forget there are still others to come after you. There's an eternal purpose to what you do. It's not just about the here and now; but about your part of something bigger that God's been doing throughout all of eternity. We can lose sight of what's going on if we don't remember we didn't just arrive. There was a whole generation that came before you that paid a massive price for you to be here. And, there are others to come after you counting on you to carry the baton to them.

TAKE YOUR PLACE

Everything will take longer than you think. In a relay, runner #4 doesn't get his nose out of joint when he doesn't get to run with a baton when the gun does off. He understands there is a process that happens before he gets the baton.
In churches, in life, God sees beyond what we do. He sees runner number 4 in position years before they’re ever there. Too often though, we've Christians across the world out of place and they’ll never be in position for the baton because they didn't take their place at the beginning.

PLAY IT OUT DAILY

It’s not the responsibility of politicians, the media, educational systems; it’s our responsibility to carry the baton to leave a legacy for this generation. God is trusting us to carry the baton. What does this look like every 24 hours in our seemingly insignificant life?
It doesn't matter if you’re a full-time homemaker, a corporate CEO, in manufacturing, a teacher, a student, a librarian, a doctor…don’t drop the baton…every normal, daily decision counts.

• MARRIAGE: don’t quit working at, give up or walk out.
• FAMILY: don’t believe Nick Jr. can do a better job raising them.
• MONEY: don’t give up on believing on God for your finances.
• MORAL PURITY: don’t cheat or give-in to shortcuts other accepts; relationally or legally.
• PRAYER: don’t quit believing prayer works and makes a difference in your life and others.
• GIVING: don’t stop making a difference with your hands and wallet.
• WITNESS: don’t believe it doesn’t matter when you gossip in the lunchroom.
• SCHEDULE: don’t believe you’re too busy to help and that somebody else will do it.
• CHURCH: don’t skip a week to go fishing believing it will be there when it's convenient for you.

These are the batons of the faith; the values, the morals, the relationships.

ENDURE

But, this is just too hard. I am tired. The heat is turned up too hot. I just want to give up. Though we are confronting great obstacles and hurdles as a church (and individuals), this is not a time to give up. It's a time to endure. To get our eyes off our temporal circumstances. There is a bigger picture. YOU are part of a bigger purpose.

WHO CARES? WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Church, don't be surprised when a generation ends up living like they came from nothing, live for no reason and they're going nowhere when that's all they've been taught.

God will look at the 21st century and say "who was the church?" What’s going to happen to the nation on your watch? It only takes one generation to drop the baton to severe the next generation so they don’t know God the works he's done. Those who have paid a huge price before us will have paid it for nothing if we drop the batons on our watch believing it doesn’t really matter. Don't abandon the next generation.

Our legacy isn't about just what WE do; it has everything to do with what happens when we leave.

GO BACK AND PICK UP YOUR BATON

We are all interdependent on each other. I can run like Marion Jones, but unless you run your 100 well, cross the line and exchange the baton successfully, then the whole team loses. Get back in your lane, take your place and start running your race to finish your course. If you dropped a baton, go back and pick it up yourself. Don’t wait for somebody else to do it.
Jesus gives us forgiveness for our past, a brand new start today and hope for our future. So, don't waste time feeling like a loser if you dropped a baton. Just go back and pick it up.
We are blessed to be a blessing.

We’re given prosperity for a purpose. The baton is in our hands. TAG! Church, you're it.