Now Streaming Week 4: The CrownSample

A total of 73 million households worldwide have watched The Crown , the opulent royal drama dubbed “TV’s best soap opera” by The Telegraph . In fact, in the first week of season four, more British people tuned in to the fictionalized version of events than the real-life royal wedding between Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Throughout history, the British crown has been inherited, rejected, beloved, and disdained. So much drama has surrounded something so temporary. In his letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul described the difference between the temporary crown awarded to elite athletes and the eternal crown awarded to Christians. Paul’s contemporaries would have been familiar with the laurel wreath given to victorious Olympians. All their weeks and months and years of training, sweat, discipline, and denial were rewarded with a simple crown of leaves from an olive tree. Paul asserted that he desired to win the race of the Christian life, to receive an "imperishable crown” (1 Corinthians 9:25) as a reward for living with a fierce focus on serving Jesus Christ by relentlessly preaching the gospel. But he recognized that it was possible to be disqualified from this race, and he feared he wouldn’t be able to keep his body and its desires under subjugation. He wrote, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest…I myself should become disqualified” (v. 27). Paul did not want to be disqualified from the opportunity to serve Jesus Christ. At the end of his life, Paul declared, “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Can your life be described as running a race with a clear goal of keeping yourself useful to God and effective in His work? For most Christians, it may be more accurate to say, “I have finished the stroll” or “I have completed the meandering” or maybe “I started but then headed to the bleachers.” Whatever God has given you to do, make it your goal to finish the task and keep the faith.