The man was injured and bruised, and his walk was painful and slow. And no one expected him to walk into the stadium at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Mexico City in 1968.
“As the announcer was giving his concluding remarks and people were preparing to exit, the lights went on in the back of the stadium,” said Robert Smith, distinguished professor of divinity at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. “There were a runner making his way into the stadium and onto the track. John Stephen Akhwari from Tanzania came into the stadium not running not trotting but barely moving.”
The closer the banged-up runner got to the finish line, the louder the applause became “until he finally crossed the finish line and fell into the arms of medical attendants,” Smith said.
The next day, journalists asked him why he kept going when the race was over.
“He said, ‘My country did not send me 11,000 kilometers from Tanzania to start the race; they sent me to finish the race,’” Smith said.
He told Akhwari’s story during the final sermon of the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference on June 9 in Dallas and told pastors that the Apostle Paul could relate.
Click here for more stories from SBC 2025 in Dallas.
Preaching from 2 Timothy 4:1–8, Smith said Paul “is familiar with blood; he knew what it was like to be stoned, he knew what it was like to be whipped, he knew what it was like to be beaten and here he is finishing the race, a race that started 30 years ago and now he is giving his last words.”
This was a serious word of charging and commanding from Timothy’s father in the ministry, Smith said.
One of Paul’s last words to Timothy was to be sober-minded, to remember to stick to the truth because one day he would stand before God and face judgment.
“Christ will be judged for our sin,” Smith said. “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. The Judge is the One who is judged so we can be proclaimed as innocent and free.”
Christ’s second appearing is so important to Paul that he mentions it twice in this paragraph, Smith said. “Maranatha — come, Lord Jesus … I charge you that you ought to be one who understands you will stand before Christ.”
Remember that and preach the Word, even if the church down the street preaches prosperity until the parking lot fills up, he said. Stick with the truth too even when hard times come.
“One of our students and his wife lost their 2-week-old baby, and he came to me for counsel,” Smith said. “He asked me, ‘How can I pray to a God who has hurt me?’”
Smith cried with him and his wife and then challenged him that he should be the one to preach the funeral.
“That tragedy is not redeemed by explanation — tragedy is redeemed by transformation,” Smith said. “What you have is a God who can take all things and cause them to work together for good.”
Smith told him that he knew what it was like to be at rock bottom, to have a son murdered, to be a young widower, to have three cancer diagnoses. He told the student that he had “been to the bottom, but I want to tell you the bottom is solid, because He’s at the bottom. And God is able to keep you and sustain you.”
The grieving father preached the funeral, and he was amazed at how God showed up for him at that time, Smith said.
He told those present at the Pastors Conference to “keep your head steady, be clear minded, be alert and do not be shaken by what takes place” — no matter what happens — as they finish their race.
“You are to be one who is to fulfill all the Lord has given unto you,” Smith said.
For more information about the SBC Pastors Conference, visit sbcpc.net. To see Smith’s sermon and others from the conference, visit sbcannualmeeting.net.
