Twice as Fit

Growing up, I was that kid.

Chubby - the jeans my mom ordered from the Sears & Roebuck Catalog were always sizes like 28 husky.

Husky - always husky.‌

And I had asthma.

My neighborhood was filled with little boys and we played all kinds of sandlot ball in my granddad’s front yard.

I played hard and I played as good as the rest of them - because when I couldn’t breath I could stop.

I went out for football once as a kid.

Went to in spring training.

We ended every practice by running a lap.

I was always last.

I was always struggling for breath.

And the last guy in was rewarded by having to run one more lap.

And I got tired of running one more lap - so I quit.

When I was about 12 years old, my Uncle Jerry took me to his church league softball games and the team let me be their bat boy.

I got to throw warm ups with them.

I got to shag balls in outfield practice.

I took reps on the infield.

I got to pitch batting practice.

And I grew out of my asthma.

Church league was big and it was competitive when I was young.

If a play was close, you’d slide into the base, steel cleats shining.

Our motto was, if you didn’t bleed, you didn’t play.

My church had 3 teams.

Davis Chapel Gold was the majors.

Davis Chapel Green was the minors.

And whatever color Davis Chapel three was, it was for the guys who wanted to play for fun.

For Gold and Green, winning was fun.

We played on a real field - well maintained - part of the Wallace Park recreation complex.

The field was 300 feet down the lines and to straightway center.

The 8 foot fence kept most of my balls from going out.

I hit one home run out of the park in my career.

But I made that chain link fence rattle more times than I could count.

I left bat boy to start playing on DC Green with my buddies.

We won the championship - I got the game ball - this is it - still sits on my shelf in my office.

Glory days.

I started working for IBM in 1978 - I was a mail boy.

I was so naive that when Susan Rinaldi offered me the job in mail services, I thought she meant “male” services.

That I’d be helping guys do man things like moving stuff into offices and such.

I was some more surprised when I walked into this giant mail room.

And one of the best things about working at IBM was they had their own intramural softball league.

My first game with the mail and printing press team, I rode the bench.

They had played together for some time - I was the new kind on the block.

The second game the coach finally felt guilty and put me in about half-way through the game.

He put me in as catcher - he thought to minimize any damage I might cause.

He had no clue that my favorite positions was pitching and catching because you stayed busy.

It was the top of the ninth and we were behind - the setup was perfect.

We were the visiting team that night - if we ended the inning behind, there would be no bottom of the ninth.

As the Lord would have it, the bases were loaded with two outs, and I was in the batter’s box.

It was my first at bat with my new team.

I heard one of the players tells the coach that he should pull me and let someone else bat.

The coach didn’t.

The field we played on was 260 feet down the line and straightaway center.

The fence was 4 feet high.

It looked like a T-ball field to me.

The pitcher lobbed one right in my wheel house.

The ball still had a lot of altitude when it cleared that fence.

My first at bat was a grand slam and we went on to win the game.

I didn’t have to pay for much at Tony’s Pizza at the after party.

That was 1979.

Fast forward 42 years to 2021.

I umpired a game for our church league team.

When the game was over, they very graciously let me hit a few.

They could see, I was dying to swing a bat.

They told me still had pretty good form.

I stood in the batter’s box well.

I strode into the ball well and kept the bat reasonably level in the swing.

And I blistered that ball - well, kinda - almost to the edge of the outfield grass.

Not the warning track - the grass just outside the infield dirt.

In 1979, I was 23.

In 2021, I was 65.

I’m the perfect morality tale of why old men don’t play ball.

No old men play ball like they did when they were 23.

Old men do best by sitting at Dairy Queen early in the morning and tell stories of their glory days.

Gentlemen, you didn’t get up to get here at 6:30 to play.

Neither did I.

So saddle up.

Our text is one verse from the Word of God.

It’s not my opinion and neither of our opinions about it counts for much anyway.

It’s the Word of God and here’s the verse.

Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

The big question this morning is, “What are you teaching your children and your grandchildren?” and we’ll finish with a larger secondary question.

But first, what are you teaching your children and grandchildren?

Times have changed.

When I was in elementary school, mom let me stay home from school a couple of times to watch rockets launch.

I grew up with project Mercury.

I grew up with Gemini and Apollo and the Space Shuttle.

I saw rockets when all they did was go straight up and straight down.

And now I am in awe of the pictures a rocket is sending back that is hovering 1 million miles away from the earth.

When I was little, if Bob like Rob, Bob kept that under raps.

Now Bob can marry Rob.

And if Bob feels like he’s Barbie, well, some doctor can give Bob drugs to make him look like Barbie.

When I was young, the world shut down on Wednesday afternoons.

So the bankers could get in a game of golf before Wednesday services at church.

We had blue laws for Sunday - nothing opened until mid day because most everyone was in church.

I don’t long for those days - but I do long for the simplicity of those days.

Church was central to the life of the community.

Church WAS the life of the community.

Now the life of this community is the Morris Bank Recreation Center on highway 18.

And Greyhound stadium.

And the myriad other fields and courts around the county.

Schools went from honoring Wednesday night for spiritual development to scheduling everything on Wednesday nights.

And Sundays - travel ball.

I don’t hate ball - I love it.

Some of my best memories are from the ball field.

I’m not speaking against ball.

I’m speaking for Jesus and against us listening to the promises of the evil one so that we send our children to hell.

Listen to me.

Here’s what we are doing.

We’re taking kids so small I suspect one or two will pee in their pants on the field and we put a glove on their hand and a bat in their bag.

They practice - how many times a week?

And they keep doing it for years.

And because we are good parents and grand parents - we show up.

Because we love them and we want them to know we love them.

And ball does good things.

It teaches team work and sportsman ship.

It teaches fairness and that nobody likes cheaters.

It teaches determination and work ethic.

It teaches you can be the best today and get crushed tomorrow.

It teaches you how to be a gracious loser and if you have a good coach, it might teach you how to be a gracious winner.

With some skill and some luck, it can get you a scholarship to a college.

You’ll learn academic things that will help in a career.

You might meet your wife there.

You may never go further than college ball - only 1/2 of 1 percent of high school senior boys will play Major League Baseball.

Only 1.6% of all college football players will get to the NFL.

The odds of your little hoopster making it to the NBA is 1,920:1 against.

But you will have learned a lot regardless.

Chances are good you’ll get a good job.

Chances are good you’ll live a good life.

Chances are good your kid will be a good person.

Chances are real good that your child will grow old gracefully.

And chances are real good that your kid will die and go to hell

Because you taught them that they didn’t need Jesus.

That they could have a perfectly good life without him.

Yes, you taught them about Jesus - maybe even got them to walk an aisle at some point.

It made everyone happy.

But church was optional.

And about the only prayer they ever hear is “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food.”

If someone needs their Bible, sometimes it’s a search to dig it out.

It rarely gets taken to church because the family rarely goes - travel ball, right?

And it’s not required at the Factory.

You busted your chops to make a great athlete.

You spend a ton of money and invested untold hours traveling all over the place.

For the trophies I sent to the landfill a little while back.

Because see, one day, your little slugger will be 65.

And truth be told, if he gets the opportunity to swing a bat like I did - he’ll pee a little in his pants when he swings that bat real hard.

You old guys know what I’m talking about.

Gentlemen, for God’s sake, think about what we are doing.

I teach 5th grade Awana.

For two weeks one of my boys asked us to pray that he’d be accepted by the Factory.

11 years old and stressing, stressing because he might not be good enough.

And I think he wasn’t - because one of my kids was, and I don’t see him anymore.

What in God’s name are we doing to our kids?

I promise you, barring anything out of the ordinary your little slugger will grow old and live a perfectly good life.

They will be moral and contribute to the community.

They might own a Dairy Queen one day but only have a passing knowledge of Jesus.

And one day they will meet Him and THEY WILL meet him.

Matthew 7:22-23 “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

And we will have played a part in that.

WE taught them how to be good people - and they didn’t need Jesus to do it.

Which leads me to the second, bigger question - Do you know Jesus?

See, you can be a good person without Jesus.

Although the United States is not a Christian nation anymore - if it ever really was

We still live on the fumes of Christianity.

We still believe loving each other is good.

We still believe lying is bad - unless it’s required.

We still believe murder is wrong.

We still believe stealing is wrong.

But you don’t have to have Jesus to believe those things and do those things.

Those are just fumes of Christianity.

Good people can lead good, respectable, influential, responsible lives without Jesus.

And lots and lots of people do.

But this life is the best they get.

Gentlemen, are you living in your heaven right now?

Is this the best it’s going to get for you?

I don’t want to know if you believe - in our language believe is a weak word.

I want you to ask yourself - are you committed to Jesus?

Are you committed that Jesus was born of a virgin?

Are you committed that Jesus lived a perfect life?

Are you committed that Jesus died on a cross?

Are you committed that while Jesus hung there on that cross, that the Father poured His anger, His wrath about your and my sins out on Jesus.

Are you committed that he died and was buried in tomb?

Are you committed that on the third day after his death, Jesus was resurrected by the power of God?

Are you committed that He ascended and sits at the right hand of the Father right this minute?

Are you committed that one day He will return to judge the living and the dead?

Are you committed that He will destroy this earth and will put in place a new heaven and a new earth where all of those who are committed to Him will live with Him forever?

Are you committed?

If it was required, could you give up Tech football and Georgia football for Jesus?

Are you committed enough, that you can explain to your child and your grandchild that it’s more important to be committed to Jesus than it is to know how to set up a pic

Or turn a double play

Or to keep your eye on the ball and swing level.

Gentlemen, do you know enough about Jesus that you could explain Him better than you can explain how to turn a 6-4-3 double play?

Gentlemen, like George sang, the evil one offers us a good life.

But he’s not your friend.

Don’t let him lull you and your family into hell because he tossed you loved the smell of leather and the sound of the crack of a bat.

And he made sure you smelled it and heard it.

Your soul is worth so much more.

And eternity is a long, long time.

Pray with me.