Champions Vs Contenders

Intro

There is a difference is Champions and Contenders

With contenders they might contend.

They might contend depending upon the adversary of opposition.

They hope to win not based confidence in ability, skill, team, and coach.

Contenders don’t carry themselves like Champions.

Their assurance is only a front and when the rubber meats the road they shrivel and fail.

But Champions

Are winners

They fight until the last second, the last breath.

The have full assurance in themselves because of their leadership, the leadership, the team. And on the greater level God

Paul says something in Romans 8 that is incredible.

He is talking about Champions and not contenders.

Contenders hope against hope and try to perform without preparation and the right direction.

But Paul is talking about Champions.

In Romans 7 Paul was a contender. He was under the law and it exposed the sin in him.

Romans 7:23 NKJV

But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Romans 7:24 NKJV

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Point 1

Romans 8:1 NKJV

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:2 NKJV

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:3 NKJV

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,

Romans 8:4 NKJV

that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:5 NKJV

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Romans 8:29 NKJV

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Point 2

Romans 8:35 NKJV

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Romans 8:36 NKJV

As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Romans 8:37 NKJV

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

More than conquerors

is hupernikeo

huper means more than or super

nikeo or nike means victory

So we are more than conquerors, super conquerors

And so even if we lose some small battles, we keep battling because we have already won the war.

WE have already won in Christ!

1 Corinthians 15:57 NKJV

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.

1 John 5:4 NKJV

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Point 3

Romans 8:38 NKJV

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,

Romans 8:39 NKJV

nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Conclusion