Football

As I was growing up I never really watched football. My father always enjoyed watching NASCAR and my mother never watched anything besides Judge Judy and the occasional game show. Anyways, as I got older and entered the college scene I started doing more things that I had never done before, mostly because my roommates did them. Now while your imagination may be running wild with this one I want you to remember that I was also a pastor while I was in college so I wasn’t too crazy with trying new things!

Anyways, one of the things that I started doing more of was watching sports. It started with baseball, and then some football, and finally hockey. I started watching the games from each sport more often, and usually I would ask my friends about concepts that I didn’t understand. “Are they allowed to hit the quarterback like that”, “wait, what does offsides mean”, “you mean to tell me you can’t take your helmet off and hit someone with it?” I would ask more and more questions until I finally started feeling like I was grasping, ever so slightly, what was going on.

I’m not sure if any of you are fans of any sports, but I am someone who has a very active imagination, so when I watch a sport and become a fan I often envision myself as one of the athletes. I think about all of the time spent training, the pain that must be felt with a loss or hard hit… I thought about a lot. But then I realized something, thinking about those things must be nothing in comparison to actually feeling them!

It is easy for me to say “man, it must be awful to lose a football game,” but I never really feel that same level of disappointment that a football team may feel. I can say “it has to be awful to take a puck to the face and lose some teeth,” but i’ll never fully understand what that feeling is.

However, with all of that being said, I think I can relate to one specific position in one specific sport. The wide-receiver in football! Now I have never played that position, or any sort of formally constructed football game in my life, but I feel like I can relate to the pain a wide-receiver must feel. And honestly, so can you.

Before I explain to you how we can relate to a wide-receiver, we need to look at some Scripture! John 16:16-20 says:

The New Revised Standard Version Sorrow Will Turn into Joy

16 “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.” 17 Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying to us, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” 18 They said, “What does he mean by this ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” 19 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’? 20 Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.

In this piece of Scripture we have Jesus doing some foreshadowing. He has told the disciples many times before about his upcoming death, but still they are filled with doubt and disbelief. Jesus continues to bring the topic forward to them, yet they continue to downplay the seriousness of Jesus’ words.

He explains to them that they will no longer be able to see him, but then shortly after they will. The disciples started questioning what this meant, what Jesus could mean. They asked each other “what does He mean by all of this?” Jesus hears this happening and says to them, “very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.”

What Jesus was explaining to them was that he was going to die soon. He would die and no longer be there with and for them. Then, three days after his death he would return to them. He tells them that while they mourn, while his death will cause them pain the world will rejoice. Then, and only then, will their pain turn to joy.

With our scripture in mind let’s look back at the wide-receiver in football. Now, before that player ever catches the ball they are not allowed to be tackled. So, they could run around the entire field all they want and would not allowed to be tackled, until they had the ball. So, what often happens is that the snap occurs, the quarterback gets possession of the ball, and then he scans the field. He looks down field for someone to be open, or if they aren’t open, for the opportunity to run the ball. Well, in this situation he spots an open wide-receiver, and he doesn’t see anyone on him. The quarterback winds up and throws the ball downfield.

As this happens another player on the opposing team notices the quarterback’s attempt (I won’t say what his position is because, frankly, I have no idea what position it would be!) The opposing player runs as fast as possible over to the wide receiver and prepares for the tackle. The wide receiver, keeping his eye on the ball, leaps up into the air to make the most magnificent catch we could see, and then BAM! His world gets turned upside down. The ball comes into his hands, and as he is seemingly stagnant in the air and starts coming down the opposing player runs right into him from the side, causes him to go off kilter, and the wide receiver comes crashing down to the field without the ball.

That is what Christianity is like.

We are the wide receivers in the game of life and evil, sin, temptation, pride, rage, doubt, lust....they are the opposing players that see us about to catch the ball. They are the opposing players that wait for us to be in the high of our Christianity, right when we are about to be at the climax of our ministry or life, and they hit us so hard that we have no idea what just happened.

This exact situation can be seen with new Christians. They just accepted the gift of salvation from Jesus Christ, they are recognizing His ultimate sacrifice for them, and they are so excited to explore it, share it, and embrace it! Yet, as this happens, life gets so much harder. They come to church and find pettiness, opposition, certain people who are willing to crush them to only lift themselves. They find that becoming a Christian isn’t this long lasting pleasant experience, and sometimes, life even seems harder as a Christian. Then, after they see and experience this they tend to stop coming to church, Bible study, and withdraw from the new friends they have made.

I say this not to scare anyone into not become a Christian, scare a new one who may not have had this happen yet, or to even say “as you get more experienced it gets easier,” but I say it to prepare you. Whether you are a new Christian, you aren’t one yet, or you have been one for a long time you need to realize that we are constantly working to become better Christians and to emulate the life of Jesus Christ. If we do not realize that these hits happen then it will catch us off guard, knock us off kilter, and cause us to come crashing back down.

If you recall the previous scripture Jesus says at the end “very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.” Jesus warns the disciples, and even us, that we will have pain. Followers of Christ experience pain. However, Jesus also reassures his disciples. He tells them that their pain will turn into joy. When they realize that Jesus is dead and buried, when they feel that they no longer have Him with them, they will experience great pain. But what joy must they feel when they see Jesus again after he is resurrected! This scenario was spelled out to them by Jesus and they still could not understand. Let’s not allow that to be our same mistake.

It would be our mistake to assume that Christianity and a life surrounded by God would be easy. Life is hard, even harder when we follow Christ. We will constantly be vulnerable to being tackled and brought back down, but we can fight back. While I’ve attempted to connect wide receivers to Christianity, I will say there is a big difference. While a wide receiver is in the air they cannot protect themselves, or even fight back, but we can. We have the ability to fight back and protect ourselves. We can turn to God at any point and say “father, I need your help. Things are going really well for me, i’m afraid that I will be tackled soon, please help me.”

While God may not directly stop you from being tackled, he is there to help you back up. He encourages us to be persistent and resilient for Him, to not give up on Him so quickly when we are tackled and brought back down. We need to make sure that we are helping each other up, encouraging the ministries and good works of others, and preparing ourselves to be tackled.

There is a song by Andy Mineo that I think has a great line for this. The song is called “Know That’s Right” and the very first lyric of the song is “if you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready.” We need to make sure that we are not the wide receivers who get tackled and then stand up saying “woah wait a minute, we can hit each other in this game?!” We need to be the wide receiver that goes onto the field saying “i’m going to be hit, tackled, beat up, and maybe even get hurt. But, I need to do it for the win.”

Let us go onto the field, having God as our head coach, and be prepared to play hard and fast for God. Let us be ready to take that tackle, embrace the suck, and drive on for the glory of God. If you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready.

Let us pray

Know That’s Right by Andy Mineo ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q8DgBw8zUY