Work It Out: Wait With Purpose

Hook: It was July of 2002, I was eight years old and my mom had just gotten remarried. My mom, my sister Sydney and I were preparing to move from Delaware to Pennsylvania. I soon learned that I would be packing the U-haul with my Step-Dad and heading up to PA about a week before my mom and sister because training camp for football started.

The moments that followed are a bit fuzzy in my memory. But I do remember the first day I ever got football pads. We stood outside of the equipment shed one day after practice being handed our equipment, one by one. I was up all night, excited, nervous and ready to see what I could do with these pads. The next morning my brother and I woke up early for practice.

The smell of the fresh cut grass still wet with the morning dew. Water bottles flying around as all my teammates were excited and just as nervous as I was. And then the whistle blew, Oklahoma drill time… If you aren’t familiar with it, check out David and Sean who are going to take you through one really quickly.

It was during this drill that I fell in love with the game of football. This violent, human car-crash game that taught me more about life than I could’ve ever imagined. I knew when I left that practice that I was born to play this game and I was going to do whatever it took to be great at it.

We ALL have that sport, that hobby, that love that we feel like we were born for. That one thing that consumes our passion. That “calling” that we want so desperately want to be great at. One of the greatest things about that passion of yours and mine is that we have to be willing to put the work in to get better at it. For many of us the more knowledge we gain about that passion, the better we get at them. Well, same is true as it pertains to our relationship with Jesus.

Last week we talked about this big word… Sanctification.

We defined it as. “A journey where God partners with you and I to free us from sin and make us more like Jesus.”

Last week we looked at the journey and specifically two things.

1. That God does not expect us to be perfect to start the journey.

2. Freedom from sin comes from Jesus who defeated sin when He died on the cross who now lives in us and from confessing our sin to God and to one another so that He can bring healing.