Sermon delievered to Waldorf College Football Team 08/23

I once knew of a little boy growing up in Iowa. He had a wild spirit and a loving heart; a heart so big that he needed a big body to contain it. Yep he was the fat kid and he was bullied and beaten mercilessly by his peers. Why did they hate him so much? He had such a loving heart and just wanted to be accepted; he just wanted to live up to whatever standard that his peers were holding him up too. But he didn’t know the standards nor could he find it within himself to live up to them.
As this boy approached high school he discovered that under the layers of fat laid a strong foundation for weight lifting. He out bench pressed everyone in his freshman class. As a freshman he was bench pressing 265 lbs. This gained him some attention and notoriety. For the first time in his life he thought he had found the standard that his peers wanted him to live up to; the more weights he lifted the angrier he got at himself for not being perfect and this sent him on a quest for physical perfection. He then discovered that he had a talent for wrestling. Every time he walked on the wrestling mat he envisioned one of his childhood bullies as his opponent. His many victories gained him more acceptances from his peers and the ones that didn’t accept him he either physically intimidated or wrote them off as losers and destroyed them verbally.
There isn’t anything that he would not do to win a wrestling match. He gouged eyes; he twisted parts of boys that shouldn’t be twisted, one of his opponents was carried off the mat on a stretcher with broken ribs. What happened to that big heart? Had it turned black in the face of competition and an attempt to live up to a standard that is understood in our society today but is never spoken of or written down anywhere?
His senior year he stood 5’ 9” and weighed 195lbs and boasted an 8% body fat. He squatted well over 600lbs and bench pressed 475lbs. He visited Veterans’ Auditorium in Des Moines twice in a quest for the title of Iowa State Wrestling Champion. But he was never satisfied. He could never live up to the goals he set and he could never fulfill the standards that he felt society wanted him to fulfill. He got angrier and angrier and his heart got blacker and blacker. He would physically assault boys in school for simply wearing white shoes. He wasn’t really angry after all; he was actually scared! He was scared that if he lost too many matches that people would see the he really was still the loser of his youth and everything he worked for would count as nothing. You see anger is never an emotion by itself; it is always covering up an inferior emotion.
His senior year he got hurt in practice of all places and placed 6th in the state tournament. 6th place behind 5 guys he had beaten earlier in the year. How could this happen? How could he let his loser self fail in front of thousands of people? He never stepped on a mat again and as far as I know has never returned to watch or take part in the Iowa High School State Wrestling Tournament after that 6th place finish.
He graduated from high school and his wrestling career was over. How can he be justified now? What can take the place of wrestling and weightlifting to gain the respect and acceptance of his peers? I will give you a hint she was 5’ 1, blond and weighted 105 lbs. Sure, this was it. Growing up his uncles, his brother, and his friends all bragged about the babes they seduced. He would gain a reputation as a ladies’ man with this new girlfriend and then he would be good enough.
But this boy wasn’t the only one who thought that this girl hung the moon. She liked attention from men all men and she found another lover and left him rejected and empty. He was crushed and he went off to college a train wreck waiting to happen.
College offers many things to a broken hearted boy looking to escape from reality. But the most important thing it offered was beer! This young man found out that if he could stay drunk then he could numb the pain and drown out the feelings of insecurity. He lived on the 12th floor of a dormitory. Now I am not saying that his living arrangements were the cause of his problem, however no one on that floor made the honor roll if you know what I mean. The inevitable happened he left school and married the next girl he met.
She was a pretty gal and came from a good family. But he was way too focused upon himself and his own misery to pay any attention to her needs. He got a job as a loan office for a finance company and wasn’t making very much money but he liked the power it gave him. His thirst for money and power increased as these seemed to be the things that gained him acceptance now. With his experience in finance he took a job as a finance manager in a car dealership. At 23 years of age he was making over $100k a year. His financial success allowed him to be drunk on the best beers and wines the world had to offer. He had not yet gotten over the defeat of his past and he found a few other damaged souls in the world who made a lot of money and drank enough beer to fill a swimming pool to share in his misery.
Well his wife got into the party lifestyle and in his constant absence she fell for another man and divorced him. Their divorce was final on the day of their three year anniversary. Again he was crushed, rejected and defeat and no amount of money could make him whole again; his depression persisted and his drinking increased.
There was a hot young gal whose father was a salesman at the dealership where he worked. He started to pursue her with a vengeance. This girl is the hottest thing that ever walked the face of the earth. I have seen pictures boys this chick is smoking. With his new found negotiating skills he convinced her to lower her standards and marry him. They lived the party life together. If they wanted to fly to Jamaica for the weekend they would, regardless of the cost, money was not an obstacle. But then their lifestyle started to outspend their income. They were making over $100k/year but living like they made over $200k. Debt started to pile up as the pressure to perform to make the commission to cover the payments increased. As the pressure built the drinking increased and I think you know where this is leading.
The 911 attacks were a sad and shocking time for all Americans but it killed the car business. This boy moved his wife and 2 small children to a bigger city with a bigger dealership in hopes of outrunning the debt of their current life style. But after the 911 attacks he ended up taking a $100K/year pay cut and they lost everything. They lost their house, their cars, and their credit rating, everything except each other. Again trying to live up to impossible standards had taken their toll on this boy.
One day driving home from a party this young man heard God say to him that he could no longer live this way. He took that message seriously and left the car business to start over. But something was different he could not get this God’s message out of his head. He spent the next nine months reading every Christian book he could get his hands on. He consumed about 2-4 books a week. And read the Bible in three months. But his thirst for learning was never quenched. His pastor friends started to send men to him that had addictions and financial difficulties just like he had had. He felt a great kinship with these men and took a great joy in understanding their problems and giving them hope. He confessed all the sins of his past to his wife and she forgave him as she saw that something was different about him. He decided that he was being called to be a pastor in Christ’s church so he applied for school and his wife went to work full time.
Grand View College admitted him on a probationary period. You see he had completed his AA degree but he completed it with a 1.97 GPA. At Grand View if you come in with an AA degree your GPA starts over and all the core classes are not required. He spent the next two years studying Religion and Philosophy and worked as a chaplain part time at a homeless shelter in Des Moines.
He came to realize that only one thing kept him from ending up like these men at the shelter was that his wife took him back and forgave him. She became the example of Christ’s unconditional love in his life.
After two short years this boy graduated magna-cum-laude from Grand View College, now Grand View University, with a BA in Religion and Philosophy. With his graduation status and being inducted into three national honor societies he earned a full academic scholarship to Luther Seminary in St. Paul MN.
The boy who once tried to gain his own righteousness under his own power is now dead. If you haven’t figured it out yet that boy was me and he died; but he has now been resurrected as the man you see before you today. You see that is our baptismal vows Romans 6:4 says:
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Your “self life” must be put to death and a new creation must be resurrected if you are to be counted as righteous before God.
What does it mean to be righteous? Webster’s Dictionary defines it two ways:
1. acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin
2. : morally right or justifiable b : arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality
Webster’s definition makes it sound like there two different kinds of righteousness; 1 right before God according to His law and 2 right in human society or social morality. I would agree with Webster’s on this, I believe that there are two kinds of righteousness. However I name them by how we receive them. There is passive righteousness and active righteousness.
Passive righteousness is what we receive from God due to Christ’s finished work on the cross. This type of righteousness is like Webster’s first definition. We are right before God not because of how we lived our lives or how well we lived up to God’s divine law but because Jesus did it for us. No person can live up to God’s law to the extent that it will gain them salvation before God. Romans 3:20 says:
Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
Romans 5:20 says:
The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
God’s divine law doesn’t exist as a path to earn your way into heaven. It is not some ladder upon which you climb your way up to God under your own strength and your own ability. As a matter of fact as Romans 3:20 says it doesn’t justify you it makes you aware that you are unjustifiable. The only way to earn this kind of righteousness is to be completely passive in your actions and have faith in Jesus and his finished work FOR YOU on the cross. Faith not works saves a person. Faith not works is what makes you righteous in God’s sight. It is not based upon how many games you win, it is not how many beers you can drink and still walk back to the dorm, it is not based upon how many A’s you get school, it’s not based on how many chicks that you talk into sleeping with you! It is a supernatural righteousness that is given to you as a free gift if you only believe and trust that in God's one and only Son sent to die for your sins. This I submit to you is the most important righteousness a person can posses. For this righteousness is eternal and can never be taken away from God’s chosen believers.
If I am counted righteous before God by being completely passive and cannot earn anything by being moral then why should I be moral? Why shouldn’t I just believe in Jesus and do whatever I want? The more I sin the more he forgives me right? And isn’t more grace better?
These are good questions. Why behave yourself if God will forgive you for being naughty? The book of James 2:26 says:
For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
Out of passive righteous comes active righteousness. A person that has been given the faith in Jesus that saves them for eternity cannot help but desire to perform this kind of righteousness. Active righteousness is like Webster’s second definition. It is the righteousness of your life while you exist on earth. This righteousness is important because it fulfills what Jesus commanded. Jesus said love you neighbor as you love yourself. This active righteousness exists not to gain your way in to heaven rather it exists for the service of and the fulfillment of your neighbors needs. After you have received passive righteousness your only purpose on this earth is for active righteousness. Have you ever wondered why when someone is given faith in Jesus that saves them for eternity they don’t just disappear into heaven? Well here is why, they stay here to live out their life in service to their neighbor. This can take on many forms. Working as a grocery store carry out boy is serving your neighbor. Changing your child’s diaper is serving your neighbor. Ethically selling your friend a car at a fair price is serving your neighbor. Drawing the plans for a building that will house people is serving your neighbor. Walking a girl safely back to her dorm from a party when she has had too much to drink is serving your neighbor. You see there are activities that are God’s work that we perform each day for His people and don’t even realize it. I would even go as far as to say that playing football is God’s work. It provides entertainment for the crowd. It gives the linemen a chance to block for the back field. It gives the defense the chance to keep the other team from scoring so that the offense can get the ball back and so on and so on. Active righteousness does not save you but those who are saved act righteously. God will complete His work for His people through you whether you believe it or not. And in life there are consequences for not acting righteously.
For instance: let’s say that a salesman overcharges a customer for a good or service. This is not acting in a righteous way and can result in a law suit or the customer may never buy from them again. One time non-repeat customers does keep you in business very long. Let’s say that your friend ticks you off and so you go and spew evil words about him to those around you. This is not only breaking the 8th commandment it also may get back to your friend and affect your friendship. Let’s say that in a fit of hormones you cave casual sex with a girl drunk at a party. That girl could get pregnant and you have not only affected one life but three. Or else you could get some disease and things will start falling off you. Well that is what my mother told me anyway.
How does one obtain this passive righteousness that leads to active righteousness one may ask? We look again to the Bible for the answer, Romans 10:17 says:
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Faith that gives passive righteousness comes from the hearing of the Word of Christ preached to you by a true preacher, one who is sent by God and one who speaks with authority. Before you today stands a true preacher that is speaking to you with this authority. Not an authority of my own, you have been told of my past transgressions, rather an authority that is given by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. In the Words I have spoken to you today concerning righteousness the Holy Spirit has been delivered to you and is at work within you as we speak putting to death your flesh and creating a new creature.
Now I know that all this seems like a tall order. You might be asking yourself, “How can I ensure that I will act righteous for the rest of my life? How will become this person of integrity that God is calling me to be?” Relax; you can’t perfectly adhere to righteous action under your own power. If you could then Jesus wouldn’t have needed to come, Galatians 2:21 says:
"I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly."
Let me get you started on the road to being a person of integrity who posses passive righteousness and acts righteously. First it doesn’t start with comparing yourself to anyone else in the world. It starts with you believing God’s promise that your sins are forgiven on account of His son Jesus Christ. Then it’s simply doing the next right thing. Whatever situation crosses your paths after you leave here today, do the right thing. How will I know what is the right thing you might ask? God’s law is written on your heart, you know what is right and wrong. If you don’t ask one of your coaches I am sure they would be glad to guide you. So let me give you a for instance: you leave here today and you are tempted to turn to your team mate and say, “What was that dude talking about man, or who is he to tell me how to live my life, or That guy is full of what I shoveled in the horse barn, or my grandfather’s favorite, That guy was as worthless as tits on a boar man!” Doing any of these would not only be breaking the eighth commandment it would be proving that you do not have ears to hear what God is saying to you. Besides it would terribly detrimental to my fragile ego.
What I am saying guys is that you were all called here to Waldorf to compete together as a team. That is not an easy task and you may not want to love and serve your teammates and coaches all the time. But God has called you here for His purpose not yours. And all that He asks is that you believe His promise to you of forgiveness of your sins on account of His Son Jesus Christ and then go and do the next right thing; and then the next, and then the next. And when you realize that you do not have the power to do any of this under your own power, pray and ask Him to give it to you.
You see I spent the first 30 years of my life trying to make it count for something through active righteousness. I wasted the first 30 years of my life trying to make it count for something through active righteousness. And it wasn’t until I failed at every attempt and had every material thing stripped from me that I believed in God’s promise and then my life and my active righteousness counted because it made a difference in the lives of my neighbors.
May the peace of the risen Christ be with you all and thank you for giving me this chance to tell my story.