God Loves Football — Lord’s Day 12

// January 11th, 2012 // Sermons

Ever since I can remember, I have loved football. I remember playing it at recess, getting bloody noses and plenty of scrapes and bruises from it. I started playing football as soon as I possibly could. My parents signed me up to play football in a league that was over thirty miles away because I was so eager to get going. I played all through high school and had the opportunity to play for a year in college. I can honestly say that my favorite year of playing football was the year that I played in college. There was nothing like playing the game with a team full of people who were followers of Christ. Some laugh at this because they stereotype Christians as being soft, but not these guys. As a team we held one passage of scripture very close to our hearts. It says, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” And that’s what we did with extreme intensity, we played football to the glory of God! You could see it in the lives of every player on the team.

There were three ways that you could see this in our team. First it was because every time we stepped onto the field, we gave it everything we had. We knew that we had a job to do and if we didn’t do it, the rest of the team was let down. If one of the linemen took a play off, either the quarterback or the running back were going to get hurt. If the linemen were giving it everything they had but the wide receivers were slacking, not only would the team be ineffective, but the linemen would get sick of blocking. As a result of this, we played with everything we had because we knew there were other people relying on us and we knew that there were other people breaking their backs for us. We all relied heavily upon each other and were determined not to let the others down.

The second way you could see this in our team was the intensity with which we trained. As a team we didn’t just lift weights every once in a while, it was at least once a day, maybe twice, and we never trained alone. We always were training with our teammates and the entire time we were lifting or running, you had someone cheering you on or screaming at ya (in a good way). When you thought you couldn’t do another lap, someone would come along side you and help you do another one. When you thought you couldn’t do another squat, someone would come alongside you and motivate you to do another one. It was intense.

The third way that you could see this is by how we related to one another. Nobody on the team looked down on anyone else on the team. There was nobody else on the team that played a less important role than the others. Not even the “star players” looked down on us little freshman. We all had a place or a purpose on the team and none of those roles were more important than the other. Although I was only a freshman, and never started a game in college, I still had to help prepare the guys that were going to be starting. That means that all week long I had to give everything I had in order to help someone else succeed. If I slacked off, they wouldn’t be as well prepared as they could have been. Everyone had an important role. Everyone had worth. That is why we were such a solid football team.

Now why spend so much time talking about football in our Wednesday night message? Because I think our churches need to look a lot more like the good football teams. It saddens me to think that churches do such a poor job at this but it also gets me excited to think about what would happen if we start to do this better, the way God intended it to be. Let’s take a look at our passage for today.

1 Corinthians 12:12-26 says this, “12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

This is a pretty large passage so let’s take it paragraph by paragraph and see what God is trying to tell us tonight. The first paragraph says, “12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” Do you notice any words that repeat themselves in this passage? Yeah the words “body” and “one”. Whenever you see words repeated like that, you need to pay attention. Paul wants us to take a look at our bodies. Look at how many different parts there are. Some are pretty cool looking, some are pretty weird looking, but they all come together to form one body that functions wonderfully. He says that it is the same with Christ. Why does he say that? Verse 13 starts off with the word “For” and that tells us why he is saying it is the same in Christ. You could almost translate it as “Because”. Paul is saying that when you become a Christian, you are filled with the Holy Spirit. Everyone who is filled with the Holy Spirit has the same Spirit. It doesn’t matter where they live, what they look like, or how they were raised. They are all filled with the same Holy Spirit. Because of this, we are to function as a body.

Like I mentioned a few weeks ago, we have an extremely diverse group that meets here on Wednesday nights. Some would see that as a bad thing, but I see it as an awesome thing! In order for a body to function properly it needs to have diversity. If everyone who met here on a Wednesday night acted and thought the same, we couldn’t truly operate as a body. That is exactly what Paul says next in this passage.

He says, “14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”  If all the members were the same, it would no longer be a body. It would only be a bunch of members. You must have diversity in order to have a body. Be happy with how God has created you. Don’t complain because you don’t have the gifts that someone else has. God didn’t want you to have those gifts. He gave you the gifts you have for a reason. Be happy about it and be excited.

The next paragraph says something similar but with a different twist. It says, “21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24which our more presentable parts do not require.” Do you hear what is being said in this passage? Make sure you do! If you want to see me get wound up and angry, ignore what this passage is saying. I have begun to see more and more of this in our group and in churches in our community and honestly it angers me greatly. Paul says, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” I see this over and over again. People grow up in the church and as new people come in, who maybe look different or act different, they basically say “I have no need of you”. They stay away from them, they treat them differently, and with their actions they tell them “I have no need of you”. Who are you to say that you have no need of someone when “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose”? God chose to give you a different role than He gave them, but that doesn’t mean that your better than they are or that they are unnecessary. Every role is important. Every role is needed. Every role has worth.

So how does this passage end? I think this is the main point, the reason why Paul was writing all of this. He says, “But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” God has designed the body, his church, so that those who are looked down upon are actually the ones that will receive the greater honor. Take a minute to think about that. How would this idea change the way you look at other people? How you treat those in the room tonight?

He not only designed it for that reason but he also designed it so that everyone would care for each other equally. That isn’t saying that God designed the church so the leaders would care for everyone equally, but that everyone would care for everyone equally. As a member of this group, it is your job to care for each other equally. Not just those in your clique but EVERYONE, EQUALLY.

He has also designed it so that there would be “no division in the body”. When you begin to look at people in this way, unity will emerge. When you see that everyone is needed and that everyone is caring for each other the group will grow closer and closer together. You will begin to experience what Paul says in verse 26 that, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” If one of you is suffering, we all suffer. If one of the leaders is suffering, we all suffer. It doesn’t matter if it is Brandon, Alli, Troy, Rachel, David, or Jason. If one is suffering, we all suffer. Why wouldn’t you do something about that? We are a team. A team with a huge variety of people, that we need in order to function. Everyone of us needs everyone else.

It is no different from a football team. Our group needs to reflect the three things that my football team did. First, that we will do everything we do to the glory of God. We will serve Him with passion and intensity. Realizing that our team, our church, is relying on us. We will leave it all on the field for God’s glory and the sake of His church. We will strive not to slack off or grow tired because we don’t want to let our team down. We will train with intensity and “spur each other on” so that we won’t grow tired as the game closes to an end. When we see someone who feels like they can’t go on any further we will encourage them or yell at them (in an encouraging way) in order to help keep them going. And we will see the value in everyone who is on our team. Some have been “playing the game” longer than others but everyone has a place and a role on this team. Everyone had value and purpose. Everyone is needed to accomplish the goal. Nobody is more important than the other. You all need each other.

Our football team that year was undefeated. Nobody even came close to beating us. If the church would begin to operate in the way that God has designed it, it could say the same thing.

That’s why I think God loves football!