RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
SPORTS: THE FIGHT THAT MATTERS
DR. JIM DIXON
EPHESIANS 6:10, 1 CORINTHIANS 9:22, 2 TIMOTHY 4:7
FEBRUARY 1, 2009
Well, the Super Bowl is of course today, at 4 o’clock. To be more precise, the kick-off is at 4:28. This is huge. College football has the BCS championship games, and that’s huge. And college basketball has March Madness and the Final Four, and that’s huge. Pro-basketball has the NBA finals, and that’s huge. Pro-baseball has the World Series, that’s huge. Pro-hockey has the Stanley Cup, and that’s huge. Pro-golf has the Masters and PGA Championship and the British Open and the US Open, and they’re all huge. But nothing is as big as the Super Bowl. It’s a sporting event watched by more Americans than any other sporting event. And this sporting event will be piped to nations all over the world. But we live in a culture, we live in a nation that is enamored with sports and that loves sports. I think this is true of pretty much all cultures and all nations, and it has always been the case.
Many years ago, Barb and I traveled to Turkey with some friends and we rented a van and we went more than a thousand miles inland in Turkey, and to some ancient sites, biblical sites of Roman and Greek ruins in what was at one time Asia Minor. We came to a valley where there’s Colossai, and Laodicea, and Hierapolis, which is today called Pamukkale. And we also found an archeological dig there by Yale University at a site I’d never heard of called Afrodisias. Afrodisias is being unearthed and it’s amazing because they’ve found the largest hippodrome in the Roman world. A hippodrome is like a huge stadium and this hippodrome has a field 200 yards long. They believe the stone seats around the hippodrome, which were all being unearthed, would seat 200,000 people. Absolutely incomprehensible. You could still see the tunnels where the chariots would come out and all the athletes’ events and the contests and the competition would take place. Hippodromes were all over the Roman world. They also built huge amphitheaters like the Flavian, which is better known as the Coliseum, and these also were used for various sporting events. This was not true just of the Roman world. It was true of the Greek world. You had the Olympic Games and the Isthmian Games, so many different sporting events. This has been true throughout history.
Today the headlines in sports are everywhere. You can take Sports Illustrated. You can take ESPN, the magazine. If you take cable, you can take the ESPN channel. You can get ESPN news, ESPN II, ESPN Classic. You can get all the FOX sports channels. It’s just endless. You can open your newspaper, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News and turn to the sports page. Get the USA TODAY and turn to the sports page. The headlines in sports are everywhere. We are a culture in love with sports. I think there are a lot of reasons for this. I think children growing up can learn a lot of wonderful lessons in the world of sports. They learn about teamwork, and they can learn about selfless behavior and selfless play, and they can have a lot of fun. I think in the heart and the mind of mankind there is a little bit of a love of competition, a little bit of love of a challenge, a love of a contest, of a fight, of a battle, and certainly that is true in the world of sports.
This morning what I would like us to do as followers of Christ is take a look at what’s worth fighting for. In our lives, as we’re prompted by the Super Bowl and the theme of sports, what in our lives is worth fighting for as Christians? I would suggest to you first of all that a just world is worth fighting for. There is a fight for a just world and every follower of Jesus Christ is called to engage in that fight: the fight for justice.
Now we’re privileged to be citizens of the United States of America, and each of us as citizens of America have probably said the Pledge of Allegiance thousands of times. Every time we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we pledge ourselves to liberty and justice for all. I think many people say those words and don’t even contemplate the meaning. We just flow over it, pass through it, but we pledge ourselves to liberty and justice for all. We want our nation, our society to be just, and we want a just world. We want a fair world. In the Bible the word righteousness is associated with the concept of justice or fairness what is right, what is just, what is fair. This is part of the meaning of righteousness. In the Hebrew the word “mispat,” in Greek the word “dikaiosune,” these words are used in the Bible to call the people of God and the people of Christ to seek a right, a just, a fair world. You go through the Old Testament and you see the Prophets of Israel. You go through the Major Prophets, you go through the Minor Prophets, and as you go through those books you see how the Prophets of Israel were not popular in their time. They stood before the masses and they called the people to right behavior. They called the people to righteousness, to justice, they cried out, they railed against the oppression of the poor. They cried out for compassion for the poor and the right treatment of the least of the people. This prophetic call was for a just society. For us as Christians, the call continues and we are to seek justice in the world.
Now you might think our nation is just. You might think the world is relatively just. I’d like to share with you some statistics that I think are alarming. First of all, deaths from terrorism last year totaled 22,000. Each person, each death, was a tragedy, each person precious to God, and terrorism is an abomination on the Earth. 22,000people killed by terrorism last year. Certainly we should fight against terrorism. But understand this: every day—not every year, but every day—25,000 people die of hunger. 22,000 in a year in terrorism, 25,000 a day die of hunger. 16,000 children will die of hunger today. 16,000 children in this world die of hunger every day: one child every five seconds. All of this is according to Bread for the World.
There’s no justice in that. That’s just not fair. In 1965, CEOs (and I’m not referring to Christmas and Easter only people at this point) in major companies made 24 times more than the average worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Then in 1980, CEOs in major companies made 40 times more than the average worker, according to the Institute for Policy studies. Income was rising for the average worker. Income was rising for CEOs, but the CEOs income was becoming more disproportionate to the average. Now look at 2007. In 2007, CEOs from Fortune 500 companies made 354 times more than the average worker, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, and 70 more than a four-star Army general.
Now you understand what is happening in our culture and our nation is economic polarization. We’re experiencing economic polarity and the middle class is perhaps shrinking, but on the polls, we have poverty and wealth. I’m not a socialist. I’m not even close to being a socialist. I believe in a free market economy. I believe in capitalism, but you’ve got to agree that something is wrong with this picture. I think average America just doesn’t care, but as Christians we must care because we seek a just and a fair society.
This is a society where in the midst of our sin there is growing greed. In how many cities and counties of the United States can a full-time worker on minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment? How many cities and counties do you think? The answer is none. According to HUD, Housing and Urban Development, there is no city or county in America where a full-time worker on minimum wage can pay the rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment based on 30 percent of income going to that rent. What a tragic situation, and it’s not fair. It’s not right.
Now the United States of America spends $23.5 billion on foreign aid. That’s what we did in 2006: $23.5 billion given to foreign aid. That sounds generous and great, and it is more than any other country in terms of actual dollars, but you see as a percentage of gross national income, that number 23 and a half billion among OCED donor countries is second to last. So, that if you take what we’ve given to foreign aid as a percentage of our gross national income and compare it with other donor countries, we come out at the bottom. I think there is an allusion of generosity and the reality is not so clear. Obviously, that does not include giving from the private sector. This is government giving. Certainly, the private sector’s giving would be added to that and hopefully as a country we can become more and more generous. Remember that same year that we spent 23.5 billion on foreign aid; we spent 43.4 billion on pet food.
Understand that 2.6 billion people on Earth make less than two bucks a day. Consider the fact that there’s a little over 6 billion people in this world and 2.6 billion (you are approaching half) make less than 2 dollars a day. And 1.6 billion in the world do not have any electricity and never will. At least as far as we know they never will, and they never have. Think how we are. If our electricity goes out for an hour or two, we’re whining. Can’t get the TV to work, “how am I going to cook my food,” and if you had a city in America where the electricity because of some kind of calamity goes out for a week, it’s national news. There are people out there who won’t have electricity their whole life. And I’m just saying to you it’s not fair. I’m saying it’s not just. So, here we are followers of Jesus Christ. We are called to righteousness and to seek righteousness and to seek justice on the Earth. I think the call is clear.
We give you many opportunities to fight this fight for a just world. We have urban ministries where you can go and you can tutor a child. We have, as was announced today by Mark, many opportunities for you. We have a table out there where you can check this out: you can tutor a child through Whiz Kids, you can tutor or mentor a child through Save Our Youth, you can perhaps come alongside and befriend a Hispanic child, or an African An1erican child who is in a broken family and you can love them with the love of Jesus. You can help them with their homework – some day they can compete for the dignity of a job and they can experience the love and the support of Christ and his people now. We set this up for you. We train you. We invite you to join us. We have 20 different ministries in the inner city and they are all ministries that relate to making the world more just and more fair and to making us more compassionate and more full of grace. I hope you hear the call.
We have ministries in other countries that are similar. We minister in 60 different countries and many of these are emerging countries. We work with organizations like World Vision and they were work with the poorest of the poor in many of these emerging nations and we send teams of people to these nations from our congregation and we invite you to join us. I know it’s an ocean of need. I know all you have is a bucket. But Christ tells us to pick up our bucket and use it that we might fight for a more just world.
A couple of years ago Mayor John Hickenlooper asked me to be on a committee that would oversee the Homeless Initiative and I was privileged and happy to do that. We formed a clergy council and Gary Sokol from our church is on that clergy council now. I came to you over a year ago. I invited you to help adopt homeless families in Denver. Kids are growing up in unbelievable poverty and it’s not fair. Over 200 of you, by the grace of God, over 200 of you said yes, and over this period of time you have been mentoring through an adoption of homeless families, and it’s great. But the need is now greater because of the economy and what has happened in the lives of many people. We need more mentors, more tutors to come alongside homeless families. You’ll see that opportunity. It’s a short-term commitment. You don’t have to commit to this for the rest of your life: you commit for six months. You’ll do it with a group of people. You won’t be on your own. It’s not something that’s time consuming, but it’s oh, so critical. We want to encourage you to look at joining this fight for a just world.
A second fight that is worth fighting for us as followers of Christ is the fight for the salvation of souls. I hope you believe this. There is a battle for the souls of men, women, and children going on all over the world. A week ago, Saturday, we had our Discovery Class here at the church out in the Atrium. I always share with the Discovery Class, which is like our new members class, and I always remind them of Pearl Harbor. You know the story of Pearl Harbor how on December 7, 1941, a Japanese attack force came under cover of night to 200 miles north of Oahu and they came with 33 war ships and they launched over 360 planes in that stealth operation. It was 7:55 a.m., December 7, 1941, when the first bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, and the devastation was shocking. The devastation overwhelming, and 21 of our warships were either completely destroyed or severely damaged. Battleships, destroyers, went down. Over 300 of our aircraft – destroyed, thousands of lives lost.
You can travel to Pearl Harbor today and you can go to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, and it’s a tomb, it’s an underwater grave for more than a thousand men who died on that ship: a day that will live in infamy. You understand what happened: it woke up our nation. In the month that followed, in the years that followed, the United States of America experienced the greatest mobilization of men and women in the history of our nation. Ten thousand American men were drafted or conscripted into military service, and incredibly, 5 million additional American men just volunteered. They were not conscripted, not drafted. They said, “I’m willing to risk my life voluntarily because of this clear and present danger.”
Three hundred and thirty-eight thousand American women joined military service in non-combat capacity, and 4 million American women left their homes and went to work in factories to fuel the war machine. It was the greatest mobilization of women and men in the history of this nation, and by the grace of God we stopped the great evil. We changed the course of history. We stopped the insatiable greed of the Axis powers and we brought down Hitler’s Germany. He was gassing and incinerating millions of people including 6 million Jews. The cause was great: the need great.
But I promise you this: the Bible tells us there is a greater battle going on, there is a greater war and it’s going on in every century and in every nation of the world. It’s a battle for the souls of men, women and children. That’s why in our passage of Scripture, one of them for today, we have Ephesians 6, and Paul reminds us we do not battle against flesh and blood. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, the spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places. There is demonic spiritual warfare. The Bible is clear and indeed its evidence is everywhere. Satan literally seeks to destroy the faith of mankind. The Devil knows that people are saved by grace through faith. He knows that they are saved by the grace of God and through faith in Jesus Christ. He knows he cannot stop the grace of God. No way to war against the grace of God, so he seeks to overcome the faith of man. This is his great mission on Earth: the eradication of human faith. He wants to destroy your faith, and his weapons are affliction and temptation and deception. He afflicts people.
You go back into the Old Testament, you read the book of Job, and here’s a man afflicted and it’s very clear the Devil is seeking to destroy his faith. That’s what the book of Job is about. There’s this word in the New Testament that’s used again and again, “kakopatheo,” and it means “to suffer evil.” Sometimes we suffer evil because of our own stupidity. Sometimes we suffer evil because of our own mistakes. Sometimes we suffer evil because of apparent randomness. I mean we suffer evil because we live in a fallen world. But sometimes, the Bible is clear, we suffer evil because we are actually being assaulted and attacked by principalities and powers of darkness. They are coming against us. Satan, in every case, wants your faith destroyed.
I don’t know what you’re going through. I don’t know if you have some medical malady that scares you to death, or financial, or something relational that’s just tragic. I don’t know what you’re going through, but I know that the Devil wants to destroy your faith. That’s what he exists for. Of course, he seeks to destroy our faith through temptation, and he looks for your Achilles heel, he looks for your weak points, he knows where he might tempt you and he might succeed and he comes. He comes against us seeking to lead us into sin. His hope is that when we succumb to temptation, it will ultimately destroy our faith, that we’ll just be so discouraged or that somehow as we fall to sin, we’ll change our worldview or that somehow, we’ll lose our faith. You just can’t let that happen.
His primary weapon, I believe, is deception. For Satan is, the Bible tells us, the Deceiver. Why are Judeo-Christian values eroding in our culture? Because Satan is deceiving the masses. Why is pluralism and syncretism, why are they becoming the new religions of America? Because of satanic deception. It’s all part of his design to destroy faith on the Earth and that’s why Jesus poses the question, “When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on the Earth?” The Gospel is powerful, and it is the means of salvation, and we’ve been charged with this great privilege of taking the Gospel, the Good News of salvation of grace through faith to the world. What a privilege. It’s a fight you’ve got to believe is worth fighting.
The Gospel has power. It’s anointed. Have you ever watched a Billy Graham Crusade? If you haven’t gone to one, maybe you’ve seen one on TV. I love Billy Graham. He’s one of my heroes. I’ve had the privilege of meeting him. I know he is truly one of the most anointed men of God in our time, and his time on this Earth is now short, and he will go home. But he has been faithful. If you listen to his messages, they are very simple. Billy Graham’s messages are not the kind of messages that homiletics classes and theological seminaries are going to put up for example because they are not complex, they are just simple. They are so anointed. You see the whole key is the anointing of God. Billy Graham will preach, and he’ll preach to the whole stadium, he’ll give a simple Gospel message. He’ll say, “I want you to come down onto the field and accept Jesus Christ. If you came in a bus, they’ll wait. I want you to come.” And you just marvel as thousands and thousands of people just rise by the power of the Holy Spirit and they go down and give their life to Jesus. It’s because of the anointing of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, which is not only upon Billy Graham, but also upon the Gospel.
We’ve been given the privilege of taking the Gospel to people, and it’s contagious. Jesus is contagious. He says, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself.” This is an amazing promise. There is a clip that I want you to see. I want to explain it. It’s called Life is for Sharing; it’s a little bit different. Barb and I downloaded it from the Internet, and it shows a dance scene and it’s in a train station in London and what they did was they got a few professional dancers to come into a train station in London, and then they piped in music and they had the professional dancers begin to dance just to see what would happen to all the people who had no clue that this was all plotted and planned. To see what the people in the train station would do, and whether they would join in the dance.
Here’s what happens: everybody in the train station starts dancing! Life is for Sharing, and eternal life is for sharing. There is something wonderful about dancing, something contagious about dancing, something wonderful about music and something contagious about music, and I think God has crafted us this way. I love dance, and the tragedy is I’m absolutely horrible at it. Anyone who sees me dance calls me the Stick Man, but I love dance, and I love to watch dance, and I love the rhythm, and I love the motion of dance. There is just something beautiful about it. But understand that something’s more contagious and it’s the message of Jesus. There is a song called Lord of the Dance, and I know if you think of Lord of the Dance, I’m not referring to Michael Flatley’s musical Lord of the Dance. There is a wonderful Christian song called Lord of the Dance. It was actually written in 1963 by Sidney Carter, but it uses the tune from a 19th century Shaker tune, and it combines them and it’s just this great song. And I’d like to sing it for you, but I’d like you to stay just for a few more minutes, so let me just read the words,
I dance in the morning when the world was begun
I dance in the moon, and the stars and the sun
And I came down from Heaven and I danced on the Earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth.
Dance, then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he
And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be
I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.
I danced for the scribe and the Pharisee
But they would not dance and they would not follow me
I danced for the fishermen, for James and John
They came to me and the dance went on.
I danced on the Sabbath when I cured the lame
The holy people said it was a shame
They whipped and they stripped and they hung me on high
And they left me there on a cross to die.
I danced on a Friday and the sky turned black
It’s hard to dance with the Devil on your back
They buried my body and they thought I’d gone
But I am the Dance and I still go on.
They cut me down and I leapt up high
I am the Life that will never, never die
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me
I’m the Lord of the Dance said he.
What a wonderful song. Jesus wants to play his music in your soul and then he wants you to go out into society and share the music, and it’s contagious. I think that as the Church of Jesus Christ we’ve kind of just sat on our duffs. In this generation, we’ve not fought the fight, and it’s a beautiful fight. It’s almost like a dance for the salvation of souls.
Christianity Today magazine surveyed non-Christians in America. They did this national survey of non-Christians and they found that 82% of non-Christians said they would go to church if somebody invited them. Eighty-two percent said they would go to church if someone would just invite them – someone they know. But only 21% of Christians, according to the same survey, have ever invited anyone to church. Something is wrong with that picture, right? It’s tragic. There’s a fight worth fighting for and it’s for the souls of people.
Well, there’s another fight and it’s just the fight for personal holiness. We are not saved by our own holiness. We are saved by the holiness of Christ. But even though we’re not saved by our own holiness, when we come to Christ he calls us to holiness, “You shall be holy for I am holy.” And so, this call is upon us for sanctification. Sanctification is a process. The word is “hagiasmos” in the Greek and it comes from “hagios,” which means holy, and there’s this process, hagiasmos, usually the tense of the verb shows process. We’re meant to grow in holiness, and I hope you take that seriously. It’s a fight. It’s a fight because of the fallen world and because we ourselves are fallen and we’re all messed up. But this is a fight that is so worth fighting for.
In the book of 2 Peter 1 is one of my favorite passages. The Apostle Peter says, “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue.” The word for “make every effort” is the word “spudaso.” Spudaso in the Greek language means, “to make an earnest effort,” even a strenuous effort. Spudaso was used by athletes as they were trying to reach the finish line – the effort at the end of the race trying to reach the finish line. So, Peter is saying, “Spudaso, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue.”
The word virtue is “arete.” Arete means “moral excellence, that which is pleasing in the sight of God.” Peter is saying, “Strenuously make every effort to supplement your faith with moral excellence, that which is pleasing to God.” Then he says to supplement your moral excellence with knowledge because you’ve got to read the Bible to figure out what does please God and what is morally excellent in his sight. Then it says to supplement your knowledge with self-control because once you know what God wants, it takes self-control, which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and you need to pray for it. Then he says to supplement your self-control with steadfastness, abominae. It’s not enough to show self-control once. You’ve got to do it again and again and again and again. That produces steadfastness. Supplement steadfastness with godliness: godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love, agape. Love is ultimately what it’s all about, this process of growth and this process of sanctification, but it takes every effort. You can never give up, and in his mercy and grace you have no reason to ever give up.
I love that story about a head coach who hired a new assistant coach, and he wanted this assistant coach to be in charge of recruiting and to find great football players. So, the head coach said, “Now I want you to know the kind of athlete I’m looking for,” so the assistant coach listened, and the head coach said, “Now you know there’s that kind of athlete, you knock him down and he stays down.” The assistant coach said, “Yeah, we’re not looking for him. I know we’re not looking for him.” Then the head coach said, “Yes, but there’s that other kind of athlete. You knock him down and he gets back up. You knock him down again, and he gets back up again. No matter how matter how many times you knock him down, he keeps getting back up.” And the assistant coach said, “That is who we are looking for, right Coach?” And the head coach said, “No, actually we’re not looking for him either. We’re looking for the guy that’s knocking everybody down.”
That might be true in football, but you see in the Christian life what Christ is looking for is people who when they are knocked down get back up. That’s what Christ is looking for. He’s looking for people who when they are knocked down get back up no matter how many times, they fight the fight. I am convinced after 35 years in the ministry, and after walking with Jesus for 58 years, since I was five, I am convinced that what offends Jesus, what grieves Jesus, is when we falter to sin, when we just give sway to it, when we just embrace it. He wants us to fight the good fight. He wants us to fight for holiness, and that means if you fall, don’t give up, just get back up. Even if you fall again, get back up. You may need to get some help, maybe to get some counseling. I don’t know what you are dealing with. You might need to have some kind of accountability group form, but don’t give up the fight. His mercy and grace is with you, so don’t give up the fight. The fight is what’s noble and he’ll love you for it. Don’t give up the fight.
So, there’s the fight for a just world, the fight for the salvation of souls, and the fight for personal holiness. I was going to mention a fight for healthy relationships and we really don’t have the time, but healthy relationships are so important. We know from Genesis 3 how with the fall of mankind relationships were broken. They were broken on the vertical and they were broken on the horizontal: relationships with God, relationships with men. As Adam and Eve sought to hide from God and then blamed each other, you see the whole biblical account of broken relationships. So, now in the midst of our messed-up condition, Christ is trying to put relationships back together, and he wants us to understand the importance of family, and the relationships of family.
As we close, I will tell you that one story about Kurt Warner, quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, who plays in the Super Bowl today. Ben Wolfenburger is on the other side. Kurt Warner, I know is a strong Christian. In fact, he bugged a lot of folks in the media because he talked about Jesus so much. Kurt Warner had this deal with his family, he’s got 7 kids and a wonderful wife, and they all love Christ, but he has this tradition that before every away game, the night before he leaves town, he takes the whole family out to dinner, all 7 kids and his wife. They have this restaurant game they play: he lets a different kid each time kind of look around the room and survey the room like a quarterback looking for a receiver and then just picking a table with a bunch of people at it. Then Kurt Warner picks up the bill for that table anonymously. What happens is the waiter will wind up coming to the table saying, “Your bills been paid, but I can’t tell you who.” So, that’s been going on for years in Arizona. In fact, you might want to travel to Arizona and find a restaurant there. You understand – he’s trying to teach his kids not only about giving, but also about the joy of giving and how wonderful that is. But ultimately, it’s about family. Kurt Warner says again and again and again, “Faith and family. Faith and family,” and about the importance of trying to develop those healthy relationships with his kids.
There’s always the marriage relationship, which is so strange in our society. Divorce has become epidemic, pandemic on the Earth. Relationships are hard, but it’s a fight worth fighting: this fight for healthy relationships and even friendship, healthy friendships. Just a huge, huge need in our time. That’s what is worth fighting for: a just world, the salvation of souls, personal holiness and healthy relationships. Let’s close with a word of prayer.