Champions for Jesus VBS at Epiphany on
Grace and peace are yours through Jesus Christ
who is on our side. Amen.
Romans
You are on God’s championship team!
Champions! We hear the word frequently. There
have been a lot of athletes and athletic teams crowned champions recently. The
This week in
We all like to be champions, winners. You want
to be the first out of the parking lot after a sold-out Brewers game because you
don’t want to be stuck in traffic. You want the blue ribbon at the county fair.
You want your home to be clean so your mom doesn’t say anything about it. You
want to be able to repair your own vehicle to make your dad proud. You want that
higher position at work, the best Christmas decorations in your neighborhood,
and the smartest and most athletic children in the school.
We all like to be winners. That’s fine. God has
made us to be winners. He formed you in your mother’s womb with his own hands
and breathed life into you. God doesn’t make junk. He creates masterpieces. He
put his best effort into you. And when you went bad, he sent his Son to shed his
blood to redeem you. He sent his Holy Spirit to work on you and perfect you.
God has made you a champion – His Champion. You
are a winner because God has placed you on His Championship Team. Since we are
Champions, we need to live like champions.
When kids play a pickup game of basketball,
football or kickball, what do the captains do? They take turns picking the best
player available. They want to have the strongest and best teams. They each want
to have the team that will win. I don’t think we really ever outgrow that
desire.
What has happened to us now? We are not one of
the captains. We are one of the players. And we have been picked to be on a team
– God’s Team. There are only two teams – God’s Team and Satan’s Team. Obviously
God’s Team is the stronger and better of the two teams. We all want to play for
God.
However, because of sin, we switched teams. We
didn’t like God’s rulebook, so we went to the opposing team. Satan has no rules.
We didn’t like to have to practice our faith or work out in God’s gymnasium of
his Church or wear our team colors out in public. Satan doesn’t expect so much
from us. He lets us do our own thing. Satan allows cursing, drunkenness,
gossiping, and sexual fraternizing among his team. God doesn’t want any of that
from his team.
So we switched teams. We went from the winning
team to the sinning team.
It was fun last year to watch the Green Bay
Packers go 13-3. It was just as much fun to watch the NFC Championship Chicago
Bears go a dismal 7-9 and finish fourth in the NFC North. It is hard to root for
a losing team. It is even harder to play for a losing team. Our sin places us on
a losing team (like the Bears). Satan’s team is destined for eternal loss.
Thankfully God didn’t want that to happen. He
didn’t create us to be losers. He wanted you and me on his team. But there was a
great cost involved. A “trade” needed to take place.
To bring us onto his team, God provided a
substitute for us, someone who did not sin, who could not sin. That substitute
was God’s Son, Jesus. God exchanged the “perfect athlete” for billions of
losers. Not really understanding what was happening, Satan approved the trade on
Now we are on God's team. He has bought us back.
We are on the right team – eternally! If God is for us, who can be against us?
No one can oppose us.
Being on God’s Team means we have to play the
game – the game of life. Every day we have to compete against Satan’s Team. Some
of the best players on Satan’s Team are the World with all its glitz and fame
and power; the Demons with all their sneaky little tricks and evil intentions;
and our Sinful Flesh which knows all our weaknesses and faults. We are up
against a formidable team.
Sometimes it may seem like we are losing, like
we are way behind, and we are getting beaten up in the process. That is when one
of God’s Team leaders speaks up in the locker room and fires us up by saying,
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all
these things we are more than conquerors (champions) through him who loved us.”
That Team leader is the apostle Paul and he is
encouraging us: “You have God on your team. Nothing can change that. Nothing can
take you away from the love of Christ. Let me ask you, do you think God saved
you from hell and damnation, just so you could worry about the little things
here on earth? Did he teach you to live the Christian life, just so he could
watch you fall? Was his Son nailed to the cross for your sins, just to ignore
your prayers? Come on!”
Yes, the game of life is difficult. One of your
teammates said long ago: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are
considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” We will face extreme suffering for God’s
sake. We will face troubles – those aches, irritations and stresses of life. We
will face hardships of serious illnesses, family problems, and financial
burdens. We will face physical and psychological persecutions. These
persecutions will often result in a lack of food, lack of clothing, and physical
dangers – in other words, famine, nakedness, danger, and sword.
When we Christians suffer physical harm it seems
as though Christ has separated himself from his team and abandoned them.
However, God doesn’t remove all trials from our path. Instead we are able to
overcome them because we find our strength in Jesus and his power and love. We
are more than conquerors through him who loved us. We are champions not because
we loved Jesus, but because he loves us. He loved us all enough to create this
earth for us, shape us in his image, come to earth as one of us, die for us,
rise for us, ascend into heaven and intercede for us. If Jesus did all that, he
is not going to abandon us.
Paul adds that we are “more than conquerors.” We
are super champions. We are supremely victorious. Far from being overcome, we
are the ones who will overcome.
Temptations drive us closer to God. Troubles and
tragedy push us onto our knees in prayer to God. Lack of possessions and money
remind us of our treasures stored in heaven. And death, the greatest of Satan’s
Team members, actually means eternal life for us. In the end … we always win.
All because we are on God’s Team. He has made us champions. As champions we need
to live like champions.
“Betty Jones, come on down!” Most people in The
Price is Right audience would give their right arm to hear those magic words
from Rich Fields, the Price is Right announcer. You’ve seen how these people act
when they’ve been called up front.
We all like being chosen. When we are children
we felt a sense of pride when we were chosen for a team at recess. We all wanted
the teacher to choose us to run an errand that would get us out of the
classroom. Today, high school students want to be chosen for the lead in the
school musical or to play the solo in the band. They hope they will be chosen
for the National Honor Society or chosen to receive a scholarship to a
university. Being chosen for something gives us the opportunity to stand out
above those around us. It gives us a feeling of importance and belonging,
something everyone enjoys.
But being selected does not always work in a
positive way. During the Vietnam War, many young men hoped they would not be
chosen in the birthday lottery because they knew they were in for several years
of military service if they were picked. Nor do we want our cars to be singled
out by the parking checker after the meter runs out. (Then we have to pay an $11
fine for being two minutes too late at the library parking meter – not that I’m
bitter about that anymore.)
At times we may feel as if we have been chosen
for special irritations, aggravations, illnesses and crises. Maybe it’s
something as small as a cracked tooth or as significant as cancer or dementia.
We can allow these misfortunes to affect our mood, our marriage, and our faith.
There are countless people who fall away from God, stop coming to church, stop
praying because they are going through difficult times. When difficulties and
problems and suffering arrive in our lives, it is so easy for us to get
depressed, crabby or worried. Maybe we are losing sleep or impatient or always
negative.
When we act like this in any way we are living
like losers. We are acting like we have nothing to live for, like God doesn’t
love us, like Jesus didn’t win heaven for us, like we aren’t part of God’s
winning team. We are living like there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
It is said that people can endure almost
anything if there's some goal to shoot for, some "light at the end of the
tunnel." Prisoners of war have talked about undergoing horrible treatment of all
sorts, but making it because they thought about the day they'd be released, or
when the war would end, or re-uniting with a loved one.
This world can be tough, with all its stresses
and challenges. We struggle to focus on eternal things. We get caught up in the
rat race of life. We fail to love God, fail to love our fellow humans, and we
feel guilt because of it. We get bogged down by the worldly theories that we
have been chosen for misfortunes and missed opportunities. We should instead
focus on the reality that we have been chosen to be members of God’s
Championship Team, with all the blessings and opportunities that presents.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel!
Someday you're leaving this world, and you're going to a world which is so far
better that it can't even compare. Because Jesus paid for your sins on the
cross, because he rose from the dead, the doors of heaven are wide open for you!
And, it's going to be awesome!
While you are living in this world, God promises
that nothing will be able to remove you from his championship team, no evil
forces can detract from God’s love, nothing will be able to keep you apart from
your God – a God who created you, sustains you, redeemed you, sanctified you,
and is going to make sure that you finally get to see the source of the light at
the end of the tunnel. Looking at that light at the end of the tunnel, you and I
can endure anything now! “Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height
nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This is the love that God has lavished on us. He
chose us from eternity to be on his team. Championship athletic teams receive
trophies, medals, and rings. As part of God’s Championship Team you have
received a crown of glory, the white robe of perfection, the trophy of the empty
cross and open tomb, and the palm branch of praise. The Holy Spirit marked us as
God’s team members in our baptism. He continues to strengthen us through his
Word and the Lord’s Supper. And God is going to keep us in the faith until we
reach eternal glory. Nothing is greater than our God. He has made you his chosen
champion and he wants you to live like champions for Jesus. Amen.
With God we will gain the victory! Psalm 60:2
Amen.