CHARGER NATION: GAME #6

CHARGER NATION GAME #6

Charger Nation, 

            Tonight we travel to North Atlanta to play Wesleyan. I like to call it Wesleyan University because the campus is nicer than most college campuses.  Their head coach is Franklin Pridgen and he is a good man and a great coach.  He has a great staff of coaches and their boys are always extremely well coached. There are many tough teams in our region but when we look at the schedule at the beginning of the year, our boys know in order to win a region championship they are going to have to beat Wesleyan.  It should be a great game tonight.

Our mission of ELCA football is to use the game of football as a tool to build men for Jesus Christ.  The one thing this world needs is Godly Christian men who will lead their families and their community.  A nation that lacks such men is a nation that will be falling apart.   Hopefully ELCA Football is assisting you as parents in building a Godly man.

            I realize that many of our boys at this stage in their life could care less about a relationship with Jesus Christ.  I don’t demand a professing belief in Jesus Christ out of them nor do I expect it.  But everything we demand from them all week long has a much bigger purpose than winning football games.  When and if they come to faith in Jesus Christ, our goal is to have laid a solid foundation for them.  But you do not have to profess your faith in Jesus Christ to me to start on our football team.  If I was a college coach a young would not have to be a Christian for me to recruit him. He would just have to be really good and have good charcter.  At ELCA, we just try and build a model within our football program that shows what a Godly man looks like.  We can’t make people believe.  These principles and character traits of godliness are what we expect and demand. 

I think football is the perfect game to teach these values.   I love football because it is hard.  It is challenging.   If you are going to be good at it, the weekly grind for player and coach is challenging.  Unless you have done it, no one will ever understand the grind of hitting each other in 100 degree heat for 3 hours day after day.  And even when you put in the hard work you still don’t know if you will win or lose.  Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.  Sometimes a player plays well and sometimes he plays poorly.  Sometimes a player has a good practice and sometimes a bad practice.  Whether it be a positive or negative situation, a young man must learn to keep moving forward with diligence.  He must get up everyday and work hard.  If he does not he will not be successful in life. 

To build a man for Jesus Christ is a war.  This world is telling them to act like fools.  The world is telling them to become the exact opposite of what you and are telling them to become.  We must continue to fight the war daily with them and demand excellence.  We get so discouraged when we don’t see any fruit from our labor with our boys.  We want to give up and quit worrying about it.  Mom and dad: Never give up!

Last night after the JV game I was aggravated with our boys.  We won but I did not like the way we played.  Yes, I realize the defense didn’t give up any yards but this is a team game.  Offensively, I thought we played sloppy and we weren’t physical.  Sometimes that happens.  I got into the boys and challenged them a little bit after the game.  I didn’t sing their praises and tell them how great they are.  As I was driving home I thought to myself maybe I was a little hard on them.   But they needed me to be hard on them.  They need me to challenge them.  They need people to demand excellence from them. They need to understand there is a very high standard of excellence we demand.  We are not going to sing your praises when you don’t meet these demands. We are going to challenge you and get all over you.  They need to respond with great attitudes and great work ethic.  They need to take ownership of their work ethic and attitudes. 

I believe this is the line where we quit making boys men.  A Godly man will take ownership of his actions.  A Godly man will analyze his actions and seek to grow every single day in areas he is deficient.  A Godly man will take a challenge and meet and exceed expectations. A Godly man takes the challenge that I gave last night and is eager to get to work.  Yes, a few young men may have had crushed spirits last night, but as they wake up this morning it is a new day!  It is a day to get better and improve.  It is a day to fix and correct my mistakes from yesterday and get better today.  Life is full of failure and disappointment.  We must be developing men who wake up eager to improve upon mistakes from yesterday. If you are satisfied with where you are today there is no way you will become what you desire tomorrow!  

I’m hard on them and I do not want to see them feel sorry for themselves. When I feel sorry for myself there is only one person that is hurt and that is me.  No one else cares about why I feel sorry for myself.  As husband and father, me feeling sorry for myself and wallowing in self-pity just doesn’t affect me but hurts my family as well.  I must pick myself up and get to work!  It is a new day!  Win the Day!

I tell the varsity boys every Monday morning film session that if they are coming in their expecting me to sing their praises they are wrong.   Now I do say good job to them but I’m more concerned about pointing out the little things they did wrong that will make them even better.   I watch film on Friday nights to see where I messed up as a play caller and coach.  I don’t watch it to see the good things.  I already remember the good things.  It is the same for the players.  I don’t care how much we won the game by, the film shows this area of your game is not any good.  I demand they give better effort at practice in these areas and hopefully play better Friday night.  

I try and love on them all the time, but I’m not going to lower my expectations for them so they may feel better about themselves.  I’m not interested in how they feel but getting them to perform at a high level.  Our performance is where we find joy, not in someone telling me things that are not true about myself (your good, your great, you are so awesome…)  If they need to hate me for a little bit I am fine with that.  I’m not here for them to love me as their buddy.  My whole objective is to get the most out of them.  I see the future for them and I’m trying to make them into the man I see in the future.  I want their future selves to love me, not their current selves.  

During that film session on Monday mornings or at any other point during the week when I get on them, I am challenging them to be men.  I am testing them.  How are they going to respond to my criticism and correction?  Are they going to sulk and feel sorry for themselves? Are they going to come home and whine and complain to mom and dad about how unfair I am or how mean I am?  Or are they going to be men and answer my challenge with a great attitude and desire to go to work?

This man making process is something I go through everyday when I open my Bible.  If you are a Christian, the Lord has called you to being a son of God (or daughter). The Almighty God of the Universe isn’t going to call us and just let us remain in the darkness.  It is a false reality to say God loves you just as you are. People who want to keep on sinning say stuff like that.  It is a false gospel.   God saves you just as you are but after he saves you he is going to grow you into his image.  When God calls you, He know is going to grow you and equip you.  This growing process and equipping process is challenging.  It is called sanctification. We call it FASTER!

When a young man comes and decides to play football for me I tell him the standards.  We are going to do all of these things and we are going to demand excellence from you. We are going to love you more than anyone but because of that love and desire for you to be great, we are going to allow you to be soft.  We will be all over you when you show weakness (there is a good weakness and a bad type of weakness and I am referring to bad type.)  When a young man commits to me I feel like it is my duty to demand excellence from him so that when he is a senior he is all that he could have become when he was under my instruction.  Some will quit cause they can’t handle the standard.  I can’t lower the standard for the 1 or 2 that can’t handle it when I have 60-70 wanting the challenge.

God is no different.  When I sit down and read the Bible I do not sit there and read how great I am.  Yes, God loves me, but he also convicts me daily through his word of my sinful actions and my sinful state.  He shows me that I have all of these imperfections because I was enslaved to darkness.  As God has called me into the light he has a lot of work to do on me.  God is not interested in partially excellent behavior and a partially excellent heart.  He is going to constantly challenge us and grow us into fully excellent men and women.  He loves me and because he loves me he is going to challenge me consistently. 

When we read God’s word, there isn’t much in their telling us how great we are.  We read about God, in his mercy and grace, sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins because we are so wretched and enslaved to sin we cannot save ourselves.  He had to send the Righteous One to save the unrighteous.   By the blood of Christ and his work, if we believe, we become sons of God.  And as sons, the Bible teaches us about our indwelling sin and challenges us to crucify our sin by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us.  This sharpening process never stops.  But because of it we will grow more and more like Christ.  And when we grow more and more like Christ we can accomplish more and more for God’s Kingdom.

As God loves me and challenges me daily to become more and more like Christ, I will challenge your sons in the same way.  The beautiful thing about God is he loves us perfectly yet can still demand excellence from us.  We have complete peace and joy in Christ yet know there is much work to be done our lives as we grow as Christians.  We are satisfied in Christ yet unsatisfied in who we are and it works perfectly.   I can’t do it like Christ but I hope to challenge your boys the same way.  I hope they know I love them but I also want them to respond to our challenges of excellence.  And the end goal is they become men who are faithful husbands, loving and present fathers, and men who will impact the community for Jesus Christ.  

I’m excited for tonight! Our boys are ready!  Beat Wesleyan!

“The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.” 

Proverbs 21:31

Wholly for Christ,

Coach Gess

CHARGER NATION: GAME #5

Charger Nation,

            I want to congratulate our JV team for another big win last night.  I appreciate the coaches and the hard work they put into it.  I appreciate all you parents having your kids here to work this week when they did not have school.  Each player is getting better and better and it is a joy to watch.  Nothing is guaranteed in life, but hard work will get us somewhere.  I think these lessons the boys are learning in their teenage years through the game of football will be a foundation to having successful careers in life. 

            Tonight we play Trinity Christian.  My good friend is the head coach there in Kenny Dallas.  Kenny was a head coach at Landmark for a long time and then he worked at ELCA from 2014-2016.  Kenny is one of the best coaches you will find.  He is a great leader and a hard worker.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for him.  I am a better coach because of playing Kenny and working with Kenny.  God has used him in my life to make me a better coach.  He has done a remarkable job and built a great football team.  They players, parents, and fans are excited at Trinity and they can’t wait to come and play us.  It should be a fun game for everyone. 

            My goal in life is to not win a football game or to go and become a coach in college or anywhere else.  As a Christian, the more I grow in Christ, the more I realize my plans must align with God’s plans.  My goals in life must align with God’s goals for me in life.  My goal in life is to do what God has be doing to the best of my ability.  My goal in life is to become more and more like Christ: To live in Christ and to put on Christ daily.  This is not easy because the world and our flesh are in direct opposition to the Spirit living in us.  What God commands us to do and what we know to be right we do not want to do.  And to make it even harder because we already don’t want to do it, the world tells us we shouldn’t follow God’s way and plan. 

Thinking about all of this, I have a hard teaching for us today in which we all struggle if we are honest.

            “Do nothing our of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourself.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others.” Philippians 2:3-4

            I have had many people come up to me in the past year and talk about the Trinity game and how we really need to beat Kenny.  I have had many people who are connected with Trinity and they tell me how bad they want to beat ELCA.  I do not feel this way.  I do not like to play my friends.  Kenny and I are the same.  We put a tremendous amount of effort and energy into developing young men all year long.  Then it comes football season time and it becomes a job that never stops.  There are all types of issues a head coach has to deal with that you only understand if you have been head coach.  Kenny and I are friends and we encourage each other.  We constantly remind each other of why God has called us to coach this game and we need to have joy in the process.  I’ve played against Kenny and worked with Kenny.   Over the past twelve years we have grown into almost brothers. 

            My goal tonight is not to go and beat Kenny.  I do not see myself as a better coach than Kenny.  I do not look at beating Kenny as me establishing myself as a better coach than him.  I want us to win because we have worked hard and I love the boys I coach.  I know Kenny feels the same on his end.  This is not a Coach Gess vs Coach Dallas game.  As far as I am concerned it will never be about me.  This is ELCA Football vs Trinity Football.  When that ball is kicked off tonight it is our boys vs the other boys.  I have a lot invested in our boys.  I love these boys.  We play football to win!  But it is not about Kenny Dallas for me.  I love Kenny just like I love our boys.  I want Kenny to be successful and win.  But tonight my love for our boys overrides that.  It isn’t about me.  It isn’t about Kenny.  It is about our boys!

“If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.  This is not the wisdom that comes from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.  For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist there will be disorder and every vile practice.  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.” James 3:14-17

            If we are honest with ourselves, we live life in bitter jealousy because of our selfish ambition.  Only really now, at this stage in my life, is God showing that selfish ambition is demonic and destroys.  I use the example of Coach Dallas and me in this game.  I consider us close to brothers.  Every since I knew I was going to play Kenny God warned me to never make it a rivalry.  God was showing me that my selfish ambition to win would destroy great relationships he has created to be enjoyed and used as a source of encouragement.  Sin will creep in and destroy everything good and pure.  Sin looks good for a minute but will destroy and divide.  The Lord’s warning is always clear: “Pursue excellence!”

            Do we not see families destroyed because of selfish ambition?  Maybe Dad wants to get to the top of his career latter but he cannot do this with his family needing him.  He has to choose between family and career and he chooses his selfish ambition.  Do we not see this with brothers and sisters at war with each other?  It is their selfish ambition that creates jealousy that leads to great division.  Do we not see this in families vs families?  We want our children to be better athletes, prettier, smarter, or more popular and in our selfish ambition we become jealous. 

            Selfish ambition leads to jealousy.  Jealousy leads to anger.  Anger leads to wrath.  The world tells us selfish ambition is good.  But the world cannot see the horrible effects of sin.  Ambition does not stop at ambition in a sinful world.  Ambition becomes a rivalry.  A rivalry turns into extreme jealousy.  And you know that jealousy lead to anger and wrath. 

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?  Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?  You desire and do not have, so you murder.  You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.  You do have because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.  You adulterous people!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?”  James 4:1-4

            The teaching is clear.  Our motive should to do well should never be to be better than someone or to gain worldly glory.  Yes, this is what the world teaches us.  But, as Christians, God has shown us a better way.  We are not to do anything out of rivalry or conceit.  The root of this is our passion for glory and exaltation.  You might say, “Coach that is good motivation.”  It is not.  To operate with the sole motive to be the best and gain the glory of the world will destroy you and all relationships you have in the end if it has not done so already.

            The point of this game day devotion today is to show there is a better way.  I am not sinless and I do struggle with what I am preaching.  However, my goal is to become a coach who glorifies God in his thoughts and processes.  I want to win but I want my approach to winning to be God honoring and not self-seeking.  I want to finish with a conversation I had with Uriah last night and maybe it will make the point more clear of how God expects us to compete.  He is just five but his sinful focus on himself as that of an adult.

            As we were driving home last night after the JV game Uriah tells me he is the best at something.  Basically he is telling me that he is better than all his friends at a certain thing.  I want my son to be a competitor.  I want him to have those competitive juices.  I am sure I have fed this desire to the best in him.  So I’m happy that at least he has a desire to be good and then see how my own sinful competitiveness indwells in him.  Here is my response to Uriah but I was really preaching to me: (It was actually hard for me to tell him that he is completely wrong: He is not the best of his friends at what he was talking about…I didn’t break his spirit though I took it another direction.)

            Uriah-We don’t compare ourselves to other people.  Our focus is becoming the very best that we can be.  We will work hard everyday to be our very best.  We must work daily and diligently to be our best.  And we will do it for God’s glory: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23).   God made you specifically to do certain things for his glory and his Kingdom and you will never accomplish those things if you do not work hard.  We must consider our friends better and more important than us.  We must serve them and help them become all they can be.  Never consider yourself more important than your friends.  Count yourself as insignificant and help them become all they can be.  Work hard and practice everyday to be your absolute best and see where God takes you.  It is our job to work hard each day and then trust God to take us where he wants us.  And we do this while serving our brothers and counting them as more important than ourselves. 

            Now, he had no clue what I was saying.  Unless the Holy Spirit is living and moving in you this teaching makes no sense.  It is in direct opposition to the flesh and the world.  But I promise you this: This is the way to becoming all you can be.  The Bible tells us that if we want to live we must die.  If we want to live and become all we can be we must die to this demonic beast in us who is full of selfish ambition and jealousy.  If you fully surrender all you will fully gain all!  Trust in the Lord! 

The boys are ready!  We had a great week of practice and I’m excited to go out and compete tonight! 

“The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.”
Proverbs 21:31

WHOLLY for Christ,

Coach Gess

            

CHARGER NATION: GAME #4

This was taken from www.challies.com: A great blog resource for Christians.

Charger Nation,

                I want to congratulate our JV on a great win last night.  I appreciate all the coaches and the energy and effort they poor into the boys day in and day out.  I appreciate the boys working hard to meet our demands and expectations.  I appreciate the parents believing in what we do and supporting us.  All of it together gives your son a chance to be successful.  Nothing is guaranteed in life, but hard work gives us a chance.  These lessons they are learning are important for them as they grow as men.  

                Tonight we play Holy Innocents and it is the first game of region play.  Holy Innocents is a good football team and they believe in running the football right down your throat.  Football is a physical and tough game.  Their head coach embraces that and tries to wear a team down physically by running the ball.  They do what they do well.  Our boys have prepared very hard.  They are ready.  It will be a fun game.

                

                “There are two you’s in you.” 

This was my comment to the boys in the weight room the other day.  I was making reference to the two men that live in us everyday.  The sluggard is the lazy man who refuses to work.  Then there is the diligent man who is willing to work hard even when he does not feel like it.  We all deal with both of these persons inside of us.  Some people are completely dominated by the sluggard inside of them telling them to do nothing.  Some people have learned to deny that man and pursue excellence through diligent work.  It’s a battle.  We are trying to teach your boys to deny this sluggard in them and live as a champion.  Champions overcome the sluggard inside of them: “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” Proverbs 13:4

There is a much more understanding of this struggle.  What I am trying to do when I tell the boys of this struggle between the diligent man and the sluggard that exists in them is lay a foundation for them to understand the struggle for the Christian man as he battles denying his flesh and living in the Spirit.  When God calls us to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  A relationship where Christ is King and I am his servant and son, He calls us to obedience to his laws and rules, to be transformed in Christ.  Even though we desire to serve Christ and live for him, we do not naturally desire to deny ourselves and live for Jesus Christ.  There is a struggle between the sinful man that still lives in us and the Holy Spirit that has come to dwell in us.  Truly, for the Christian, for the man and woman who have surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ, there are two you’s in you. 

         “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I know live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  Galatians 2:20

This is our team verse.  If you study this verse you can see the writer is referencing two people that live in him.  He has crucified the sinful man that lives in him with Christ.  I was born a sinner.  I was born a wretched and wicked man.  I was born a man who only thinks about himself and puts himself first.  Even when I try and do something good for someone or in the community I am desperate that other people know about my good deeds.  (I dare everyone to do a good deed without posting it on twitter, Facebook, or Instagram).  Even in my helping of people I am trying to receive personal glory.  My good deeds always point back to me.  This sinful man, he is all about his own glory and reputation.  He may hide behind good things but there is a strategic intent for glory and praise.  This wicked, sinful, self righteous, self seeking man was the one in complete rebellion from God.  I even proclaimed belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior but in no way was my life surrendered to him and living for his glory.  I proclaimed Christ as Lord but I was Lord.  I was not interested in God’s glory, I was interested in my glory.  Foolishly, blindly, I tried and used God for my own worldly advancement.  This disgusting  man, both me and you, is the one that was in rebellion from God, using God.  We deserve Hell for this rebellion of the righteous and Holy God of the Universe.  But God, in his mercy and grace, did not leave us bound in chains to this disgusting man.  He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be crucified on the cross for our sins so that we may turn from our sin, surrender all to Jesus Christ, and have eternal life through Christ. 

As Christ calls us He shows us all of this.  He shows us that we were not made for our glory and creating a name for ourselves.  We were created in God’s image and for his glory.  You see, if you seek that for which you were not made you will never find that for which you are seeking.  If you are seeking self glory you are not ever going to find enough of it.  Whatever sin you are chasing you will never get enough of it.  It will kill you trying to find it.  It will destroy all things good in your life as you chase this sin.  And the reason is from the beginning of our existence we were only made for one thing and that is a personal relationship with God where he is King and we live to glorify him.  Christ came and died so this relationship with God could be made right.  Christ came and showed us the evil ways of the world.  He came and died for our sins so that we may quit being enslaved to the pursuit of this world and the sinful desires of our flesh.

As I told the boys, “there are two you’s in you”, the Holy Spirit shows me this about myself.  He calls me to crucify and deny my sinful self.  The sinful man that I was born and who still lives in me, I am to die to this man and live in Christ daily.  When we give our lives to Christ, He just doesn’t leave us on our own.  He promises to come and live inside of us so that we can deny ourselves and live in Christ.

                Sometimes I wish as a coach I could put my brain in our players.  Just like as a parent you wish you could put your brain in your kid.  As a coach, I know more than them because I’ve coached for a long time and I know how to handle each situation and scenario.  They do not.  But I can’t put my brain in them.  I try but they’ll make mistakes and that is fine.  But as a Christian, God enters into us and offers to “teach us and instruct us in the way we should go; to counsel us with his eye upon us.” Psalm 32:8. Christ is not just telling us to deny ourselves and to crucify ourselves.  He is saying if we abide in him and seek him, He will be with us and give us the ability to deny ourselves.  He desires for our own sake that we would die to this sinful man that lives in us and is full of self and dead works and be raised with Christ to a life that is full and complete.   

There are two you’s in you.  There are two of me in me.  Everyday is a battle with these two men that we by our self cannot win.  The sinful man will always prevail if you are living in your own power.  Praise be to God, who has sent Jesus Christ to die for our sins that we may die to the sinful man that lives in us.  Praise be to God that he has sent his Holy Spirit to live in us that we may live a new life in Christ.  May we seek him and have life abundantly!  To God the glory!

Chargers we are ready!  I’m excited to play tonight!

“The horse is made ready for the day of battle but the victory belongs to the Lord.” Proverbs 21:31

Wholly for Christ,

Coach Gess