CHARGER NATION: Game #11

Charger Nation,

            It’s playoff time.  Our boys have maintained a focused mindset through the bye week and have had a good week of practice this week.  They are ready and prepared for the challenge FPD will give us tonight.  It’s hard to convince everyone of this but all the teams that are in the playoffs are good.  When you get to the final 16 you have to come and be ready to play.  FPD has good skill players and a huge line.  I told our boys all week to prepare for a battle like the Landmark game.  FPD is going to come up here thinking they can win and they have the talent to do so.  We must be on point!

            First Presbyterian Day School is a special place for me because it is where I first began coaching and a place where I really grew as a Christian man.  When I was in the Air Force in Macon, Dee and I started attending a church and the pastor’s name was Bob Veazey.  He loved football and coached the middle school team at FPD.  He asked me to help after work and I did.  It was one of those things where I said I would help but didn’t really want to do it.  But once I started working with the kids I loved it.  The next year, the head coach of the varsity program, Gregg Moore, asked me to coach the varsity offensive line.  I did it and I loved it.  This is when the Lord really starting moving in my heart to coach high school football.  The next year Coach Moore got me a spot at the school working so I got out of the Air Force and began my coaching career with FPD and Coach Moore. 

            I learned a lot of football from Coach Moore.  He is a very good offensive mind and a Godly man.  Formations, passing, wide receivers, strategy—the foundation of knowledge of those things came from him.  I will forever be grateful that God led me to work with the people at FPD and Coach Moore.  Being 24-26 years old and trying to figure out how to be a Godly man and husband, there was not a better environment in which God could have put me.  God is faithful.

            Playing FPD makes me think about the sanctification process.  Many people often strive really hard to figure out what God’s will for there life is.  Everyone tells us that we are made for greatness so we are always looking for the next big step to take because surely that is God’s will.  I am to become the greatest on earth and do great things for God so God’s will must be that I do something amazing next: “What do I do God?”  The Bible never says any of that stuff.  But it does say this: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). 

            Sanctification is the consistent growing to become more and more like Christ.  It requires our pursuit of Christ and then God working in our lives.  If we don’t pursue Christ we don’t grow in Christ.  If we don’t grow in Christ we don’t become what God created us to be.  We then miss the will of God for our lives.  So often, people spend so much time chasing the will of God and trying to figure it out that they neglect the actual pursuit of becoming more and more like Christ.  In trying to find the will of God in their lives they have missed the will of God. 

            Win the Day is our sanctification battle cry.  From a football perspective it means pursue those things daily that are going to help you become everything you can become as an athlete.  Are we working hard in the weight room, are we mastering the fundamentals on the football field, are we keeping a great attitude and giving great effort at practice everyday.   If we do these things each day, if we follow the plan, then we will grow as football players and a football team over the course of the season and become all that we could have become as individuals and a team. 

            It is no different in our Christian walk.  Do not be consumed with God’s will for your life in your profession.  I don’t know if it is God’s will for us to beat FPD or not.  I don’t know if it is God’s will for us to win a state championship or not.  But I do know this, we wouldn’t have a chance to win this game tonight if we did not work our tails off each day: If we did not Win the Day.  In the same way, I do not know God’s will for me 10 years from now, 20, 30, etc…but what I do know is God’s will for me today is to grow in Jesus Christ and pursue him. 

            The Monday before the Landmark game or last year’s Monday before the state championship game, I had no clue whether we were going to win the game or lose the game.  But what I did know is that we better work our tails off that Monday to have a chance to win.  To be consumed with worrying about winning on Friday would take away the opportunity that actually would help us win on Friday: Doing everything right on Monday. 

            So what is my point?  I look back to when I was working at FPD to where we are here at ELCA now.  It was never about pursuing God’s professional will in my life.  The most important thing I have learned is to pursue Christ.  We must make it our life ambition to grow in Christ: To grow in Holiness, Godliness, Faithfulness and Righteousness.  We must reprioritize how we think.  It is natural to think about our career and our life and use God as a means to get there.  But this is not God’s will.  His will is our sanctification.  Pursue Christ with all diligence and do not worry about your life, trust God to order your steps exactly how He desires.  As we pursue Christ he transforms us and His will becomes our will.  He transforms the desires of our heart. Pursue Christ, Work hard and do not fret about anything else.  WIN THE DAY! “But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”  Matthew 6:33-3

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

Beat FPD!

Wholly for Christ,

Coach Gess