CHARGER NATION: GAME #10
CHARGER NATION,
The varsity Chargers is not the only Charger team with a big game this weekend. Our 5thand 6thgrade team is playing in the championship game tomorrow at 3pm at Flint River. I am very proud of those boys and that coaching staff. Coach Harris has the team rolling! I have seen them play and they look really good. Good luck to them tomorrow!
Last week we clinched the region championship in a hard fought game against Mt. Vernon. We say Chop Wood for a reason at ELCA. Everyone just assumes we are going to win by a lot. We play many games where we have to fight to the last minute to win. My desire as a coach is that we are training our boys to fight and never give in. I want to train them to compete whether things are going my way or they if they are not going my way. In life, so many people quit before they ever get to taste success. I believe you don’t quit. You persevere. I can’t guarantee success but I do know that if you don’t quit good things will happen. Not all that time but a lot of the time. I was proud of our boys for fighting!
Tonight we play Landmark. They are a young football team but their new coach has them playing hard. This being the last regular season game of the year, my challenge to the boys is that this be their best game. We need to finish the regular season strong and develop a championship mindset as we head into the playoffs.
“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” Psalm 34:8
At the beginning of the season my message was about tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. I revealed that I did not necessarily understand this passage and that I lacked faith that allowed me to truly taste and see that the Lord was good. My prayer was that the Lord would help me taste and see the Lord is good. I believe and I have faith yet I wanted this sweet taste of God’s goodness
Over the course of the season God has shown me his sweetness. He has shown me the depths of my depravity and man’s depravity. He has made clear to me the curse that is on mankind due to sin. Adam and Eve broke the covenant with God and sin was unleashed on the earth. With sin came death. I have at many times seen or heard of death or illnesses. I ask: “Why God?”
We can take it all the way back to the fall of Adam and Eve. They were all of our first parents. They are us and we are them. They committed high treason against God when they rebelled against his command. He told them if you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will surely die. God did not want them to know evil as we don’t want our children to know evil. We want to hide them from it. God had created them in his image and for his glory. That was the plan for us all. We were to walk with him and be image bearers. Before the fall of Adam and Eve sin was not known on earth. But they rebelled against their creator and death came. God told them if they ate of the tree death would come. And with death, all the evil and calamity we see in this world. For every time we see things that make us want to say “Why God,” the answer is because sin and death have come upon the earth.
God made everything good and perfect. His charge to Adam and Eve was to take care of the earth and go and multiply. As they would have children more and more image bearers for the King would be born. Everyone would have lived in perfect unity in peace and health. There would be no evil and no death. But we all rebelled. We rejected God. We want to be God. And the curse came and continues to come. We live in an earth that is not as it should be and not as it was designed. It has been destroyed by our sin. The repercussions of our sin is death. We are in an awful predicament.
Death isn’t even the worst part. Just as God is infinite, he designed us to live forever. So what happens when our time on this earth is done? Our time on this earth ends in death but we have a soul and it will not die. We have sinned against a Holy God. We have sinned against a Righteous God. We have sinned against our Creator. Because of sin we don’t even understand how powerful God is. We have rebelled against God. We have rejected God. At some point we will face the unrestrained wrath of God. Death is not the end of our life. It is the beginning. And before Jesus Christ, we were all headed straight to hell and we deserve it.
If you have read this and gotten this far you have not heard anything sweet yet. Here is where the sweet comes in: Even though we rebelled and rejected God. Even though we sinned against God. He sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins. Jesus Christ, He who knew no sin, came and died on the cross and became sin for us. I was headed to hell and God came and took it for me. The absolute worst thing in this world as we can see it is death. Jesus came so that there would be no death for those who put their hope, faith, and trust in Jesus Christ.
But death is not the worst thing that is coming to us. When we die we will stand before a Holy God in judgement. We are guilty. And the punishment is Hell which is a word for the eternal punishment for treason against the God of the universe. BUT JESUS CHRIST took the punishment of Hell for us. That was what he was doing on the cross. He was taking on the wrath of God for us. When he raised on the third day he defeated death for us. THIS IS SWEET! The best part of my life is coming after I die on this earth. By and through Christ, death has lost its sting! REJOICE!
God has shown me clearly: If you don’t believe in sin and hell then Christ is not sweet for you. But over the past three months God has shown me all that sin has caused on this earth. The sickness, the death, the pain…Why God? Because of sin. Because of the curse. Because man has rebelled and rejected the one true God of the universe. God says: You did it, not me. But I have provided the answer. I have provided you another way. I have sent my Son to save you.
God has opened my eyes to the evil in me, the evil in this world, the hell I deserve. And then he has opened my eyes and my heart to Jesus Christ and the work He has done to save my soul. This is sweet. I taste it. I praise him for it.
“For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” Psalm 84:10
Yes, one day before our Lord, in his courts and in his presence will be better than any day we can imagine. To be reunited with the Father in his courts will be our most perfect day. For we were made in his image and for his glory. It will be when we are in his presence unmarred from sin that we will finally rest.
And in that day, we will understand clearly why things happened in this world. All of our “Why God” questions will be answered and it will all make perfect sense.
The challenge for us all is to live each day with that longing to be in the courts of the Lord. May I live today with the desire and hope to be in God’s courts. That desire and hope will drive my actions to serve the Lord and preach Christ.
“Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies.” 1 Kings 2:2-3
Finally, God showed me this verse. Now I can taste and see the Lord is good. Jesus Christ is more precious to me than ever before. I long for to be in the courts of the Lord and to in the presence of the One for whom and by whom we were made. But this God has issued me a challenge while I am here on this earth.
King David is about to die and he is handing over the Kingdom to his son Solomon. This is King David’s charge to Solomon. But it is a charge to us all by God:
“Be the man (or woman) I have created you to be! You have been made in the image of God for his glory. Sin has completely distorted your understanding of me and what a man (or woman) is supposed to be. But I have given you statutes, commandments, rules and testimonies in the Bible and you are to follow this wholeheartedly. Be a man. A man follows my rules and my laws. A man loves my Word. A man longs to serve me and be a light in this dark and evil world.”
And to this God who controls the fate of my soul. And to this God who loves me so much that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for me that I may live. And to this God who has created me in his image for his Glory. There is only one answer: Yes Sir!
You may say: “Coach this has nothing to do with football.” And I say it has everything to do with football! I love you and I love your boys. Our time here on this earth is short but our souls remain forever. The good news of the gospel must be proclaimed!
Our boys are ready!
BEAT LANDMARK!!!
“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
Well said/written coach!
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