CHARGER NATION: ROUND 3

CHARGER NATION: PLAYOFFS ROUND 3

CHARGER NATION,

            I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving yesterday.  Thanksgivings are always great days with the all the food, family and football.  Football on TV just completes Thanksgiving as far as I’m concerned.  Being able to practice and play on Thanksgiving weekend is even better.  Opportunities like this don’t always exist and we should take great joy and be thankful to be able to play tonight. 

            Tonight we play Darlington.  Darlington is a school up around Rome, Georgia.  They are a consistently good football team.  We have not played them since 2013.    They want to run the ball and be physical.  They have one of the top rated linemen for the class of 2020.  He is a monster and you will quickly be able to spot him.   He can pick wherever he wants to go to college and play football.  I think Nick Saban had thanksgiving with his family yesterday (that is a joke but could be true.)  They have two good running backs they want to carry the load.  #4 is a big strong physical running back and #2 is the more elusive back.  Both are dangerous.  They are much better football players than me, but I think I could get some yards running behind that big offensive lineman.  I’d give the boys the David and Goliath story but we aren’t allowed sling shots nor do we know how to use them.  In all honesty, I love watching the kid play football.  He knocks people down and then he helps them up. 

Either way—we have a lot of good players too and our boys have played many many great players over the years and have done very well.  As with any round 3 play-off game, this should be a great game. 

“Praise the Lord!  Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”  Psalm 106:1 & 118:1

            At the end of practice yesterday I challenged the boys to actually think about something for which to be thankful.  Naturally, we are not a thankful people.  We always think about what we don’t have the and how life isn’t fair.  We grumble and complain.  It is who we are.  To have a day of thanks is actually contrary to who we naturally are.  A teenage boy isn’t thankful for the car you give him, he thinks it’s your duty to provide him with one.  A teenage boy isn’t thankful for his 700 dollar phone you give him, he thinks it is your responsibility to provide him with one.  A person cannot be thankful for something they think they are owed.  We all are very much like these teenage boys.  We have things we do not deserve and never stop and think to be thankful.

            I challenged the boys to be thankful for their mom and dad, or grandmother or granddad, or just mom or dad; whoever it is that takes care of them and provides for them.  For each of the boys I coach someone loves them enough to pay for them to go to school at ELCA.  I know everyone thinks we cheat and give scholarships, but all of you who actually send your kids to ELCA know you pay tuition.  We all send our kids to ELCA because of Jesus Christ, environment, education, and opportunities.  Someone is sacrificing a lot of money so they can have the best opportunity.  I challenged them for one day to be thankful for those people who love them and take care of them.

            Why be thankful?  Because so many kids are born in this world to parents who don’t love them and don’t care about them.  It wasn’t my parent’s duty to take care of me as I thought it was.  It was by the grace of God I was born into a family who did love me and take care of me.  It wasn’t my right; it was by grace.  As I have gotten older I have learned to stop and give thanks to God for providing me with a mom and dad who loved me and took care of me.

            We sit around and constantly think about what we don’t have.  We think about this isn’t fair and that isn’t fair.  Turn on the news if you want to be depressed.  All they do is talk about what isn’t fair.  They are stirring us up into a frenzy of rage while they are making millions getting us all stirred up.  They have to stir us up or they don’t make millions.  They are getting us mad and angry while they are going to the 5,000 dollar spa and drinking 1,000 dollar wine over the weekend.  We are foolish.  We neglect to ponder over and be thankful for that the very fundamental needs we have are being met: I have water, I have food, I have people that love me.  When we stop being thankful for those things there is nothing that will ever satisfy us.  We will become the biggest gripers and complainers on the planet.  We will become like the running back in the NFL who is griping and complaining about a 17.5 million dollar signing bonus. 

            Our boys, you, and me, we are born with an “I deserve” mentality.  This mentality stems from pride, arrogance, and greed.  Pride is a liar but he dwells mightily in us all.  He tells me I am better than the next man.  He tells me that I deserve more than the next man.  With this beast dwelling in us there is no way we can be thankful for anything.  The eyes of our heart are looking everywhere to see where someone has more than me or has it better than me.  I can never be thankful for what I have because someone has more and it enrages me.  How can I be satisfied with 17.5 million if someone else is getting 21.5 million?  (You might think that is impossible.  I read the article.  I’ll send you the link if you ask.)  How can I be satisfied with getting to practice on thanksgiving when we deserve to be practicing on thanksgiving?  How can I be happy with the car mom and dad gave me when I deserve to have a car?  “I turned 16, it is my right.”  Well, that is what they think.    “You have to buy me a phone, it is your duty.”  That’s what they think.

            When I became a Christian, I learned to be thankful.  When I was 23, my eyes were opened clearly to the fact that I was born a sinful man and I was in complete rebellion against God.  In this state of sin and rebellion, what I deserved was the wrath of God.  The God of the universe who made heaven and earth, who made my heart beat from nothing, who gives me a mind that thinks; I had rejected and renounced this God.  I had spit in his face and told him I knew better than him.  It wasn’t that I was an atheist and rejected their being a God.  I was worse off.  I knew there was a God and rejected him.  Many times I had told God: “I know you, I believe in you, but I am not going to follow your ways or your laws; I will do it my way.”

Can you imagine if you went to your boss and said those words?  You would be fired.  If you were in a gang or the mafia?  You would be executed.  Those are just mere men.  We say this to the Holy, Righteous, Omnipotent God of the Universe: The Creator of all things.  Just as our children annoy us with their lack of thanks and their “I deserve” mentality, we do the same to this all-powerful God of the Universe. 

            God showed me and revealed to me this is who I was.  I was in rebellion and I knew I deserved the wrath of this God.  BUT---In his grace and mercy he didn’t leave me there.  He showed me the way to become right with God.  He showed me his amazing answer to my pending judgement of his fury and wrath.  Even though I deserve to go to Hell, God sent his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my sins and take my punishment for me. 

            There was no option for me but to accept this great gift.  To get on my knees and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and surrender my life to him was the only option for me as I saw my desperate enslaved state to sin.  I do not know if thanksgiving ever meant anything to me before I became a Christian besides food, family and football, but now it means a great deal.  I deserve the wrath and fury of an Almighty God whom I rebelled, rejected, and renounced.  And even in my rebellion he loved me by sending his Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for me.  When I became thankful for this, my eyes became open to so many of his good and precious gifts he has so graciously given. 

           

“Therefore, so as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”  Colossians 2:6-7

It is a mark of a Christian to give thanks.  We realize we don’t deserve anything.  We are lucky enough to have food and water and for this I will be thankful.  This side of heaven I still have the wretched sinful man living in me.  I fail to uphold God’s law and standards often.  There are many days I fail to be thankful and I allow the beast of pride, arrogance and greed to reign in me.  God’s promise to me wasn’t that I had to be perfect from the point of surrendering to him.  His promise is he would be faithful.  That’s insane!  How great and merciful and gracious and slow to anger is our God.  We are not worthy!  I am THANKFUL!

BEAT DARLINGTON!

“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