A sermon written and preached by the
Rev. Scott D. Nowack on May 20, 2012 at the First Presbyterian Church,
Kilgore, Texas.
A
Theological Pep Talk
1 John 5:1-6
We’ve all heard motivational speeches or “pep talks” before. They are designed to get an individual or a team excited and energized to take on a specific job, to complete a project, or to play an important game. The pep talk is one of the tools of a good coach. Success will come to a coach who can inspire his or her players to play their very best, to the best of their ability; one who can teach and train their team to work toward a particular goal together, to be all that God created them to be.
There are numerous examples of pep talks. There are ones we remember from our childhood; coaches who taught and cared for us, as if we were their own children. There’s Knute Rockne at Notre Dame inspiring his players to win one for the gipper. There’s Vince Lombardi setting the tone for his successful Green Bay Packer football teams declaring that success will come if they focus on three things and three things only: their family, their religion and the Green Bay Packers.
It’s not just in sports. There’s the president’s speech in the movie “Independence Day” before attacking the alien invaders when he speaks boldly to the people, “We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight…Today we celebrate our independence day.” And the crowd goes wild. They are pumped up! That’s the power of the pep talk.
One of my favorite pep talks was told by the late Fred Rogers (of 'Mister Rogers' fame), a Presbyterian pastor, given while addressing the National Press Club. He said that he knew that the room was filled with many of the nation's best reporters -- men and women who had achieved much in their lives. Rogers took out his pocket watch and announced that he was going to keep two minutes of silence. He invited everybody in the room to remember the people from their past --parents, teachers, coaches, friends and others -- who had made it possible for them to reach this point. As the seconds ticked away, he could hear, all around the room, people sniffling as they were moved by the memories of those, coaches if you will, who had made sacrifices on their behalf and who had given them countless gifts, the voice of wisdom and encouragement. They coached us to do our very best and leave the results up to God. And now those coaches stick with us as our inner voice leading us through the joys and challenges of life.
The same could be said for our own journeys of faith. According to professional coach Julie Bell, founder of the Dallas-based coaching firm Mind of a Champion, “In order to put my best out there, I have to make my thoughts obedient to Christ, to ‘maximize’ every occasion for Christ.”
One of the greatest coaches of the first-century church was the apostle John, the author of three New Testament letters. In his first epistle, he says to his fellow Christians, "the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments" (1 John 5:3). John knows that if we let our minds wander, we will naturally fixate on the attractions and temptations of a culture that clamors for our attention and affection. But if we are intentional with our thinking, focused on the love of God and the commandments of God, then we'll be set up to do our best as followers of Christ.
Coach John begins his “pep talk” with love. He says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.” (1 John 5:1) We are all a part of God’s family. We become a part of this family when we come to trust in Jesus Christ. At the very center of this family is a series of intimate relationships between God and Jesus, God and God’s children, Jesus and God’s children. It is a love that flows freely within the family of God. John goes a step further. Love is not just warm, fuzzy feelings. It’s an attitude that requires us to be intentional about our thinking and our acting. “By this we know that we love the children of God,” says Coach John, “when we love God and obey his commandments” (5:2). We must show love through action, the action of remaining obedient to God’s commandments. Talk is cheap without loving action.
This brings us to Coach John’s second point: obey. If you are an athlete or a dancer or a musician, you know if you want to perform well, then you have to obey your teacher, trainer and coach. Think about a time in your life when you did something you thought you would never be able to do with the help of a coach or trainer or teacher. I heard a story once about a priest named Jim who decided he wanted to run a marathon although he had no running experience. A friend who had run several marathons agreed to coach Father Jim in his training for the marathon. He coached Father Jim to not do everything all at once. He instructed him to run and walk, run and walk, run and walk, one hour at a time, three times a week.
The first time Jim went running he went for three minutes and had to stop. He was totally out of breath. He walked for several minutes and found the stamina to run for another three, then walked seven and ran three. Over the next month, his running increased and his walking decreased until he could run for an hour straight. And then it increased to two hours. His coach told him, “If you can run two hours, then you can run four hours. If you can run four hours, you can run a marathon.”
He was right. After six months of training, Father Jim competed in his first marathon and finished with a respectable time of four hours, twelve minutes. Because Jim obeyed his coach’s instructions, his commandments if you will, he became enamored with running. Five years later he found a way to use his running to show God’s love for others. He joined a team of runners who took part in a marathon to raise money for an organization in South Africa who were combating the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Talk is cheap without loving action. What holds true for long-distance running holds true for the Christian faith. Coach John says, “For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments” (5:3). What happens to Christians who walk the road of faith? Is it an easy road or a difficult one? Will we grow and be successful with every step we take? We will indeed have times of growth and success, but we will also stumble and fall, travel down the wrong path, crash into other people, get injured and collapse from exhaustion. A life of obedience is a life of struggle, one that can exhaust us, discourage us and sideline us with spiritual shin splints and other debilitating conditions.
But there is a promise that Coach John spells out for us as his third point, “If we keep getting up and moving forward, we will have victory in God.” Obeying God’s commandments is difficult, but they were created to help us to do our best and succeed as children of God. In the movie, “Glory Road”, that re-tells the amazing story of Don Haskin’s first season coaching men’s basketball at Texas Western University in El Paso. He was the first division one coach to start five African-Americans in a game, including the National Championship where they beat Kentucky. At the beginning of the season, Coach Haskins wanted his players to play a more conventional style of basketball stressing the fundamentals of solid defense, ball control and working for the good shot. As the season progressed, he realized that his players weren’t responding well to his style. They wanted a more open style that was less rigid. When they changed up their style of play, everything changed. They began to have success on the court and were getting noticed by fans across the country. It wasn’t all peaches and cream for them. It was 1965 and racial prejudice was at a fever pitch. They were harassed wherever they went, booed, spit upon, and one of the black players was beat up in the bathroom at a restaurant. But they persevered; they carried on and made their way to the National Championship. As the big game is winding down, Coach Haskins tells his players, “We are two minutes away from a national championship. Right now it’s not about talent, it’s about heart. It’s about who can go out there and play the hardest; who can go out there and play the smartest…They’ve been here before. They’re not going to give it to us. We’ve got to get out there and we’ve got to take it. Take it!” And indeed they did and the world has never been the same since.
Coach John says, “For whatever is born of God conquers the world” (5:4). Coach John inspires and motivates us by stating that our loving and gracious God has already set us up for success: Jesus to believe in, a family of God’s children to love and commandments to obey. These three great gifts empower us to persevere when life gets difficult, when the world pulls us down. If we base our lives on the belief that Jesus is the son of God, then we’re going to be victorious in the face of any challenge. When we come to this table here today and take part in this holy sacrament, we are inspired and motivated to be the person God calls us to be. Again it doesn’t mean that tough times won’t come our way, but we can face them with the promise that no matter what happens, no matter what life drops in our laps, we live with the promise that “nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
In the face of life’s challenges, Coach John and psychologist Julie Bell tell us to make our thoughts obedient to Christ. This means focusing on the love of God, obeying his commandments and expecting to be victorious over the world. We may stumble across the finish line, bruised and bloodied by our journey. But with God’s help, we will be victorious.
There are numerous examples of pep talks. There are ones we remember from our childhood; coaches who taught and cared for us, as if we were their own children. There’s Knute Rockne at Notre Dame inspiring his players to win one for the gipper. There’s Vince Lombardi setting the tone for his successful Green Bay Packer football teams declaring that success will come if they focus on three things and three things only: their family, their religion and the Green Bay Packers.
It’s not just in sports. There’s the president’s speech in the movie “Independence Day” before attacking the alien invaders when he speaks boldly to the people, “We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight…Today we celebrate our independence day.” And the crowd goes wild. They are pumped up! That’s the power of the pep talk.
One of my favorite pep talks was told by the late Fred Rogers (of 'Mister Rogers' fame), a Presbyterian pastor, given while addressing the National Press Club. He said that he knew that the room was filled with many of the nation's best reporters -- men and women who had achieved much in their lives. Rogers took out his pocket watch and announced that he was going to keep two minutes of silence. He invited everybody in the room to remember the people from their past --parents, teachers, coaches, friends and others -- who had made it possible for them to reach this point. As the seconds ticked away, he could hear, all around the room, people sniffling as they were moved by the memories of those, coaches if you will, who had made sacrifices on their behalf and who had given them countless gifts, the voice of wisdom and encouragement. They coached us to do our very best and leave the results up to God. And now those coaches stick with us as our inner voice leading us through the joys and challenges of life.
The same could be said for our own journeys of faith. According to professional coach Julie Bell, founder of the Dallas-based coaching firm Mind of a Champion, “In order to put my best out there, I have to make my thoughts obedient to Christ, to ‘maximize’ every occasion for Christ.”
One of the greatest coaches of the first-century church was the apostle John, the author of three New Testament letters. In his first epistle, he says to his fellow Christians, "the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments" (1 John 5:3). John knows that if we let our minds wander, we will naturally fixate on the attractions and temptations of a culture that clamors for our attention and affection. But if we are intentional with our thinking, focused on the love of God and the commandments of God, then we'll be set up to do our best as followers of Christ.
Coach John begins his “pep talk” with love. He says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.” (1 John 5:1) We are all a part of God’s family. We become a part of this family when we come to trust in Jesus Christ. At the very center of this family is a series of intimate relationships between God and Jesus, God and God’s children, Jesus and God’s children. It is a love that flows freely within the family of God. John goes a step further. Love is not just warm, fuzzy feelings. It’s an attitude that requires us to be intentional about our thinking and our acting. “By this we know that we love the children of God,” says Coach John, “when we love God and obey his commandments” (5:2). We must show love through action, the action of remaining obedient to God’s commandments. Talk is cheap without loving action.
This brings us to Coach John’s second point: obey. If you are an athlete or a dancer or a musician, you know if you want to perform well, then you have to obey your teacher, trainer and coach. Think about a time in your life when you did something you thought you would never be able to do with the help of a coach or trainer or teacher. I heard a story once about a priest named Jim who decided he wanted to run a marathon although he had no running experience. A friend who had run several marathons agreed to coach Father Jim in his training for the marathon. He coached Father Jim to not do everything all at once. He instructed him to run and walk, run and walk, run and walk, one hour at a time, three times a week.
The first time Jim went running he went for three minutes and had to stop. He was totally out of breath. He walked for several minutes and found the stamina to run for another three, then walked seven and ran three. Over the next month, his running increased and his walking decreased until he could run for an hour straight. And then it increased to two hours. His coach told him, “If you can run two hours, then you can run four hours. If you can run four hours, you can run a marathon.”
He was right. After six months of training, Father Jim competed in his first marathon and finished with a respectable time of four hours, twelve minutes. Because Jim obeyed his coach’s instructions, his commandments if you will, he became enamored with running. Five years later he found a way to use his running to show God’s love for others. He joined a team of runners who took part in a marathon to raise money for an organization in South Africa who were combating the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Talk is cheap without loving action. What holds true for long-distance running holds true for the Christian faith. Coach John says, “For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments” (5:3). What happens to Christians who walk the road of faith? Is it an easy road or a difficult one? Will we grow and be successful with every step we take? We will indeed have times of growth and success, but we will also stumble and fall, travel down the wrong path, crash into other people, get injured and collapse from exhaustion. A life of obedience is a life of struggle, one that can exhaust us, discourage us and sideline us with spiritual shin splints and other debilitating conditions.
But there is a promise that Coach John spells out for us as his third point, “If we keep getting up and moving forward, we will have victory in God.” Obeying God’s commandments is difficult, but they were created to help us to do our best and succeed as children of God. In the movie, “Glory Road”, that re-tells the amazing story of Don Haskin’s first season coaching men’s basketball at Texas Western University in El Paso. He was the first division one coach to start five African-Americans in a game, including the National Championship where they beat Kentucky. At the beginning of the season, Coach Haskins wanted his players to play a more conventional style of basketball stressing the fundamentals of solid defense, ball control and working for the good shot. As the season progressed, he realized that his players weren’t responding well to his style. They wanted a more open style that was less rigid. When they changed up their style of play, everything changed. They began to have success on the court and were getting noticed by fans across the country. It wasn’t all peaches and cream for them. It was 1965 and racial prejudice was at a fever pitch. They were harassed wherever they went, booed, spit upon, and one of the black players was beat up in the bathroom at a restaurant. But they persevered; they carried on and made their way to the National Championship. As the big game is winding down, Coach Haskins tells his players, “We are two minutes away from a national championship. Right now it’s not about talent, it’s about heart. It’s about who can go out there and play the hardest; who can go out there and play the smartest…They’ve been here before. They’re not going to give it to us. We’ve got to get out there and we’ve got to take it. Take it!” And indeed they did and the world has never been the same since.
Coach John says, “For whatever is born of God conquers the world” (5:4). Coach John inspires and motivates us by stating that our loving and gracious God has already set us up for success: Jesus to believe in, a family of God’s children to love and commandments to obey. These three great gifts empower us to persevere when life gets difficult, when the world pulls us down. If we base our lives on the belief that Jesus is the son of God, then we’re going to be victorious in the face of any challenge. When we come to this table here today and take part in this holy sacrament, we are inspired and motivated to be the person God calls us to be. Again it doesn’t mean that tough times won’t come our way, but we can face them with the promise that no matter what happens, no matter what life drops in our laps, we live with the promise that “nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
In the face of life’s challenges, Coach John and psychologist Julie Bell tell us to make our thoughts obedient to Christ. This means focusing on the love of God, obeying his commandments and expecting to be victorious over the world. We may stumble across the finish line, bruised and bloodied by our journey. But with God’s help, we will be victorious.
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