Title: Leave it all on the Field
Show the video clip… found at http://www.sermoncentralstore.com/ProductInfo.aspx?CategoryID=0&productid=VI1406467&
Introduction
This is “Football Friday Night”! I thought it would be good to open with that particular clip, just to set the stage for the message.
How many of you have ever seen the death crawl?
How many of you have ever done the death crawl?
That clip, by the way, is from a brand new movie called “Facing the Giants,” and will be coming out September 29th.
How many football players do we have here tonight?
How many armchair quarterbacks?
One thing that you hear a lot and see fleshed-out a lot in the game of football is the element of “leaving it all on the field.” If you are going to win, you have to leave it all on the field.
It is that way in football, and it is that way in life as we serve the Lord.
Tonight I will be sharing some things with you that have been given to us by a sports fanatic. This guy really loved sports. He loved them so much that he used analogies often in his letters. That man is the Apostle Paul, and I think Paul would have loved football. I and see Paul being a sanctified version of the great Woody Hayes.
Anyway, let’s see if we can’t apply Paul’s coaching style to what we have just seen.
In the clip, we heard the coach say, “Give me some heart!” That is a great phrase. Paul wrote to the believers in Colosse, and said, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men”, Col 3:23 NASB. That word heartily literally means “from the soul.”
After the death crawl, and the team takes a break, one of the players asks, “So coach, how strong is Westview (one of their rivals) this year?”
So, then Brock answers, “Stronger than we are.” What a picture of our rival, our adversary. Scripture says, in (1Pe 5:8), “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
So the coach asks, “Have you wrote Friday night off as a “loss” Brock.”
To which Brock responds, “Not if I knew we could beat them.”
[BTW, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, I can guarantee without any reservation that YOU are on the winning team!]
Next the coach gets Brock to step up, and asks another player to join him.
C: “I want to see you do the death crawl again, but I want to see your absolute best.”
: “What, do you want me to go to the 30?”
C: “I think you can go to the 50.”
B: “I can do it with no one on my back.”
C: “I think you can do it with Jeremy on your back. But even if you can’t, I want you to promise me that will your best.”
B: “Alright.” [Kind of half-hearted]
C: “Your best?”
B: “Okay.”
C: “You’re gonna give me your best?”
B: “I’m gonna give you my best!”
C: “Don’t quit until you’ve got nothing left.”
The coach asks a simple question – one that every athlete has been asked at some point in his or her playing career – “Are you gonna give me your best?”
And the reason that we cannot see all of the reasons why we have to endure grueling circumstances as we live for Jesus, is so that we do not quit when we could go farther.
The burden is great sometimes, just like Brock doing the death crawl. Jesus said in that we must willingly take up our cross – our willingness to serve Him with every fiber of our being – daily and follow Him. It is grueling sometimes. It seems impossible to live for Him and keep our integrity. It is hard to live a pure life, to remain sexually pure . It is sometimes agonizing to pursue our relationship with Jesus without losing friends and face with our peers. But Jesus is cheering you. Others are cheering you.
God’s Word tells us in the book of Hebrews, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb 12: 1-2)
And as we run, we must remember that it takes everything we have in us. AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ (Mar 12:30)
1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “Do everything to the glory of God.”
[Who are you living to glorify? Yourself or Jesus Christ?]
As we ENDURE, Jesus says, “I want your very best. Don’t quit. I want everything you’ve got. Don’t give up. Keep going. It’s all heart from here. You promised me your best. Give me more. Twenty more steps. Keep going. Don’t quit! Don’t quit! Leave it all on the field!”
And one day, we will say, “This has to be the 50. I don’t have any more.”
It is then that the reward comes. When you have finally used up every ounce of strength, and have strained every muscle, you will look up and realize that you are in the end zone. But Jesus Christ demands your all. You may be playing the game, but will you leave it all on the field? Maybe you are just playing. Your heart just is not in the game. If you are not on Jesus’ team, you are not playing to win – you are playing to lose!
As I shared with you earlier, Paul was a sports fan. He used athletics often in his writings.
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phi 3:14)
I bear on my body the brand-marks[scars, bruises, wounds] of Jesus. (Gal 6:17)
Sometimes the load gets heavy, sometimes it hurts, sometimes you will be tempted to quit. But you can’t. Don’t quit.
Paul said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Phi 4:13)
Paul’s last testimony is one of the most powerful and encouraging that I have ever heard or read. He says, For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. (2Ti 4:6) I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; (2Ti 4:7)in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2Ti 4:8) Paul left it all on the field.
Maybe you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. You promised Him your best, but you aren’t honoring that promise. I want you to come tonight and kneel here and recommit your life to Him and the promise you made. Will you leave it all on the field?
Maybe you have never turned your life over to Jesus Christ, you are unsaved. I am not going to tell you that being on the Lord’s team is easy. It is difficult. It is grueling. But each step of the way, there is someone there beside you and within you to coach you on. If you don’t know Him, you need to come and settle that tonight. Will you be on the winning team?
Jesus Christ took each of our places on a cross. He died for every sin ever committed. The penalty for your sins and mine has been paid in full. All you have to do is believe in your heart that He died for your sins, and confess Him as your personal Savior and Lord. It will require that you turn from your sins. It may even require you to adjust or abandon certain habits, attitudes and relationships.
But isn’t football the same? In every sport you must always be conditioning and developing as an athlete. The Christian life is much the same, only in a more radical way.
If you were to die right now, would you be on the winning team’s roster or the losing?
Prayer & Invitation
