Strong Defense/Powerful Offense

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon
Sunday, October 16, 2011

One of my favorite quarterbacks to watch was Kurt Warner when he was still playing. There are a number of reasons why Kurt is kind of my favorite player. One, he’s a devout Christian and he lived his faith both on the field and off the field and I really respected him for that. Second of all, he’s an Iowa boy, right? So you have to like him for that. Then third, he’s sort of like the dream come true, sort of the impossible dream coming to a reality.

Maybe you recall back in 1999, he was second string quarterback for the St. Louis Rams and then in the preseason, Trent Green, who was the starting quarterback, tore his ACL. He was out for the season, which meant that moved Kurt into the starting lineup. Much to everybody’s surprise and amazement, he led an incredible offense. He was quick. He was accurate and he had phenomenal instincts for the game but as good as Kurt was at executing the offense, the St. Louis Rams’ defense was equally bad. They were exciting games to watch, that’s no doubt, and they were always high scoring and you were on the edge of your seat to figure out could the offense outgun what the defense allowed the opponent to score? But that kind of winning is unsustainable. You have to have both a strong offense and a strong defense.

We’ve been looking at getting in the game, that is, getting in the game of life. Last week, we asked the question, “What does it mean to win?” If you’re going to be in the game, first of all, you have to know what does it mean to win? The ultimate win is when this life is over, it ain’t over. When this life ends and our time is up, there is something for us to look forward to, a greater place, a place of peace, a place of happiness and joy, heaven itself. That’s the ultimate win, to know when this life is over, there is a spectacular eternity waiting for us.

When it comes down to it, that win is something we can’t do. That is a win, a victory that has to be given to us. That’s what Scripture testifies to. It is the ultimate victory that Jesus Christ gives to us, the ultimate win that He bestows upon us. Those who have faith in Him will spend an eternity in heaven. Therefore, while we’re still in this life, winning the game really does come down to how you play the game. We already know that we won. We already know the ultimate victory is ours, but in the meantime, how is it that we live out our new life in Christ? We do that by having a strong defense and a strong offense.

A strong defense. If you’re going to play the game, if you’re going to win the game, you have to have a strong defense. One of the marks of a strong defense is that you have to avoid being over confident. As far as I’m concerned, that is just a death spell if you get over confident. We’ve all seen it, right? It’s the undefeated team who goes up against the underdog, sort of like maybe the Patriots going up against, previous to this year, the Detroit Lions. Everybody knows what the outcome is going to be, right? Except the time runs out and there’s an upset. What happened? Every one of the players and the coach will stand and stare at the cameras and say, “No matter who our opponent is, we prepare the same way.” Well, obviously not because you figure that’s an easy mark. They’re not really an opponent and so they slack off a little bit. Maybe they’re a little bit less stringent in their practices. They’re not quite as sharp when they’re on the field. Time runs out. Oh, shocker, they lost. You can’t be over confident.

Listen to what God’s Word says to us in 1 Peter, “Be self controlled and alert. You enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Be alert, he says. Don’t get over confident because we have a real opponent. We have a real adversary who is the devil himself and he’s roaring around waiting, waiting to pounce upon us. We can’t get over confident.

The moment you say to yourself, “Yeah, I’d never do that,” the moment you look with contempt upon someone who has fallen into sin and you shake your head in disgust and say, “I don’t know how anybody can let that happen to them in their life, certainly not me,” that’s when you’re vulnerable. The moment you say, “That’s the one thing that I will never do,” that’s when the devil jumps, that’s the crack in the armor that he will seize upon and it will be your demise.

Ask yourself this, so far in life, how many things that at one point in time, you swore, “Yeah, I’ll never do that,” and how many of them have you done? You have to be sharp. You have to be alert. The devil is prowling around. He’s real. He’s an opponent to us. We have to stay focused and be on the defensive.

What it essentially means is we have to believe in our hearts, given the right circumstance, we’re capable of anything. Given the right set of a situation, we’re capable of doing anything, even the one thing that we find deplorable, that we find, “No, I couldn’t do that.” When we believe, “Yeah, given the right circumstances, I could fall,” then you’re staying sharp. Then you’re being on the defensive. You’re watching out, not giving the devil a foothold. One part of the defense: Do not be over confident.

The second is you have to play as a team. When you watch the defense, for that matter, the offense, on the field, what are they doing? They’re constantly pointing out, trying to read what the play is from the offense, talking to one another, encouraging one another. Even when they’re on the sidelines, they’re not playing. They’re not paying attention to what’s going on out on the field. They’re huddled up strategizing so when they go back out on the field, they can successfully defend the ball, right?

We have to play as a team. Listen to what Paul says to the Church at Thessalonica, “And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone, make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong.” He’s saying play as a team. You as fellow believers, you as fellow Christians, play together as a team. I’m not so sure we’re real good at this. Half the time, Christians are fighting with one another. That’s not playing as a team.

The other half of the time, we have groups of people getting together talking about somebody who’s going rogue. You’ve been there, a group of friends and one of them, their life, they seem to be on a path of self destruction and you all talk about it and you’ll lament the fact, “Boy, if she keeps going in that direction, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” “Yeah, if he keeps doing that, he’s going to lose his job. He’s going to lose his family and everything.” And the conversation stops there. Nobody ever goes and talks to her. Nobody ever speaks to him, gives that word of warning, that word of admonishment that needs to be spoken. We all say to ourselves, “Well, who am I to judge? Who am I really to say anything to them?” You’re on the same team, that’s who you are.

Which is better? To risk offending the person by saying something, by walking up, saying, “Hey, I don’t know the whole story, but you seem to be going in the wrong direction,” or to watch himself destruct and do nothing. You play as a team. That means you warn one another. Sometimes we admonish one another, brings us back into line where God wants us to play.

It also means when somebody messes up, when somebody falls to sin, they let their guard down. We don’t shoot the wounded. We don’t toss them out. We come along side of them and we pick them up. We remind them of God’s grace and His love and His forgiveness and we get them back in the game. That’s what it means to play as a team. We stay together as fellow believers, admonishing one another, encouraging one another. We have a strong defense and we play as a team.

But you have to play both sides of the line. It’s not just defense. There has to be offense as well. Strong offense means you have to know the playbook. Beyond anything else, if you don’t know the playbook, how can you play the game? If you don’t know the playbook, how can you execute well? I guarantee you that every player on the field of a successful team studies the playbook week end and week out. Even if they have executed a play thousands of times, they’re still studying it, they’re still practicing it because you can’t play the game, you can’t be successful if you don’t know the playbook.

You have to know the playbook. Scripture itself testifies to it. Listen to just a couple. It says here in 1 Thessalonians, “Do not put out the spirit’s fire and do not treat prophecies with contempt.” Or if we read in 2 Timothy, it says this, “All scripture is God-breathed. It’s useful for teaching, for rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness, so that you man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

One more. We turn to the book of Ephesians. Here in Chapter 6, Paul draws this analogy of putting on the armor of God so you’re both defending against attacks but also on the offensive. One of the offensive weapons, he says, “Take up the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God.” You have to know the playbook. To put it simply, read your bible. I could flower it up for you if you want, but it comes down to that. Read your bible, whether it’s individually, whether it’s in a large group, whether you join a small group, whether you join an online study, whether you have morning or evening devotions, whether you have a favorite Christian author or a combination thereof, we have to get into the Word of God. Everything we need to know for this life, everything we need to know about yourself, everything you need to know about God is contained in these pages as God reveals Himself to us. You have to know the playbook. Read the bible.

Second thing for a successful offense, as far as I’m concerned, is you have to have a winning attitude. If you don’t have a winning attitude, I don’t know how you can win. What I mean by that is before and during the game, you have to believe that you can and will win. If you don’t have that kind of an attitude, you’ll lose for sure. That means no matter how bad it looks, no matter how bleak it may be, you still believe you can and will win.

Let me paint two different scenarios for you. Scenario No. 1 is Friday night with me. I am at the Johnston-Ankeny game. It is halftime. Johnston is losing 21-0. They are losing badly. I’m cold. I want to go home. I do not have a winning attitude. Contrast that to this year’s Detroit Lions. Sorry, it’s the last time I’ll bring them up. This year’s Detroit Lions. They’re 5 and 0. They haven’t been 5 and 0 since the 1950’s, folks. But twice this year, they have had a 20-point deficit at halftime but they’ve come back to win the game. I contend that they had to have a winning attitude to do that. They had to have the mindset that says, “We can come back from this and we can win,” and they did.

We, as Christians, should have a winning attitude. Let me explain. Take a look again at Paul’s letter to the Church at Thessalonica. He says, “Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Now lest you think the Church at Thessalonica was a happy little place, kind of a small church in the burbs, doing well, no mortgage, attendance is up and giving is swelling, no. No. The church in Thessalonica was under intense persecution, so much so that Paul had to escape the city for his life. Some of the worst circumstances around and yet Paul says, “Be joyful always. Pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances.”

What Paul is saying in my terminology is, “Have a winning attitude,” because a winning attitude is an acknowledgement of the truth, the acknowledgement of the truth that the final battle, the final victory has been given to us. No matter what happens in between time, we know how the final game ends. That’s the victory, the ultimate victory that Jesus Christ has given to us. That means when you let down your guard and your defenses are lowered and that one thing you swore you would never do, you do, you know by the blood of Jesus Christ that sin has been washed away and you’ve been released from that guilt.

It means when I haven’t been diligent reading the playbook and studying God’s Word and I haven’t been on the offensive of living my faith out, I have a Father in heaven who looks down and instead of seeing my sin, He sees His Son’s righteousness. It means that I can go to sleep every night confident that if I don’t wake up here, I will wake up in heaven itself. The final victory, the ultimate win has been given to me. Therefore, we can have a winning attitude.

No matter what the circumstances might be, if your life is less than spectacular right now, you know you have the promise of God which says that all things will work together for your ultimate good, will work together for that ultimate win. That gives you a different perspective and it gives you a different attitude towards life. It’s a winning attitude, which is key to a successful offense. And that’s what it takes if we’re going to get into the game, both defense and offense.

This past week, somebody said to me, “Well, you know a strong offense wins games, but a strong defense wins championships.” In reality, you still have to have both. You have to have a strong defense and a strong offense. So it is in living out our faith and living out our lives.

We have to have a strong defense. We have a very real opponent, a very real enemy out there who wants to attack us, and we have to be on our guard and alert. We have to play together. We have to admonish one another and have the courage to do that every now and then, but also to encourage one another and play as a team.

Get on the offense. Make a commitment to be into the Word of God more, to digest what He has to say to your life but overarching all of that, know that the ultimate win, the ultimate victory is yours so you can face life with a winning attitude. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what it means to get in the game. Amen.