and the last more than half of those spent in the tall grass of the apocalyptic portion, where we undertook to understand things like the Little Horn, the Seventy Weeks, the abominable desolations, the kings of the North and the South, I don't know about you, but I'm up for a little lighter fare for a little while. And so I want to talk about sports tonight. And even tomorrow, or rather next Sunday night, we're going to talk about sports. This is, for those of you who have been part of this congregation for some time, this is a summer series that We recur to from time to time. It's been a couple of years. I was trying to remember why I didn't want to leave my work the last couple of years. But in the summer months as we come and go, we have taken advantage of those circumstances in a sense to have a series of topical sermons. In the past, you have made your suggestions and I've honored many of them and I welcome them at this point. as we look for the next few weeks to be a what does the Bible say about series. Tonight the subject is sports and if there's anyone here who has failed to see how comprehensively our culture is influenced by this particular endeavor, pursuit, then I congratulate you. You have succeeded in isolating yourself in remarkable ways from something that is otherwise ubiquitous in our day. And it would be appropriate for us as Christians to have some clear thinking about this thing we call sports. I'll turn you into the Scriptures to several places tonight, but let's begin with Proverbs 21. For Old Testament reading, just one verse. And that is verse 29. No, not 21-29, 20-29. My apologies. That reads, The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair. And now we'll turn to the New Testament with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. 1 Corinthians chapter 9. I'll read from verse 24 through the end of the chapter. Verse 24, Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body Keep it under control lest, after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified. This is the Word of God. Amen. Struggled a bit to define my topic. The word sports is far more elastic than I originally thought, but as I gave it a second and third thought, I realized this. Sports is often a term we use for anything that's fun. It's that broad in some of our uses. That's why sports entertainment are put together. TV watching could be a sport in some people's minds. Sports can be defined probably legitimately as anything that's of pleasure and involves skill. Video games would be a sport in many people's minds. Pottery, piano playing, pinball and the like. But I would rather treat those in another sermon, maybe sometime under hobbies and other kinds of artistic pursuits. Here's what I mean, basically. by the word sports. Athletic activity requiring some kind of skill or prowess and of a competitive nature. That kind of gets us a little tidied up in terms of what we are talking about. Usually, sports in that narrower definition involves a game with some established rules for playing the game. I'll acknowledge right at the outset that as we continue you may think of all kinds of activities that almost but don't quite fit that category and we'll seek to apply the things that we see from the scriptures tonight as they are appropriate. I was originally intending to do three things. I'll only do two tonight and leave the third for next Sunday night. First, I want to give something of a survey very briefly of the rocky relationship between sports and the church. And then secondly, I want to spend the remainder of our time considering the blessing of sports according to the Bible. Some of you have guessed perhaps what the third point will be. I'll go ahead and tell you what it is. It will wait till next week and that is the danger of the culture of sports. We'll seek to be comprehensive in those ways. I may not be giving you new information here, but the posture of the Christian church towards what I've defined tonight as sports, athletic endeavor, has been a mixed thing and not, by any means, altogether favorable. As a matter of fact, you may have some sense that the church has often expressed itself in an antagonistic way towards sports. And there are a number of reasons for this. I only suggest a few. Most historians, and I actually consulted a sports historian this week, and most of them are quick to go to the Greco-Roman origins of modern day sports, at least in the West. And as in ancient Greece and then Rome, the games that we still honor in our Olympic trials and the like, Those games were set, the church was keenly aware of this, in a thoroughly pagan and idolatrous setting. The Olympic Games of the Greeks were originally held in honor of the gods and so it was something of a cultic endeavor, all those performances and the attendance at those performances. I only remind you here that in the time of Roman ascendancy, those games not only had that feature as well of idolatry associated with them, but they very quickly degenerated into various forms of carnage. The violence and the gore of those games became very much associated in the minds of the church. Various atrocities committed against man and beast in the name of sport in ancient Rome. The statesman philosopher Seneca had this comment of the Colosseums of Rome. In the morning they throw men to the lions and bears. At noon they throw them to the spectators. He is referring there to the kind of fervor of lust that was to be seen in the Colosseum. Augustine refers to that in his confessions, his own experience of that. Now, those kinds of origins for what we call sports were not exactly the kind that would endear the church to the pastime of sports. And moving far ahead for the sake of time, in more recent days, the Reformation, there's been among our fathers deep suspicion against sports for, again, several reasons. Sports became the pursuit at some point in the history of the world, not just of the elite, those who had leisure time, that's where, that's who had time to play sports for much of world history. But when those opportunities became available for all kinds of historic reasons to the common people, sports very quickly degenerated to some of the worst kinds of meetings and worst kinds of people. These were pastimes that our fathers recognized as profane and profligate. When you read, for example, J.C. Ryle in the 19th century discussing horse racing, he has this to say. To look at horses running at full speed is itself perfectly harmless. No sensible man will pretend to deny. In the context, he's also addressing plays, and so he adds that many plays, such as Shakespeare's, are among the finest productions of the human intellect, is equally undeniable. But all this is beside the question. The question is whether horse racing and theaters, as they are conducted, are downright wicked. I assert, without hesitation, that they are. I assert that the breach of God's commandments so invariably accompanies the race and the play that you cannot go to amusement without helping sin. Our fathers, in many cases, were able to distinguish between the legitimacy of watching horses run and the illegitimacy of the culture that had surrounded horse racing. And that applied to many other kinds of sports. Sports again in more recent years, in the 19th century, 18th century, were often exercises in cruelty. You find the Puritans often grouping angling and hunting, that's fishing, some of you are not quick on the draw, angling and hunting, they associated with Bear baiting and cock fighting all in one breath. These are the kinds of things that certain of the society does. That shows you how much of a gap has opened between where sports were at one time and today when Michael Vick goes to the slammer for fighting dogs and very little sympathy exercised towards this individual because it's generally recognized that that's cruel, despicable. That was not the case in the days of our fathers. And they were often, in riding against forts, riding against such violations of God's commandments. I found one fencing of the table from the 19th century that went through all 10 commandments with elaborate words about who should not come to the table under each commandment. Under the sixth commandment, those were forbidden from the table who indulge in cruel and wicked sports. That's what is in line. Yet another thing that served to sour the relationship between the church and the merging emphasis on sports and society is the direct conflict between sports and worship. and particularly the Sabbath. It's probably hard for us to remember this, but our five-day work week is a rather modern thing. It was for most, again, of Christendom that men who were working men had six days to work and they had one day not to work. And so, in order to be a participant in a sporting endeavor, that very quickly, again in Puritan England, Scotland, became a conflict with the Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath. Some of you know that this became a flashpoint even in the English Civil War. James I sought to publish and have read in all the pulpits of the land, the book of sports. So if I were living that time and I were your pastor, I would be called by the king to read publicly from the pulpit all the sports that were legitimate for the Lord's Day and the ones that weren't legitimate for the Lord's Day. And there were many ministers who were willing to lose their pulpits and their churches. James I withdrew that wisely. Charles I later reissued that and things did not go as well for Charles I. He eventually lost his head, literally, as a result of the war that broke out. So all of these things, brothers and sisters, I hope are helpful to you as you, and I trust you do, read from time to time our fathers and hear in them a rather low view at times of what we call sports. They frequently saw great worldliness, great degeneracy, inherently despicable acts, and direct conflict with the worship of God. For all those reasons, they took a very dim view. One 19th century theoretian was somewhat typical. He made this concession towards those who would argue for sports. He said, the mind, like a bow, will lose its power by being always strained. And that occasional relaxation from the cares of business is necessary to preserve the vigor and elasticity of the human faculties. That's his concession. But then he warns, many turn to sports to meet this need and he commends in their place, a country ramble amidst the beauties of nature. The perusal of an entertaining and instructive book. the agreeable intercourse of the domestic circle. Some of you were worrying that that might be the tact I would take this evening, but I will not. J.C. Ryle almost seems to have this colleague and contemporary of his in mind when, though taking a rather conservative view of sports himself, has this to say. The man who can neither ride nor shoot nor throw a fly is hardly qualified to speak dispassionately about such matters. It is cheap and easy work to condemn others for doing things which you cannot do yourself and are utterly unable to enjoy." Well, brothers and sisters, what, in light of some of that history of the rocky road between the church and sports, what is a biblical view? We just touch on it tonight, and I'll spend the rest of the time setting forth to you what is the blessing of sports according to the Bible. Now, we should come to a subject like this one, like any other. Is sports good? Are sports bad? With a certain presumption of innocence. By that I mean, keeping in mind what Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, Everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the Word of God and prayer. And if we keep those things in mind, what we're looking for is not necessarily some explicit word of endorsement about some modern phenomenon, but principles that if they could or would, rule it evil. We don't find those in the essence of sports. In fact, to the contrary, I'll present to you this evening evidence that the Scripture celebrates it in certain ways. I'm going to mostly spend our time together with you looking at well-known images the Apostle Paul uses, interestingly, from his Greco-Roman cultural setting. And there are three things, or I could put it this way, there's a threefold blessing that can be found and enjoyed in what we're calling sports. One of them, according to the Apostle Paul, is it's just good for you. It promotes health for mind and body. Turn to 1 Timothy 4 and verse 7. The Apostle says, have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The Apostle is making a point that is far from being primarily about sports. We say this right at the outset. But he is referring to something that we're to do in the realm of the spirit, that we're to do with regard to our pursuit of godliness that has its analogy, its parallel in another world. And it's the world of athletic endeavor. Rather train yourself for godliness and then This is the reference that I'm pointing you to. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and the life to come. The apostle is very clearly saying by way of a foil, there is value for this life in physical training. And it's as if he states that just as something that should be self-evident to us. There is value in that for this life. It is good for you, mind, body. And then he goes on to say, but in like manner and far more so, there's another kind of training that has a value, not just for this life, but for the life to come. Again, I'll refer to Ryle I'm trying to put a finger on what is healthy about athletic pursuits. Ralph says, anything which strengthens nerves and brain and digestion and lungs and muscles and makes us more fit for Christ's work, so long as it's not itself sinful, is a blessing and ought to be thankfully used. Anything which will occasionally divert our thoughts from their usual grinding path in a healthy manner is a good and not an evil. The word sport, I learned, is actually taken from the word disport, which means to divert oneself from one's ordinary labors. It is a diversion and it is basic to a biblical teaching, not least of which is embodied in our Sabbath, that we need to turn away from our labors and to be refreshed. Paul is referring to that. And it's especially vivid the way he does so because of the words that he uses. I don't normally bother you with the original Greek in looking at passages, but sometimes it's especially fun. He uses the word here, gymnazo. You know where that word has evolved into our language. And it means, literally, to exercise naked. He said that in the Bible? That observation is without any point but this. He is taking a word that is full of the connotations of the Greek gymnasium and putting into this context in which he is instructing us to practice godliness. Ladies, in the very early days of sports, it was an all-male affair. And prior to the development of spandex and other kinds of clothing that allowed you free movement, the Greeks just said, well, whatever. We'll just do this in the nude. And that's actually where the word gymnasium comes from, to exercise naked. Paul is very clearly taking a word of a very different context and saying this kind of thing, this pursuit of Athletics is what I'm telling you is good for this life, but there are things that another kind of athletic training is good for, both for this life and the life to come. This is consistent, brothers and sisters, with the broader Scripture's view of the importance of your body. Your body is going to increasingly grow feeble. Eventually, it's going to fail in a critical way. And it will dissolve. The Bible is full of this awareness and yet also at the same time emphasizes the importance of preserving the health of both your body and that of your neighbor. That's the sixth commandment. It's fleshed out in many ways. Godliness has a great deal to do with how you take care of your body. And the apostle makes what is an observation hardly to be gamesaid. that sports can be a way of promoting health of the body. I wonder if the Apostle Paul were alive today and he saw the disconnect between our sports enthusiasm as a nation and our flabby and often obese nature as a nation and said, You need to be more into sports, not less into sports. It would profit you in this life. Well, we can go further than that. Understanding policy of sports is not just good for you, mind and body. It's also something which underscores spiritual disciplines. We can come to this conclusion as well. That's the second point. Sports can be a means of forming certain Christian character traits. Now, listen to me carefully. Paul, we're going to see, comes back to this again and again, this analogy between the athlete and the Christian. And he's saying, certainly this much, you're to be an imitator of the Olympic athlete in your Christian life. He's certainly saying this much. It stands to reason that actually having some athletic experience would be of help in understanding Paul's point. You understand it even better if you've done what he's illustrating. Not only would you know better what Paul is talking about if you had athletic experience, but the pursuit of those things Paul refers to can develop those things in a man, a woman, a boy or a girl. that have a direct application to Christian experience. In other words, the traits that an athlete pursues are traits that a Christian must cultivate, and one can serve the other. Let's look at some examples. 2 Timothy 2, verse 5. You're not far from there. Paul says this, No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. The apostles telling us in so many words, you're to recognize there's some correspondence between what you're doing as a Christian serving the Lord and what an athlete does. The athlete is not just somebody who's full of zeal, passion on the field. But he's got to exhibit that passion for what he's seeking to do according to the rules. You might say that's zeal according to knowledge. That's zeal, yet channeled along the ways that have been charted out, the laws of the game. And that's what the Christian life is about. It's to be that combination of an eye for the rules that God has laid out that please Him, with great passion in performing them. God's not pleased with zeal apart from obedience. And the person who is pursuing that in one realm can see the point of Paul and see develop in himself certain disciplines that apply well to his Christian life. Second Timothy four, verse seven is another illustration of this. Paul continues to make references to the sports world. I fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." Paul's comparing himself to a marathoner. How so? Well, Paul's saying, I've learned and exercised the discipline of endurance. This has not been easy. I've wanted to give up. I'm reading a bit into it, but I'm expounding on This is the point a marathoner has to discipline himself to not give up. To go the whole way. Paul's using that in a very powerful way to call Christians to perseverance and to express his grateful acknowledgement of God's grace in his life. Many of you have seen how your involvement in a sport that pressed you brought a moment of desiring to give up, pressed beyond that as having benefit in ways that the Apostle himself says has analogy in Christian life. One other example, it's the one we read, it's 1 Corinthians 9. This is the most extended interaction between Paul and this image. Just briefly again, verse 24. Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. There are a lot of things in this passage. There are traits the Apostle is referring to as he goes through those words. Traits that are acquired in athletic endeavors that are also necessary in the Christian life. Self-control. You can't eat whatever you want the week leading up to the big game, can you? You can't sleep just any way you want. You've got to exercise self-control in a number of ways. Discipline is necessary to achieve excellence in sporting endeavors. You don't begin where you need to be in order to win. And Paul even highlights the athlete's determination to win. as part of a trait that Christians must have. Once on the field, 110%, that's the kind of determination that Paul is calling for among Christians. So, run that you may obtain it. What is that? Well, it's the prize that only one person is going to get. He says that's the spirit that Christians should have in their pursuit of godliness. Brothers and sisters, there are other traits we could enlarge upon this. Some of you could do so. even more than I, in your own experience of the pursuit of sports. Traits that are learned or cultivated, accentuated in the sports world that serve well the Christian. These are the kinds of correspondence that Paul is referring to. I'll just cite one more that is rightly before us as we think of what's demanded of the sportsman. The Christian trait that perhaps is uniquely cultivated in sports is that of courage. Courage. It's where we recognize a particular blessing of sports in the lives of our young people. Do we not? Doug Wilson writes in this little book called Future Men, talking about raising boys. Something I've heard others say as well. Every athletic competition is a kind of mock war. It's a war game, as it were. And that, of course, is rather disturbing to some Christians and some non-Christians. Those of a pacifist nature tend to see the competitive element in sports as the very thing that is undermining of Christian character. And they're the ones that typically will emphasize ad nauseum that it doesn't matter who wins or loses. It doesn't matter. It's OK. And of course, in an ultimate sense, it doesn't matter in sports, but the point is to win. And Wilson points out, and many others have joined him, boys in particular somehow seem instinctively to want to play war. And boys, even as they get bigger, somehow instinctively want to play war not just with their toy guns, but with bats and hockey sticks and golf clubs and all kinds of other implements. And why might this be actually a healthy thing? Well, it's a kind of training. It's a kind of training to do what especially men are called to do. To take dominion. To engage the enemy. if you will, to involve themselves in a far greater competition. Some of you have met and enjoyed some fellowship with Frank Reich. He's the NFL quarterback turned Presbyterian minister, seminary president, and he makes the case that Christians, because we're involved in a great war, are created to compete. And that's why many of the parents in this church have recognized a particular aid in sports, in the training of their children, boys and girls, but especially in this area of giving boys an opportunity to confront. That's what their calling is going to be their lives long. It's going to be a calling in particular to confront in a manifold number of ways. That's how they'll exercise biblical masculinity. And sports provides one avenue for developing that will. So, brothers and sisters, those are two reasons why the Scriptures would commend to us this whole area of athletic endeavor. But there's one other. It's not just that it's good for us mind and body. It's not just that it serves or can serve in the development of certain traits that are important for Christianity. But I want to submit to you, lastly, that sports can be a means of putting on display the glory of God. This is especially a relevant point for those of you who have long ago stopped being a participant in sports, but you're still a sports fan, and by that you mean ESPN. You are one who follows teams, as it were. You're the one who watches and talks statistics about the various feats, athletic in nature, that younger men and women are still accomplishing. Is what we call spectator sports also a blessing? It certainly can be for this reason. This whole world we're talking about of athletic competition puts on display in its own unique way the sheer glory of God revealed in man, the height of his creation. And that's a great blessing to see. It's a thrilling thing, rightly so. What is man that you are mindful of him, yet you have made him a little lower than the angels? That is seen in a tremendous diversity of ways. And we're wired, are we not, to appreciate differing dimensions of that glory. But my point simply here is that in this endeavor, the pursuit and the watching of sporting events, there is something of glory that is being seen. And it's being seen not just by the Christian, It is in part what gives rise to the thrill of sports, even among our pagan fellow Americans. Psalm 139 is familiar to you in this part in particular. I praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And at a most basic level, all manner of sporting events put on display the wonder of God's design of the human body. But it goes even further than that. These are feats. These are human accomplishments. Strength and skill. And who do they ultimately reflect on? They're intended to reflect on the Creator Himself who thought all this up. Who's created a body with such diverse abilities. able to accomplish such seemingly impossible things. That's why I read to you from Proverbs 20, in that verse 29, the glory of young men is their strength. Old men, it's the splendor that comes from your gray hair. We'll talk about that more next week. What is the wise man talking about? The glory of young men is their strength. How would you know how strong a young man is? Well, you might see him working out in the field. You might see him splitting wood. You might also see that young man pole vaulting or catching a football. or playing third base, you might see how fast he can fling that baseball, as they have machines that measure now. And you're in awe. That's pretty strong. And the wise man says, you know what that is? It's glory. It's glory to them. Yes, there's a problem that gets in there, and we'll talk about that next week. That glory that they take as the athlete is actually a glory that in any human accomplishment is to be a reflection of the Creator. And it's nothing less than that. It's glory. Because of that, there is an aesthetic element of sports. The boys on Monday night gathered around to watch the tube are actually thinking about. It's there. There's something beautiful about the display of God-given gifts. And I'm fully aware that that spectrum, that aesthetic spectrum, is so wide that some on one side of the spectrum can't figure out for the life of them what someone on the other side of the spectrum sees in the appreciation of that particular sport, the real sport, that's really glorious. And we'll keep doing that, I'm sure, for quite some time. I have no desire to meddle in that intramural debate. But, I'll tell you what it is. It's glory. I suspect there's actually no one in this room who's not at least tasted of the sense of awe of being exposed to some kind of athletic feat. You know what that is? It's glory. This is a glorious thing, like all glorious things on this earth, that has been corrupted. It's been perverted. and distorted. There is much to say by way of caution of the culture of sports. We will return to that. Suffice for this evening to say the distortions of a thing do not its condemnation make. It is not the case that because wicked men have done things with what we're calling sports, that are offensive to God and detrimental to God's people, that the thing itself is bad. Call no good thing. God made thing bad. One of my mentors that I've referred to before in this place likes to say to his students about heaven, don't think about hearts. Think about baseball. I think I've quoted that before. His point is, well, part of the point is that the idea that we're all just strumming harps for the rest of eternity is not a biblical idea. That's part of his point. The other part of his point is that the new earth is going to be a place where what God made us to do comes into full expression in an unimpeded way. No sin to impede the true and full glory of man living before his creator and reflecting back to him in all of his magnificent gifts and skills, the glory of the creator. And that will take place in a diversity of ways. And if you're not an avid sports fan now, that's fine. That's just fine. Believe me, it's fine. But you probably will be in heaven. Amen.