February 7, 2016 The Game of Your Life 1 Corinthians 9.24-27 Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church Today is one of the biggest annual celebrations in the United States. It’s Sunday, a day of football, money, excess, food and more. Businesses will spend millions of dollars for 60 second commercials. On television and radio, in print and online thousands upon thousands of hours have been spent in producing stories and finding every possible angle from the sublime to the ridiculous about some aspect of the game, the teams, the players, the coaches, and the fans. Billions of dollars will be bet not just on the outcome of the game but on more things than you can imagine including things like who will win the opening coin toss, whether the first missed field goal goes left or right, or if the number of the last person to score is odd or even. While the Super Bowl is big business unless one is coaching or playing in it, it’s also just a game; a game which should be a diversion from the stress and work of every day life. It’s not our life. You all know I like sports and images of sports and athletes are present in the Bible including these words from 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.” On Super Bowl Sunday whether we’re sports fans or not, we can’t escape the game, but I want to talk with you about a game that’s even more important and that’s the game of your life, which is, in many ways, a lot like a football game. One way life is like a football game is that there’s a clock, our time is limited. We only get so many years and we only get one life so we need to make the most of the days we have to live. That’s what we heard in Psalm 90:10 &12, “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” None of us knows how long we’ll live, but if we’re healthy, strong, and fortunate, Psalm 90 says we can hope for 80 years. If so, you can easily figure what quarter of your life you’re in. If our life span is 80 years: 1-20 years old is the first quarter, 21-40 second quarter, 41-60 Third quarter, 61-80 Fourth quarter, 81 or older we’re in Overtime or Bonus Time. However, as we all know, life holds no guarantees for how long we may live so we need to seize our opportunity at life and make the most of it. Psalm 90 says, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” We’re never too young or too old to be thinking about what God wants us to do with our life. And God is an important part of the equation, it’s not just what do I want to do, but what does God want me to do with my life. What strengths, talents, abilities, and skills have I been given? What am I passionate about? What can I do to leave the world better than I found it for future generations? How can I be a blessing to other people? The sooner we learn that a significant life invested answering these questions is better and more satisfying than a life chasing after our own comfort the more content we’ll be. A football team knows it will only possess the ball so many times in a game so it’s important to make the most of those offensive opportunities. The path to a significant life also includes a wise heart that understands the importance of time. Winning the game of our life requires faith and determination in pursuing our dreams and goals when some people may tell us “You’re not good enough to do that.” Those of us who are older – who are parents and grandparents, have a special role to play in encouraging our children and grandchildren to pursue the dreams God gives them. One of the most valuable players on the Patriots is wide receiver Julian Edelman. The Patriot’s season was changed significantly for the worse when he was injured on November 15. Julian had a remarkably hard the journey to becoming an NFL star. He was always small for his age, but when he was eleven-years-old, he led his Pop Warner team to a national championship, later he quarterbacked his high school team to an undefeated season. However, because he was so small no college recruited him or offered him a scholarship so he played at a local junior college where he again had great success, but only one school offered him an opportunity and that was Kent State, in Ohio, not exactly a football powerhouse. When he arrived at Kent State in May of 2006 his coaches were not expecting him to be ready to start by the beginning of the season. When he saw the 6’ 6” starting quarterback kicking some punts on the field, Edelman told him to get used to it because that’s what he was going to be doing from now on. Julian learned the whole playbook and won the starting quarterback job. He had great success at Kent State, but knew he wouldn’t be taken seriously as a potential NFL quarterback, so he started returning punts. When he was drafted in the seventh and final round by the Patriots, the team didn’t know how they’d use him. All Edelman did was keep working hard, shutting out the critics, and doing everything within his control to make himself better. He has succeeded beyond anyone’s dreams from being a last round pick in 2009 to becoming one of the most valuable players on a Super Bowl Champion team. To win the game of life requires an awareness and urgency about the time we have. It demands faith and determination in pursuing our dreams and goals. Another key to winning the game of life is to keep learning from our mistakes and making adjustments. For coaches and players, halftime is a brief period of rest, reflection, analysis, and adjustments that are made to correct mistakes. To win the game of our life we need to learn from our mistakes and make adjustments. Patriots Coach is a good example of this. So much of who and what Belichick is today as head coach of the can be traced to who and what he was as head coach of the mostly unsuccessful Browns. There are such stark differences between the two tenures, and yet Belichick remains essentially the same person, just not entirely the same coach. "The Browns were his training camp, his boot camp for success,'' said Mary Kay Cabot, the beat reporter who covered Belichick and the Browns for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “There were mistakes he made here on players, personnel, staff, public relations. But he's the master of adjustments. He learned how to do it right by everything he did wrong here.'' When the Browns fired Belichick, the decision was hailed as necessary and inevitable. An Akron columnist wrote, "Bill Belichick's five-year reign of error is over.'' In 2000, a new reign began with the Patriots. Since then the errors have been much fewer. While serving as New England's coach, Belichick's Patriots have won four Super Bowls, and almost won two more. One can argue that Belichick might be the greatest NFL coach of all time. In Cleveland, he was 37-45 with one playoff win (over the Patriots). In New England, he is 187-69 for an amazing .730 winning percentage and his team is 22-9 in the playoffs. "We all learn from our mistakes,'' said Ernie Accorsi, the former Browns executive VP for football operations who hired the 38-year- old Belichick as head coach in 1991. Belichick can coach. But he coaches better since he left Cleveland. He coaches better because he got fired and had to adjust.1 One of the mistaken assumptions some folks have is that people who rise to the top of their profession never fail or make mistakes. Far from it; what is more correlated to being successful and significant is learning from our mistakes and making appropriate adjustments.

To win the game of life – requires making the most of the time we’re given; having faith, working hard, and persevering through “no’s” and obstacles, like Julian Edelman; it means learning from our failures and mistakes and making adjustments like Bill Belichick. Winning the game of life also means discovering our purpose in life so we can fulfill it. God is the creator and giver of our life and God has a calling, a mission, a destiny for each of us to pursue.

One of my favorite NFL players is former Patriot Benjamin Watson who this last year had his best season with the . Jackie MacMullan wrote a story some time ago about Benjamin Watson titled A Patriot Answers Two Callings – Watson Offers a Spiritual Example. “When Benjamin Watson was barely 4 years old, already having mastered the proper technique for a three-point football stance, he tugged earnestly at his father's sleeve. "Dad," he said. "Can you put me in the closet?" "Why, son? Why should I do that?" his father, pastor Ken Watson, responded. "So you can announce my name," Benjamin answered. "So I can run onto the football field." And so began a family ritual. Young Benjamin, crammed in with the coats, would patiently wait as his father declared in a booming voice, "Now, starting at running back for the Washington Redskins, No. 45, Benjamin Watson . . . " At that moment, the boy would bust out, arms raised, eyes fixed straight ahead on the dream in front of him. "Ever

1 To understand Belichick, look what he did with Browns, By Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN.com since I can remember," said Ken Watson, "if you asked Benjamin what he wanted to be when he grew up, he'd answer, 'I want to be a football player and a missionary.' "

Watson's had a great career and he’s widely respected throughout the league and at the same time he’s answered the call of his faith. "So much of football relates to Christian life - sacrifice, commitment, discipline," says Watson. "I know God has a plan for me. I don't know what it is. After football? Who knows? My grandmother and my father always said I would end up as a missionary. Well, I feel like I am one now." His father reminded him to praise God in the midst of his failures as well as his successes. "I told him his love for God should be the same when he was dropping the ball as when he was catching a touchdown. I think when people see athletes being very demonstrative on the field about their relationship with God, they also want to see what they do once the game is over. If you are pointing your finger to the sky and praising the Lord after you score a touchdown, then you get off the field and you're a bum, well, who is going to believe in you? Ken Watson said."2 Benjamin Watson understands that being a person of integrity and using our time and talents to serve God and others is part of winning the game of life.

Some of us are much closer to the end of our life on earth than the beginning. In football terms we may be in the final two minutes or in overtime. In a football game at those times everyone’s sense of awareness is heightened, you focus each moment, and you persevere through pain and exhaustion because you know you are almost done and victory is within sight. Whatever quarter of life in which we find our self; and none of us knows for sure; it’s not too late to invest our life, our time, our energy in serving others and finding true success and significance.

When I was seven years old I remember watching a movie on television with my family called, Brian’s Song. The movie is about the relationship of two running backs with the Chicago Bears, Gale Sayers, who is African American and one of the all-time greats, and Brian Piccolo, who was white and was undrafted out of college even though as a senior at Wake Forest he led the nation in rushing and scoring beating out the two

2 Jackie MacMullan, A Patriot Answers Two Callings, The Boston Globe, January 28, 2008 time All American Sayers. The film traces their relationship as competitors who become friends. In 1967, the two became the first white and black men to room together in the NFL at a time the civil-rights movement was at its height. In the ninth game of the 1968 season, Sayers suffered a right knee injury and Brian Piccolo was instrumental in helping him get back on the field in the fall of 1969 even though it cost him playing time. Sadly at the end of that year, Brian was diagnosed with cancer. In May of 1970 when Brian’s condition was very poor, Gale Sayers, who had recovered from his knee injury to win the NFL rushing title, was honored with the George Halas Award as the league's most courageous player for the 1969 season. At a ceremony in New York, Sayers gave an emotional speech saying there was somebody more deserving of the award. "He has the heart of a giant and that rare form of courage that allows him to kid himself and his opponent – cancer. He has the mental attitude that makes me proud to have a friend who spells out the word 'courage' 24 hours a day of his life. I love Brian Piccolo, & I'd like all of you to love him, too. Tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him."

Sadly, Brian Piccolo died less than a month later on June 16, 1970 when he was only 26-years-old. The essence of the film Brian’s Song about love, race, and friendly competition is captured as the movie ends. We see Brian Piccolo running through a park with the Emmy-winning performance of Jack Warden as George Halas voicing over, "... when they think of him, it's not how he died that they remember but rather how he lived ... how he did live."

That’s how we want to be remembered by how we lived. The Bears still honor Brian Piccolo’s life and memory by presenting an award each year to the rookie and veteran who best exemplify the courage, loyalty, teamwork, dedication and sense of humor displayed by Piccolo. Each of us wants to be remembered by how we lived so let us make the most of our time, living with faith and determination, learning from our mistakes and making adjustments, and discovering and fulfilling God’s purpose in our life. That’s how we win the game of life.

The author George Bernard Shaw in one of his best quotes wrote: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can...... I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no `brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

Questions for Discussion or Reflection 1. How would you describe the game plan of your life? What are you trying to do? How do you know if you’re “winning?” 2. While none of us knows how long we will live, if you had to guess, what “quarter” of life do you think you’re in: the first, second, half time, third quarter, fourth quarter, or overtime? How does the amount of time you think you have left impact how you live? 3. In 1 Corinthians 9 we read these words, “Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.” What kind of “training” are you doing so that you can compete and win the race or game of your life? 4. How one handles adversity is crucial to competing and winning in sports and in life; what helps you to handle adversity well and not to be defeated by it? 5. Another similarity between football and life is the importance of learning from mistakes and making adjustments. A football team looks at video as one way to help them make adjustments; what do you do to help you learn from your mistakes and make adjustments? 6. How would describe the difference between success and significance?