Get In The Game — Transcript

Well, hey everybody and welcome to game day Sunday here at Highlands Fellowship. Today what we're doing is we're just having a little bit of fun wearing our jerseys and our colors of our favorite teams and we might even talk a little bit of trash. But let's just make sure let's just make sure that everybody's having fun with it. All right, but really what we're going to be talking about today is about each and every one of us getting up off the bench and getting into the game. So no more standing on the sidelines or just watching from the stands. It's time for us to step up and to use the gifts and the abilities that God has given to you to get in the game. Today we have a special guest with us who I'm extremely excited to hear from. Coach Steve Wright is with us today. And Coach Wright has been a high school coach for 33 years at places such as Virginia High and Rusber and Marian John Battle. He's currently serving as the area director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He has been with FCA for 10 years now. He's the chaplain for Emery and Henry University's football team. He's been a pastor for a number of years in the midst of all of that. And of course, he's been married to his wife Tammy for 44 years as of September the 4th. So, happy anniversary to you guys. Fantastic. He has two daughters and four grandchildren. And and he celebrates his spiritual birthday on the second Sunday of September. And I have just a ton of respect for this man. He has impacted so many people in the communities where our campuses are and all throughout the region. And so I hope that you'll join me in welcoming to the stage Coach Steve Wright.

Glad you're here, coach. Thank you for being here.

Well, it's a pleasure to be with you today. Uh, thank you, Pastor Tim, for this opportunity and I think it's pretty neat this this idea of of game day Sunday. Spent most of my life in athletics and it's been a blessing and uh the Lord has blessed me at times to even use athletics the way he wanted it to be used. Didn't always do that though as an athlete and sometimes as a young coach. I want to share two stories uh today of how God has used sports for his purpose. The first one's about uh the last job I had in public education and that was as as head football coach at John Battle High School. I went to Battle in 2011 and just to be perfectly honest, it wasn't the dream job that I had envisioned. Most of the people that saw me after I took that job thought I had lost my mind. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure why I was going there. But I knew this that the Lord had had a purpose for me to go there. and I just trusted him.

And as I began that process, I said, "Lord, whatever we do, we're going to put you first." And I have to confess, it wasn't always like that in my early coaching career at Virginia High and Rusberg and Marian. So, I was trying to get it right this time. So, uh, I had been at Marian for 20 years. In 2007, I'd stepped down as head football coach. I spent three more years there at Marian, two of them as an assistant. And during that time, the Lord taught me so much about so many things. Number one, about ministering to young folks through athletics. And he also taught me some things about football during that time that that came in very handy when I got to John Battle. And probably the biggest thing was the perseverance that the Lord taught me. So, uh, I'm at John Battle that first year, and we had a lot of things to get accomplished as far as getting the team where we wanted them to be to compete. And every day after practice, I would stand on the practice field when everybody was gone, and I'd look to the left, not where Target is because that wasn't too good a view, but to the left, there's a beautiful view of the mountains, and I'd ask the Lord, why am I here?

And I did that, I think, every day. And for a year and a half, I read Isaiah 40:31. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not be faint. And I really counted on the Lord's words through Isaiah. So did that for about a year and a half. And then that summer came around and and this is one of the the experiences I want to share with you this morning. We took our team to an FCA football camp at Tennessee Tech. And I for several years had wanted to take our team from Marian uh to an FCA camp and and to be perfectly honest, we couldn't afford it. Just too many poor kids and we didn't have the resources. So when we got to battle, we said we're going to make this happen. And we raised money and anyway, we take the team down there. We got 38 athletes at Tennessee Tech.

And the way those camps work, you do football during the day and then you have chapel at night. So we go through chapel the first night is wonderful. felt really good about it. We go through the next day of football and that was okay, too. And that second night when the pastor gave an invitation at chapel, it was one of those invitations where he said, "I'd like everybody to bow their heads and pray with me." And then he went on, he said, "If you have pray prayed this prayer to receive Christ into your heart, I want you to raise your hand." And he says, "I want you to be a little bit more bold. I want you to stand up now." And I sat behind my team in those settings mainly so I keep my eye on them. And I felt all this movement in front of me and I was trying to stay respectful and reverent. Didn't want to open my eyes and look around. So I didn't. And then he said, "Okay, I'm really going to ask you to be bold, boys. If you accepted Christ tonight, I want you to come to the front of the auditorium." And I could feel all this movement in front of us. And then the pastor eventually said, "Open your eyes." And I looked up and there were 78 high school football players up there at that altar that night that gave their lives to Christ.

And 14 of them were air players. That's the highlight of my coaching career. All the other stuff fades tremendously compared to that. So that kind of changed our team, changed our culture, changed our school, really changed our community, and we went on to have just a great year spiritually. even even got to win some games that year. So, it was a blessing and it was I think the Lord just blessed us because we tried to put him first in everything we did. And uh he drew those players to him in the way that only he can do. So, that was just an awesome time. That night after chapel, we would have what we call huddle time. And it was just basically a time of of debriefing and talking with our team. and I shared with the team just for just a brief few minutes and then gave the players a chance to talk.

And the first player up was a freshman. Now, it's really hard to speak in front of your peers, but especially for a freshman. And he got up and he said, I'm not going to give all the details, but this is what he said. He said, uh, I've needed God in my life for a long time.

Four years ago, my mother died of cancer. I knew he had a stepmom, but I thought divorce. I just made an assumption that was wrong. But his mom had died. He said, "Dad started having a really hard time." He said, "We've really struggled, but after tonight, everything's going to be okay." And then player after player stood up and talked about their lives and how they came to Christ that night and how it was going to change things. And it was one of the great blessings of my life.

So God does use things like football to achieve his purpose. Sometimes we just need to give him the things of our lives and let him do his work. As uh staff with FCA, been on staff for 10 years and the Lord's blessed us mightily, given us many opportunities.

Uh last year we had 87 groups in the area that I serve that we got to do weekly ministry with and that was a blessing. Uh Reagan's here. He got in on that and we appreciate all he's done with that. But we need more laborers of the harvest. Jesus said, "The harvest is truly great, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." So, we're always looking for more laborers to go out into our schools and share the gospel. You know, we're blessed in this area that we pretty much have open doors in all our schools. It's not like that everywhere in the United States. Our teammates in Pennsylvania, they cannot step on a high school campus. They have to do all their FCA off campus. So, we're blessed and we need to take advantage of that while we can. So, pray that the Lord does send laborers to the harvest. The other story I'd like to share with you briefly is a few years ago we had a player at Emory and Henry and this young man was having difficulties and he was about this far from being asked to leave the team and probably leave the school. So, he's really struggling and coach Newsome was the head coach at the time and and he told this young man, he said, "You need to start going to FCA." And this young man listened and he started coming to FCA and and during his time, this was part of the COVID era. So, we were shut down for a while, but every week when we did FCA on Zoom, he was right there. Didn't say much, but he was locked in. And I noticed that that the spirit was working in his life. So, we finally get back to where we can do things and we always try to take some of our college students to a retreat in the spring. So, I'd asked this young man if he would go and he said, "Yeah, maybe." And I really didn't know. So, the day that we were going to leave, we're going to leave at 12:00 from the King Center, which is the gym there at Emry Henry. And I'm waiting 12:00, don't see him.

12:01, 12:02, 12:03. And I'm thinking, Lord, I think this kid's supposed to go.

Let me look up and see him. At 12:05, I see him kind of just meandering along. He comes and gets in the car with us and he goes and that weekend his life was changed. I noticed on Saturday afternoon as we were going in for the activities, he went up to the speaker and was talking to him and asking him questions. And I thought, that's pretty crazy. That's not what I expected to see. So that night during chapel, much like at the FCA camp over a previous summer, there was an invitation. And this young man, he sprinted to the front.

Tears broke down. His buddies went up, spent some time with him. I let him have a chance to go back to his seat. He sat down for a minute. I went over, put my arm around him. I said, "Okay, what'd you decide?" He said, "I'm giving it all to him." Complete 180. The Lord changed his life immediately. So, we get back to campus and and people notice a difference. One of her other coaches from another sport said, "I've never seen that kid smile. He's smiling all the time now." And we granted each other and said, "That's what the Lord does." So, we get to the next fall and we're in preseason practice. And I like to get there before practice and and just hang out with them and visit with them. And I'm talking to this young man and he's grinning and he says, "Hey, coach." He said, "We want to start a football Bible study, a player football bible study." I said, "Okay, that's a great idea." And I just waited because I didn't know what he was going to say next. I really thought he was going to say, "Can you lead this initially? He didn't say anything. So I I didn't say anything. Didn't offer anything up.

I said, ' Okay. Uh, who's going to lead that? And he grinned really big and he said, 'I am. And I thought, "Holy cow, here's a kid that was so enamored by his own statistics and worried about the stats and now he's gone that he's going to be leading a Bible study." And his kid has done so well. is married, got his first child on the way.

It's just a blessing to see how the Lord used football to change that young man's life. And here's the thing, the relationships that that I've been blessed with in my life, it amazes me. The reason I'm on campus at Emery and Henry with the football team is really because of Coach Nuome. We go back to being friends back to, oh gosh, early 2000s. We're at the VHSCA All-Star game. Got to know him a little bit then. And then he went to JMU and just so happened we started taking our kids to JMU. And coach is running the camp. So that relationship was deepened. And then he goes to Marine Injury as a head coach.

And I end up on FCA staff. And through a series of events, he says, "Hey, why won't you come serve our team as a chaplain?" And now I get to be with those guys every day that I want to be 30 to 40 hours a week, depending on whether we're traveling or not, and get a chance to pour into their lives. You see, the Lord has taken something as simple as football and used it for his glory. So the next time you watch a football game, think this thought. How is God using these players and these coaches? Because he will use something as simple as football because it is more than touchdowns and tackles. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this day.

Well, thank you so much, Coach Wright, for the way that you've used your influence to serve God and to use all your gifts and abilities for the glory of God. And thank you for getting in the game. and thank you for staying in the game. Now, for some of you, you're probably thinking that that you don't want to get in the game because maybe you don't know enough or you aren't skilled enough or or maybe you don't even feel like you know what game we're even playing. And I understand all that, but I think the best way to learn is to jump in, get involved, fully immerse yourself, and learn as you go and let people teach you, let people coach you as you go. Some of you might say that you don't want to get in the game if you're not going to be the very best in the whole league, you know, on the whole team. Um, like you want to be the greatest. And what's the secret to being the greatest? I mean, I want you to be great. And and I myself, I want to be great as well. So God says that the secret to greatness when it comes to following after Jesus is actually to be a servant. So Jesus was talking to his disciples and and they were trying to figure out, you know, who's going to be the greatest among them. And they were thinking that it had to do with the things of the world. But as we see in scripture, it's not always that way. Matthew 20 26-28, Jesus says that it looks a little bit different in the kingdom of God. He said, "Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The Bible says that the greatest are the ones who serve. And greatness and service go together. And we all know that the greatest coaches are the ones who serve their players. The greatest teachers are the ones who serve their students. The greatest salespeople serve their customers. And the greatest leaders serve their followers. The key to being great at anything is really the more you serve, the greater you are. And so if I were to ask you, what what two words best define the Christian life?

Really, the two words that I would choose would probably be the word serve and give. That's what Jesus did. So let me read Matthew 20 28 to you again. He said, "Just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." And that kind of summarizes the Christian life, doesn't it? Unless I learn how to serve others and unless I learn how to give my life away, I will never be like Jesus Christ. I may claim to be a Christian. I may have some doctrine, some thoughts, some ideas in my mind, but a follower of Jesus Christ must learn how to serve and how to give.

James 1 22 says this, "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, but do what it says." God says, "I don't I don't just want you to listen to what I have to say. I want you to act on it, and I want you to apply it, and I want you to work it out in your life. But right now, what I want to do is I want to give you a number of of of reasons that the Bible says that we should serve and give our lives to others. All right? And it's going to be rapid fire. And and this really ought to be more important than our careers and hobbies and really anything else in life. And better yet, what if, like Coach Wright, this became part of our careers and part of our hobbies? So, here are the reasons why I should use my life to serve others. Number one, I was created to serve. I was created to serve. God made me on purpose for a purpose. I I was designed for it. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 says, "For we are God's handiwork." Other translations say, "Masterpiece or workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do." So God designed everything on this earth for a purpose. And the Bible says that you were put here for a reason. And we're here to follow Jesus. We're here to serve. We're here to help other people. And God says, "I've created you to serve or for ministry." And and when we're not serving other people, it's like we get these feelings inside of us that are not from God because we were created to serve. Number two is this. I'm saved to serve. I'm saved to serve. In in 2 Timothy 1:9, scripture teaches, "He has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything that we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time." And so, what is what is a holy work? Well, the word that we use in church for it is called ministry. Another word for it is called service. So, anytime you see the word service in the Bible, it's very similar to the word ministry. And anytime you see the word ministry in the Bible, it's very similar to the word service. The two the two are very, very similar. And the Bible says that you were saved to serve. God didn't just put you on this earth to take up space, sit around, play on your phone, maybe eat some potato chips, and have a good time, and just go off and die. Okay? I mean, have you ever thought why like like the moment that you became a follower of Jesus, why God didn't just take you on into heaven? Like why you just didn't instantly go to heaven? Like why did God leave you on this earth after you became a follower of Jesus? You know that you're going to eventually be in heaven with him. You know where you're going to be, but he leaves you here. He has something for you to do.

That's the reason. And part of that involves your ministry or your service.

So you are here for a reason. And so we have to develop and we have to grow in our maturity as followers of Jesus. And the Bible teaches us very clearly that maturity is for ministry. Maturity is never an end in itself. You may say, well, I want to be a mature Christian.

Well, you'll never truly be mature as a follower of Christ until you start serving other people.

Also the Bible says that I am called to serve. As a follower of Jesus, you have been called to serve. And again, the first part of 2 Timothy 1:9 says this.

He has saved us and called us to a holy life. And I'm not only created for it, saved for it, but I've been called by God to serve. And that phrase there, called by God, I used to kind of think that it was some kind of of special thing for special people like missionaries or priests or pastors, you know, uh that was kind of like a special thing. And I do believe that God will call certain people to specific things. But the fact is the Bible says that every Christian, every single follower of Jesus is called.

In in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he writes in Ephesians chapter 4:1, "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." So if you're a Christian, you are called to ministry.

And the Bible says that every Christian is called to serve. Every member of God's family is a minister. Not everybody's a pastor, but everybody's a minister. So what's a servant? A servant is a minister, right? Somebody who serves. Like anytime you use your abilities to help other people in the name of Jesus, you are ministering to them. Number four is this. I'm gifted to serve. God did not give you your abilities, your talents just to spend on yourself, retire, and then die. But he gave you those abilities to help other people. 1 Peter 4:10 says this, "Each of you should use whatever gifts you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms." That right there, that's called ministry. That's called service. I If you have given your life to Christ, the Bible says that God gave you those abilities for you to use in helping other people. Number five, I am commanded to serve. I'm commanded to serve and and this is a good enough reason all by itself. Like if this is all that there is, it's the only one that God says to do it, it should be enough for us. But it's about having the attitude of Christ while serving as well. And so he said, I I I came to serve. In Philippians chapter 2:es 3-8, it says this says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourself, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of other people, in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on the cross. Human nature does not want to serve other people. I want to be served. Who's going to meet my needs? Me, me, me. Right? But a Christ follower changes that around. A Christian says, "Whose needs can I meet? Who can I help? Who can I serve? The more I give my life away, the more God blesses my life." It's so true.

And when I worry about the needs of other people, it's almost like God just seems to take care of mine.

Number six. Number six is this. I am a necessary part of the church family.

My church family needs my service. 1 Corinthians 12 27 says, "Now you are the body of Christ." And each one of you is a part of it. So you're a part of the body of Christ, which is the family of God. And what happens in your life whenever one body part stops working? If it stops functioning, if that happens to you, you're probably going to get sick. You may even die even if one body part stops functioning. If you're a Christian, that means that as a part of the body of Jesus Christ, you need to be functioning on all cylinders, right? And if you're not functioning, it makes the rest of us sick. It makes for an unhealthy body. So, if you are not serving somewhere, that means that there is something that's not getting done that God desires for us as a body to do. And you may say, well, well, maybe we don't need that body part. Well, God says that we are all wanted and that we are all needed in the body of Christ.

And and I really think that that's the strength of Highlands Fellowship. The strength of Highlands Fellowship is not the pastors of this church. And I believe we have some wonderful pastors, but it's the lay ministers who serve in all the different ministries of our church. That is the heartbeat of this church, and it will continue to be the heartbeat of this church. Number seven, I'm serving God when I serve others. I'm serving God when I serve others. Colossians chapter 3:es 23 and 24 says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Jesus says, 'Whatever you do for others, you're doing for me. Even a cup of cold water given in my name, it's like it's being done to me. So if I'm not serving others, then I'm really not serving God. Next, I serve because I owe everything to Christ. I owe absolutely everything to him. Romans 12:1 says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship." Jesus sacrificed his life for me. And even if he never did anything else for me at all, I still owe him everything. I owe him my life. I don't serve God and others out of duty or fear or some kind of guilt. No, I want to serve God out of gratitude because I owe him my life. He saved me.

I'm going to go to heaven for all of eternity. All my sins are forgiven and he gives me strength and he gives me power right now in the present as well. But because of that, I want to serve him out of gratitude and joy, not out of some duty. But I owe everything to Jesus. I serve because serving gives meaning to life. It gives meaning to life. Jesus said it like this in Mark 8:35. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. You're going to give your life to something. All of us will. Some people give their life to a career. Others give their life to a big bank account. Some people give their whole lives to get some kind of thrill or or for some kind of pleasure or to obtain obtain some kind of level of status or to get their name or their picture posted somewhere or to accomplish some kind of of human achievement. But the reality is you're going to give your life to something. The question is, are you going to give your life to the right thing? That's the question.

How how much is going to matter in all of eternity? When you die, is it going to matter at all? Remember, it's not how long you live, but how you live that matters. 1 Corinthians chapter 15:58 says, "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord, listen to this, is not in vain. It's not in vain. C can you say that about everything that you do? No. Well, a lot of what you do, a lot of what I do is really of no value long term whatsoever. But nothing you do in the Lord's work is ever without value. Number 10, I will be held accountable for my service. I'm going to be held accountable. One day, God is going to have me stand before him and he's going to say, "What did you do with what I gave you? That talent, that ability, did you use it to help anybody else?" Romans 14:12 says this, "So then each of us will give an account of ourselves to God." He says, 'The real happiness and the real joy that I intend for your life is found actually in giving your life away. I know that I'm going to be held accountable one day and you will too. And then there's one more reason that I want to give you today and that is I will be rewarded for eternity. God is planning a party in heaven for eternity.

It's going to last a long time and this reward is going to last forever. And one of the rewards that you're going to get in heaven for your service on earth is that you're going to be entrusted with greater responsibility. And I pray that I hear this one day from my Lord and Savior. It's Matthew chap 25 23. And it says this. It says, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come share in your master's happiness.

All of these reasons are so very important. But the question is this today. How will you respond? How will you respond?

What are you going to do about it in light of this? Knowing that you were made for this, that you were saved for this, that you were gifted for this, and all of these things that we just looked at. We're not talking about really some side issue here. We're talking about getting in the game and doing what God has told us in his word to do.

So, how are you going to respond? Are you going to be a hearer of God's word, or are you going to be a doer of God's word? Are you going to get up off the bench and get in the game?

Or are you going to kind of fool around doing things that really have no eternal significant value whatsoever until Jesus comes back? You've got two options. One, you can walk out of here. You can go get in your car and you can go home and really not do anything about it. or you can do something about it, knowing this is the very thing that God put you on this earth to do. We have so many opportunities to serve here at Highlands Fellowship. We're always looking for people who are ready and willing to serve from parking to hospitality, greeting and ushering, kids volunteers, student volunteers, small group leaders, and these are just to name a few.

So, what is it that God has placed on your heart? I think a great place to start is that today, right after the 11:00 a.m. service at all of our campuses, we're going to be having something called Welcome to Highlands. And it'll help you get to know a little bit more about who we are as a church. It'll help you to connect with your campus pastor and also others who desire to follow after Jesus.

My prayer today is that you would get in the game. That you'd get up off the bench and use your gifts and abilities to serve God with everything in you. Let's get in the game. Would you pray with me today? Lord, we thank you so much for the opportunity to gather together and to hear your word and to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But today, we've been challenged. And it's a challenge to me as much as it's a challenge to anybody else. to use my gifts and abilities to serve other people rather than to serve myself. Because God, you tell us that we were created for it. We were saved for it. We're called to it. Every follower of Jesus is a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And my prayer today is that we would truly act on the words of Jesus rather than just hearing it, but we would truly act on what it is and be doers of the word of God. I'm so thankful for coach Wright and his example to us and how he used the gifts and the abilities that you've given him in coaching and in sports to invest in the lives of other people so that we can see true life change. God, I believe with all my heart that you have given us stuff here on this earth for us to enjoy. But God, help us to not abuse it. Sports are a ton of fun, but they make a terrible God. We serve one God and that is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And we are so thankful for the gifts that you've given to us and we want to live our life in response to those gifts out of gratitude and joy and serve other people because of what you've done. God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the opportunity to gather together and we're trusting that you're going to do a work in our hearts and in our lives that only you can do. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. And everybody said, "Amen.