Bethany Bullet - February 4, 2014

The Fellowship Project

Seahawk fans break forth in joy!  Oh Great Northwest rejoice!  Your time has come O land of coffee and grunge.  The 12^th man is celebrating their victory from Super Bowl Sunday still.  Underscore THEIR victory.  Now mind you I know something about such boasts and this time next year I’ll be planning to do so again when the Steelers get number 7.  But I digress; the victory which sports fans boast in, is a victory mind you, that they played ABSOLUTELY NO ROLE IN WHATSOEVER.  They bought the jersey, cheered the team, watched the game(s), but they never stepped onto the field, blocked tackled, punted or passed, caught or carried; and yet for them, for that fan, the victory is theirs!

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.  St. Paul’s declaration to the Corinthian congregation was that our boasting is to be based NOT ON what we’ve done, but in that through which we’ve won!  Something any football fan can understand. 

Many however, even the greatest sports fans, do have trouble understanding the spiritual illustration of the above principal.  That is why Paul calls the message of the cross “foolishness and non-sense.” The very notion that there is nothing I can do to make myself appealing to God and that God Himself must to do everything necessary to save us is not appealing to us by nature! God’s way of saving people is contrary to every reasonable plan we humans might come up with. He chooses to save creatures that have nothing to offer Him, who have totally offended Him and who have wholeheartedly turned away from Him.  He does so solely by His own action in Christ’s cross (that is “Paul shorthand” for Jesus’ perfect, holy and sinless life and for His innocent suffering and death).  That is why apart from Him we have nothing to boast of!  The difference from the Super Bowl boasting fan and the Christi-(f)-an’s boasting is that all the Seahawk fan has gained is boasting rights and gear to wear for a year!   

Through the cross (more specifically, faith in the crucified and risen ONE) we the, Christi(f)an, gain the championship itself; far greater than boasting rights that our team is the champ…is the right to boast we’ve become more than champions in Him.  

-Pastor Kevin Kritzer