On the Playing Field of Life

Looking for a breakthrough but tired of hype? We make a strong case that the most reliable path to spiritual growth is not novelty but a return to the basics. Drawing on 2 Peter 1, we unpack seven qualities—faith’s supplements—that safeguard a believer from drifting into an ineffective and unfruitful life. The heartbeat of the conversation is godliness, defined not as a halo but as bringing the presence of God into every part of your day: work, family, decisions, stress, and even the way you drive. 

We open with Vince Lombardi’s classic reset—“Gentlemen, this is a football”—and show how that same focus on fundamentals transforms a Christian’s training plan. From there, we explore the difference between Paul’s emphasis on the Spirit’s productivity and Peter’s emphasis on the believer’s persistence, and how both together create balanced growth. Expect practical markers: contentment as a test of godliness, choosing gratitude over comparison, and resisting the trap of treating godliness as a means to material gain. We take a field trip to the first-century gymnasium with Paul’s language—train yourself for godliness—and translate it into today’s daily reps: Scripture intake, meditation, memory, prayer, service, generosity, and intentional conversations about the gospel.

All of this lands with an eternal horizon. Peter reminds us that the present world will be remade, and that secure future reframes today’s effort: the scoreboard is set, and training now prepares you to enjoy God forever. If you’ve been collecting spiritual tools but skipping the workout, this is your friendly push to start a fresh lap. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review telling us which basic you’re recommitting to this week.

Transcript

Lombardi’s Lesson On Fundamentals

Peter’s Seven Supplements For Growth

Defining Godliness In Daily Life

Contentment As The Test Of Godliness

Train Yourself For Godliness

Beyond Membership To Daily Practice

Living Now In Light Of Eternity

Personal Commitment And Prayer

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Want to spend some time with you. Let's go back to the basics. I'm convinced that if you got a group of Christians together and told them that you had the secret to spiritual success, they would lean in breathlessly, awaiting, you know, something deep, something innovative, something new. The truth is, as simple as it sounds, successful Christian living is experienced by those who never get over the basics. They never get beyond the fundamentals of the Christian experience. I have remembered as I studied along this line, one of those legends that comes from the world of football. It was in 1960 when the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles fought it out. It was a devastating loss, devastating depending on who you're cheering for. Final 60 seconds of the game, Bart Starr throws a great pass downfield, time's ticking down. They run one more play, time runs out, and they lose. That championship game is now called the Super Bowl. But the following, my point is the following uh summer in 1961, the Green Bay Packers gathered for their first training camp with their coach, Vince Lombardi. The team was returning players. These are all veterans. They'd spent most of their lives living, breathing, eating, sleeping football. This Lombardi walked to the front of the room holding nothing more than a football in his hand, and the players leaned in expecting some really amazing pep talk, you know, before the season begins, something fresh or new. And Lombardi just held up the ball and then said to the men, gentlemen, this is a football. He wasn't trying to insult their intelligence. In fact, one of the players just sort of cut the tension in the room by saying, Coach, slow down. You're going too fast. Well, that opening line became then an annual tradition. And for the next six years until Lombardi retired, he began the first training session by introducing the men to a football. And after that, he would take them out on the field and walk through the basic rules of the game. He was convinced, and he convinced his players that success on the field would never happen if they ever forgot the fundamentals. In fact, it's interesting that over the next six years they won the championship five different times. I think of the Apostle Peter in a passage like this one we've been studying, where it's as if he draws us into a training camp. And with one word after another reminds us of the basics, the fundamentals. I want to spend a little time before we address the Lord's table by taking you back to 2 Peter 1, he's giving us seven words that guarantee success, as it were, out on the playing field of a life. If you think that's an exaggeration, let's go back to that inspired guarantee. It's in verse 8. For if these qualities, these seven supplements, are yours and are increasing, they keep you, they protect you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we've covered the first four supplements so far, starting back in verse 5, where Peter begins spelling it out. So let's go back there and get a running start, verse 5. He writes, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness. And now for today, and steadfastness, add this one: godliness. Now, if you're new to our study, we've made the point that these supplements parallel to some degree Paul's list in Galatians chapter 5. We call that the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long suffering, and on. Nine of them. Paul is emphasizing these qualities as a byproduct of the Spirit's control in our lives. Paul is stressing what the Spirit does. Peter is stressing what the believer does. Paul is emphasizing the Spirit's productivity. Peter's emphasizing the believer's persistence. So you put the list together and you have a balanced perspective for a growing Christian. On the one hand, you have the enablement of God. On the other hand, you have the commitment of the believer. So this is the cooperation between your decision and God's provision. They grow up and live out together in your faith. Your daily commitment to surrender to God and God's daily empowerment. Strikes me that you can't win a football game in the stands or in the locker room. You got to suit up and get out on the field. And that's the passion of Peter, who says, give all diligence, literally, make up your mind, give it everything you've got. Now to add this supplement of godliness to your walk of faith. Now, what does the word godliness mean? If you've been a teacher, no matter what grade, you know what it's like to have this volume of truth that you got to whittle down into the time allotted. This is a big subject. But let me simplify the definition. Godliness means to bring the presence of God into every aspect of your life. Godliness is the determination to bring the presence of God into every aspect, every experience of life. This is David, the psalmist, saying, I have set the Lord before me in all things. Psalm 16, verse 8. So that obviously affects your relationship with the Lord, doesn't it? But it also affects your relationship with others. One New Testament scholar writes that godliness is a Greek word that looks in two directions. One direction is vertical toward God, and the other direction is horizontal toward other people. So it isn't somebody, you know, who struts around wearing a halo and people who and ah about how, you know, godly they evidently are. This word godliness refers vertically to a spirit of reverence and horizontally to a spirit of humility toward others. So godliness is this word that kind of flavors life. It perfumes all of life, every area of life. That's how Paul uses the word, by the way, over in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 2, where he writes that we might lead a godly life in every respect, in every area. You bring God into the picture. So what that means is that godliness is not compartmentalized, it's comprehensive. It asks the question: how would God handle that chore? How would God fulfill that assignment? How would God speak to that customer? How would God treat those employees? How would God talk to that teacher or fellow student? See, true godliness is not restricted to one area of life. It affects every area of life. Nobody can say, well, you know, I'm godly on Sunday, but just wait till Monday. The gloves come off. No, it's every aspect. I was really convicted a few years ago when one of my adult children said to me, Dad, you're the most sanctified man I know until you get behind the wheel. I had to take him out of the will for saying that. Now, the convicting truth is that godliness reaches even there. Lord, help us. It's bringing God and his word into the center of every aspect of life. And it includes, in that order, to begin to think through, to live by his word, and the Lord Himself in daily conversation. Billy Graham often talked about his father-in-law, Dr. Nelson Bell, a surgeon, a medical doctor. He ran a 400-bed hospital in China as a medical missionary, often facing incredible financial needs, pressure from the government, demands, huge staff, emergencies. Billy Graham said his father-in-law would rise every morning around 4:30 and spend two hours in Bible reading and prayer. Didn't do any correspondence, nothing related to the hospital demands that faced him, just those basic fundamentals that built godliness. And Graham would write that everyone seemed to know and sense that he was applying the word of God in every area of his life. That's a great working definition, by the way. Godliness is applying God's word to every area of life. Now that doesn't mean fundamentals are easy. That's why we call them spiritual disciplines and not entertainments or delights. They bring delight, but they are disciplines. They're difficult. Developing habits take time and effort. And it doesn't mean that your life will get easier with others, with an attitude of humility. It doesn't mean that every enemy will become your friend. And they're all going to stand there in awe of that godly guy or gal they work with or go to school with. Pursuing godliness doesn't automatically mean you're going to please everybody. Daniel Henderson, we've had him here to speak at our annual Church Leaders' Conference, our Shepherd's 360 conference. He wrote a book that he gave away, and I've been reading it on The Godly Life. It's a very convicting, challenging book. But he adds this humorous anecdote about an inability to please everybody. It's about a family who sold their home in the city and moved out to the country. They bought a ranch and decided to raise some cattle. Well, after they settled into their new location and bought 30, 40 head of cattle, a friend came to visit them. As he drove underneath the archway there at the entrance of the ranch, he noticed the name was really long. In fact, it was so long he couldn't read it before he got through it. So he asked about it, and the father, his friend, said, Well, I wanted to name it the flying W, but my wife liked the Susie Q. Our sons wanted the Bar J, and our daughter wanted the Lazy C. So we decided to make everybody happy, and we named it the Flying W Suzy Q, Bar J, Lazy C Ranch. The visitor looked out the window and asked, so where are all the cattle? The father replied, none of them survived the branding. No matter how hard you try to please, everybody's gonna suffer. That's the point. Now there are only a dozen or so times this word appears in the New Testament. You might think it would be on every other page. It isn't. And I've studied all of them, but let me just sort of pare it down. Almost all of them of the usages are by Paul and Peter. Paul gives us a little insight into the meaning of the word godliness in 1 Timothy 6, where he contrasts the ungodly, false teacher with the godly believer in an interesting way. He writes this in verse 5. False teachers are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of material gain. By the way, they're still alive and well teaching today. But godliness with contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing with ease, we will be content. So in that context, the opposite of godliness is an attitude of ingratitude. The corresponding attitude toward people would be jealousy and envy, wanting what they have. So another way of essentially assessing whether or not there's growth taking place in godliness is to ask yourself, are you growing more content with what God is allowing or disallowing? Are you spending less time comparing your life with others in the church around you? Let me put it into these three statements. Growth in godliness will choose to focus on what God allows you to have. Secondly, growth in godliness will continue to believe God's love and what he does not allow you to have. So it's going to choose to focus on what God allows you to have. It's going to continue to believe God's love, and do you doubt that? When he does not give you something good. He doesn't allow you to have it. And then, third, growth in godliness combats coveting what God has allowed someone else to have. As godliness grows, it's revealed by the spirit of contentment. Godliness and contentment then are like twins who grow up together. There's another text that gives us a little commentary on the meaning of godliness. 1 Timothy 4 and verse 7, Paul writes, train yourself for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way. What Paul does here is he takes us on a field trip to the local gymnasium. By the way, every city in Paul's generation had a gymnasium in full swing. In fact, young men, whom we would refer to as high schoolers, were required as part of their education to spend time every day in the local gymnasium. Well, the word here for train, train yourself, is from gymnasius, which gives us our word gymnasium or gymnasium. One author writes this word has the smell of the gym in it. The sweat of a good workout where you pump iron until your muscles burn, but then you do another rep or more. Where you run laps until your feet are like lead. And then you choose to run another lap. The Apostle Paul is using that word in defining godliness and effectively telling us to bring that kind of determination into the gymnasium where we are training in godliness, where it's a daily regimen. It's the basics that are part of every day. Let me draw from Paul's analogy some obvious conclusions, three of them. First, godliness is not a weekend hobby, it's a daily workout. Second, godliness isn't an afterthought. It's pursued with single-mindedness. And then third, godliness isn't an easy target. It's hunted down by those who can't live without it. Don't overlook the fact that Peter is writing Christians and telling Christians to add this supplement. Which is another way of saying it's possible to be a Christian and not be growing in godliness. We might get close, we might give it a shot every so often. That's not the passion. Peter wants to build into us before we get out on the gridiron of life. I have read that 69 million Americans have a gym membership. I won't ask for a raise of hands. The average cost is about$58. Fitness clubs now are raking in about$30 billion a year. Last year, Americans spent$87 billion in sports apparel. Now, obviously, buying a membership in a gym, buying an outfit isn't the same thing as getting fit. Well, growth in godliness is the same thing. A membership in the church doesn't make us spiritually fit. Buying a Bible doesn't make us spiritually fit. Downloading a Bible app, hey, look at what this thing can do. Man, I can put in a word and it gives me the whole, that doesn't make you spiritually fit. Growth in godliness is actually getting into it, working out in it. These basics of personal Bible study, Bible memory. How long has it been since you've memorized a verse of scripture? Praying. What does your day look like? Serving, financially investing, looking for gospel conversations. These are the basics. And you will never get past them. The question is, will we pursue them? I don't care how old you are or how long you've been a Christian, the basics make all the difference in your life. One more verse, Peter is going to mention this a little later on in chapter three. We're going to get to it before the rapture, perhaps. And I want to spend some more time on it. But he's going to talk about how God, at the end of human history, following the final judgment of all the redeemed, is going to literally dissolve the universe in a ball of fire. And he's going to recreate it. And I believe we're going to be able to watch it as he repeats Genesis chapter 1. Brand new earth, brand new universe, which we will inhabit forever. In light of that, he uses the word godliness. Peter writes this Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, burned up, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of godliness? Now I take great encouragement from that. That's challenging. It's also encouraging. It lets me know that we're not going to be on the playing field forever. The battle's not forever. Time will eventually run out, as it were, but the scoreboard is already determined. It isn't going to change. It's settled forever. You, the believer, win completely, irreversibly, eternally. Amen. Amen. So in light of where we're heading, don't leave behind the basics. Develop them. Grow in godliness in light of that day. This is how we're to live this day. Pray with me. With your heads bowed for just a moment. Where is that area or areas? Where God spirit would say to you as a believer. Let's get started. Let's get a fresh lap going. And I want you to think for just a moment of what that would look like. What that would look like tomorrow. Maybe today. For just a moment, think it through and ask for God's enablement as you make a fresh commitment. Father, thank you for this inspired reminder it's easy to forget the simple fundamentals, to overlook the basics, to look for shortcuts, to avoid the sweat of a spiritual workout in your word, bringing you into every aspect of life. So thank you for this reminder, this challenge, this invitation to grow into your likeness. We thank you, Lord Jesus, as we prepare for this table of the model you gave us as a man. Your perseverance, your faithfulness, your responses, your words, your actions, your sacrifice. You went all the way to the end of this great plan. You endured the cross, despising the shame. You bore in your body on the tree our sins so that we could live in a righteous. Thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen.