Jeff Klein, Pastor of Outreach
Jeffrey Klein 00:00
I realized this week you know, I've been, I've been a pastor here for at least four years, I've never shown you my trophies. And I think this is key, you know, you got to know what kind of level of past you have here. So this particular trophy here, this is third grade baseball at Wheaton, Illinois Little League Baseball, we got to the championship game. We got beat, and we lost and finished second. So there's a second place trophy. But then the next year, in fourth grade baseball, we learned our lesson, Coach Klein knew how to take the team to the next level, we went to the championship game, we won the championship game and you think there'll be a bigger trophy for that? Don't you think? This little thing is kind of kind of lame, but I would think it'd be like one of these kinds of trophies. This was backwards about turn this around. So you get the full view. Then we get into travel baseball, where instead of playing like 20 games in the summer, we got to play 60 games in the summer and travel all over the place. Miss church was awesome. We got the miss church. Because if you got the Sunday in, if you get to play in the tournament for the for the championship, you get these kind of big trophies for winning on Sunday. These big travel trophies, these are the big ones you get if you win. Now, you know my son, Joseph, these are his trophies too. But as the coach, the real glory goes to the coach true, not the players, right? You know, I'm talking about right now, you know, I have four children, the oldest son, we actually said no to travel baseball, even though he's invited because we realize the time commitment is going to be insane, and that we wouldn't be able to go to church on Sunday the same way because we'd be going to these travel tournaments instead. But then my daughter went off, became a high-level gymnast, like, advanced through the ranks by the time she was eighth grade. She was a level 10 gymnast. She had a wall of metals in her room. Like literally wall medals people talking about her going to the Olympics, and all this stuff. I remember the morning that she quit gymnastics. I was at a tournament a national tournament with her. I was getting her ready and she was crying in the bathroom. I said, wow, what's going on? I just don't want to do this. Like one. This is supposed to be fun. This is called sports. It's supposed to be fun. If it's not fun, then we're done. And that was the end of her gymnastics career. Essentially an eighth grade after 24 hours a week in the gym. Every week, every night sacrificing tons of money and time to get her there. Literally on vacation for it. I took went to a gym in Florida to make sure she was ready for a state tournament, even on my vacation. And that couldn't get the church in Florida, but I could certainly get to the gym to make sure that I was ready for her tournament. And I'm talking about Yeah, I keep going. My son Joseph is a college baseball player. He spent hours and hours, months and months, countless focus on getting his swing right and getting himself ready for baseball. He's now a division-three baseball player that at the end of this next year will become a 6 by 12 inch softball player, slowpitch softball player here around the area. It changed his life, you know I'm saying changed his life forever. Now. I thought it'd be appropriate for me to talk about sports as the past who's really into sports. Because you know, sometimes it's easy to preach against other people's idols. But when you face an idol, that is your idol. It's a lot more difficult to preach. And frankly, the best sermons are to yourself. So this is a sermon to me. You can listen in if you want, right, but this is my own sermon because I got a major problem with sports. I go way over the top. Look at my trophies. Hmm. I keep these on display. I would put these in my living room for people to come over when they come out. I can explain to them but my wife will let me keep them there. She makes me keep them in some closet somewhere. Now before I lose a bunch of you, let's not get carried away, right? Sports is not totally evil. None of these idols are totally evil. They're all have good things. I mean, sports brings people together. It encourages health and fitness. it cultivates grit and discipline. These are all things my sons and daughters have learned from sports I've learned from sports. They provide a rich array of life lessons. They're their entertainments right there. You learn how to work as a team, you learn how to win lose, you learn how to fail and get back up and do it again.
Jeffrey Klein 04:27
There's a million amazing things in sports due to for people's lives in the world. But let's face it sports in America, it's way over the top, true way over the top, like we've turned it into an American Idol. Now, I think it's important to understand how idols get made. So I want to take on this little journey this morning about this and we're gonna start in Romans chapter one. I'm gonna put up there the Amplified Version of the Bible. This is the version the Bible that in the parentheses is giving you more of the Greek meaning of the words because the Greek meaning is way bigger. then we can put in English. So if you read the Amplified Version of the Bible, it gives you a little deeper look into the Greek meaning. So here we go, here's Paul is recessed, for God does not overlook sin, and the wrath of God has revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who in their wickedness, suppress and stifle the truth, because that which is known about God is evident within them in their inner consciousness, for God made it evident to them forever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen, be understood through his workmanship, all his creation, the wonderful things that he has made to the day who fail to believe and trust in Him, or without excuse, and without defense. Now, if you leave those up there for a minute, Caryn, we learned a few things from the verses, first of all, God created, He is the source of life, he is the designer of the world, he is good. His design is good and consistent with his character and with who he is. So we look at creation, we get to see God's divine nature and his eternal power, on display in the creation. But here's the thing. You If you look to create things, and you fail to look here, then you have turned the creative things into idols that are lifted higher than they're supposed to be. Instead of pointing these crazy things pointing you to God, they point you to something else, which creates a problem. So Paul continues usually says, for even though they knew God is their Creator, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks for his one his creation on the country, they became worthless in their thinking godless, with pointless reasonings, and so he speculations, and therefore his heart was darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal god for an image, worthless idols in the shape of mortal man and birds and forfeited animals and reptiles. But look how the message translate this. Here's the here's the message and one more common English. What happened was this, people knew God perfectly well. But when they didn't treat him, like God refusing to worship Him, they trivialize themselves into silliness and confusion. So there was neither sets nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in His hands, for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. How did this happen? How did it get there? We traded the glory of God for this, or for lots of other things. It's an interesting question to think about, what's the roots of this? Well, if we go back to the beginning to creation, here's a good place to start. In the creation story, there's two key phrases that I think we need to focus on. The first one is this. God says this, what there be, this is something only God can say, Let there be is not something I can do. I can't say let there be a goat, and up comes a goat here on stage. I can't do that. I think why we love things like Stranger Things and all these superhero movies, we would love to be able to be like God and say, Let there be and just make it happen. Wouldn't it be cool to move things with your mind, like 11 in Stranger Things, you can just go home, and people just go flying? Those are godlike aspirations. But only God can see what they're being. He's the only one that can see let there be an out of nothing comes something. And this something points back to the Creator. When we look at those things, if God said, Let there be we worship God. So when I stand on a mountain in Colorado, 14,000 foot mountain looking all around me, my only thought is, oh my goodness, God, you are amazing. I mean, you said let there be and this mountain was pushed up with your pinkie to this place where I can stand and see wool.
Jeffrey Klein 09:18
And I'm just like, there's got to be something way bigger than me in the world. And I want to go to my knees and worship God. But there's a second phrase in Genesis, God says this, let us make Okay, interesting. And he talks about that related to mankind, Let us make man in our image. So this is God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit coming together to make us in His own image. And the thing is, when he makes us His own image, he gives us the ability to say the same thing. Let us make. So we spend our lives making things, creating things because this is part of the image of God in us. This is how we're designed is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed To make things so a husband and wife come together, and they say, Let us make a child in our own image. And they go about this, to businessmen get the OC, let us make a business, you know, whatever, there's lots of businesses, right? Or we say things like, Let us make music. And we stay at the piano and someone that has the gift, concrete, the music that makes this go, right, it's amazing. So not everything on planet Earth is a creation of God. Some of the stuff that's on planet Earth is our own creation that we've made, we've said, Let us make and things have carbon board right? Now the problem is, is that we love to worship the things that we make. And we love to get glory from the things we make. And we love to the point to the things that we make. And he's kind of turned it from being the glory of God to the glory of us the glory of something else. Sports, to be honest, is one of those things. You know, sports is not it's not it's a gift from God, but it was traded by humans. God didn't come down and say, Let us make baseball or let there be baseball. It was like no, okay, double day decide to let us make baseball made the rules. And it happened, right. So the stuff we make, involves two things. It's making stuff and it's also making meaning or significance. So when we start to connect our significance, and the meaning of our lives to the stuff that we make, we start to turn it into an idol. We start to bind the why, and advanced the claims of the idol. Paul says this when Romans 125 They traded the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things, instead of the Creator Himself, who is worthy of eternal praise. Amen. What's the lie? Well, the lie is you will surely not die. Like God says, if you make your own idols, you'll be fine. You're not that weak and vulnerable. You can rise above it. And you can be like God, you can be like, God, those are the two eyes. So think about this for me, how does sports play into this? Well, I can tell you that when I am playing hockey, and I am smashing someone into the boards, and seeing them fall on the ground. I'm like, Yeah, I have big I am huge. I am something. Right. I am like, whoa, I'm invincible. Not really true, is it? But this is what happens. All of us dream of all of us athletes dream of hitting the walk off homer to get glory. scoring the winning goal so we can get the fans are cheering our name. Jeff. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. No, I'm saying I got to bed, don't I? Yeah. See, I tell I'm preaching to myself. So and we lift athletes to this super significant place like you know, here we are this athletes, you know, we were super significant because we can hit a ball or shoot a puck or do whatever. You know, I was at the camp a couple weeks ago. And the one camp was a talent show and they were asking me Hey, are you going to do something for the talent show? I said, I don't have any talents. I said, No, I can't sing. I can't dance. I said no. If you give me a hockey stick and put five Popkins up on a board, I can knock them off. I can shoot apart from probably 30 feet away and knock them off. That's my talent. Well, that's gonna do you're really good at 62 Don't you think? That is a point was talent, pointless talent?
Jeffrey Klein 13:47
Here's what Tim Keller says in his book, Counterfeit Gods. What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God. Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts. If I have that, then I will feel my life has meaning that I will know I have value, then I'll feel significant and secure. So let's just put those four descriptions on the screen here. Let's put sports in front of each one. The Sport absorb your heart and imagination. The Sport gives your life meaning the sport gives you value? Does sports make you feel significant? You can put any word in front of those four descriptions. And you can figure out what your idol is. Because I know some of you are going man it's about time someone passed some of these sports, the sports are not straight. They're losing their minds. Good. The I'm not into that I'm in the cooking, or whatever it is. Yeah. You put sports for this and there it is. Here's the thing. It's interesting. Alexander the Great, was known as a great conqueror, but really what he was really best that was influencing. He was a great influencer. You know what he knew. He knew that if he could get control for idols in the culture, he could shape the whole culture. Here's the four idols, education, health care, entertainment, athletics, Alexander the Great believed if he could get the control these four key things to call out to the deepest part of humans, he could control the world. And using those four things, Alexander the great creative Hellenism in Greek philosophy that still lives on today. We actually are hellenist because of Alexander the Great's control these four idols. That's how powerful idols can be. So as I thought about my own relationship with sports, I started thinking through some of the choices I make in these realms. Do you know that if someone invites me to a golf match, if it if it starts at five in the morning, and I have to get up at 430? I am not missing that golf match. I don't care if I go to bed at 2am. I'm going to make it up for the golf match. Can you relate? Now, if I have to pray, even at 6am If it's time to spend time with the Lord at 6am, and I go to bed at two in the morning, I'll keep pushing the snooze button and might even miss my prayer time. Whoa, something's wrong. I remember when I did basketball, Timothy Christian on Friday mornings at 6:30am. It didn't matter when I went to bed the night before. There were nine other guys waiting for me at 630 I was gonna be there didn't matter if my leg was falling off. I was gonna be there on the basketball court. But if there was a Bible study that was supposed to be at 630, and I kind of felt like, tired, right? Kind of later, I got busy dad. I can talk myself out of the Bible study. Just like that. I can watch an NFL football game for hours. I can watch multiple NFL football games in a row. Seriously, you know, I don't know. And I could even at sitting down. If you watch me at the office. I don't ever sit down. But I can sit down for nine straight hours and watch NFL football. This is a problem. I realized this week like I got some roll with me. Right? I can watch nine straight hours NFL football cheering on my fantasy football guys. I didn't even bring my fantasy football trophy. It's really big. You know, it's got a lot of my names are there multiple times because I spent hours learning fantasy football pouring into my life fantasy football statistics and all the different people the players. Yeah, yeah, I got problems. And this leads me to our thought, you know, idols require sacrifices. We always say we don't sacrifice to a calf. We don't sacrifice to a stone statue. We don't say, Yeah, you're right. We don't But guess what? We're willing to sacrifice time, money, energy, and focus, to make sure our kids get to their sporting contest. To make sure we get to our golf match. We're willing to sacrifice church, Bible study mission of God to make sure that we get to where we got to get for the sports contest. True. I am I'll confess my sins. I'm up here confessing my sins. I'm preaching myself number. So I was thinking about this. You know, when I first started us sports back here in third grade or even earlier, kindergarten, my goal was to be with my kids.
Jeffrey Klein 18:41
Just be with my kids, hey my kids. I was decent at coaching baseball. So I thought, hey, this would be fun. I tell my kids, teach them how to hit teach them other kids how to hit. We'll build a team. It'll be a blast. We'll just tell what or lose them. I remember the one soccer that I used to coach soccer for my daughter and the commissioner of the league told me he doesn't keep score. I'm like, What are you talking about? I said to him, I said, Do you realize everyone on the sidelines is keeping score. The girls are getting score. The parents who gave his score and the coaches are keeping score. You're the only one I can score. I just had a fit with this guy. I said so you don't so but hey, when I first started, I didn't really care. It was just like students and then I don't know, something took over. Right now. I was like, I know I'm gonna win. I gotta just, I can't just lose the championship. I gotta win the championship. And then I gotta get my kid to be a higher level because who knows he might be the next Babe Ruth or something. Ever had this thought about your kid? You know, I can tell you that Joseph's travel baseball team, which was 65 games this summer. Every parent there thought their kid was the next Babe Ruth. Parents are the worst. Parents make sports in the idols more than a one word The worst we are. I'm the worst. I'm the parent you don't want on your sideline. But I remember all these parents just like, you know, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, just like their kids gonna be the next or whatever. And most of those kids, I can tell you of the 60 kids, I knew the play to baseball in wheaton. There's four that I know playing college baseball. And they're all playing Division three college baseball, they're not going to be major leaguers. So hey, it's been a blast. I would say my son Joseph, if he was here, he'd be up here. He gives me a testimony of how sports is totally taught him tons of stuff. And I agree that it's true. But at the same time, what has been the sacrifice we've made to make this all happen? Have you ever wished some other kid does poorly this year to to get in the game? That is me. Where you're like, Man, I wish this kid doesn't get hit for like 12 times maybe my kid get in there. Be Amazing. Or have you ever been mad at the coach because you kids kids and play and you want to just strangle the coach because you need a coach just doesn't see the genius your kid? Yeah. Ever been preying on the silence for your kid to get a hit? To see your kid gets one hit? just praying like Lord, please hold my kid get ahead. I've done that. Yeah, so here's some questions ask yourselves. Here's an evaluation. How does your passion for a team or your kids success compared to your passions for the things of Jesus? These are my questions for me. How does my passion for my kids athletic success compare with my passion for my kid to know Jesus and to grow spiritually? Am I willing to st make the same sacrifices to pour the same energy into making sure my kid knows Jesus as I am to making sure he can swing a bat? Or throw a ball? What do you look like at a sporting event for your favorite team? Versus how you look when you're worshiping God? So when you're worshiping God, you're you know you're super late to restrain but then you know, Go Cubs Go Go Cubs go your renewals. I've been to some worship services it really feel it's unbelievable people I don't even know ours give me five and singing the song like crazy people that waving their arms. But if you ask them do the same thing here in worship, they'd be like this. I can't really go cubs go. I'm just saying. How much time you give sacrifice for sports versus how much time you sacrifice for your relationship with Jesus. Do you pray more for your kids success in sports? Or do you pray more for these kids to become followers of Jesus who changed the world? For amazing reasons and things.
Jeffrey Klein 22:58
These are things now. I got the best call. My son Joseph, the baseball player. He was a counselor. This summer at Camp Kanukuk in Branson, Missouri. They bring athletes in. So he was a baseball coach. And I would only hear from him once a week. So last night, he finished his time at Kanukuk, and he called me and I said So Joe, how did he go this final week? You had spent four weeks with the same cabin of guys. He said they were great guys. He loved it. It was awesome. I said, Okay, how did it go? Like spiritually? Did you feel like you broke through to, to God, Jesus, Jesus break through. And he said, Dad was crazy. Because I was at the last camp fire was the night where they presented the cross of Christ and give your life to Jesus. He said, You know, some of the kids in my cabin had not really crossed the line or understood who this Jesus was yet. He said, so I was standing over to the side. And I was just praying for some of my kids by name. So standing over there, I just find myself just praying. And he said, I've never had this experience in my whole life. But as I was praying for this one kid, he stood up. He came over to me and talked to me and gave his life to Jesus right there. I'm like, Joe, that is awesome. That is better than any homerun you ever hit than any hit you ever got any walk off you ever pulled off to any pitch you ever through? That is way more significant? That is kingdom of Jesus kind of stuff. Right. So I don't know. You know, maybe you got the same problem I have. I don't know. But you know, like, we're not going to suddenly get rid of sports in America. Right? I'm not going to get sports out of my life. But maybe I can gain some perspective. Maybe I can start to examine how I'm spending my time my energy, my passions, my inner workings, what's going on? You know, I have the status next to me in the sideline. Now college baseball, they get to hold me accountable. They see me going nuts, they see me walking around tearing my hair out, you know, they they go Klein Are you okay? I'm like, Yeah, I'm fine. So they're hold me accountable to my to my sermon. Alright, let's put our American Idols away. And let's look here, instead of here. Right. Amen.
Jeffrey Klein 25:37
Let's pray. Let's pray together. Jesus, we are definitely sorry. It tells us in Your Word to love you with our whole heart, soul, mind strength. It tells us in your words, put the kingdom first. Think Jesus, probably the root of all a lot of our sin or a lot of our struggle is our own idolatry, our own need to put other things first. So we're this morning as we ponder our own idols, our own inner passions, emotions. I pray, Lord, that maybe we can make one change this week to get our eyes more on you and off of ourselves off of these creative things that we've made. Thank You that Your Holy Spirit's in the room Lord, translating for each person. Whatever they need to get this morning your name Jesus we pray. Amen.