Title Sermon from English worship service
Contents
I have a favorite Lou Holtz story. Lou Holtz was the head football coach at Notre Dame University--one of the most demanding, pressurized coaching jobs a person could take on. He’s in his first season, and he has four wins and five losses, and he is thinking to himself: “I have to win this last game. We have to win this last game, because if I come out 500 my first season, some of this pressure will be relieved.”
They are playing USC and losing by four points. It’s late in the fourth quarter. USC has their ball in their own territory pretty deep, and it’s fourth down, and Holtz is thinking to himself: “This is great. They're going to punt. Even if it’s a good punt, we are going to be in good field position. The momentum is in our direction. We can win this game. I can be five and five. I might even have a pretty decent summer. This will be all right.”
The punting team comes out from Notre Dame. USC gets ready to punt. Lou Holtz had a son on that team. His name was Skip Holtz. Skip was on the punt return team, so as Lou Holtz describes the story, he says, “I'm down on my knees with my hands on my knees, and I'm looking at the punt, and it goes off, and I 'm thinking, 'Wow, that's a terrible punt.' I mean it's flopping all over the place, that's great.”
He looks out of the corner of his eye and sees a yellow penalty flag. He immediately looks over to where the punter was, and there is his son, Skip Holtz, sprawled out on top of the punter. The referee is signaling a roughing-the-punter call, which means USC will get a first down. It will be their ball, and they will continue on.
Lou Holtz continues with, “As my wife’s son comes off the field”
“All I could think about was strangling him and picking him physically up and throwing him into the bench.” Fortunately, he remembered what someone had once said to him:
“When people need love and understanding the most is usually when they deserve it the least”.
So as Skip Holtz came off the field, Lou Holtz gave him a quick hug and said, “It’s going to be okay,” and Skip went to the sideline.
Notre Dame came back and won that game, and Lou Holtz got his five and five season in a miraculous turnaround, but he says, “You know, the reason I think we won that game is that every player on Notre Dame was watching me to see how I would react to what just happened, and because I reacted the way that I did, I think they were convinced that my love for each of them was unconditional. They could play with that kind of freedom.” Lou Holtz went on to have many, many successful seasons at Notre Dame.
Jesus Christ was the greatest coach and motivator of people that humanity will ever see. And He had a program in place while He walked the earth. In fact His reason for leaving heaven and taking on the challenge of coming to earth was to install the program.
The program was the greatest redemptive drama of the ages, the action of reconciling God to man making a way so that men and women could enter God’s Kingdom.
In the earliest days of this program a small team was chosen and developed by Jesus days to do the heavy work required to get the program rolling. Jesus spent day and night with the team, teaching the basics of the program, loading them up with the skill set needed to make it a success.
He quickly pointed out any errors of judgment or action as they practiced with Him, and left no room for doubt as to what was necessary in order to execute the plan and bring the benefit to all people for all time. Jesus really believed in the team
He had assembled. The team had a “go to guy”, the cornerstone of the group. His name was Peter. Jesus saw take charge leadership in Him, so He spent a little more time mentoring and investing in Peter. Some days Peter worked the plan to perfection.
He said all the right things and it seemed like he and Jesus were on the same page of understanding, and moving in unison toward the big challenge.
At least that was until the day of the big challenge. You see the plan included Jesus being arrested and taken away, and a subsequent hand off of responsibility from Jesus to His team. And in a crucial moment, when Jesus needs his “go to guy” to man up and begin bearing the weight of responsibility for the program, Peter folded like a cheap suit.
We can read about it in Luke 22: 54-61:
54 Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. 55 But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. 56 A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, "This man was with him." 57 But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," he said. 58 A little later someone else saw him and said, "You also are one of them." "Man, I am not!" Peter replied.
59 About an hour later another asserted, "Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean." 60 Peter replied, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about!" Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowded. 61 The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.
That “look “was loaded with raw emotion. It was full of tension, it was full of sorrow, it was full of disappointment, and it was full of despair. That “look” held within its gaze the sigh of the ages.
I don’t think we can begin to imagine the frustration Jesus must have felt with Peter. So much depended on Peter making the right moves, doing and saying the right things, following through the way he had been taught, accepting the challenge. You would think that would have been the end of the line for poor inconsistent Peter, but not so.
As we study the account of Jesus crucifixion, his resurrection, and his reappearance to his team, his disciples, we find out that when it came to Peter, Jesus response to the fail was this: “When people need love and understanding the most is usually when they deserve it the least”.
Peter wasn’t released from the program, quite the contrary, Peter was still there to witness the miraculous turn around of events surrounding Jesus Resurrection, and was then beautifully reinstated as a valued member of the team.
After Jesus returned to heaven, the gospel of Mark tells us in chapter 16: 20 that the disciples went out preaching everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word (all the stuff He had spent years teaching them) by the signs that accompanied it. And guess what, Peter was part of those incredible victories.
So what does this all say to us? Well, it’s really quite simple… have you ever blown it? Have you ever failed in your effort to please Jesus? Have you ever been the betrayer of His perfect love and trust? I have, more times than I want to remember. I’ve found myself in the place of Peter having to absorb “the look”.
Do you know that there is one word, which explains why we who are followers of Christ are not condemned in those moments when we are absorbing “the look”? That word is forbearance. Forbearance basically means “put up with” Romans 2:4 teaches us about forbearance, … do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
We sing a worship song that it taken from this verse “it’s your kindness Lord, that leads us to repentance”. There is a great truth in that little song. You see, God's forbearance is not based on immediate obedience. He wants obedience sure, but He's not going to demand it immediately.
He wants it. He desires it badly of you, but His forbearance is not based on you stepping up right away. His forbearance is based on something more eternal. It's called "character" and "eternal life." I'm talking of eternal life in the sense of the quality of life that God lives, both now and forever.
God forbears desiring to produce the stellar godly responses that lead us to repentance and allow us entrance into His kingdom.
That is ultimately what He got from Peter, and that is ultimately what He wants to get from each of us. He's patient with us. He gives us room to work within the bounds that He has set up so that we can repent and live lives that will allow us to enter His kingdom. God designed that His forbearance results in our repentance, and in the end the incomparable reward of living eternally with Him.