Ron Brown's Kingdom Sports Minute Gordon Thiessen

EYES ON CHRIST

Balance is huge in sports. But in Matthew 14 when Peter was walking on the water and eventually he began to sink, was that a balance issue? No, it really wasn’t a balance issue. He had the supernatural power of walking on water as he kept his eyes on Jesus Christ. His issue was his mind, not his feet, not his athletic ability. Jesus rebuked him when they got back into the boat and He said, “Why did you doubt?” In other words Jesus was saying why did you take your eyes off me? Why were you not circumstance-free instead of being circumstance-based? How about you? Is your mind focused on Jesus Christ? It's not a matter of physical issues and circumstances. It's only a matter of keeping your eyes on Christ and nothing shall be impossible to you.

CHECKERS CHESS

I grew up perhaps like you learning how to play checkers. And who doesn’t love checkers? King me. Man, I loved it. But when I was twelve years old my Uncle Johnny said, “Hey boy, I’m going to show you a man’s game.” He introduced me to chess and he taught me how to play chess. Similar board, but different pieces and different strategy. I forsook checkers after that. “I’m just playing chess from now on,” I said, “I’m a new man.” But every now and then I longed for checkers. Can you imagine in the middle of a chess game starting to replace some chess pieces for some of those old fun checker pieces. Remember, king me. Well what kind of a game would that be? Cheskers? Who plays that? That’s a very double-minded game. The Bible says that Jesus rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His Son. We got a new game, y’all. It’s about Jesus Christ only.

STAND FOR JESUS

Should we stand for the national anthem? I believe we should. My dad fought in World War II in African-American troops. They were segregated back then. African-Americans weren’t treated as equals even in our military. But my dad believed in America and he believed that we should stand for the flag, and I do to this day. But we make a big issue about whether we should stand for the flag or not. But why as Christians are we not standing for biblical issues, like biblical marriage or life in the womb? Why do we get strangely silent when that stuff comes around? And we don’t want to go public with it. Listen. God’s not American. America’s got to get with God. What makes us great is to make Jesus great. Stand for God and His word.

Coach Ron Brown message about the Coronavirus. 

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?

What is your goal? So many times in the world of sports it’s about winning the championship, being the top player in the country, first team All-American, breaking a record, all those kind of things. A goal technically is the highest aim that you have. For the Christian, what should be our goal? Is it something that’s physical in this earth? Well that’s too low of a goal. The goal based on Romans 8:29 is to be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ, which is a work of the Holy Spirit, which begins to happen after you trust Christ as your Savior and Lord. And in verse 28 it reminds us that God would use all things together to work for that good. He would take all the circumstances in our life, good, bad, and ugly, to mesh us into conforming into the image of Jesus Christ. That is what’s going to maximize everything in your life.

I GOTTA HIT THEM IN THE MOUTH

I once had a high school linebacker come to me and say, “Coach Brown, I gotta hit people in the mouth. I appreciate your view of Christianity and your Christian faith, but you know what, I need something tough. The Christians I know aren’t very tough. I gotta hit people in the mouth.” I just kept hearing that. I said, “Son, if you only understood who Jesus was.” If you read Psalm 22, you’ll realize the brutal crucifixion process that came along with Jesus in that Messianic psalm. Even though David wrote it, it was a prophecy of what Christ would experience under the burden on the cross. But as Jesus hung on the cross, the physical pain, the torture, the scourging, the blood, that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was that he was separated from His Father for our purpose to pay for our sin. No, the toughest people on the planet ought to be Christians in and out of football.