Adult League Devotions / Week 3

Week 3: 
Sin

By Rich Green, Sports Minister at Mount Pleasant Christian Church (Greenwood, Indiana) and adapted from devotional writings from Stuart Weir. 

Sin is crouching at your door. (Genesis 4:8) 

If we were asked to sum up the message of the Bible in three words, you could hardly do better than - Creation, Fall, Redemption. 

If we are to have a Biblical perspective on sports it must take account of creation, fall and redemption. When Cain is told that his offering is not acceptable, God says that sin is crouching at his door. What an amazing image! 

If Genesis 1 tells us about the creation of all things, Genesis 3 tells us that sin is real and it spoiled God's creation. Sin has continued to be part of the world and of human life ever since. 

Sin destroys every-thing, spoiling our prayer life, our Bible reading. It ruins our relationships, our sexuality, our sporting life, our friendships - sin breaks everything. 

The world of sports as we know it is full of sin, selfishness, ruthlessness, cheating, attempts to deceive the officials, strategies to gain an unfair advantage over opponents. There is so much greed in the negotiation of player contracts and often on both sides an unwillingness to honor contracts, steroid use and abuse, the falsification of documents, and the list goes on and on. To be clear, I’m not saying that sports is the only place that sinful behavior abounds, but just trying to make a point here. It’s hard sometimes to know who to even root for these days. And this behavior can be found at all levels of sports, from the pee-wee to the pro. 

So it begs the question… Has sin ruined sports? Is it doomed forever? Is there an answer? Find out next week. Same Bat Time… Same Bat Channel!! 

Discussion Questions

1. What are your thoughts on what you’ve just Read/Heard? 
   
2. How can we practice Character & Integrity in our sporting endevours? Character – Who we are. Integrity – What we do. 
   
3. What’s the “Take-A-Way” for tonight? 
   

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