Live Like a Champion (Week 1)
Victory Through the Promises of God!”
“The Promise of Precious and Magnificent Promises!”
2 Peter 1:1-4 (NAS95)
Communion Devotion:
In our lives we don’t speak readily of victory. It is too big a word for us. We have suffered too many defeats in our lives; victory has been thwarted again and again by too many weak hours, too many gross sins. But isn’t it true that the spirit within us yearns for this word, for the final victory over the sin and anxious fear of death in our lives? And now God’s word also says nothing to us about our victory; it doesn’t promise us that we will be victorious over sin and death from now own; rather, it says with all its might that someone has won this victory, and that this person, if we have him as Lord, will also win the victory over us. It is not we who are victorious, but Jesus.[1]
The key to all of the promises of God are found in these words, “if we have him as Lord, [He] will also win the victory over us.” The Bible teaches us that the victory we have and the victory we live is a vicarious one. That means, it is a victory that is not of our own making or doing, but a victory that has been given to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is something we get to “partake” in or share.
All that we have is by God’s grace and that is what we remember and rely upon in our daily lives and that is why we regularly come to the Table of the Lord’s Supper: to remember the victory of Jesus Christ and to learn that we have nothing apart from Him and that in our daily lives we must “partake” of His victory.
This is the essence of our salvation and this is the purpose of communion: to remember God’s grace and to be reminded to live every day of our lives in God’s grace—as completely dependent on His gifts!
Let us now partake of the elements—the Bread of Life and the Cup of the New Covenant: Paul teaches us how we should participate at the Lord’s Table in 1 Corinthians 11:23-28:
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. [Pause to pray.]
“The Promise of Precious and Magnificent Promises!”
2 Peter 1:1-4 (NAS95)
Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Today’s message is going to provide a big picture for this sermon series and the four BIG IDEAS of how God is inviting us to live the Victory that Jesus Christ has given to us. We are invited to live like champions because our victory is through the promises of God.
“For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.”
You hear this truth from Paul at the very beginning of Peter’s second letter: your faith is a received faith, not a created one. You have received a faith as the same kind as Paul’s.
How? By the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace are multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord because He has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through His divine power.
Are you hearing this? Peter made it very clear from the very beginning: God has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises—they are all of grace!
And why has God given us His grace through His Son Jesus Christ? Peter continues: so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption (death) that is in the world by lust.
God has given you Victory through His precious and magnificent promises and that victory is your fellowship in the Trinity—you are alive in Christ, no longer cut off or dead in sin! You have been delivered and rescued and now, God is calling you to live through His divine nature—to live in the victory of Jesus Christ—the victory that is found in every promise of God that has been lavishly poured out upon you through you adoption as sons, the children of God with right of inheritance.
Listen to Paul explain this miracle of grace from Galatians 4:4-7, a scripture we looked at thoroughly in our Christmas messages over the last month,
But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.
You are an heir to all the promises of God! You will be His people and He will be your God!
As Paul proclaims of our rich inheritance in Ephesians 2:4-10,
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
You already have been fitted for your super bowl ring, now you just need to trust that the victory is your’s and live like a champion and wait for the day when the ring is put on your finger.
We are now going how to do this through the framework of being a part of a Superbowl winning team. For a NFL team to win the Superbowl, every player has to play like a champion.
Each player must do the following:
(1) Know the team’s playbook;
(2) Train to be in great shape;
(3) Listen to the coach; and
(4) Work together with all the other players as one team!
In the same way, as we learn the precious and magnificent promises of God so that we may become partakers of the divine nature to the glory of God, we must also do those same four things:
(1) We are God’s team and we need to know God’s playbook to run the right plays at the right time. God has given us everything we need to do His will for His glory.
“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man [athlete] of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
Do you know the promises of God? They are found in the Bible and they are your victory in Jesus Christ. We will be learning them throughout 2021, but each of us must commit to hiding them in our hearts.
“Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.”
(2) We are God’s players and we need to exercise our faith and work together to win the victory! We are called to train ourselves for godliness and to be ready at any time to run God’s play!
“Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.”
Are you in spiritual training? I remind you that grace is not opposed to effort, only to earning.
I can testify to you that physical training does have a season of glory, whether that season ends in high school, college, in the NFL, but there is a day where even the most celebrated athlete’s career must come to an end.
The good news is that when we train ourselves in godliness, the fullness of the victory is always yet to come!
The glory days are never behind us, but always before us! When we train ourselves according to the Word of God, the living God sets before us a future that has the truest and highest honor of being welcomed into the Victor’s Circle of Heaven. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27,
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
That leads us to the third big idea of how we are to live like champions…
(3) We are God’s players and we need to learn the Coach’s voice so we can play the right play at the right time! We are God’s players and when the Coach calls us into the game, we must be ready to obey even if we don’t understand exactly how God is going to use us!
Listen to how Jesus explains the importance of knowing the Coach’s voice in John 10:3-5, 10b,
“But he who enters by the door is a shepherd [coach] of the sheep [players]. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep [players] hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep [players] by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep [players] follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers. … I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Do you know the Coach’s voice and trust Him so well that you respond without hesitation?
Jesus promises that His Victory is the “abundant” or fullness of life that can only come through your fellowship in His Trinity—the Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, let’s be clear, that the victory I am calling us to live and the championship I am calling us to win is not always health and wealth, worldly success and prosperity! That is not the gospel I preach or we have been given by Jesus.
The abundant life that God promises through Jesus Christ is the fullness of His Presence—your partaking of His divine nature. Because it is only then that we can have the fullness of joy, the sufficiency of grace, the perfection of love, or the rest that comes through His peace guarding your heart and mind.
That leads us to the final big point that will thread throughout this sermon series on the promises of God…
(4) We are God’s team and the victory is God’s! The championship celebration is in our future; we are invited to live like champions, as one team, today, knowing the Victory is already ours in Christ Jesus!
“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Do you trust and live like God’s victory is secure for you, as a member of His body—His Church?
Footnotes:
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, ed. Jana Riess, trans. O. C. Dean Jr., First edition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 75.