Outdoor Service | Detroit Lions Theme

Well, it’s good to be here. Thank you for that introduction. It’s it’s really fun to be a Lions player right now. Right. And it’s a lot of fun to be a Lions fan after all those years, instead of sheepishly showing up and saying, you play for the Lions, it’s a moment of pride. The team is really good. They were so close to going last year to the Super Bowl and yes, a lot of fun, a lot of expectations. And, you know, we’re all into sports. And so it’s a lot of fun to kind of share that together before I begin, let me say I’m going to talk about the Lions. That’s why I’m here as a former Lions player. But obviously, my stories and me and the Lions aren’t what most important. I’m here to talk about my faith in Jesus Christ this morning, which is the most important. And I will get there. And so I see lots of Honolulu blue and silver thankful. I don’t see any cheese heads. I don’t see any Vikings fans or Packers fans or whoever. What other fans for the Niners fans, you probably out there but I’m here as we talk about this. 

We’re going to share some stories We’re going to move to something meaningful. So if you’re here today and you’re not into sports, that’s okay. I hope that still we’re going to use sports as a way to move to the importance of of Jesus and why I’m a Christian, why I became after all those years in the NFL or why I remained. And today I became more convinced that Jesus Christ is who he said He is after playing football. So as I start, though, as we talking about the Super Bowl and the Lions having a chance and the fun of saying that, let me tell you a little bit about again, I’m exposed up here and as a Lions player and you’re on stage and with a great introduction before you think I’m more important than I really am, let me tell you what my true character is like. And this is this is what I’m really like. So when I retired in 2012, 12 years ago, I had finished. I played a long time. I had given it my all and I was done. And so when I finished I thought, you know, it’s been a great ride. God bless me. I love the lions. I’ve played my whole career here, but I’m walking away, done with the lions for a while. I need to detox, I need to get away. 

I’m not going to think about I’m not going to watch them and I want to hear about them. I’m just going to do my thing and be a normal person for a while and see what happens. So that first season after I retired, I watched every single second of every single game. And as I watched the Lions and I watched my teammates, I had this headache. It’s just a stress headache of like, what am I doing? I should be playing. And I was thinking, But here is what I really am like. The entire time that I watched the Lions, all I could think about was Don’t go to the super Bowl, Don’t go to the Super Bowl. And so, yes, that’s what I’m like. I was rooting against my team. I didn’t want them to go. And then about game five, I was like, okay, they’re not going to the Super Bowl. I can relax. And so I say that, right, because I’ve gotten over myself. I’m a fan now. Just like all of you. I’m excited for them. I hope they go to the Super Bowl. They got a real chance years ago. I also joke like this. Years ago I was walking down the street and I saw a guy with a lions t shirt on and it said just once before I die. 

And I think that most of us can relate to that, right? Just one time before I die. Now, another funny story with that is last year. If anybody has anybody here been to home plate, the Detroit Tigers faith and family days, anybody been here for that is a great event. If you hear about it, go if you have a chance before a Tigers game down at Comerica Park once a year in the summer, they just had I think a month or two ago they hosted a a wonderful event at the park where before the game in the stands they hosted churches and people. They have thousands and thousands of Tigers fans there. And what they do is they have Tiger players and the opposing team players come out that are Christians and share their faith. It’s a wonderful event and I was asked to participate this last year. And so as we’re sitting there and I was kicking off the event, I was the kind of leading it off. I was sharing that same story I just shared to you. I shared that I saw a guy once you had a Lions T-shirt that said, Just once before I die and I finish that statement in Comerica Park over the loudspeakers with this, I said, And I think the chances of that happening are much greater than they’ve ever been.

I meant before this guy dies, I think the Lions got a chance. Well, later that week, my phone started blowing up and it was friends and mostly my family, like Dad. What did you say? You know, What are you doing? That was bold. All these phrases. I’m like, What are you guys talking about? So they sent me a little article from Instagram from I think it was Woodward Sports and splashed up all over the Internet, was a picture of me. And it said, to quote Wright, I think the chances of that are much better than they’ve ever been is the right quote. But underneath it explains that, as Hansen says, the Lions are going to the Super Bowl this year. And I remember thinking, I didn’t say that. I said before, this guy dies, the Lions have a chance. Well, about three quarters of the way through the season, I started saying, hey, I said that. I told you we’re going to the Super Bowl. And we were one half away from me posting, reposting that all over the Internet. But as a last, they didn’t go. I didn’t say that. 

That’s how the media works. Anyways, couple of things. As I’m as I’m sharing about the Lions, I really I’m moving towards a point. But one of the things that happened when I played with the lions of all the stories and things I can share is I had the blessing of being able to play 21 years with the same team, played my whole career in Detroit. When I was drafted, I had no idea where I was going. I didn’t get a pick, came to Detroit. We didn’t know anything. I saw guys and saw that they had been here for five, six years. They look like men. They were built like men. And I was like, Man, how do you play that long? How do you how do you survive and how do you play in the NFL? And one year after another, I played two decades in the NFL with one team, which is a great again, great blessing to play just in one place. But the funny thing that happened to me that doesn’t happen to a lot of players is I got old, I got old playing in the NFL. My kids were old, I got old. And you know, you you’re in the locker room doing your thing. So you don’t think you’re old, but you’re old. Evidence of that is when I started my career, I actually used a hairdryer. 

That’s true. Second thing is when I came to the Lions and I started playing, Barry Sanders immediately gave me the nickname Baby J because he thought, I look like a little kid, so he’d always be like, Hey, what’s up, baby? J My nickname, my last year in the league on the team was Pops. They called me Pop, so I went from Baby J to Pops. Another funny story is at the end of my career, I had just finished and again feeling young, even though I retired, I wasn’t. I did an autograph session with a guy named Joseph Fourier. I don’t know if you remember him. When I didn’t play with him, he came in the year after I was done, but he was very popular. The girls loved him. He was tall, dark and handsome. He scored touchdowns. He was the toast of the town for a while. He played. So I just somehow did this autograph session with him. And as I’m doing this autograph session, he was the first hour. I was the second hour, and I showed up about 5 minutes before my time and they put up my little autograph station, extended it about 30, 40 feet past his as he was wrapping up. 

They just would kind of continue their way to me. So I had a few minutes of where I watch the people getting autographs from Joseph and I would watch this as the girls would get up to him. They would act silly because they were they were into Joe. And so they were giggling and laughing and they were blushing. And so I was watching this and I watched one of the last group of girls finish with him and make their way to me. And as those group of girls got to me, they pulled out. The leader of the pack, pulled out her card, and she set the car down in front of me.

And she said, Mr. Hansen, my mom is so excited that I’m meeting you today. So I had got all. The other thing that happened in football for me was this is that even though I’m the only person that does what the game is called, the game is called football. I’m one of two people on the team that touches the ball with their feet, and yet I’m one of the people who was least likely to be thought of as a football player.

And so I have all kinds of stories of my career being mistaken as anything but a football player. My first year in the league, when my wife and I came, we started attending a church by the apartment that we lived in. Our new refers to Detroit. We have a church right by us. We started attending it. Well, my wife was attending, but I wasn’t there because I was playing football and so my wife got to know some of the people. But most of the people at the church early on didn’t know the full story of what was going on. And so later that season, I believe it was the bye week I show up at church. And so all of a sudden there was a gathering of these ladies, some of the older ladies in the church, who obviously have been praying for this poor woman’s husband. Why she why her husband wouldn’t come to church? Well, I was there and they came up and they were asking to be introduced. And so my wife said, this is my husband. 

And I think this was the first time that these ladies had heard this. She introduced me, she said, and he plays for the Lions. And the main lady looked me up and down and she said, you must be the organ player. First of all, that’s the Tigers. And that is all she could judge is that I must be the organ player. Years ago I also did. I was involved in a business venture called Collectible Beans. Collectible beans. And what this was was coffee. It was high end coffee, and it was really well done, partnered with Great Lakes Coffee Company and it was a commemorative set of coffee beans. And what they did is they packaged the lion’s ax. You were going to be one of the first teams that had this. They were going to take legends from sports teams and make commemorative sets of coffee beans with them. And so they would have a bag of beans and your name. And so I was featured with the Lions, with Hall of Famers, Lem Barney and Charlie Sanders and Barry Sanders. These guys are all Hall of Famers, and they asked me to participate. So I said sure. 

So after months and months of development, I got my first box of collectible beans where each player there was five of us had a super well-done, high definition professionally produced package that would have my picture kicking. And I said, Legends roast Jason Hansen. And there was Berry and it was coffee beans. Beautiful. Well, I didn’t know this, but maybe you do. I thought coffee was just like Mr. Coffee. I’m not a big coffee drinker. It was instead our Dunkin Donuts coffee. I didn’t know that coffee was like wine, that it had flavor profiles. Did you know this? It has flavor profiles and people really get into it. So I didn’t know this. And as I got my collectible beans box and as I’m looking at the bags, I’m by myself. But I actually am. I don’t want to be pretentious. I will look at my bag first. I’ll look at berries and I’ll look at Charlie’s and I’ll look at lambs. And as I’m looking at their bags of beans and thinking, This is really beautiful, I noticed that there was a flavor profile on the side of these bags of beans.

And as I’m looking at these guys, these Hall of Famer football players, I’m looking at their bags of beans. I see that they have descriptions for their flavor profile, like earthy, deep, robust, intense, strong words like that. So I’m excited to get my bag of beans. I look at it and I see the flavor profile for my bag of beans, and my flavor profile is light, blueberry and smooth. So standing up here on a stage, if you ever wanted to know what light, blueberry and smooth looks like, I guess this is it. One more story and all this is going to segway into my faith and talking about Christ. One of the funny things about cooking, I joke about cooking. I got 100 stories of funny things about being a kicker right where you are 185, £190 in the land of 250 guys, and you don’t hit anything. You just run on the field and nobody can touch you. It’s weird, right? You’re the kicker. What are the things, though, with all the jokes? Is that what’s deadly serious about kicking is pressure. And I faced a lot of pressure in the NFL. That’s what you’re supposed to do. 

That’s your job. That’s why they pay you. But I didn’t know how much pressure I would be under in the NFL until my second year in the league. And I received what happens at the end of the season. You clear out everything, you get mail, you do your season ending mail from the fans. And that season at the end of the 1993 season, we played the Green Bay Packers in a wild card game and we lost. So the season was over, we came back down. Clean out your lockers. I lived in the area, so later that week I was able to get my mail, my season ending mail. So grabbed my last bits of fan mail and I go home. As I’m reading through it, I realized that I had received a letter from a young man and I saved. To this day, I have it here with me. It’s a letter from a young man named Kyle. And Kyle wrote me after the Green Bay loss in the wild card game. And I’m going to read you what Kyle had to say. Kyle said this and he just he actually stapled his fourth grade picture onto the letter. He drew a smiley. And this is what he said. He said, Dear Jason said, Hi, my name is Kyle, and my dad is in a football pool at work. 

The only time that we were close to winning was with the numbers 0 to 3 at the end of the first half of your wild card game. So we were so excited. We were really fired up because we knew that you would never miss a 30 yard field goal. Then the dreaded Packer miracle happened, which means I missed because I was going to get some of the money. I was wondering as if you would be so kind as to send me a $25 check with your autograph on it. I would be really proud to bring it to school and show it to my class. Your friend Kyle. Okay, so when my little buddy Kyle in the fourth grade was hitting me up from his loss gambling money, I knew that I was under a lot of pressure. And I share that story because this is funny. 25 years later, in 2018, my friend Don Mulberry was a player for the Lions. Tom Ewbank had played, I think at that time, 17 years in the NFL. He was being interviewed about his longevity and how he was one of the oldest players, if not all his players in the NFL. And part of the tag line was, are you going to beat Hanson’s record in Chicago? 

I was hoping, please don’t. So I started reading the article and Don Whitaker was there. So I started reading this articles on MLive. As I’m reading the article about Don MILBANK, I noticed that the author of this article is a guy named Kyle. As I read this article, the author’s name is Kyle Mikey, and as I pulled out my letter from 25 years ago, I saw that this letter from my little fourth grade friend was this kid named Kyle Mikey. And that’s not a common last name. So I thought, What are the odds? I took the letter down to the Lions and I went to our media relations department. We looked at his fourth grade picture. We immediately did this forensic age progression and we’re like, That’s him. So in 2018, that season before a game, a couple of hours before a game, we went up to the press box and gather all of the press around. And 25 years later, I presented Kyle with a $25 check that really happened. Okay, this is church and I want to talk about Jesus. And that’s why church is that’s why this church exists. What does any of this have to do with that with him? 

And this is how all of that lions talk and talking about the lions and having a lions theme, that’s how this is how this is going to relate is So after all those years in the NFL, sometimes at the end of it, you think, man, what did I really learn? What did I really do? I mean, how does how does swinging your right leg go on a resume? What am I what am I going to do with this? And what I found, though, was that one of the things that I became an expert in playing with the Lions is I became an expert in competition. I became an expert competitor. I trained and I lifted. And you slept and you ate and you had meetings and you had sports psychologists and you had nutrition. S And every ounce of every day was a schedule that was sole purpose was to figure out how to beat someone on a Sunday. I know there’s a Lions joke there. Don’t go for it. We did a lot of losing, but that was our job was to win. So I know competition. I see it. I know what it looks like. And here’s where I’m going. I know this even though we’re here today and I bet 99% of you I’ve not met before, I know something about you. 

I know this, that you’re competitive, too. I know that we are as human beings. We are competitive people, and that we love competition and that we love competing. And it’s not just for sports gives us away. Most of us love sports and the amount of money that we spend on sports and the time that we spend on sports and the watching sports and going to sporting events and your kids sports and your grandkids sports. Most of our culture revolves around sports because we love to compete. We love to compete. But if you’re here today and you’re like, Well, I’m not into sports, you’re competitive, too, because that’s how the world works. If you are in business, you’re competitive, that’s what you’re supposed to do. But if you’re alive, you’re competitive. If we admit it, we’re competitive with our friends, with our family, we’re competitive about our homes and our yards and our accomplishments, and we can be competitive about just about anything. So where am I going with this? This is very interesting. You might think if you have any, spent any time in church and have a knowledge of God’s word that competition has a dark side, right? 

That competition, the ambition, the the need, the desire to beat people, the desire to triumph over people, the arrogance, the pride that all comes with competition. There’s a dark side, believer or not. We’re not talking about that today. We just want to acknowledge it. Because you might think them with all of that, that the Bible might be like, Don’t be competitive. And in some ways it is, but it does not totally exclude competition. In fact, the Bible actually promotes competition. And what it says is what God says is that this competitive nature that I have in sports, that I’ve learned the competitive nature that you have, why would you not use that for what matters most? Why would you not take the effort and the thought and the time and the money that you spend for things that I spend for things that don’t matter? And why would you not use that for what matters forever? What has eternal value? In fact, how about this First Corinthians 924 says this Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize? 

So run in such a way as to get the prize. Every athlete who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that doesn’t last. But you and I do it to get a crown that will last forever. Once again, do you not know that a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize. So run in such a way as to get the prize. Every athlete that competes in those races in those games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that doesn’t doesn’t last. You and I do it to get a crown that lasts forever. The Bible says Paul, who wrote that under the influence of the Holy Spirit, this is God’s words. Is that why would you not take the discipline that all of us have a sense and of experience? Why would you not do that for the thing that lasts forever? So the Bible is contrasting things that don’t last and things that do. I know firsthand, after all my time in the NFL about things that don’t last, crowns that don’t last forever. If you play for as long as I did and you make it to where I did, you ended up being successful. And you’ve got awards. And over the years, for all the different levels of sports, I have different trophies, different plaques, different certificates, different memorabilia, things that were prizes. 

Do you know where my 40 years of playing sports? Do you know where all 99% of that exists? In my house, in my basement, in boxes? I hardly look at them once in a while. If I have to go down to retrieve something or for some reason I’m in a box, I’ll see some of that. I’m like, I forgot about this. Do you know what’s happening to those awards? They’re tarnishing, they’re rusting, they’re fading. They got dust on them. They’re not quite moth eaten yet, not that old. But I will be. There’s crowns that don’t last. In fact, am I playing time? I made a couple of Pro Bowls. One of the fun things that happens at a Pro Bowl is this. Is that the day of that? When you’re there at the Pro Bowl, they give you some things to sign. And actually what they do after a game excuse me, after a practice is they gather all the Pro Bowl teams up. They have you sit down in for 2 hours, they bring in a few hundred white paneled footballs and they have you autograph them. And it’s really a neat thing. They give them out to sponsors and important people in the NFL and certain fans. But they also give every player who plays a white town of football that is signed by your Pro Bowl team. So it’s very special. 

So for the couple of years that I played, I have a ball signed by every Pro Bowl player on my team and there they’re special. Well, years ago I went down one of those trips down to see those boxes and I pulled them out. And this is a true story. Whoever worked for Big Ten’s that year should be fired because all of the ink is faded. I now have white paneled footballs again, and those signatures of my Pro Bowl team have evaporated into thin air. I can’t think of a better picture of crowns that don’t last of things that are temporary. The Bible says this for the things that we see are temporary, but the things unseen are eternal. And if we’re honest, and I’m saying this because I’m the same way you and I spend most of our life competing for things that are temporary, competing for things that don’t last, competing for things that rust and that break and that get lost and that go out of date, that need repair. And yet these are the things that we treasure and that we put our hopes in and that this is what we were motivated for. And I don’t say that in any condemnation of you. I say that of me too. I am the exact same way. Randy Alcorn is an author who I love. 

I don’t know if any of you have read any of his stuff. He has a book called The Treasure Principle. I believe it’s in this book where he suggests that what America needs is a take your family to the dump holiday, a national take your family to the dump holiday. And he says this should be a national holiday where everybody every year, everybody gathers at the dump and they look out over the landfills with some binoculars. And he says that they should all begin to point out where all the things go that you hope for and dream for and fought over and had to have. Where do they end up the dump? That’s a very simplistic but very powerful picture of competing for things that don’t matter. But there are things there is something that lasts forever. The Creator, God, who made you, who made you for a relationship with Him has embedded in you eternity that only he can fill, that only he can. You can only have a relationship with him, and it’s only that which lasts. The Bible says this. And first, Peter praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and His great mercy. 

He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who, through faith, are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed. In the last time you and I are given an inheritance in Jesus Christ that can never be taken away. You are given eternal life, that can never be taken away, and that lasts forever and everything else is temporary. So the story of my life in the end, if I’m going to close with just a few brief points of why I’m here saying that, why am I using the Bible? Why am I talking about Jesus? Why are we gathered here at a Christian church about Jesus Christ when there’s so many other options out there and there’s so many people who would say, Y’all, this is a waste of time, There’s no God. Jesus isn’t who he said he is. Why am I, after playing in the NFL, why am I here putting myself up in front of you? Light blueberry and smooth? Why am I doing this? To talk about Jesus. I’m a briefly tell you three things that were impactful in my life to convince me this is truth number one was science.

Number one was science. Now, when you talk about sports and you talk about science, those are probably things that you may think don’t go together. But for me, they did. So I was a science major in college, actually, I was zoology, I was pre-med and ended up playing football instead. We sit in class all the time and when I would get my evolutionary theory and was told that the world is just an accident, but when I did sports, I thought otherwise. I used to sit there on the football field and I had a chance to watch Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson and some of the greatest athletes in the world. And I would have what you had. I would have a sense of wonder. I was like, This is incredible. That’s one of the reasons we love sports, right? Is we see people do things that we can kind of do, but they do them at a level that sometimes times is incomprehensible, right? The human body and the wonder of what the human body can do. There actually was a show years ago called Sports Science. Does anybody remember that show? 

It was on TV. I think it was TNT or something. It was so popular that ESPN picked it up and embedded it for a while in sports center. It was sports science. And what this little segment would do is they would analyze scientifically what the best athletes in the world were doing. They would break down the kinetics and the anatomy and all the science to show how can Calvin Johnson, who was six, six, 230, jump four feet straight in the air and run like a gazelle and can Sue was featured in sports science, a former Lions player. How can a man who’s £320 run like a sprinter? What would that be like to be hit by that person? So they do a sports science. What they basically determine was to was stand in front of a semi same thing. So as they would analyze these people, they would analyze the science. When I say science, that’s what I’m talking about. I would sit there and I would look at the players and I would look at World athletes and I would think I feel like I’m a normal person. Maybe I’m not the best person to judge. I did decently in school. 

I feel like I’m rational. I feel like I want to know the truth. And I cannot believe for a single sentence that this is all an accident. I can’t believe that this is the product of chance, that what I’m seeing and who you and I are as human beings and the wonder of sports for me. But perhaps for you as music, or perhaps for you, it’s art or whatever. Or perhaps it’s just looking in the mirror, which we all should do a little more and recapture the wonder of. It seems impossible to me to think this is just by chance and by accident. The Bible says this. You know what the first words of the Bible are? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth just to get one thing straight. From the very beginning. You are created. You are not an accident. We are not accidents. We have been created, you know. ROMANS The book of Romans goes on to say this about being created, right? It says, So what can we note about God is plain to us because God has shown it to us. God’s invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So you and I are without excuse. 

The Bible says that you’ll never stand before God, and we all will one day and say, wow, it’s really nice to meet you. Now, if you are just giving me a little more evidence, I probably would have believed you. No, but you just. I didn’t know the Bible says this about you and me. We know we’re outside right now with ground and grass and clouds in the sky and trees and human bodies all around us. The Bible says that’s enough to know the true God. You have been created. You are the product of a creator. So sports was that for me was helping me like, man, there’s no way that this can all just be for nothing. Pure accident by chance, science was big for me. Number two was satisfaction. The idea of satisfaction. When you get to the NFL, you have everything. Everything that you and I want. I had and I was around people. I like to talk about it this way. So the big three are in the NFL of what everybody wants number. We were rich. Admit it. It’d be nice to have a lot of money Pro athletes pro football players had that even today there are people if they were good, if they were to be paid every week during the football season, they would be earning over seven figures a week. 

So when they after a game and they pick up their check, you would have a seven figure paycheck. Can you imagine? I played professional sports. I can’t even imagine that That would be outrageous. They’re rich. Number two, they’re young. Isn’t that what we’re after? Youth? Isn’t there a chase for youth to be young and vibrant and have hair and to lose wrinkles? We all worship youth. Well, if you’re in a professional sports, you’re young. The average age of an NFL football player, I believe, is somewhere around 26 years old. So you are a young person and so you have that. And then the third to go with money and youth is power, power and influence. NFL players have that today. Our heroes, our athletes, our idols are athletes. So when you’re a professional football player, you have the big three. You’re young, you’re rich, and you have power. And what I found in the NFL was this, as I call it, as I lived on the other side of a television screen. For most of you in the land of high definition, I found this that you can have everything and you can still be missing something. 

You can have everything and have a sense of this isn’t enough. This it, and that happens. How can that be if you have the best the world has to offer was offered to us is where all peace and happiness comes from and you get it and then still run up a run to shore on the rocks of this ain’t enough. Something’s wrong. It’s exactly what the Bible said, right? That this isn’t enough. That you’ll never find peace apart from Jesus Christ. You’ve been created and you will never find peace and security apart from a relationship with that creator. That’s what the Bible says, and that’s I discovered in sports. There’s no peace, there’s no satisfaction in your field goal percentage, there’s no satisfaction in your paycheck, there’s no satisfaction in performance it can never be. Those things are temporary. You were created for the eternal. So the third thing for me, and really this is the main point, but it flows off of the others. The reason why I am a follower of Jesus Christ, where my faith is in Jesus Christ as my Savior, my Lord and 

Savior, is this is that I need a savior. 

That’s two thirds. I need a savior. NFL athletes need a savior. What I don’t need is another award. What I don’t need is a bigger paycheck. I would have loved to have played in the Super Bowl. Ultimately, I don’t need a Super Bowl. What I need is forgiveness. What I need is to be forgiven. NFL athletes need to be forgiven. You need to be forgiven. So when I talk about a savior, here’s the main thing. And here’s the word that we all need to be confronted with and be comfortable with, and it’s the word sin. The Bible describes as the greatest problem of my life in your life is sin. And we all know what that is, right? Every one of us has a part that doesn’t want any part of what God wants. All of us have a part that doesn’t want what God wants. We want to do it our way. We want to be the Lord of our own life. We all want the autonomy that comes with being answering only with only answering to ourselves. Right? But there’s a part of us that resists and rebels against. But God wants the Bible says this for all of sinned and falls short of the glory of God. God is good and perfect and holy and wonderful and beautiful. And if we are honest, we all fall short. 

Years ago there was a survey done and a morning host I was on in the car and the the radio host in the morning he asked the listeners who are listening. He goes, Hey, I’m going to tell you the results of the survey. This can be very interesting. I’m going to ask you the question. So he posed the question from the survey to the listening audience. He said this state in a single word, how you think God views you state in a single word, how you think God views you, Think of your answer to that state in a single word, how you think God views you. Do you know what the number one answer was? That survey, It was disappointment. The number one answer was disappointment. Now, there’s a lot there that we need to unpack, but one of the accurate things about that is what I just said, that you and I have a sense that our life wouldn’t measure up, that you and I know that we have done wrong, that you and I have we could stand before God and say, Man, I’m pretty good person. We know that we have done things. I have done things wrong. I hit this point home with a football example. 

I had a coach who years ago would come into every meeting in the Lions locker room, and when he would start the team meeting, he would paced back and forth up in front of all the Lions players and he would look at us and he would say, Gentlemen, you are your tape. You say, Gentlemen, you are your tape. Here’s what he meant. Tape Meaning film, meaning things that were filmed and videoed. So back in the day before digital, everything was in football was filmed. And it would be on reel to reel. And that reel to reel became via VHS tape. And that VHS tape became better tape. Maybe you’re familiar with that. And so everything in football, this film, every practice, every move, every game, because football is an orchestrated sport. And so they would film it and you would go in and you would immediately watch after practice or you would watch the day after a game. Everything that you did, everything that you did was on film and they would watch how you moved, what you got right, what you got wrong, and you would analyze it and correct it. Because the playbook is a thousand pages thick. 

Yes, lots to get right. You’re always cleaning it up. So when he would come in, my coach would come and say, Gentlemen, you are your tape. This is what he meant. He meant you guys are professional athletes. That means that you’re professional trash talkers. You guys all think that you’re the best and you tell everyone around that you’re the best. He said, Well, guess what I do as a coach? He says, I don’t care what comes out of your mouth. He says, When I want to know who you are as a football player, I take your game film, I take your tape, you go, I put it in the machine. I turn the volume off. I watch what you did, and that’s who you are. That’s who you are. You are your tape, man. That’s a powerful example of what you for. You and I, we are our tape. It doesn’t matter how we present ourselves to the public. It doesn’t matter how we act. It doesn’t always matter what you say. It’s what you do. It’s what you think. It’s who you are in private. It’s the game film of our lives so we can put on a pretense. You cannot put on a pretense with God. Let me talk personally. 

So my game film my tape before a holy God I know was not holding up. I always joke that when the game film of my life is played, none of you are invited to that world premiere. There’ll be no popcorn, no licorice, no concessions. I’ll be driving people away. I don’t want you to see that game. Film of the things that I thought about are the things that you’ve done in your life. Many of us, I hope all of us have a sense that we feel the same way. Here is why you need a savior, because our game film is not going to hold up, but someone’s is. The tape of Jesus Christ holds up. He’s righteous, He was perfect. He lived the life that I never could have lived. He died in my place. He rose again. He defeated death. He’s my savior when I stand before God because my faith is in Jesus Christ. It’s not my tape that’s going in. It’s the tape of Jesus Christ. That’s how I’m getting eternal life. Not because of my good works, not because of my field goal percentage, but Jesus Christ is who he said He is. He died. He rose again. He’s he’s resurrected. Lord, my game film is his game film now. It’s the beauty of who Jesus Christ is that’s offered to everyone here today. 

That’s why Christian churches exist. That’s why we put the cross up at our churches because that salvation that is the gateway to eternal life. And not just later. It starts now so that I and you can have a peace and a purpose and a meaning in this life right now that you could never have and anything else that you could never find in football, no matter what the glory, no matter how good the lions are, not the first one to be cheering when they go, it’s infinitely greater what’s offered to you and I in Jesus Christ.

So football was a wonderful way for me to get the best and to realize it ain’t enough. Jesus Christ is. So I am here today for that as a former football player to testify and to challenge and to offer to you. It’s true. I’ve never seen Jesus. You’ve never seen Jesus. We’re going to I’m going to see him as my savior and Lord. I pray that that would be for you today, too. So thank you for letting me share and to offer that up to you to just give a testimony. I pray that never, ever consider Jesus Christ as a true, real, historical, risen Savior. I pray that you would investigate. 

I pray that you would come to church. I pray that you would come to this church. I pray you would. Jesus Christ can handle your questions and he can handle your scrutiny. And he’s calling you to trust him on faith. So I’m going to finish a prayer as the worship team comes up here. And thank you so much for having me here today. Let’s pray, Lord, Thank you that you are the Creator, that you are the creator of this world, of this moment, of this air, of the world around us. And you are the creator of each and every one of us here today. Lord, you’ve designed us for a purpose. You’ve designed us for our relationship with you, but our sin has broken it, Lord. And every one of us knows what that means, that we are distant and rebellious against you. And we want our own way. Lord, I pray that we would turn our lives, that we would give up the rulership of our lives to you. That we would ask for forgiveness. The forgiveness that we need that’s only found in you and let you be the Lord of our life. I thank you, God, that I have found you to be faithful and true your holy. You’re right. Your ways are wonderful. They’re for our good. And I pray, God, that we would live in that today. Thank you for this moment. And these people in the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.