Ron Brown's Kingdom Sports Minute

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.

DOER OF THE WORD I had a college football teammate named Harry Walls. I think he was the only Christian on our football team. And what really ministered to me was that wasn’t just a hearer of God’s word, he was a doer. It says in James 1:25 – One who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. Harry Walls by the way he played football, the way he did football, he took the Bible study out onto the field and played in practice with that kind of intensity for Jesus Christ. That ministered to me. That was a great testimony to me. I eventually gave my life to Jesus Christ because of Harry Walls being a doer of the word.

FREE THROW ANXIETY I’ll never forget it. Refereeing a basketball game, I handed the ball off to an eight-year-old little guy who had to take two free throws to send the game into overtime. He had to make both of them. Well little Johnny stood at that free throw line at eight years old and his knees began to wobble and all of a sudden he dropped the ball and began to cry. What happened to little Johnny? Why did he fold up like that? You know Proverbs 12:25 says this: Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad. If only little Johnny had known that the Lord Jesus Christ loved him with all of His heart, he wouldn’t have had to worry about missing that shot and being the goat of the game…or thinking that if he makes the shot he’ll be the hero. He didn’t have to think like that at all. He could have offered that shot to the Lord Jesus Christ and taken an anxiety-free free throw, giving himself the best chance to make the shot. Mom and dad, you may not know anything about a free throw, but you can see anxiety in little Johnny’s heart. How will you address that biblically?

GLORIFY CHRIST WITH EFFORT One of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen in pro-football happened to be in a Super Bowl game. The Buffalo Bills versus the Dallas Cowboys. Of course we know that the Bills had lost like four Super Bowls in a row. And in one of those games it looked like, again, another loss. They were way behind with just a few minutes left in the game. Wide receiver Don Beebe for the Buffalo Bills was way down field when Jim Kelly, the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills was sacked and the ball was picked up by a Dallas Cowboy defensive lineman named Leon Lett. He started to run to the end zone for yet another Dallas Cowboys score. It was no doubt that the Buffalo Bills were going to lose this game. But Don Beebe was like a streak of lightning, sprinting many yards to finally catch Leon Lett when it seemed like everybody else on his team had just kind of gone through the motions on that play. Beebe tackled Lett before he got to the end zone, forcing him to fumble. Well it had nothing to do with the outcome of the game. The Cowboys still beat the Bills. But Beebe got hundreds and hundreds of letters from people wanting to know why he was willing with just a couple of minutes left in the game to go so hard. And he said it was because his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It didn’t matter what the circumstances were, he was going to glorify Christ with his effort. Is that you? Is that me?

Jesus made an amazing statement in Matthew 7:13-14. He said – There are two roads to life: One’s a very broad road, leads to destruction, many are on it. He said the other is a very narrow road that leads to life, only a few are on it. Which road are you on? You know, I talk to my players a lot and, you know, sometimes I see a tattoo or on them or some type of a signature, you know, in their book or what have you, that has something to do with a Bible verse or something about God, and I ask them, “What does that mean?” And they tell me, “Well, I think it means this, that, and the other.” But when I look at their life I see something completely different. It seems like they’re on a different road. There's a lot of toys out there for these athletes. Drugs, alcohol, and sexual favors, and all those kinds of things. But the best deal yet is to follow Jesus, even when it’s the narrow road with just a few on it. Are you willing to follow Christ and forsake the crowd?