A Call To Christian Athletes

A Call to Christian Athletes

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.” Exo 20:8-10

“If because of the Sabbath you turn away your foot from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and honor it, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.” (Isa 58: 13-14)

Christians believe the Christian Day of worship is Sunday, so this is not a discussion whether we worship on Saturday or Sunday.

This is a call to Christian Athletes in America to refuse to play sports on Sunday.

You call yourselves Christians; then obey Christ, and not men, stop playing on Sunday!

The fact that all sports teams have chaplains who conduct some sort of worship meeting on Sunday before the game is an acknowledgement that Sunday is the Christian day of worship, and that they should not totally ignore it; they don’t conduct those worship services on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or Saturday.

The word “Sabbath” is just the English spelling of the Hebrew word “Shabbat” which means “rest.”

The command is to rest from our labors, and for professional athletes, their labor, their job, is obviously the sport they play, and so they are clearly breaking the commandment. Colligate players often have scholarships, that means they too are playing for money, it is like their job. Those playing for pleasure, are still breaking the command: “not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure”; all organized scholastic and recreation league sports played on Sundays are breaking this command.

Christian, we are to rest from those things, set the day, not an hour, aside for God; i.e. meeting with his people to worship him.

We are told to “not forsake the assembling of ourselves together” Heb 10:25.

It is the Sabbath DAY, the Lord’s DAY, not just an HOUR.

I have often thought of this as a tithing of my time; I tithe 10% of my income, but God wants more of my time, then my money; he wants me to tithe 1/7 th of my time.

Remember God set up the 7 day week!

He could have set up any number of days as the “week”. If he wanted less of time than our money, he would have set up a 11 day or more week.

He ordained 6 days for labor and 1 for rest/worship, and by his own example, showed us what he wants, present tense, us to do.

The point of this Blog is not to promote a ban on sports, it is to stir up Christian Athletes to refuse to play on Sunday, and thereby to obey/honor God rather than man/society.

If Christian Athletes at all levels, Professional, Collegiate, High School, and Local Town Recreation Leagues would refuse to play on Sunday, out of Religious Conviction, you my dear Christian brothers and sisters, could put an end to this gross dishonoring of God.

How many thousands of you are there!!??

Goggle this: https://www.ranker.com/list/best-christian-nfl-players/pedro-cerrano

You will get 35 men who claim to love Jesus, yet dishonor him every time they play a game on Sunday, and that is just Football.

The same Google search can be done for professional baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, tennis, track and field, race car drivers, etc.; and then added in Collegiate, High School, and Recreation Level athletes, and the number would be many many thousands.

Did not Jesus call himself “The Lord of the Sabbath”? To dishonor his day, is to dishonor him, just like dishonoring the US Flag, is to dishonor the country. Can you honor your wife, by disregarding her wishes; and this is not a wish, or a request, or a suggestion, this is a command of King Jesus, our Lord and Savior, ruler of the universe.

How can you tell people you love Jesus, yet dishonor his day?

How can you tell people you love Jesus, and yet not met with his people, hear his word, sing his praises, on the day he has established for that activity.

We cannot bear a credible Christian testimony, while we are dishonoring Jesus; it is like witnessing to a drunk, telling him drink is enslaving him, while going to the bar and getting drunk with him!

If the non-Christians want to play on Sunday without you, then let them, that is how things work in our pluralistic American society, we do not have the legal right to stop them, just like they do not have the legal right to stop us from going to church, but do not go along with them, assisting them in breaking God’s law, by breaking it yourself.

This is what is meant by, “Therefore let us go forth to Him outside the camp, bearing the reproach that He bore. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” Heb 13:13-14

“Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Mrk 8:38

Those are very scary words!

Identify with Jesus, side with him, bear the reproach that will absolutely come your way, when they call you “holier than thou” etc, but remember, your home is in heaven, not here, and your reward is a “crown of life”, not a Stanley Cup Trophy or a Super Bowl Ring.

“And every man that strives for the mastery (this is a sporting term) is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.” 1Co 9:25

We use the following verse regarding marrying un-believers, but they certainly apply here as well.

“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what part has he who believes with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live in them and walk in them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Therefore, “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.” And “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, a says the Lord Almighty.” 2Co 6:14-18

And you, “Team Chaplin” you are helping these athletes in their disobedience, not to say your own terrible testimony! It is like praying before you help a person sin; what kind of logic is that!

Are not the words of Malachi right to the point:

“A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the LORD of hosts.” Mal 1:6-8

God gets 15 minutes; the crowd and the game get hours; that is giving God the “lame an sick.”

Sports are not inherently wrong or sinful, but placing them above Jesus is!

Sports profit a little, but godliness, i.e. obeying God, honoring Jesus, that is the most important thing.

“For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable in all things, a holding promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” 1Ti 4:8

Identifying with Jesus, publicly stating, “I am a Christian, I obey God,” and then living accordingly, that is what being a Christian is all about, and that requires breaking ties, going against the flow.

“By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time. He esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. He endured by looking to Him who is invisible.” Heb 11:24-27

This is exactly to the point; the sin is dishonoring Jesus, by “doing your own pleasure” when you should be giving the day to him, gathering with his people, and telling the world, “I am looking for a reward that is greater than the accolades and honors you give me when I sink a 2” round white ball in cup buried in the ground, in less strokes than the other guy.”

In the eternal scheme of things, does getting the ball in the cup really matter?

Moses counted the reproach of publicly identify with Christ greater riches than the treasure of Egypt, and those treasures were enormous; he did not fear an earthly king, he feared God.

In the early 1980’s we were attending a church in Bergen County New Jersey, right across the Hudson River from NYC, and a member of the NY Jets, the wide receiver or safety, and his wife started attending during one of the summers. They both professed to be Christians, but come August, gone! Football won out.

In the movie “Chariots of Fire” when Eric Liddell is meeting with the king of England and another man, and they are pressuring him to race on Sunday, the other man tells Liddell, “This is your king,” and Liddell’s reply is, “There is a King higher than the king of England.”

Christian Athlete - fear God, fear Jesus Christ! What will you say to him when you stand before him, “I bore a good Christian testimony while breaking your law,” do you really think he will buy that line? You played for the money, for the fame, and for your own name’s sake, not his!

It is in your power to stop sports on Sunday, and honor the Lord Jesus.