I was standing with one of our opponents assistant football coaches visiting, just as the players were taking the field for the first time to warm up during pregame. One of the football players came over to us and said, “Coach, one of my shoulder pad straps has come undone, can you help me?” The assistant coach and myself pulled up the front of the players jersey and restrapped his shoulder pad strap to the proper place.

After the player ran off to warm up, I remembered back to the night our coaches brought out the game day pants and jerseys. The very first time I would dress out in varsity game day clothing. It was essentially a practice session putting on our game day gear. As a sophomore, I was terribly excited to be putting on that jersey that I had wanted to wear for years. In my minds eye I could see the guys from the past years who had worn my given jersey number.

The pants were incredibly tight to get over my legs and hip pads. Once I put my shoulder pads on there was no way I could get the jersey over my pads. I had to ask for help. Everyone else needed help putting the jerseys on also. We asked coach, “Why the clothes were so small and tight on us?” He said, “I want them tight on you, so nobody can grab your jersey and easily pull you down.”

Football is the greatest team sport because you have to have help to even dress out in game day gear and if your shoulder pad straps come undone you may need help to put them back together.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10: Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.

Football glorifies the past history of great teams and players. ESPN does 30 on 30 stories from the past. High school and college programs honor past state and national champions. The media books of those programs tell the past history of these great teams and players. Telling the past history of your team helps you to recruit young players into the future.

In Christianity and our churches today are we telling our past history? Do we remember those who have gone before us and who have given everything, including their lives, in the attempt to further Christianity? Does your church have its roots in all the scripture and in the past history of the church? When I say history, I mean all the way back to the beginning of our story, Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David, Jesus and the Apostles. Also the past 2,000 years of both the good and the bad of church history.

We need to remember the past and the difficulty of being Christians. Jesus said the only way to the Father was through him. Some today have difficulty believing that statement. Because of that statement other groups want to make fun of us, persecute us and even kill us.

Maybe life in America has become too easy. Most of us have everything we need so what do we need God for? Who wants to be persecuted, made fun of or killed for being a Christian? Although, when difficulty does come to the U.S.A. such as September 11, 2001 or a great hurricane, or other weather phenomenon, people flock back to church to pray, to remember, to ask for forgiveness, to ask for God’s blessing.

Stephen was the first Christian martyr. His story is told in Acts 7. Stephen tells our early history and is stoned to death for it. Why would these men from the past die for this story?

During my college years at K-State, the guys I hung out with were all former very good high school basketball players. The guys were from Lyons, Topeka, Dighton, Scott City, Parsons and Shawnee Mission South as I recall. That guy from SM South was recruited by every college in the state to come play basketball out of high school.

They were all forwards and post players who were just awesome basketball players and I was a bench warmer in high school. They would come get me and tell me they needed a guard to distribute the ball to them. So I would go with them, just because I loved to watch them, once they got the ball in their hands.

Now this was in the days before Bramlage Coliseum and before K-State had the new Recreation building (Chester Peters building). All we had was Ahearn Fieldhouse upper and lower gyms. Every basketball goal had a half court basketball game going on, every night of the week except on Wildcat game nights during basketball season. The only court and goals that were allowed to be full court was the main court floor in Ahearn where the Cats played.

To get some court time, you had to challenge the team who won the last game at that particular goal. That meant you sat and waited until it was your turn to play and challenge. You could go anywhere in the building, but all the goals had games going on and a challenger waiting to play.

My group of guys only wanted to play in one place in Ahearn and that was the main court floor where we could play full court. The only problem was the main court was ruled by the K-State football players. The football players, who played on center court, were also former very good high school basketball players. I don’t remember any team ever beating them, but we kept trying.

Being lazy college kids we always played a zone defense. The over aggressive football players always played man to man defense, which we used against them with back door plays.

One night I crossed half court quickly with the ball. My defender, who I had got a step or two on him, was just too my left and behind me a little. As we approached the top of the key, my teammates saw what had happened and they all four broke to the outside at once. Their defenders all followed, so I went right down the lane for what I thought would be an uncontested lay-up. About the time I released the ball, a defender, who was guarding the post player to my left, on the baseline ran back into the lane and jumped and blocked my shot just before it touched the backboard at about eleven feet off the ground.

The shot blocking defender and myself landed on our feet just to the right of the basket in the lane. The defender immediately put two hands to my chest and shoved me out of the lane and yelled at me, “Get the Weak Stuff out of Here!”

The moment that it happened, I was not angry, I was just amazed at how quickly he got to the spot, how high he jumped and I had a new appreciation of how athletic these K-State football players were. But also over the years I have thought about a Bible scripture that seems to fit the situation well.

Hebrews 4: 15-16 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

We are weak, but we must approach the throne of grace boldly.

I have not even finished this book, but have decided to put in on here today. This is a great book about a great kid who only lived until he was 22 years old. He lived by Faith, Family and Football.

As a three sport athlete back in high school, I remember one of the local pastors or one of my teammates leading us in the Lords prayer or having a prayer said before every varsity football game I ever played in. What I don’t remember is ever saying a prayer before a basketball game or a track meet. Praying before a baseball game in the summer? Never did it. Football is different. The potential for injury is real. You cannot play the game of football without blood and bruises. That is the nature of the game, it is tough to play. That is why the game is not for everyone to play.

The pregame prayer was never about winning it was always about safety for the players on the field of play. Young men think they are invincible and it (the it being the big injury) is never going to happen to them. But sure as the sun comes up in the east, someone will never get to play the game again because of something that will happen during practice or in a game situation each and every year the game of football is played.

Old guys like coaches, parents and pastors know the big injury will happen to someone this year. That is why we should pray before each and every game. We should pray that our young men play the game as hard as they possibly can, but that they go major injury free.

Several years ago I was broadcasting a local high school football game on the radio and my radio partner could not be there until about half-time, so I asked the pastor who had married my wife and me if he would come and talk on the radio for the first half of the game. This pastor was a great fan of sports and especially of football. Early in our time during the broadcast he mentioned he had a grandson that had been playing football that year in another town, but had been injured during the first game of the year and was no longer able to play.

So I asked the pastor what happened to his grandson. The pastor said his grandson was returning the kickoff at the start of the game and severely broke a leg in several places and since this was his senior year he would never play the game of football again.

I asked the pastor if this injury to his grandson had changed his mind about the game of football and would he advise young men to no longer play the game anymore. The pastor said no he would still advise young men to play the game and injuries are part of the game, it was just unfortunate that his grandson was a senior and would never again get to play the game he loved.

There is much we can learn during our time playing football. Discipline, how to become a teammate, learning about how to work hard, sacrifice, honor, to lose, to win, to love, to be focused and on and on and on. We can also learn to pray and why to pray.

So let us celebrate our faith during the game of football. Send me your pictures where you capture your team or individuals praying. There will also be other pictures where great respect will be shown during other times of the game, send those also.

If you know where other great sermons about sports and or football are on the world wide web send me the link to the sermon and we can share the link with all the other football fans of Kansas and the other states that come to this website.

Do you like our website? If you do would you please send an email to someone today telling them about us?

The late days of August, the heat of summer and football practice means thirsty players. A long time ago, in what seems like another dimension, football coaches would only let us have so many water breaks. We had a single solitary garden hose attached to an outside faucet to get drinks of water. This was in the days before sports drinks were available for purchase. Nobody had even heard the term sports drink.

One hot afternoon at practice, the trainers mixed up this concoction in a 30 gallon galvanized trash can. (The trainers told us after practice what they put in the trash can.) A full box of lemon-lime Kool-aid, a large sack of sugar, several pounds of salt, several bags of ice and they filled the can with water from that garden hose and then stirred it with a wooden stick that looked like a broom handle.

We saw the trainers doing this as we practiced. Everyone was looking over and watching them wondering, “What are they doing?” We also wondered, what was coach up to, because he was always coming up with something new to try on us.

When water break time came the senior linemen were always the first guys in line. The trainers were handing out paper cups and telling everyone to get one cupful and then to step back to let someone else step up for a cupful. Well those senior linemen dipped one cupful and drank it and dipped in for another. All of a sudden it was a drinking frenzy. The guys loved the taste and were just going crazy trying to get more with different players crowding in to get their first cupful.

By the time the sophomores got to the trash can it was close to being empty. There was also grass clippings and dirt in the drink. We were so thirsty we didn’t care what was in it because it was wet and we wanted some. I dipped my cup in and drank it and never had I tasted anything so good in my entire life, up to that moment, on a blazing hot day in the summer.

Man was created by God for God. But all of us at times choose to live our lives independently of God. We choose to fill our cup with everything possible except God. So we continue to be thirsty and unsatisfied with everything on this earth.

Jesus said in John 4:14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

John 4:4-26

You have seen this player listed on the scouting report, he is 5’8” 150 pounds. You have watched film and the kid seems to be everywhere on the football field at the right place at the right time.

Over the years you have seen this kind of player on other teams. They have played in multiple positions, lineman, linebacker, cornerback, quarterback and you marvel at how does he do what he does? He gets away from blockers to make tackles. He outruns everyone to make a tackle, which seems impossible. He makes plays at quarterback or running back that you ask yourself, “Did he really just do that?”

When football coaches look at students walking down the street or hallways of the school they think, that kid looks like a linebacker or fullback or tight end etc. But when the coach looks at our, how does he do it football player, he doesn’t look like a football player, some of the time. We can underestimate what is on the inside of our young football players and it is a mystery.

The same is true of our Christian faith. You can have an individual, that does everything wrong in all areas of his life. They are the total screw up in our communities and always in trouble. Then one day they are introduced to Jesus and everything changes. They are the same when we look at them on the outside, but on the inside they are different. It is the mystery of faith and we wonder how did that happen?

Never underestimate God the Father Almighty and think again about that kid that doesn’t look like much of a football player.

1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

The football locker room is a special place. I for sure found this out about a dozen years ago during the first year we had the Kansas Pregame magazine.

That fall, for the first game of the year, I called the opposing coach my hometown team would be playing against. I would be traveling to the opponent’s town and wanted to know if I could bring him twenty five magazines for his team. He said, “Yes, bring us some, because we have not seen them.” Now remember, this was the first year of the magazine and it was not online and we only covered hundred schools that first year.

So when I got to town that Friday night, about two hours before kickoff, I thought it would be okay for me to go into the hometown locker room. Was I ever wrong! A great big ex-lineman type of an assistant football coach was standing at the door to the hometown locker room. I told him I had twenty five of the Kansas Pregame magazines for the head football coach and would he let me in to give them to the coach? The assistant coach answered with one word, “No!”

Is the sanctuary of your church a special place? As a junior high kid, at youth group, if I had to walk through the sanctuary by myself, the hair on the back of my neck would always stand up. The sanctuary was a special place to me then and still is today.

When I go to church today and see people with coffee cups in their hands or looking at their cell phones, I wonder if the sanctuary is a special place for them?

Sometimes at our churches, we have so many announcements about fund raisers and such that it makes me think about Jesus turning over the tables and kicking those money changers out of the temple.

I pray that you see your church sanctuary as special as you see your football locker room.

Matthew 21:12-13 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.”

I ran into an old friend from college at the state basketball tournament several years ago. He was coaching one of the teams in the tournament. When I went over to talk to him, he was sitting in amongst his players. As I approached my old friend he looked embarrassed to see me. The first thing practically out of his mouth was this comment, “Tim, I no longer do any of that stuff we used to do in college.” I guess he thought I might go into great detail about our past and in a loud voice try to embarrass him. Instead I said, “I don’t do any of that stuff either anymore. I grew up also.”

So my point is, don’t you ever come to this website and read these stories and then think that I must be a perfectly sinless man. Every day I must re-evangelize myself. I read my Bible everyday, early in the day. I pray and repeat the Bible verses I have memorized during my early morning activities.

And when I slack off and don’t do that Bible reading everyday, then it is easier to skip the next day and the day after that and so on. It is easy to fall away and lose the remembrance of God the Father in my life. The sinful life could then begin all over again.

I would rather stay with God the Father and serve Him. God has called you also. He has a job specifically for you at this time in history. No matter what you have done in your past, He wants you on His team. You are the only one that can fulfill that job He has for you at this present time.

Read the Book of Jonah. It is a very short book in the Bible. See how it worked out for Jonah to ignore God, and ignore the job He had for Jonah.

Sad story about Ben Heeney’s best friend from college