PH 5-minute Bible teaching
Tackles and battles
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In this clip, we dive into Christ’s teaching in Matthew 16 that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His church. So often, we live in a way that reverses the metaphor.
In other words, we see ourselves as playing defense; defending the Kingdom of God against the attacks of plundering, pillaging forces of evil. But that isn’t what Jesus taught, which is why I try to explain in this clip.
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So without further ado…
Transcript: Tackles and battles
Thur, May 18, 2023 : Peter Heck
NOTE: This is an automated transcription, please overlook typographical and grammatical errors.
(Begin transcript)
When I was in junior high, some of you will remember, I was about 4’9 and 85 pounds, roughly around that. And so when you are a small little dude like that, you've got to do something to prove to all of your classmates that you're not a weenie. And so I did the only thing that I could do, I joined the football team. So seventh grade, I'm playing football for the mighty Eastern Comets. And the shoulder pads were bigger than I was, doesn't matter. I'm playing the whole year.
We get to the game against Western and like by halftime, we're down by 30 some points. And so the coach, Coach Stuckey, he realized, “Well, it's not like he's going to hurt anything.” So he puts me in on the kickoff team, because we had to kick off to start the second half. So I'm one of the gunners on the end of the line. My job, if you know football, is to run down the field and keep the ball carrier to the inside of the field so that our tacklers can go up and do their thing. We don't want to let him get to the sideline.
Well, as I'm running down the field after the kick, I start to notice that these guys around me from Western, they're not 4’9 and 4’10. They're like 6’10, and they're like 275 pounds. So I start thinking, because I'm a thinker, and I realized there is nobody way back there by our endzone to protect it in case those guys break through our tacklers. Well, that needs to be me. So I stopped running and I turn around and I run the other direction. Okay, I'm running with Western this way. And my Coach Stuckey, he is just sitting there like what is this idiot doing?
So I get back there and I'm protecting the goal line and everything was fine and everything would have been fine. Except he broke through our tacklers. And pretty soon I'm facing this dude from Western and two blockers and they're coming right at me. And so I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, well, maybe they won't see me. But they did. And I'm telling you, I wanted to run out of the back of the endzone or lay down but I couldn't move. It's one of those times where you're so scared, you just can't move at all.
And so as they're getting closer, these guys did not have the courtesy to run around me. Okay, they saw I wasn't going anywhere. But no, they had to prove their point and come right through me because it's Western. Anyway, so they're coming right at me and I just said a prayer. I was like, “God, this is going to happen it looks like, so if you could be here with me, that'd be great.”
Then collision, and I'm gonna go on record, okay. I'm going to tell you I had those guys, those dudes pretty freaked out. They thought they had killed me.
It's about, I don't know, 10 minutes later, something like that. Coach Stuckey is lifting me out of the ground. And he's trying not to laugh. There's the tufts of dirt and soil in my helmet. And he's looking at me said what happened? And I remember saying, “Coach, I was almost killed.” And so now he does start laughing. And he said, but do you know why it happened? And I say, oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that they're 6’10 and I'm 4’10 might have something to do with it. And he stopped laughing. He said no. And he gave me a football lesson that day. It's been a life lesson I think applies perfectly here. He said, “Peter, if you watch college or professional football, some of the toughest hitters are the smallest dudes that play with the greatest heart. They fling their body all over the place. From now on, you attack the ball, you hurl your body at them, and you never know, despite your size, what kind of tackles you're going to make and what kind of battles you're going to win. I told my mom that he said to throw my body at the attackers and she said we're not playing football anymore.
Anyway Christians, when you go on offense, that doesn't mean that you're trying to be offensive. Do you know what it actually means? Here's what it actually means. You don't have to flip there. I'll flip there for you and just read this. It's exactly what Jesus says in these verses. Verse 17, “Jesus replied, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was revealed to you by man, that I am the Christ. I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, the rock that I am the Christ, the Son of the living God, on that truth, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it.”
The gates of hell will not overcome the church. I want you to remember, gates are a defensive structure. They're not an offensive structure. Here's our problem. Christians, we live our lives reversing the metaphor, we reverse the metaphor. We think that we are the villagers, the innocent villagers, and Satan and his minions are plundering pirates that are coming in and are attacking us. And we have to defend the fortress, that we have the gates and we're playing defense. But that's not the metaphor. We're not taking up positions in defending the gates of hell will not prevail over the assailing church. Friends, you and I are the pirates. Argh mateys. You and I are the ones who are pillaging hell. We are plundering we're servants of the Most High God, and we are plundering hell.
We are on offense, the church stands out and we are moving forward. We're not battling against flesh and blood. We're not fighting against people. That's not who our objective is. We are warring against powers and principalities in spiritual realms that are holding people captive. That's what you and I are doing. And in that battle, we will stand out and I'm telling you, you live in a culture where you feel outnumbered by everybody around you. They’re different than you are, and you stand out.
I'm going to tell you exactly what Coach Stuckey told me. If we attack them with the power of the resurrected Messiah as our weapon, who knows what kind of tackles we're going to make? And who knows what kind of battles we're going to win for the Lord?
(End transcript)