The church is a church of athletes, we are continually running our race, boxing with the flesh and competing with ourselves for the prize of hearing God say, “Well done, My good and faithful servant (Matt. 25:23).” But we do not compete by ourselves, we have other more nefarious enemies to contend with. They too serve a master and his name is Satan. They claim to serve themselves or perhaps no one, but we the Christian know that while some may claim that there are no “sides” and no “Teams” we truly know there is. You are either a slave to the world, to the flesh to death or a slave to Christ and there is no in-between (Rom. 6:15-23). We compete in this day and age not against governments or policies, not against taxes and legislation, we compete against teams of a different nature altogether (Eph. 6:10-20).

 

What are the other teams? It would take me more than a lifetime to go through all of them but some of the major contenders of this day are Pantheism, Secularism, and Relativism. Pantheism is to make the world God, Secularism is to make science God, and Relativism makes self God. All of these things are our competitors and yet they follow only one rule that of Idolatry. The Christian must be well drilled to deal with these cheaters but here we must make an important choice: Will you follow the rules or will you try and subvert them?

 

There are many Christians seeking rather than to follow the rules, they appeal to the cheaters. They appeal to the pantheist by telling him the world was made good without explaining that it is corrupted by sin. They appeal to the Secularist by reasoning with him in human wisdom rather than using the Gospel to make the wise foolish. They appeal to the Relativist by saying he was made in God’s image without explaining that he is not God.

 

Often we make every appeal to the false rules of the world but rarely does a church make reference to the creator of the game when dealing with the other competitors. The Greeks seek for wisdom and the Jews a sign, but we preach Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:22, 23). We appeal to the first letter and origin of all things, the Word made flesh (John 1:1-5), and we conform to Him in obedience to him. While the other teams may try and subvert him and cheat themselves out of the prize, the Christian realizes that it is only in obedience to Christ that assures victory. We must stop appealing to the world’s rules, appeal to Christ’s Rule.