Identity in Christ and Sports
ESPN Films 30 for 30 is known for their excellent films over the last several years. Perhaps one of the best from this series is the documentary highlighting the life of Marcus Dupree. Marcus was a highly touted high school football player during the early 1980s who eventually played for the University of Oklahoma and the Los Angeles Rams.
Marcus’s football career was cut short due to a knee injury that forced him to leave the game. This unfortunate injury most likely led to the title of the ESPN film, The Best That Never Was. Barry Switzer, who coached Marcus at Oklahoma, said one time, “Those that saw him play know that what they saw was greatness.”[1]
Other films have illustrated similar storylines where certain gifts and abilities are taken from athletes too soon. King Solomon warns us in Ecclesiastes that life is meaningless unless God is the greatest reality in our lives (Eccl. 1:1-11). What happens when we place too much of our identity in the created rather than the Creator? Emptiness is found at the road’s end when anyone finds his or her identity in something other than Christ.
In this essay, we will see how sports and recreation fit into the Biblical storyline. We will also consider the need for believers (especially students and young adults) to see their sports contexts as a way to give glory to God, specifically by building in these areas to share the gospel.
The Biblical Storyline
If you’ve ever attended a baseball game on Opening Day, you know that something feels right about the experience. Opening Day is filled with a sense of optimism for many fans that’s hard to match in any other sport. Much like baseball, we find pleasure in recreational activities because they place us in a context where we are participating in God’s creation.
When God created the heavens and earth, He was creating the atmosphere through which we throw fastballs, catch touchdowns, and score goals. He was also gifting human beings at the beginning of time with finely-tuned bodies to participate in His creation through recreational activities.
After the Fall, however, we as human beings experience difficulty in our relationships. The Fall touches every dimension of our lives, including the world around us. For this reason, players have disagreements with one another—maybe from the opposing team or between teammates. Players also experience fatigue and their bodies break down which leads to limited playing for a certain period of time, and sometimes cutting short careers, such as Marcus Dupree’s.
Not only does a player experience difficulty with his or her horizontal relationships, but their vertical relationship with God is also broken. To that end, players may feel the need to justify their existence in their gifts and abilities rather than the God Who made them in His image.
The Object of Our Hope
In his book, Counterfeit Gods, Timothy Keller defines an idol as “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.”[2] The temptation for many athletes—professional or amateur—is to let anything finite or created absorb the passions of their hearts. Sports are no exception.
Many Christians feel the need to belong or find justification in the temporary rather than the eternal. It is sadly ironic for some that when these idols are removed, or do not satisfy, they charge God with injustice. However, Augustine put it best when he said, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”[3]
Athletics aren’t the only area where believers can devote their time and make it their means of happiness in life. Academia, clubs, friends, or the approval of others can become the primary satisfaction for some. These areas aren’t inherently bad, but can become the primary consumer of our time and attention. Whatever the area may be, believers should regularly examine their hearts to make sure their identity is found in Christ alone. The same things that are the object of our hope and satisfaction are the objects of our faith.
Family, recreation, academia, clubs, and friends: all of these are wonderful areas in which God gives us to enjoy. However, ever since Genesis 3, humans have been looking to justify themselves in the created order rather than the Creator. Thankfully, we’re not justified by the amount of work or success we have in any one of these areas. Rather, we’re justified by the atoning work of Jesus Christ alone.
Consequently, believers must reorient the focus of their lives toward God in these areas mentioned. C. S. Lewis says, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”[4] Jesus’ work on the cross points us toward the satisfaction we long for.
Christian Mission on the Field
Christian liberty will be important for those trying to decide whether sports is too much of a distraction in their walk with God. For some, the demands and requirements of organized recreation may be idolatrous. For others, and for recreational activities in general, we can use the relationships on the field as an opportunity for mission. We should remember that Christians have received the societal command to produce cultures that honor God.
Culture is something in which we’re all involved and recreational activities are no exception. Bruce Ashford rightly notes, “As Christians, therefore, we want to take advantage of every opportunity to shape our cultural activities toward Christ. . . . Every cultural activity is an opportunity to practice discipleship, to employ words and deeds in Christ’s service, to orient our lives toward Christ.”[5]
Students playing on a particular team are forming relationships with other people that may give way to evangelistic opportunities. Furthermore, the parents may have open doors to become friends with nonbelieving parents and coaches. These are unique opportunities for mission. Students should use the relationships they’re building in these areas to share the gospel. They should resist the temptation to see the field as exempt from glorifying God through evangelistic witness.
The mistake would be to think of God being above the created order with no interest in areas such as work, politics, or recreation. However, God is actually working in the world through His people to “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:30). The message of reconciliation can reach people in any number of settings, and will begin affecting our lives in these settings as well.
Conclusion
As Ebby Calvin LaLoosh says in Bull Durham, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains.”[6] Sometimes the sport you love can lead to emptiness if your identity is not found first in Christ alone. The grass withers and the innings in a baseball game fade away, but the Word of our God will stand forever (Isa. 40:8).
What better way to tell a watching world that you value Him more than anything than to find your complete satisfaction in Him alone? Only Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross can give us the justification we seek.
While idolatry is a temptation for many students involved in recreational sports, I don’t think complete abandonment is the answer. Again, Christian liberty will be important in these areas. Carl F. H. Henry noted, “We must strive to reclaim this cosmos for its rightful owner, God, who has title to the cattle on a thousand hills, and for Christ who says to the lost multitudes, “I made you; I died for you; I ransomed you.”[7] We should fight the temptation to see our lives separated between what is sacred and secular and seek to bring every area we can under the lordship of Jesus Christ alone.
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[1] The Best That Never Was, Film, Directed by Jonathan Hock (Bristol: ESPN, 2009).
[2] Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters (London: Dutton, 2009), xvii.
[3] Augustine (354-430), NPNF1: Vol. 1, The Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 1, Chapter 1.
[4] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 120.
[5] Bruce Ashford, Every Square Inch: An Introduction to Cultural Engagement for Christians (Bellingham: Lexham, 2015), 132.
[6] Bull Durham, Film, Directed by Ron Shelton (Los Angeles: Orion Pictures, 1988).
[7] Carl F. H. Henry, Twilight of a Great Civilization: The Drift Toward Neo-Paganism (Westchester: Crossway Books, 1988), 44.
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