Football needs Rules and so does Life

‘The beautiful game’ has to have rules and regulations in place otherwise chaos would ensue. These rules are overseen by the referee and his final decision stands. When God spoke his beautiful creation into being, he introduced rules to govern the way things were to proceed and thereby not dissolve into chaos. Just as footballers sometimes ‘try it on’ with the referee and hope to get away with it, so we may think that we can stretch the boundaries of God’s law and he’ll turn a blind eye.

Contravening the rules of the game is called a foul. Transgressing God’s rules is called sin. In football, a foul may result in the referee issuing a caution, a sending off or a penalty. His decisions will not always be perfect. God, on the other hand, is all-seeing, all-knowing and perfectly just in his pronouncements. Nothing that we think, say or do is hidden from him. As a foul may result in a penalty kick or banishment from the pitch, so our breaking of God’s laws will ultimately result in the penalty of banishment from God himself.

Still relevant today

Now at this point, you may be thinking, “This is all very well but haven’t we moved on from thinking that God made everything, that he lays down impossible rules, (which we can’t keep) and then punishes us, even threatening us with hell? Anyway, what happened to the God of love?”

God is perfect in all of his ways. We cannot play off his love against his justice, since both are essential elements of his character. Indeed, God is compassionate, kind and loving but each of us will only know this by experiencing the way that he rescues us from the penalty that comes from our flouting of his laws. How does this rescue happen?

Consider the notion of a substitute. In football, a player may be withdrawn from the scene and a substitute will take his place. When Jesus died on the cross, he was taking, in our place, the punishment/ penalty due to our rule breaking.

Getting onside

The Christian message is a call to turn away from our wanting to push the boundaries, from disregarding God’s ways and to stop questioning his right to rule. Then we should hold onto Jesus as our substitute. In this way, we can know God’s love has forgiven and saved us.

When Jesus says ‘Don’t be afraid’

Here is a fishy story; well it’s about a fisherman really, whose name was Simon a.k.a. Peter. He shared in a fishing partnership together with his brother Andrew and their mates James and John. Between them the business owned two boats.

One day they were on the beach cleaning their fishing nets, having had an unsuccessful fishing trip the night before. Nearby, Jesus was teaching on the beach. The crowd pressed in closer and so, in order to give him a platform from which to continue speaking, Jesus asked Simon to take him on board his boat and push away from the shore a little.

Afterwards, Jesus blessed the fishermen by instructing Simon to take the boat out to deeper water and lower the nets for a catch. Simon pointed out that they had been out all night with nothing to show for it. Nevertheless, as an act of respect, he obediently lowered the nets.

The result was a large catch. In fact, so big was the haul of fish that Simon ordered the others to bring their boat so that they could get all of the fish back to shore.

A man’s conviction of his own unworthiness

What had happened caused Simon to wonder in astonishment. He had just witnessed an awesome thing. The implications of the words and power that Jesus had exercised went straight to his very soul. Instinctively, Simon seemed to understand just who and what he himself was when faced with the reality of one from God; the God of purity and power.

He fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" Now, Simon wasn’t what some might consider ‘the religious type’, just an ordinary manual worker. Nonetheless, Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

A new employment with Jesus

Simon’s encounter with Jesus changed the direction of his life completely. Within a few years, this unlikely character would be a leading light in the spread of Christianity, teaching and preaching about salvation i.e. sin, forgiveness and the promise of a life with God for ever.

When we are faced with Jesus, we may be fearful of being drawn into his net but he says, ‘Don’t be afraid’.

Jesus instead of us

A German bomber, which was bound for London, had been damaged by the local air defences. The engines were malfunctioning and the crew elected to turn back before reaching London and bomb Brighton instead. I wish to draw your attention to that word ‘instead’ (more accurately, ‘in-the-stead of’).

In the spring of 1941, a specific part of London’s commercial and economic buildings were to be destroyed together with people that happened to be in the way. When the bomber changed course, those particular buildings and people probably survived the night. In Brighton, however, buildings and people were to suffer the dangers from which London had been spared. Brighton suffered in-the-stead of London; we can even say Brighton was substituted for London.

Substitutionary death

In the Bible, there is the recurring theme of substitutionary death: an innocent party being offered in-the-stead of the guilty. In the millennia before Jesus, God taught the Jewish people that they might atone for their wrong-doings by following a sacrificial system. This involved the slaying of perfect specimens of goats and lambs as a substitute for their own far-from-innocent lives; lives that were in peril. Actually, God was not really pleased with such sacrifices but it was his way to get the people used to the idea of an innocent life atoning for those living careless and Godless lives.

The final substitute

A month ago, Christians celebrated Easter, recalling how the innocent Jesus was killed and his life-blood drained away. This event is what the whole sacrificial system had been leading up to.

At the end of the age, there will be a reckoning, a judgement with a penalty to pay. We may choose to disbelieve such a thing, or hope that we will pass muster by our own merits. The wisest thing, however, is to consider Jesus: his sacrificial death followed by his rising from the dead. One New Testament writer says that Jesus, ‘the righteous one’ died for unrighteous people in order to bring them to God. Another says about Jesus that he, the only ‘just one’, died for the unjust ones.

To make a positive response to this, we can turn about so that we face towards God. Then we may receive, in an act of trust, what Jesus has done in our stead.