Sermon Central
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Introduction: In 1976 Vince Papale Was A 30 Year ...
Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 18, 2007 (message contributor)
Introduction: In 1976 Vince Papale was a 30 year old Substitute teacher and bartender in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. He and his buddies spent most Sunday afternoons in the Fall either playing football at the park or watching the Philadelphia Eagles play on tv. Week after week they had high hopes, but week after week they got beat. (Those of us who are Titans fans can relate to that can’t we.) Then a New Head coach was hired a man by the name of Dick Vermeil, who had led UCLA to a Rose Bowl win the previous year. Vermeil convinced the owner of the Eagles to hold public tryouts, mostly as a publicity stunt to stir up excitement among the fans, who hadn’t had much to cheer about in recent years.
About the same time Vince Papale lost his substitute teaching job and subsequently lost his wife. Vince went to talk to his father and see what he though about Vince trying out for the Eagles. His father advised him not to because as he put it “a man can only take so much failure.” On the other hand all of his football buddies and a few of his co-workers encouraged him to try out for the team.
Most of the people who tried out were out of shape has been’s or wantabees. At the end of the day the only one to be selected was Vince. At the age of 30 he became the oldest rookie in the NFL.
But even though he may have convinced Coach Vermeil that he could play, he still had to prove himself to the rest of his teammates, which he eventually did out of sure determination and hard work. He is named the captain of the special teams unit and became a local hero and fan favorite. Eagles fans were crazy about the idea of a regular working class guy coming down out of the stands and getting into the game.
Well, I think there are a lot of Christians today who need to do what Vince Papale did. They need to get out of the stands and into the game. Some of you here this morning need to stop being ‘benchwarmers’ and get involved in the life and the ministry of this church.
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