“March Madness”
Pt. 1 – Foul Truth
I. Introduction
Welcome to my favorite time of the year. If you don’t know I am a basketball fanatic. After I watch a game live. I go home and watch a game on TV. Unlike football, I will watch any game of college basketball at any time. Therefore, this is my favorite time of the year because March Madness means basketball everyday all day!
My love affair with basketball began early, but was then forgotten for many years. In about the 6th grade I went out for my school’s basketball team. I can still vividly remember the first day of try outs when the coach did me a major disservice and caused me to forget about basketball for awhile. During try outs he called me and another guy off to the side and told us we were too short to play. I didn’t pick a basketball up again until I was almost 15. Then after church, every Sunday, my friends and I would play all afternoon. This renewed love of the game carried me into college where it only deepened. I discovered you don’t always have to be tall to be decent at basketball especially if you have one key ingredient – speed.
I have never lost the love of the game although, I no longer play because my body just can’t keep up with my mind. I know what to do, but can’t do it quick enough to be competitive.
Through the years of watching, playing, and even a short stint of coaching a high school team (you didn’t know that either did you?) I have learned that basketball can actually teach us some very important life lessons and for our time together over the next 4 weeks some very crucial spiritual lessons.
This morning I want us to begin our March Madness discussion by learning “Foul Truth!”
I have recently watched several sports casters talk about a change in the game of basketball. Then I came across an article that addressed the same topic. Listen carefully:
College basketball is steaming toward a crossroads. A game once built on speed, passing and quick movement has become bogged down by ever-bigger players focused on physical play.
There have been a rash of flagrant fouls and flying elbows this season, which have caused alarm among NCAA and conference officials. Those elbows, and one notable face stomping, however, are part of the bigger issue of how physical the game has become, particularly in heated conference games.
Don Shea, a regional supervisor of NCAA basketball officials until he retired in 2008, thinks the game has simply become more bruising. Shea says that post play has been the focus of college basketball referees for years. The organization has worked to clean up the pushing and hard fouls around the basket. What has happened, he says, is that the game has gotten harder to police inside because of the size of players and a too-narrow foul lane, among other reasons.
The intensity of the post play then infects the rest of the game, Shea says. Pretty soon, tempers are flaring out on the floor, not just under the basket.
To prove that point, this season referee Curtis Shaw, who has officiated 85 games so far, has called the most fouls at 3,274. Referee Todd Williams, who has officiated 41 games so far, has called the least fouls at 1472.
If you take the high number of fouls and low number of fouls and divide by the average number of games they called that means they averaged calling 75 fouls a game.
Like it or not fouls are part of the game. Some people think that basketball isn’t a contact sport. If you believe that, it simply means you have never played. I believe that most of the time the outcome of a basketball game is determined by aggressiveness. The players don’t wear mouthpieces for nothing!
I have news for you this morning, fouls are not only a part of the game of basketball they are also a part of life and unfortunately our Christian walk and experience.
Luke must have understood that fouls would constantly be a part of our spiritual experience. That must be why he said in:
Text: Act 24:16
And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.
In other words, Luke is saying I have to do my very best every day to make sure that I don’t get offended/fouled by God and men!
II. Truth about Fouls
We have to understand some things about fouls!
1. You will be fouled and you will foul – expect contact.
I wished I could tell you that your life and spiritual walk would be contact free. However, life is violent at times. You will get bumped and bruised. In fact, I would say that if you aren’t hurt then you aren’t living.
Jesus realized that fouls are a part of life. He even said that they are needed! Why are offenses necessary? Without resistant nothing grows. Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies – the dirt resists the growth.
Matthew 18:7 Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!
The word for offence (foul) is “skandalizō” or “Scandelon.” It is where we get the idea of scandal. To “scandalize”; to entrap, that is, trip up (figuratively stumble or entice to sin, apostasy or displeasure): - offend, a trap, stumbling block. To bait. To cause to stumble and fall. In the NT, figuratively to be a stumbling block to someone, to cause to stumble at or in something, to give a cause of offense to someone.
Fouls are a part of the game and if we are not careful they will cause us or we will cause someone else to stumble and fall!
Can I just be very blunt with you this morning? You will be fouled! You should not be surprised. You should not think you are the only one. You should expect it as part of the game! Likewise, as perfect as you are you will foul someone! I know you think you never foul; some of you are like those guys who hammer folks and then throw up their hands when a foul is called and act like the ref is crazy. You will hammer someone at some point! No one plays the game completely clean and contact free! So no holier than thou I never hurt anyone stuff!
2. How you react after a foul is absolutely crucial!
You have several options when you are fouled!
a. Deny it. You know those folks, they are immune to pain! They never show hurt. They keep the stiff upper lip and refuse to be real. And they are usually angry, messed up folks who ultimately either explode or walk away from game altogether.
b. Get mad and then try to get even. You certainly know these folks.
They never forget the foul count. They are always looking for a way to foul harder than they were fouled! They are constantly on the warpath! People like this don’t understand Proverbs 18:19 “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.” By trying to get even they are themselves in bondage.
c. The third reaction is to get fouled and quit. These are the folks who can’t handle the contact. They get hit and they give up, pout, go home and refuse to put themselves in a situation where they might be fouled again! Of course they never score either!
Can I tell you that I am tired of seeing people get fouled and quitting the game?
Stay in the game. It is part of it. Did you think that you wouldn’t be fouled! If religious folks fouled Jesus why wouldn’t they foul you? If you avoid fouls at all cost you will never get in the game. You can’t live like this. I’ll just stay at home and avoid the contact. Grow up! Get back in the game. You can’t score from home! You can’t win at home!
d. The fourth reaction is that you can get fouled and you can finish the
play.
These are the players who can get creamed and still seem to have the ability and the wherewithal to get the job done even though they have been knocked off course and off balance.
Finish in spite of the foul. Even though you have been knocked off
course momentarily, score! Take the contact. Don’t let it sideline you or stop you.
Call the foul. Acknowledge the foul. Blow the whistle. Then get back to the game!
Jesus said it like this:
"Be on guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I repent’, forgive him.” Luke 17:3-4
The word “rebuke” means to charge the brother, to explain to him what he has done. It does not mean that we have the right to get in his face and let him have it with everything we’ve got. Accept the foul, call the foul, and then move on!
Proverbs 19:11 “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.” The Amplified Version says it like this, “Good sense makes a man restrain his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression or an offense.”
In other words, if you overlook a foul you are living in glory!
By the way, you can’t take someone else’s foul! You have seen players raise their hand to try to take teammates foul. You can’t take their foul and you shouldn’t take on someone else’s foul or offense. Too many of us aren’t the ones fouled. We see someone we love fouled and if we aren’t careful we try to take on their foul. Solomon very clear teaches us that if we try to do this that we cause more pain!
Proverbs 17:9
“He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.”
3. You can foul out!
Have you ever met someone who is a foul factory? They are like a bull in a china shop. Hurt anything that moves. After a while they foul out! We must guard against being like this because if we foul out we hurt the team and we are disqualified from participating. You are cut off. That is why Paul teaches us in 2 Timothy 2:24 how we should play the game. He says, “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to knowledge.”
One of the types of fouls that can be committed during a game is an Offensive foul. It is also called a Player Control Foul. These fouls are called when a player is out of control! Too many of us are out of control. Our mouth, our actions, those little smirks cause contact. We constantly create contact. Some people know how to lean in. You know those guys that can always seem to lean in just at the right moment and get the foul called. We need to be careful not to draw offensive fouls.
You don’t help the team if you are stuck on the bench due to foul trouble. Some of us stay in foul trouble because you like a good fight, you continue to open your mouth and make judgements or accusations, refuse to forgive, and continue to stir things up. Did you know that according to Paul anyone who is constantly stirring up division and offences (fouls) should be marked and avoided! Some of us just need to quit fouling!
4. You will most likely need a ref!
I wished we could go back to the game we used to play as youngsters. Then everyone would call their own fouls. That usually doesn’t happen in life! I believe the idea of utilizing a ref is the most underutilized truth in word.
We get fouled and quit, walk away from game or avoid the person rather than bringing in a ref. I just hang out at home and stay away from those foulers. Why not do what God says to do and bring in a ref? Jesus was very clear in what we are supposed to do if we think we have fouled someone or if someone fouls us. According to Matthew 18:15-17:
15“If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him—work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you’ve made a friend. 16If he won’t listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. 17If he still won’t listen, tell the church. If he won’t listen to the church, you’ll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God’s forgiving love.”
Call the foul. Go one on one and then bring in someone else. We don’t like to do this and we ignore the instruction because it is hard and uncomfortable. But if we don’t do it we may lose a teammate and we may foul out.
Then Jesus goes one step further in Matthew 5:23-24:
23“This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, 24abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.
Jesus is teaching us to do our very best to call our own fouls. However he is also saying that if someone fails to do so that doesn’t mean we quit, get mad, or try to get even. Instead we take a ref and work it out!
There is a second type of foul that occurs in a game is a Defensive foul. These are more common than offensive fouls. These are the fouls that you don’t mean to commit. Often you may not have even known you fouled. These fouls in basketball are generally caused being out of position. The player reaches rather than moving their feet or they are late getting to a spot on the floor. The foul would not have occurred if the player had been in the right position.
Most of us foul when we are out of position. When we aren’t as close to God as we should be. When we are in the wrong place. We are in the wrong environment or state spiritually, mentally, emotionally. If we were in position we wouldn’t foul. By the way, it is hard to be fouled when we are in the right position too. Folks can’t lean in when we are positioned correctly. Even folks that are out of control can only foul if we aren’t positioned correctly – keep eyes on God and not on men. That is what Jesus is saying. Be so sensitive and so in tune with our position with God and man that we are willing to deal with the fouls rather than risk being out of sorts with God or man.
III. Close
You can’t play the game without fouls! It is part of it. Expect it, deal with it, call your own fouls, and utilize a ref before you quit, don’t let being fouled keep you from participating, and don’t foul so much that you are disqualified.
Basketball is a team sport. To win you have to be in relationship. Relationship is more important than talent. Just think about the dynasty Kobe and Shaq could have established if they had been in relationship and had good chemistry.
Most of our struggle in this game we call life and Christianity is because of our struggle with relationships. We don’t win because we don’t trust. We don’t play because we aren’t in harmony. Remember a blessing is commanded to the place that has unity. So does that mean if there is no unity we are not blessed? How many of us live unblessed lives because harmony/teamwork has been broken or breached and we are so uncomfortable with the remedy that God prescribes that we would rather forfeit blessing than obey!
Prayer – Pray for those who have been hurt. Pray for all that we won’t hurt. Restoration. We have a choice blessing or no blessing.
