LOVE THAT CONQUERED A HARDENED HEART
Text: I John 5:1 -6
1 John 5:1-6 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. (2) By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. (3) For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, (4) for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. (5) Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (6) This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth (NRSV).
Today I want to share the story of a prodigal father whose bad decisions had a chain reaction. He was supposed to be the bread winner. He was a “father of seven children”. He was an “alcoholic who worked on the railroad and didn’t live at home most of the time”. This prodigal father had created quiet a hardship on his family spending lots of money on booze and not enough on the bills. Naturally, the mother (Nancy) picked up the husband’s slack as she worked two jobs to keep food on the table.
The absentee prodigal father had a son who was becoming a prodigal son. We’ll call this son “G” for now. He was growing up as an angry young man. Like Hitler and Stalin, G’s father was an alcoholic. As G was growing up, it became more than obvious that the lack of a stable father figure in his life was having a negative impact on G.
It was G’s mother who held the family together in spite of the odds. It might have seemed to go un-noticed in G’s youth, but his mother was the one stabilizing force in his life that helped to keep G grounded.
Today we will explore a reveling rebel, runaway love and conquering love.
REVELING REBEL
Why do rebels become rebels? Is it because something is missing? Is it because of hunger? Is it because of hate? Is it because of a low self-esteem? Is it a survival instinct? Or, could it be a combination of all of the above?
1) Physical hunger: Can physical hunger motivate someone to do things out
of their normal character? Let me share a little snippet from G’s life that will help shed some light on how one thing could lead to another. G’s mother is working two jobs to keep food on the table for her seven kids and herself. (George Foreman. God In My Corner. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc. 2007, p. 117). G recalls how his mother, Nancy, would sometimes bring home a single hamburger to be divide eight ways. It was barely big enough for a bite. He grew up thinking that hamburgers were for rich people. He dreamed of the day he could eat a whole hamburger by himself. He also recalled the many times he carried the mayonnaise sandwiches to school. He sometimes envied the neighbor hood kids he played with as he sometimes saw them eating through a window tearing off the bread crust and pulling the skin off the chicken they were eating. He said that he would love to have these scraps that they would often feed their dogs. It would be years after he became a boxer that he remembered his stomach being full after a meal. (pp.4 - 5).
2) Spiritual hunger: After he became an adult, G finally became a success as a boxer. (p. 5). Though he was able to eat a full meal, G was starving to death spiritually. How many people does that describe in our world today? They have all that money can buy but no amount of money will ever be able to buy them the genuine and unconditional love of God that they crave!
Do rebels always win?
1) Lessons: As we know from the lessons we have learned and are learning from in life, rebels might win the battles they fight with others. But to borrow from the title of a musical, “their arms are too short to box with God”. Couldn’t you hear the voice of the announcer clarifying the size of the boxers in the match? “In this corner is the puny, the whiny, the finite lightweight. The other corner is terribly in adequate to accommodate the infinite God”.
2) Bad paths: God already knows what the results of what happens for those prodigals who choose the broad paths over the narrow way (Matthew 7:13 -14) that leads to life and the exploits of those who chose the far country (Luke 15:13). “We cannot understand Jesus’s being the Christ unless we accept that He is the Son of God”. (Francis J. Moloney. Daily Bible Commentary: James to Jude. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999, p. 146). That is why Jesus reminds us that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).
RUNAWAY LOVE
Why do people runaway from love? Are they afraid of making a commitment? Are they afraid of failure? Are they afraid of taking a chance? How many times have we seen the theme of a runaway bride in a movie?
How many people with the best of intentions make loving promises that they cannot keep?
1) Promise keepers?: G’s mother was no stranger to broken promises. G’s mother Nancy had “… grown up in poverty, being the daughter of a sharecropper who made his eight children work for him”. She always dreamed of getting an education. She was intelligent hoping to have that dream of her education coming true. “her father continually made her a promise he didn’t keep. “Just help me out this year, and you can go to school next year”. But, “next year” never came” and she missed the boat. (p.5).
2) History repeats: Nancy’s own husband might not have left her at the altar but what he did was much worse. G, Sr. reneged on his marriage vows because of his alcoholism. He left her with seven kids to feed. She had to work two jobs to do it. (pp. 4 & 117).
Can children out run the love of their mother? There was no way that G could out run his mother!
1) Discipline: G said that his mother was the only one who could control him in his younger years. He said that his mother was not one to waste time when it came to discipline like looking for a rod (a switch). She would reach for whatever was close, a shoe, a belt or whatever she could find. (pp. 5 -6).
2) Nancy’s illness: Months later, Nancy got sick with tuberculosis and wound up staying much longer than she anticipated in the hospital. (pp. 5 - 6).
3) A Divine appointment: A lady by the name of Mrs. Bonner filled the gap as a surrogate mother figure for G until Nancy got of of the hospital. It must have been one of those “Divine appointments” because G said that he was indebted to her because she was a non-family member who was telling him that “she believed in him”. G said he was a vicious, savage teenager by the time he was sixteen. (p. 7).
4) Planting the Gospel seed: His mother told him that he should be reading the Bible. When she would hand him the Bible he would pretend to read it to make his mother feel better. (p. 7).
5) The bully is back: After G’s mother Nancy got out of the hospital. G said he went back to of stealing and beating people up. (p. 7). He sometimes mugged people just to get some drinking money. (p. 8).
6) Job Corp days: He didn’t hold down a job for too long before he quit. Even as he joined the Job Corps he continued to be mean. He was challenged by someone who once beat up while listening to a fight on the radio. That guy challenged him, “Hey George. If you’re so tough why don’t you become a boxer?” (p. 10).
7) Doc Broadus, another Divine appointment.: George met Doc Broadus who helped train and mentor him as a boxer (pp. 12 - 13). George graduated form the Job Corps in 1967, moved back home. His mom, Nancy welcomed him. Doc Broadus tracked George down and called Nancy at home. Nancy in turn Asked Doc to help her son and get him away from there. >>>>> George went on to become a heavy weight boxing representative in the 1968 Olympic Games. Later, Doc admitted to George that he could not have said “no” to Miss Nancy. (p.13).
CONQUERING LOVE
George had conquered a lot as a boxer until the one day death almost conquered him.
1) Praying but not yet saved: George Foreman had come a long way and had beaten the odds. Then one day in a dressing room of March 1977 George died. (p. 26). There was a time when God answered his prayer to save George’s nephew but George still had not allowed God to be in charge of his life. (pp. 17 - 19).
2) Time to cut his losses or still lost?: He lost a match to Jimmy Young after twelve rounds. He returned to his hot dressing room and was pondering his life’s journey up to this moment. (p. 23).
3) Reminiscing: He was reminiscing to himself about his success. He went through his list of successes. He was pondering about going home to his ranch. (p. 24).
In his own words, George said to himself, “I lost the fight, [to Jimmy Young] that’s no big thing. I’m George Foreman. I can do television and movies. I’ve got money to travel. I’ve got everything I want. I could go to my ranch right now and retire. And die. That---dying was the last thing on his mind. George had heard how sometimes boxers die after big fights but George did not want to become one of those statistics. (p.24).
4) Agnosticism: George believed that there is a God but he did not believe in God as in having a a relationship with God. He argued with the voice of God that keep pushing him asking him “if he believed in God, then why was he afraid to die?” He offered his money and God said that He didn’t want his money. God said he wanted him. Finally, George said “God, I believe in You---but not enough to die”. (p. 25).
5) Near death experience: Thinking he was about to die, he began to think about his mother and how she had been so good to him and believed in him when there was nothing to believe in.
George talked about dying and then before he could get the words out of his mouth, he did die. He found himself in a deep dark void while sensing other people that he couldn't see or speak to because relationships didn’t exist there. He didn’t think he would get out of that deep dark void and he got mad because he knew he had been cheated by the devil's lies. He screamed, “I don’t care if this is death. I still believe there is a God.”
6) A second chance: George calls the first twenty-eight years of his life a charade and the next chapter of his life round two---his second chance. (p. 34).
If George were here to tell his own story, then I think he would wrap it up by asking if you "Have been born of God?"
1) New creature in Christ: George was a new and transformed person as he came back to life. He realized that God had spared him. While still lying on the table, George sat up straight and yelled at the top of his voice “JESUS CHRIST IS COMING ALIVE IN ME!” … He jumped off the table and began to tell everyone that he loved them. … Then he headed for the shower and began to shout “HALLELUJAH, I’VE BEEN BORN AGAIN!” (pp. 30 -31).
2) Stifle?: George’s team tried to stifle---mute him from talking about what had just happened in that locker room. They sent him to the hospital and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. George’s tried to appease the media who were seeking to get the scoop claiming “Heat prostration” and coached him to say it. The they let the press in as he said, “Heat prostration”. Before he could say anything more, Gil, one of the members of his team began to give his explanation as to what he thought happened to George. Over the years he tried to talk to his team about what happened but they always changed the subject. (p. 34).
3) Transformation: The transformation---the new chapter in George’s life was obvious in his words and actions. He sought out the people who hurt him across the years to tell them he forgave the. He also sought out the people whom he had wronged and asked for their forgiveness (pp. 36 - 44).
4) Called to preach: It was later revealed to George that he was called to preach. Fast forward. One day George was street preaching and his alcoholic father was nearby. It was yet another DIVINE APPOINTMENT. Through his preaching and the movement of the Holy Spirit, George's father, George Sr. gave his life to Christ. His father completely gave up the alcohol for the next twenty years of his life. His father not only started attending church where George was preaching but even helped him when he went street preaching. His mother Nancy got so envious that she started attending church there also. (p. 118).
Never estimate what God can do! God used George's mother to be a godly, powerful and influential force in his life. God obviously gave George's mother, Nancy, the wisdom that she needed to reinforce how she believed in him in ways that helped him to reach his unlocked potential. God uses our mothers to help us remember who were are. Proverbs 22:6 reminds us of the biblical wisdom that God gives mothers in raising their children by "training them up in the right way so that when they are older they will not stray" (Proverbs 22:6 NRSV paraphrased). It is no secret that God has given all godly mothers the ability to nurture their children to help them reach their unlocked potential. George Foreman is known for his boxing career, and his cooking machines but not everyone knows his journey and how his mother helped him get there. His journey tells us that God ‘s love can conquer a hardened heart!
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
(all quotes and paraphrases listed by page numbers within the text of the sermon from : George Foreman. God In My Corner. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc. 2007).
