Upward basketball provides a safe space for coaches to teach and kids to learn the fundamentals of basketball.
Beyond motor skills like dribbling, passing, shooting, guarding, blocking, rebounding, Upward is also teaching them an even more important concept: How the rules work. Understanding the fundamental rules allows you to play the game correctly. Failing to uphold these expectations will prevent you from enjoying the game, damage your team’s chances of winning, and probably see you removed from the game.
But these aren’t the only fundamentals taught by the program. It also teaches the fundamentals of faith as well. As I work with my son each week to review what he learns in Upward, I’ve realized that there are some parallels between a sport like this and faith and life.
As with everything, it starts with God.
He’s the creator of the world, who always has been and always will be, a universal constant in the unpredictable world that’s always changing around us.
Genesis 1
Hebrews 13:8
The multiple aspects of God are like the various positions around the court. Along with being the creator of the game and designer of the rules, He now stands on the court acting as the referee. He sees everything we do and watches to see if it meets his standards. As such, it is imperative that we understand His rules about how it operates.
But how blessed are we that the designer of life, the creator of the world, is also our coach? Yes, God didn’t just make the rules and then leave the world to its own devices. This other aspect of God stands just across the sideline cheering us on. He wants a personal relationship with us; He wants to know us and be known by us. He uses the Bible, the book entirely inspired by him, ghost-authored through writers over millennia, as a playbook to teach us how the rules work and how to operate safely within them. He wants nothing more than to see us succeed!
But the Bible shows us a problem. It tells us that God is perfect, holy, consistent and uncompromising. He is his own standard for perfection, and cannot lower his standard for our sake. We have all broken the rules of the game; we’ve all fallen short of our coach’s his expectations. The Bible calls these failures “sin” and unlike in a game where penalties are minor inconveniences like free throws, points, or turnovers, the penalty for sin is death.
Romans 3:23
Romans 6:23
The thought of all of his beloved children being subjected to this penalty breaks God’s heart, but His perfect consistent nature cannot and will not permit Him to change the rules that He’s already put in place. God the referee needs someone to pay the price for breaking the rules.
Deuteronomy 32:4
Psalm 89:14
This is what your kids have learned so far.
But the referee is not without compassion. He knows that we are weak, that we couldn’t live up to the expectations he set forth, and He provided us a with a way to go on regardless. The rules were broken yes, over and over again, thousands upon thousands of times by each of the billions upon billions of people that have lived on the earth since God first created it, and the rules of the game, the law of this world, demands that the penalty be paid.
But a substitution can been made. Unlike in sports where a substitution puts a fresh player into the game in order to prevent weariness or mistakes, God’s substitution offers that Jesus, the only player since the game first started at the creation of the world to have never broken a rule, can take your place. Jesus stands with God at the scoring table, ready to take the penalty on our behalf for all the mistake’s we’ve ever made and all the ones we’ll make hereafter. Ready to rip our mistakes from the scorecard so that none can ever be added again.
2 Corinthians 5:19,21
Isaiah 53:4, 6
Romans 8:32
Ephesians 5:2
He has already accepted the penalty. His sacrifice has already been made. This substitution can erase the record of every player here, or none of them. God the referee looks out across the court and asks who Jesus is substituting for.
Romans 3:22
Don’t let that substitution be in vain. He made that sacrifice for you just as much as he did for me. Don’t let that go to waste because of pride or ignorance. The coach wants what’s best for you. Accept His substitution, and stay in the game for the rewards yet to come.
Romans 10:9
All we have to do is look to God, accept the substitution, and say “He’s in for Me.”
With permission to share by my son Steven Franklin
