The Right Playbook

The Right Playbook

“Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2 He went up to the temple of the LORD with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets—all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the LORD. 3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the LORD—to follow the LORD and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.” 2 Kings 23:1-3

Intro: It is great to be in church with you today and to worship and sing and praise together.

There are lots of awesome things going on each week here so you don’t want to miss a single Sunday.

Every week I hear people talking about Sunday morning worship is the highlight of their week.

I hear how encouraged you are by the warm welcome and genuine love by the people in this place.

Today we are hosting the Johnson Central football team at the 10:45 Prayer Clothe Service.

I am going to share again just a little bit of the opening from last week’s Prayer Clothe Service.

To set things up for today.

I am the father of two grown children. They both loved to play football.

There is almost a four year difference in their ages.

So I was very involved in football for over a decade.

I worked the concession stand as a dad and did my tour as President of the Football Boosters.

My oldest son Brandon could not get enough football.

Out of high school he played for the Knoxville Knights a simi-pro branded team.

Here is a picture of Brandon

Another picture of Brandon with the love of his life my granddaughter. She is on her way to becoming 6 now.

Trent is my youngest son and he also loved to play football:

Here is a picture of his junior year of high school.

See his name at the top team lift 585 lb.

That makes my whole body hurt just to say that.

He is a beast.

(He played rugby at Eastern Kentucky University)

Here is another picture of Trent and his girl friend Taylor.

The title of today’s sermon is “The Right Playbook”

I remember going over the high school football playbook with my boys.

The front of the playbook had some basic comments about good sportsmanship.

There were illustration of basic signals and calls by the referees.

The playbook contained descriptions of different team formations.

Diagrams of the both offensive and defensive plays for the team.

Some were the most frequently used tactics and others were sets of special plays.

The playbook contains a set of codes for each play,

so you know exactly what to do, what your position will be and if executed just right - make a successful play.

It is important to study the playbook, to keep up with the playbook to make sure it did not get lost.

Jason Brookins tried out for the NFLs Green Bay Packers.

After one day’s work out with the team, as the evening wore on,

There was a knock on his door and the voice of the assistant coach,

Brookins, coach wants to see you, bring your playbook.

Now during tryouts this warning usually means that someone was to be cut from the team

and that warning might be it for Brookins.

So Brookins became very upset.

In fact he was so upset and worried over this that he started going crazy.

Instead of doing as he was told to do and go to see the coach with his playbook,

he packed up his things,

left his playbook,

turned off his cell phone, and left for the long, discouraging, drive home.

He couldn’t face the rejection.

However, as it turned out, the coach

simply wanted to update some information in his playbook for the next day’s practice.

But without gathering enough courage to face the possible consequences

and now without his playbook, he was also without a job.

To an NFL Player, the playbook is the most important part of his life.

It is their guidebook, it is their life. Without a playbook, they are without a job.

Tom and Mat were best of friends, they played football once a week for 50 years.

As they were getting older they had an argument if people play football in heaven.

So they made up that whoever dies first will let the other one know what happens in heaven.

After Mat dies he comes to Tom in a dream and tells him, “Sure enough. You were right!