On Any Given Sunday

On any given Sunday. It's a term familiar to those who enjoy professional football.

This term refers to the competition that goes beyond what the so-called experts say about any one team.

This is a term that speaks of the intangibles. It speaks of the intangible things

like heart, desire, will, character, and the fear of defeat.

Those intangible things are

what oftentimes determine the winners and the losers on any given Sunday.

There are many teams that seem to be more superior on paper than the opponent

they are playing on any particular Sunday.

Sunday however one thing is certain once those

teams line up across from each other on the field of battle facts and figures

might as well just be thrown out the window in the north central or the NFC

north division we have two teams that line up for battle and are are almost

arch enemies their arch rivals.

On one side of the line stands a team named the Minnesota Vikings.

They are a tough and hungry team. The term, the name Viking means a pirate raid.

The original Vikings were from three Scandinavian countries.

They were pagans who raided Christian churches and cathedrals for the gold and money they could find.

They were mean and barbaric. They were

pirates who plundered and pillaged small villages on

their way to england on the

other side of the line the green

bay packers stand ready to match their skills and desire with their opponent

on their helmets they wear a large capital g and everyone knows that they're

not pagans because the big g stands for god they're They're God's team.

Just wanted you to know that. Anyway, so the phrase on any given Sunday means

that when those men line up and look into the eyes of their opponent,

they try to stare right into the soul of the other person.

Intimidation takes place. Adrenaline begins to flow. Breathing becomes rapid.

Sweat builds. And then the clash begins.

And that's in just in the line to the concessions. for 60 minutes bodies are

flung into one another and it isn't always the one who is in the best condition who wins,

it's the one who has the most heart makes the least mistakes and digs down deep into their soul.

On a given Sunday over 2,000 years ago, after Jesus had died on the cross,

Satan thought that he had everything in control.

He thought he had the better team on paper.

On paper, Satan appeared to be the victor.

On paper, he appeared to be ready for the victory in which he would claim the

souls of all mankind, all humanity, and defeat God once and for all.

However, something happened on his way to claim his prize.

You see, Satan did realize that this was the given Sunday.

You see, for a championship team to be built, a number of things have to happen.

First, the scouts go around the country and look for the best players at each

position and also whom they think will be able to turn into and come together as a team.

This is what Jesus did when he assembled the apostles.

On NFL draft day, those players are picked and courted and come together in

early June for training camp. When training camp and the preseason games are

over, the regular season opens, and that is when the real contest begins.

Jesus chose 12 apostles, 12 followers from the most elite of all the people

in Israel. Well, not really.

But he chose a group of guys that

he knew were going to be willing to come together under his leadership.

That's what we see in the media across the country.

We see the media in NFL before the preseason is even over, they're making their

predictions, and actually sometimes even before the preseason begins,

they make their predictions on who they think the winner of the Super Bowl will

be that year from the information gathered on draft day,

training camp, and preseason.

Then their predictions are played out over the season. On any given Sunday,

any team can beat any other team due to many different factors.

Injuries can completely take the most superior team out of the competition.

Mistakes, turnovers, and missed opportunities determine most games.

Satan thought he'd won the championship.

He thought he had won it all because he had killed Jesus. No one returns from

the cross, so he thought.

Jesus laid bloodied and battered and lifeless.

Satan thought that he would collect humanity and be the champion.

But there is another saying in sports, that's why the game is played.

You see, this game is played because on any given Sunday, the predicted outcome can be wrong.

That's exactly what happened on that given Sunday.

First thing that happened is the son's work. We're going to read from Hebrews

Hebrews 10:11–13

10, verses 11 through 13. Day after day, every priest stands and performs his

religious duties again and again.

He offers the same sacrifices which can never take away sin.

But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins,

he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies

to be made his footstool.

The preacher returns to his basic premise in this passage from Psalm 110, verses 1-4.

Psalms 110:1–4

He says this, Jesus was an eternal priest like Melchizedek, and he says this

in Hebrews, Jesus was an eternal priest like Melchizedek, who was to remain

seated until his enemies were put under subjection.

Jesus, having already offered himself as the ultimate sacrifice,

finally was able to sit down. He had used everything he had to pay the price

to buy us back from our slavery to sin.

He hadn't given up, but stayed in it until the end. He was in it to win it.

As a 10-year-old boy, Morgan Rowe was sitting on a moving tractor at his father's

fence company when he fell and was dragged under the machine.

His left arm was ripped completely off in the accident, and his right arm was badly mangled.

Doctors were able to restore some of the use of the right arm,

but the left arm was lost forever.

After three months in the hospital in 1980, this 10-year-old boy was released

with a medical bill totaling $30,000.

Remember, this was in 1980, so a $30,000 medical debt was an insurmountable mountain.

The story would probably not have been noteworthy if, under any other circumstances,

the $30,000 was paid by parents or whatever. But this was Morgan's victory over death.

And not only that, this was Morgan's victory in life.

You see, this 10-year-old boy accepted that debt as his own.

As soon as he was able to walk without any help, Morgan began to scour the roadsides,

picking up cans and bottles. He collected and sold newspapers. papers.

His mother said in an interview, Morgan has gathered hundreds of cans,

thousands of cans, I don't even know how many, started out with Coke bottles.

Then he read about recycling cans, and I thought he'd given up for a while,

but he kept it up. He's still doing it.

Went on to say that Morgan first paid off the $455 ambulance bill by collecting cans and bottles.

Then he put 2,500 down on the hospital bill.

The family raised another 9,000 toward the hospital bill.

Then in the month of July following the accident, someone mentioned Morgan Road

to the Bear Archery Company in Florida that made aluminum arrows.

Bear Archery Company donated its scrap metal to help out.

As the boy's story made headlines, contributions from thousands of people began and pouring in.

Donations totaled $25,000, more than enough to pay his bill.

The extra money was used to finance additional operations that Morgan needed

to restore more mobility to Morgan's left hand and arm.

Many of us would have given up, right? It's not our responsibility.

That's why why hospitals have share care or nonprofit-type giving.

But many of us were not Morgan Rowe. Morgan, now 11 years old,

stood up in the face of seeming defeat and overcame.

Many of us would have said, certainly no one had expressed us to go to such

extremes to pay this bill.

A 10-year-old boy assuming a $30,000 bill, that's just absolutely ridiculous.

Friends, Jesus faced his biggest battle and came away bloodied,

bruised, broken, and seemingly broken, but he paid the price.

He assumed us as his debt to pay.

Our sin is what causes our debt, but Jesus assumed our debt.

He gave his body as a sacrifice that has become our great salvation.

He is our great high priest who offered himself once and for all, for all sacrifice.

That is why that this given Sunday, that given Sunday, our great high priest

rose from the dead and sat down at the right hand of the Father,

awaiting the acceptance of his gift.

The second thing we see is the Spirit's witness.

In Hebrews chapter 10, verses 14 through 16, it says, For by one sacrifice he

Hebrews 10:14–16

has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also

testifies to us about this.

First, he says, This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord.

I will put my laws in their hearts and I will write them on their minds.

God has taken away the first covenant and replaced it with a better one.

The first covenant was intended to provide a covering for our sin.

The second plan, the second covenant, called for the complete erasure of our

sin. in. The second covenant was to begin the regeneration process to make God's

people holy and righteous in their nature.

How is God going to accomplish this? There had to be something more than the

first covenant of statement and atonement.

Though the blood of rams and bulls could never atone for sin for all time,

they could only cover over them momentarily.

They were never meant to cover over our sin forever.

In fact, they were only symbols of the sacrifice to come that was the one great

lamb, the Lamb of God who was Jesus.

No one has ever questioned whether those who lived by the terms of that first

covenant, which provided that the blood of rams and bulls could cover sin,

were actually covered by that sacrifice, were actually forgiven by that sacrifice.

It is only through the blood of Christ that both the first and the second covenant were fulfilled.

The blood of the sacrifice of Jesus brought forgiveness for sin,

but the overcoming of death is what brings eternal life.

You see, when Jesus stood up in that grave and walked out, he completed the job.

Christ's intention and purpose was never to stay in the grave.

His intention was to destroy the grave. O grave, where is your sting?

O grave, where is your victory?

A German princess on her deathbed ordered that her grave be covered with a great granite slab,

and that around it should be placed solid blocks of stone,

and that the whole thing be fastened together with clamps of iron,

and that the stone should be engraved with these words, this burial place purchased

for eternity must never be opened,

neither can God open this grave.

It happened, however, that a

little acorn was unknowingly buried in the process of covering the grave.

During the months that followed, the seed sprouted, and the tender shoot found

its way up through the crevice between two of those stones.

Years passed, and the small shoot grew into a sapling, than a huge oak tree.

It broke open the clamps of iron that bound the stone, pushed aside the rocks

that the princess ordered never to be moved.

Even God can't break this. What greater thing existed than a simple pardon?

It becomes very clear that the second covenant brought along with it the cleansing.

Jesus offered his sacrifice once and for all, and he sat down at the right hand of God.

All that people had to do, all that mankind had to do to be able to rise from

the dead, all they had to do was to accept the sacrifice of a a new and better covenant.

All we have to do is take that covenant of love written in our hearts and minds.

That's why on that given Sunday, our great high priest sat down at the right

hand of God the Father and awaited the acceptance of his gift.

And the Holy Spirit testifies of Christ's sacrifice through the transformation

of our lives from our sinful nature into righteousness. unrighteousness.

And then the third thing we come across is the justification or forgiveness of our sin.

Hebrews 10, verses 17 through 18 says this, then he adds, their sins and lawless

Hebrews 10:17–18

acts, I will remember no more.

And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. Do you get that?

Where our sins have been forgiven, sacrifice is no longer necessary because

Christ has done it, and it's over.

In these verses is one of the greatest principles of the new covenant.

When our sins are forgiven by God, something happens that's beyond our understanding or capabilities.

God forgets our sin and wipes them from his memory.

We receive a full acquittal for our sin. Justification is a judicial term.

It means means we have full acquittal for our wrongdoing.

I've heard somebody say it says it means just as if we'd never sinned.

It doesn't mean that per se.

The meaning is that it's a full acquittal for our wrongdoing.

God cannot deal with us as a tainted object by remembering our past,

but through the work of our high priest Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice for sin

has already been made, and Jesus has risen to his seat beside the Father.

Since we've accepted that sacrifice in faith through grace, God must deal with

us according to Christ's blood and not according to our own filthiness.

When God looks at us and sees his Son's blood, he knows that our sins are wiped

away, and Scripture says, as east is from the west.

What's intriguing is that God forgives and forgets much easier than we do.

Oftentimes we hang on to the despair of our sin when God has wiped it clean.

We cannot get over ourselves.

Isn't that sad? When God has forgiven us and released us and turned us into

a new creation, we keep digging in the old pits.

When will we ever learn? When the Civil War between the states broke out,

a young man who was engaged to a beautiful New England girl was one of the first

to be called into service.

Their marriage, therefore, had to be postponed.

He managed to get through most of the conflict uninjured, but finally,

in the Battle of the Wilderness, he was severely wounded.

The young lady he was engaged to, not knowing of his condition,

was counting the days until he returned.

She waited for a word from him but no

more letters came at last she

she received one addressed to her in a strange handwriting which read there

has been another terrible battle it is very difficult for me to tell you this

but i have lost both of my arms i cannot write myself but a comrade is writing this for me.

While you are as dear to me as ever, I shall now be dependent on other people

for the rest of my days, and I feel I should therefore release you from the

obligation of our engagement.

The letter was never answered. Taking the next train, the young woman went directly

to the scene of the latest conflict and sent word to the captain concerning

the purpose of her mission.

The man was sympathetic and gave her directions to where she might find the soldiers caught.

Carefully, she went out along the lines of the wounded, looking for her love.

The moment her eyes fell on him, she threw her arms around the young man's neck and kissed him.

I will never give you up, she cried. These hands of mine will help you.

I am able to support you. I will be your hands. I will take care of you.

If our sins have fully been blotted out, then there is no need,

no longer need for Christ's sacrifice.

The blood of Christ has already been made both perfect and complete.

Complete with his death jesus ushered in

a new way for us to enter into new and living

way this new way opened up a

passage through which we could enter with boldness into the throne jesus said

this quite easily and quite aptly i am the way the truth and the life no one

comes to the Father, except by me.

That's why that on that given Sunday, our great high priest completed his work,

sat down at the right hand of the Father, and awaits the acceptance of a gift,

his bride coming to join him.

It's the Father's will to remove the sin from the lives of his people,

and that can only come through the work of this priesthood.

However, the Old Testament priest who stood daily, was not the one to be the answer.

His work was temporary. His work was never finished.

In contrast, on that cross, Jesus cried, it is finished, and he finished the

work, and he is our great high priest who has won the victory forever and ever and ever. Amen.

He had completed what he had come to do. The Old Testament priest offered his

sacrifice often, Jesus offered his once and for all.

Old Testament sacrifices produced remembrance of sin, because when you did this,

when you sacrificed for your sin, you would bring the animal into the temple,

you would lay your hand on the animal's head while you slit the throat,

basically symbolizing that this animal dies for my sin.

And it's done over and over, and so you remember what your sins are.

But when Jesus came, a new covenant was born, and our sin is forgiven and forgotten.

As Jesus hung on the cross, Satan thought he had won, but you can't count a

team out until the final buzzer. We've seen that many times.

Jesus made the ultimate comeback victory in the last seconds of the game.

I would say it was a Hail Mary pass, but that's not what it was.

It was a thank you Jesus pass that won victory.

He died on the cross, took our sins to the grave, but he didn't stay there.

He rose again, conquered death so that we can have eternal life.

You see, what we celebrate in Lord's Supper is this.

Jesus's grave is still empty, and so is mine and yours.

On that given Sunday, once and for all, the sacrifice has been made,

and we remember this when we share the Lord's Supper, that Christ died for us.

Heavenly Father, as we close this time of worship, we ask you to send us out

into the worship field that is life, that our service may be pleasing and worshipful to you.

And now may the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now and forevermore as you

go and serve a world that desperately needs Jesus.