Title: "Even Big Leaguers Use Tees" I brought with me a prop. This is not something I usually do, but as I was thinking of today, I couldn’t help but think of Head and Shoulders Shampoo. So this morning I walked to the grocery store (and I have to say it was the first time in my life that I walked to the grocery store, and this morning was the first time in my life that I walked to church) and bought a bottle of Head and Shoulders (and I have to say that it is a little embarassing to be the only person in a grocery store, and buy nothing but a bottle of dandruff shampoo). Do you remember the Head and Shoulders slogan? "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."
This is my only chance to make a first impression as your pastor. I’ve met a few of you, but then I was just some guy. This is really my first chance, here in the preaching moment, to do what I do as a pastor. And I can’t help but wonder what kind of first impression I’m going to make. So I’ll leave this here as a reminder of our first impressions.
I want to make a good first impression - but I have to tell you I’m not too interested in being impressive. I hope that you’ll find me to be a sincere, honest person, but I’m not into a big show. I’m not much of a schmoozer. It may sound strange, but I’m really pretty introverted. I like a quiet morning by myself as much as a big party on a Friday night. And at the same time I am pretty social. Sarah and I like having friends and being with other people.
At any rate, first impressions can be important, and I can’t help but wonder what you may be thinking about me right now... Fairly young, a little overweight, nice hair... Maybe a little nervous. Its hard for me to tell what you are thinking. Maybe you’re nervous that I’m going to come in with some crazy seminary ideas, maybe you’re excited because you’re hoping I’m going to come in with some crazy seminary ideas. Isn’t it funny how thin a line there is between nervous and excited? I have to say, as far as first impressions go, our first impression of living in Chenoa has been wonderful. This is really a great time of year to move in, and we’re looking forward to the rest of the week.
As time goes by, and we move beyond first impressions, you might find that as a preacher I might get pretty excited every once in awhile, but I think when you’re talking about the love of God and salvation in Jesus Christ its okay to get excited. In fact, I think Jesus wants us to get pretty excited. He has no need for luke-warm Christians. Another thing that you will find out quickly as you get to know me is that I am a sports guy. My Daddy was a high school basketball coach, and taught physical education for thirty years. If it involves a ball, I’ve probably played it, likely have watched it, and definitely know about it, and if my competitive side kicks in, I can probably whoop you at it.
I’ll try not to use sports metaphors too much, but today I am going to start with one. I have an 11 year-old nephew named Austin. A few years ago he was in little league. One day I was talking to him about baseball, and he was not too enthused about it because he was not doing well. So he and I went outside to practice, and I pitched some balls to him and gave him some easy things to remember - like keep your elbow up and hands together. He improved as we practiced, and I encouraged him that he would do fine if he just kept practicing. The problem with baseball is that is hard to practice by yourself, so I suggested that he use his tee. But he thought this was a silly idea. Tees are for little kids he explained, astonished that I would even suggest such a thing. My response was to ask him if he knew who Sammy Sosa was - and back then every kid knew who Sammy Sosa was - and I told him that he still uses a tee (unfortunately he was probably using something else at the time, but that is not important now). All big leaguers use tees, I explained.
Every spring they get them out to practice their swing. He was shocked to hear this news. Even big leaguers use tees. Big leaguers use tees to practice their swing over and over again, they isolate every move in their swing, and make it as efficient as possible. They understand the importance of the fundamentals, so they practice it over and over again. In order to perform at the highest level - they must first have the basics as perfected as possible.
We as a church and as Christians are no different. I believe in the fundamentals of Christianity. Now, I have to be careful here. Current usage of words have taken on different meaning than they are intended. I am not a Fundamentalist in the modern sense of that word, but I believe that we as Christians need to have down the basics, and it all really comes down to one thing, and that is the Scripture that we read this morning. We’re getting to know each other slowly, but I’ll let you in on a little secret now.
One of my professors told me about his secret to preaching. He was a pastor in central Indiana for a few years. One Sunday after church one of the matriarchs of the church shook his hand, looked him in the eye and said, "I know your secret." Suddenly a little worried, he asked what she meant, and she replied, "You only have one sermon, don’t you?" And he smiled and admitted, "Yes." So I’ll tell you now, I pretty much have one message.
I’ll have many sermons and Bible stories, complete with anecdotes and illustrations, but they will point to one thing. If the question is, "What does it mean to be a Christian?" My answer will be simple: Love God and Love Others. There are many implications to that. In the coming weeks and years we’ll learn together about what it means to a person, what it means to a church, what it means to be in the world, but it all boils down to what we shared for Scripture today.
That’s it. That’s the Scriptures, as summed up by Jesus himself, and I don’t plan on trying to improve his summary. As we have seen this morning, you can actually find this same directive all over the Bible. It is in the Old Testament. It is in Paul’s letters, and it is in the words of Jesus. If the Bible is clear about anything, it is clear about this: Love God and love each other.
Love God with everything you have and everything you do. Love God in thought. Love God in action. Love God with the time you spend. Love God with the money you spend. Love God with you gifts and your talents and your whole self. Does this mean that everything you do must be religious - that you can only watch Christian television and listen to Christian music and talk to Christian friends? No. But love of God should be the primary motivating factor in our life.
And love your neighbor as yourself. If you were hungry, you would find food. So if you see a neighbor with nothing to eat, give them food. If you were sick, you would take medicine. So if you see a neighbor that is sick, do what you can to help them find healing. Love God and Love others. That is what we are called by Jesus to do. It is the most basic commandment that can be given to us, but like most fundamental skills, it is one that we can spend a lifetime developing and perfecting.
As time goes by, and we move beyond first impressions, you might find that as a preacher I might get pretty excited every once in awhile, but I think when you’re talking about the love of God and salvation in Jesus Christ its okay to get excited. In fact, I think Jesus wants us to get pretty excited. He has no need for luke-warm Christians. Another thing that you will find out quickly as you get to know me is that I am a sports guy. My Daddy was a high school basketball coach, and taught physical education for thirty years. If it involves a ball, I’ve probably played it, likely have watched it, and definitely know about it, and if my competitive side kicks in, I can probably whoop you at it.
I’ll try not to use sports metaphors too much, but today I am going to start with one. I have an 11 year-old nephew named Austin. A few years ago he was in little league. One day I was talking to him about baseball, and he was not too enthused about it because he was not doing well. So he and I went outside to practice, and I pitched some balls to him and gave him some easy things to remember - like keep your elbow up and hands together. He improved as we practiced, and I encouraged him that he would do fine if he just kept practicing. The problem with baseball is that is hard to practice by yourself, so I suggested that he use his tee. But he thought this was a silly idea. Tees are for little kids he explained, astonished that I would even suggest such a thing. My response was to ask him if he knew who Sammy Sosa was - and back then every kid knew who Sammy Sosa was - and I told him that he still uses a tee (unfortunately he was probably using something else at the time, but that is not important now). All big leaguers use tees, I explained.
Every spring they get them out to practice their swing. He was shocked to hear this news. Even big leaguers use tees. Big leaguers use tees to practice their swing over and over again, they isolate every move in their swing, and make it as efficient as possible. They understand the importance of the fundamentals, so they practice it over and over again. In order to perform at the highest level - they must first have the basics as perfected as possible.
We as a church and as Christians are no different. I believe in the fundamentals of Christianity. Now, I have to be careful here. Current usage of words have taken on different meaning than they are intended. I am not a Fundamentalist in the modern sense of that word, but I believe that we as Christians need to have down the basics, and it all really comes down to one thing, and that is the Scripture that we read this morning. We’re getting to know each other slowly, but I’ll let you in on a little secret now.
One of my professors told me about his secret to preaching. He was a pastor in central Indiana for a few years. One Sunday after church one of the matriarchs of the church shook his hand, looked him in the eye and said, "I know your secret." Suddenly a little worried, he asked what she meant, and she replied, "You only have one sermon, don’t you?" And he smiled and admitted, "Yes." So I’ll tell you now, I pretty much have one message.
I’ll have many sermons and Bible stories, complete with anecdotes and illustrations, but they will point to one thing. If the question is, "What does it mean to be a Christian?" My answer will be simple: Love God and Love Others. There are many implications to that. In the coming weeks and years we’ll learn together about what it means to a person, what it means to a church, what it means to be in the world, but it all boils down to what we shared for Scripture today.
That’s it. That’s the Scriptures, as summed up by Jesus himself, and I don’t plan on trying to improve his summary. As we have seen this morning, you can actually find this same directive all over the Bible. It is in the Old Testament. It is in Paul’s letters, and it is in the words of Jesus. If the Bible is clear about anything, it is clear about this: Love God and love each other.
Love God with everything you have and everything you do. Love God in thought. Love God in action. Love God with the time you spend. Love God with the money you spend. Love God with you gifts and your talents and your whole self. Does this mean that everything you do must be religious - that you can only watch Christian television and listen to Christian music and talk to Christian friends? No. But love of God should be the primary motivating factor in our life.
And love your neighbor as yourself. If you were hungry, you would find food. So if you see a neighbor with nothing to eat, give them food. If you were sick, you would take medicine. So if you see a neighbor that is sick, do what you can to help them find healing. Love God and Love others. That is what we are called by Jesus to do. It is the most basic commandment that can be given to us, but like most fundamental skills, it is one that we can spend a lifetime developing and perfecting.
Love God, love others. From there, we can go a lot of different directions. We can spend the rest of our lives figuring out what that means. Like a ball player breaking down every minutiae of a swing, from the foot position, to the head tilt, we as Christians can think about every detail of our lives. We can talk about our own inner spiritual lives - things like prayer and Bible study, fasting and a relationship with God. We can talk about how we interact with the world - things like evangelism and mission and outreach. We can talk about how we live as a church - things like worship and stewardship and fellowship. We can talk about all of these things, but if we don’t have the basics down, then the rest of it is off. So that’s it - that’s all I’ve got. Everything I talk about from here on comes from this. Its my message for you this Sunday, and it will be my message every Sunday. But don’t think things will get boring. The very heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus comes down to these two things: Love God and love each other.
It is so miraculously simple and so terribly complicated. It takes a minute to learn, and a lifetime to practice. So there’s our tee. If we get the basics down, the rest will follow. If we have the basics down then we get to the really good stuff. We get to helping the poor and effecting real change in the community. We get to studying Scripture and coming to a deeper knowledge of the Word through the Bible. We get to a deeper prayer life and a closer walk with Jesus. If we have the basics down then we can get to spreading the good news to others who have never heard it. When we get the basics down then each person becomes the Christian they can be and the church becomes the powerful force in the world and the community that it was meant to be. That’s our tee. Love God and love each other. Don’t scoff and think its too simple. Even big leaguers use a tee.
It is so miraculously simple and so terribly complicated. It takes a minute to learn, and a lifetime to practice. So there’s our tee. If we get the basics down, the rest will follow. If we have the basics down then we get to the really good stuff. We get to helping the poor and effecting real change in the community. We get to studying Scripture and coming to a deeper knowledge of the Word through the Bible. We get to a deeper prayer life and a closer walk with Jesus. If we have the basics down then we can get to spreading the good news to others who have never heard it. When we get the basics down then each person becomes the Christian they can be and the church becomes the powerful force in the world and the community that it was meant to be. That’s our tee. Love God and love each other. Don’t scoff and think its too simple. Even big leaguers use a tee.
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