3-9-2019

Good Morning All,

   1 John 5:4; “because everyone who has been born from God has won the victory over the world. Our faith is what wins the victory over the world.”

     Some of you who are a little too young may not know this, so you may have to ask your parents.  We are going to talk a little about a man named Vinko Bogatja.  He was very famous; he was on television every week.  Realistically, nobody knows his name but we used to watch him, every week.

     Do you remember the show “ABC’s Wide World of Sports”?  The show started with this intro:

        Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport! The thrill of victory...and the agony of defeat! The human drama of athletic competition! This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!

     Vinko Bogatja was the skier who went tumbling down the jump when they spoke of “the agony of defeat.” The neat thing about that show was that it took the lesser sports and featured them.  You saw ski jumping and skating and bobsledding and track and field sports.  Through it all we got to see wins and losses, victory and defeat.

     If you talk to people who were/are athletes, many can remember the defeats better than they can the victories.  I think we do this because we think of what we could have or should have done to win the game.  But we celebrate the sweet taste of victory.  We savor it some in different ways from others.  Some just sit back and take it all in, some run and jump and shout for joy.  However, for both the sense of joy and euphoria is great.  The sense of accomplishment, of self-fulfillment, of satisfaction for a reward for all the hard work gives us a sense of total joy.

      The people of the Apostle’s time knew what it was to watch the conquerors march into a city.  They saw the satisfaction on the faces of the soldiers, the centurions and the generals as they came through town.  They saw it and knew how it felt.  The people may have even had times when they were victorious in their life either through business success.  They knew what it was to see conquerors claim their prize to be on top of the world.

    Despite all the greatness of conquering, Paul tells us we are more than that, we are more than conquerors.  We are more through Jesus.  John tells us the victory is ours.  Jesus has secured our victory and won the battle and given us the prize.  We have eternal life because of Jesus’ atoning gift. 

     The man in our story, Vinko Bogatja, never ski jumped again after the tumble that he took.  Fortunately for us, whenever we take a tumble, Jesus is there to pick us up, dust us off and place us back in the conqueror’s parade.  Despite all our failures and frailties, we are more than conquerors because of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  We do not need to experience the agony of defeat for in all things God provides for us the needed items for our body and soul.  We truly know the thrill of victory for we are more than conquerors.

   Gracious Lord, through you we are truly more than conquerors, for we are saved by your grace and favor.  We give you thanks for our victory over sin, death and the devil and the certainty of life eternal with you.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret