Some spiritual and life lessons we can glean from Super Bowl 50 …

What?!

Spiritual and life lessons from a Super Bowl game?!

Yep.

Okay, I admit it can be easy for some people to “over spiritualize” things. But the older I get and the longer I walk with God, I’m more inclined to think we “under spiritualize” so much of life, failing to see just how imtimately God is involved in our lives. While I don’t believe God follows football as a fan and picks the winners, I think we can look at human dynamics and experiences we’ve observed from the quarterbacks (and others) in the Super Bowl and see some lessons related to scripture. Here are several:

We’ve all flinched. Cam Newton is being roasted by fans of both teams for failing to dive for the fumbled football. I heard former QB and NFL analyst Brady Quinn speak to that subject last night. He talked about how professional football players are constantly getting their bodies beaten and, for anyone who has ever played the game in the NFL, they have all had times where they flinched. You and I know that’s true about life. Sometimes it seems like the enemy just keeps pounding, persisting with hit after hit after hit. After a while, we become weary and it can be difficult to keep both our strength and our courage up to par. Sometimes, we just don’t want to be hit again. I don’t know why Cam didn’t dive for the ball, but we can all understand the person who may miss a step because he or she is just tired of being battered. We need to constantly encourage and uphold one another.

He’s not as good as the hype. After a fantastic season of football, a massive audience — and Cam Newton himself — discovered last night that the Panther’s quarterback is not Superman. No one is. The only man who is all powerful is One who became weary while walking this earth, who needed His sleep and His time away from crowds, and was capable of being beaten and killed. Fortunately, He was powerful enough to overcome both sin and the grave! But we crumble at far less. None of us are Superman, none are Superwoman. It’s irrational, and unprofitable, to set expectations for ourselves or others that no one can meet. A single football player cannot defeat one of the best defenses we’ve seen in years, so thinking Newton could carry his team on his back to a win was silly. And some of the expectations we have for ourselves or others are just as silly. And on this topic of not being as good as the hype, PREACHERS take note of this lesson when hyping your sermon for the coming Sunday. So many preachers these days are constantly touting how life-transforming this Sunday’s sermon will be, but far too often the preaching isn’t as good as the hype. You hurt your own trustability by constantly hyping things as being better than they are.

We all have our kryptonite. In Cam’s case, his kryptonite came packaged in the form of Von Miller. We all understand the experience of no matter how hard we try at something, our best still doesn’t cut it. For all of us, sin has knocked us off our pedestals and left us utter moral failures, and death is a final defeat. Christ, alone, has defeated both sin and death, and it’s only through Him that we can have victory over what is worse than kryptonite to us.

Pride will wreck you. It was noted that Cam Newton dressed out in shoes with gold cleats with “MVP” on the tongue. In spite of such pride on display, the QB would quickly experience the truth we find in Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.”

Attitude matters. This morning, much ado is being made of Newton’s sparse comments after the game. He wasn’t a very gracious loser. Certainly we all process our failures differently, but attitude matters, especially as a leader who finds himself in the limelight.

Life is a team sport. As noted previously, no one man can single-handedly win a professional football game. Winning in the NFL takes teamwork, and so does living life. That’s why God created the Church — His family that He has adopted us into — with the idea that we take on the living of life with the full support of the Church as our team members. First Corinthians 12:27 states, “All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.”

Great coaches make a difference. In the past, Wade Phillips wasn’t a good head coach, but he’s a brilliant defensive coordinator. It is his remarkable talent that directly contributed to the Broncos Super Bowl champion status. Having good coaches in our lives — pastors who preach the Gospel, godly people in our lives who disciple us, others who coach us — also make a real difference in OUR lives. Are you making sure you’re getting coaching that makes you a champion for Christ?

Have a strategy. To win in the NFL, you’ve got to have a winning strategy. That requires hours of study in the film room, and then crafting a strategy that highlights all the strengths of your team and downplays its weaknesses. We also need to have a strategy for our lives, and that requires adequate time in prayer and the Word so that a winning strategy for your life in your circumstances can be drawn up between you and God as your coach. Are you taking time to plan a strategy, or are you just trying to “wing it” through life?

Great defenses make champions. If you cannot defend against what the enemy throws at you, you will fail. That’s true for what’s faced on the field of competition, as well as in life. That’s why the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:11, “Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.” Paul then proceeds to describe the armor God has provided to us to defend against the strategies of our enemy. This armor makes us capable of defending against anything the enemy can throw at us. Are you equipped with the armor of God each day?

It’s okay if you don’t win every game. All of us will have our losses in this life, we’ll “lose some games.” But you don’t have to win every game to be a champion. Jesus said, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world,” (John 16:33) and Paul wrote, “No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

It’s your decision. The persistent question now is, will Peyton Manning retire on the heels of his second Super Bowl win and ride off into the sunset as a champion? It’s his decision to make. There are things in life designed to last a lifetime, others for just a season. We need wisdom to make wise choices when to stay the course and when it’s time to hang up our cleats and take another course.

Get wise advice. Manning has responded to the question about his retirement by saying that now Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy advised him not to make an emotional decision, but to take time to think through such an important decision. We all can benefit by purposely seeking out wise counsel because the decisions we make are important and impact the course of our lives.

Can we draw some spiritual and life lessons from the Super Bowl? Of course! Whatever we’re doing in life, it’s to be faced and lived out as a disciple of Jesus Christ. There’s the Word of God to instruct us, and prayer to talk with God every step of the way. We need to look at how we can apply God’s Word to every aspect of our lives, whether we play football or sweep floors.

But the football season is now over.

Maybe there’s something we can learn from baseball …

Scotty