Glory and Sport Series: What Does God Want Most?

This is the first in a four part video series written and recorded for Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). The videos are linked to their sharing platforms.

Welcome competitors! My name is Brian Smith and along with being a former track and xc runner at Wake Forest University, I have worked vocationally in sports ministry since 2008, serving athletes, coaches, and parents at the intersection of faith and sport. And I am excited to help guide us through four short videos as we learn together about this concept of glory and what it means within each of our unique contexts. 

Where are we going?

Today we’re going to answer the question “Does God care about sports?” 

In the next three videos, we’ll ask “What is glory? How can we give glory to God through our motivation? And finally, How can we give glory to God through our actions?” 

Does God care about sports? 

In 2010 my wife and I staffed a track tour to Trinidad and Tobago. The goal was simple: find track athletes in the country, find ways to serve them and when appropriate, share the message of Jesus with them. On one of our last days we were running slowly around the track with a high school runner. His name was Isaac. When we told him that we were sport missionaries, he asked us this question “Wait, so you think God cares about sports?” And we spent the next few laps sharing why we thought that was true. This is a good question for us to wrestle with. Think about how much we have invested into sports. All of the money that goes into it. All of the time we spend practicing and competing, traveling to both, thinking about our sport. Orbiting our lives around it. We need to know if God cares about any of this!

One of the problems though, is that the Bible is not really going to answer it for us. Sure we can read about Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32. And the apostle Paul is going to use athletic metaphors to help us better understand how to grow in our faith. But we don’t really know through reading the Bible what God thinks about sports as we understand and experience them today. Unfortunately, Paul never penned a letter to the Church at Lambeau Field or at Madison Square Garden. So if it’s a good question to ask—but we can’t get it answered in God’s word, where does that leave us. I wonder if we need to ask a better question. A question that the Bible clearly gives us an answer to. Here is what I would propose. Instead of asking if God cares about sports, what if we started with this: What does God care about the most? The Bible has a lot to say about the heart of God and what He cares about. 

What does the Bible say?

1 Corinthians 10:31 comes right on the heels of Paul talking about the freedom the Jewish believers have in what they eat. He wraps up the conversation by saying this: Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. So at the back end of this conversation about food, Paul is saying, listen, this goes way beyond food. There is actually an overarching principle that should guide everything we do and the principle is this: glorify God in everything. It’s worth noting that this is not the only time that we see this idea about glorifying God show up in scripture. It’s all over the place. In Psalm 29:1-2, David says to “Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name.” Isaiah 43:7 says that we were created for His glory. This is what God cares most about: his glory. It’s such a prevalent theme through scripture that the Westminster Catechism goes as far as saying that the chief end of mankind is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. 

Ok, so let’s bring this back to sports.

If God wants glory and we are created to give it to Him, can we do that through sports? I think the answer to that is a resounding yes! But how do we do that? What does it look like on a practical level to give God what He wants the most, glory, within the context of sport as competitiors? We’ll get there, I promise. But we need wrap our head and heart are what glory is and what it isn’t before we get to practical application.

Part Two: Glory and Sport Series: What is Glory?

Part Three: Glory and Sport Series: Giving God Glory Through Our Motivation

Part Four: Glory and Sport Series: Giving God Glory Through Our Actions