Coach's Corner
Warm-Up
In your own words, go around and tell each other your own definition of “love.”
Workout
When I ask you, “what do you love” what first comes to your mind? Maybe it is your family, your sport, your dog, your favorite pizza topping! But let’s shout out some of the first things that come to our mind when asked, “what do you love?”
If you asked God this question, He would not have to think for a single second. He would shout out, “You!”
The special play and route found in God’s great game plan that we will talk about today is called The Gospel. When He first wrote this play, it worked; and it has not stopped working since.
This week we move onto our third truth: God loves you and sent Jesus.
Remember what you said love was? Well, God also talks about how He sees love. He has an answer and a definition of what love is, and it is found all throughout the Bible. God’s Word, which we learned last week is true, is an entire Book about His unending love. In His Book, He does one thing that shows how His love compares to nothing else. But we will get to that next week.
This week’s X and O is in two parts: Love and Sin.
Love: God loves you. He loves you so much.
Raise your hand if you have ever given a gift to someone you love.
When we love someone, we often do something for them or give them something, right?
God loves us so much that He gave something for every single one of us. In John 3:16, we find that He gave His Son to us:
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
This was a gift from God, but not any kind of a gift. It was a gift that was very costly and very special to Him.
Sin: Sin separates us.
There was a time people turned away from God’s game plan, and in that moment, sin entered the world and broke our relationship with God. People turned their back on God even though God loved them so much. The people wanted something other than God.
Even if you don’t realize it, we all still sin and go against God’s word. We do this because we’re imperfect. Even the Bible tells us that all of us has sinned:
“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” — Romans 3:23
When we chose something over God, that is called sin. And there are consequences for sin, and there still are today.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Romans 6:23
We just read that the wages, or payments, of sin are death. That is heavy and dark, right? But we shouldn’t be afraid. God’s game plan is still in effect. Let’s go back and listen the last part of that verse together, “…but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Let that sink in.
We are about to find out in our next time together, how to win the game and defeat sin with that gift God has given us that we talked about at the beginning.
Wrap-Up
Before we end, think of a time where you made a mistake in competition or hurt your teammates’ feelings by saying something critical or mean. It is not fun to think about, right? You may have felt sad and may have felt guilty. But then that person forgave you and you felt so much joy, relief, and a weight lifted.
Today, we learned about the mess up and the sin that caused us to be sad and feeling guilty.
However next time, we will learn about how forgiveness makes us feel way better and live life with a weight off our shoulders.
Let’s close in prayer together:
“Dear God, thank You loving me so deeply. I know my sin is big, but Your love is bigger. I know that I have sinned, but You still love me. Thank You that You never stop loving me. Amen.”