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WHAT’S YOUR GOAL IN SOCCER?

A kid named Edson was just 15 when World Cup veteran Waldemar de Brito took a good look at him and then said to his partners: “This boy will be the greatest soccer player in the world.” That’s a bold statement about an adolescent who had only been kicking a ball around on a field for four years; until he turned 11, young Edson had helped support his family as a shoeshine boy. But de Brito took this teenager and put him on the professional São Paulo team, Santos Futebol Clube, where he proceeded to rack up, over 18 years, a lifetime total of 1,281 goals and play in four World Cups, where he personally scored 12 goals in 14 matches. He was so admired that when his Santos team traveled to Nigeria for some exhibition matches, the country actually suspended its ongoing civil war, signing a 48-hour armistice so both sides could watch him play.

Edson became known to fans around the world as the Black Pearl, and the media in France dubbed him “The King.” And if the name Edson Arantes do Nascimento doesn’t ring a huge bell with you, maybe you recall this abbreviated name for him: Pelé. Without a doubt the greatest soccer player in history.

Well, we can’t all score a hat trick or put in a header or slip through defenders like the Black Pearl, but here in the United States it’s a very familiar sight early on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Vans and SUVs park next to grassy green fields and parents begin setting up orange cones. There are canopies where spectators can get some shade. Lawn chairs so a proud parents can watch all the action in suburban comfort. And often there’s a sign next to the park entrance, with these four letters: AYSO. American Youth Soccer Organization — and often the “AYSO” is cleverly embedded inside the longer slogan: “plAY SOccer.” And ever since 1964, when the AYSO organization began in Torrance, California, more than 630,000 young people have competed like Pelé, trying to get the ball past the goalkeeper.

Well, friend, as we continue to think about what the Bible teaches regarding the issue of perfection, I guess you could forgive me for putting a player like Pelé up on the pedestal. He’s obviously in the Hall of Fame, inducted there in 1993. And if any player in history were to qualify as “perfect,” it would be the Black Pearl, averaging, as he did, almost a goal a game his entire career. But picture with me — and maybe you’ve done this, you soccer moms — that weekend out there on the field three blocks from your home. And your little five-year-old is on a team. So your little son or daughter, with their size-two soccer cleats, and professional jersey, and knee-high socks, is out there on the field flailing away with the other kids, trying to mash the ball through the goalposts. I understand that AYSO is truly dedicated to good sportsmanship; every child, no matter how skilled or unskilled, how perfect or imperfect, has to play at least half a game. Isn’t that nice? But between you and me and the goalpost, I can’t help but imagine that parents and friends see all kinds of soccer being played out there. Missed shots. Kicked shins instead of kicked balls. Kids falling right on their faces. Balls squirting out of bounds. As basketball announcer Chick Hearn often says about the L.A. Lakers, “Folks, the mustard’s off the hotdog!”

And yet, when the game is over, even if your team loses fifteen to nothing, I imagine you drape an arm around your child and say: “Honey, great job! I sure liked watching you play. That was perfect!” And he says: “Mom, we got killed!” “Oh, who cares? You did a good job. You played hard. You did your best.” In other words, “Honey, for five years old, you did good. You played like a good five-year-old kid. What else can Mom ask for? Let’s go for some ice cream.” If perfection is defined — as the Bible very plainly does — as “maturity,” growing in grace, then your child with those mud-smeared shorts is doing all right.

We mentioned yesterday a marvelous book by Dr. Roy Adams, entitled The Nature of Christ. We learned four new Hebrew words describing our bad soccer playing. One of them was ‘awon, that sinful “twist” or distortion inside of us. A bit later Adams has this to say:

“Through the process of sanctification (as commonly understood in Christian theology) God works to counteract and correct this evil bent within us. ‘Sanctification is the work of a lifetime’ because it takes time — even for God — to bring about the needed change.” Then he adds this extra insight: “It is a process that entails allowing us to try . . . and fail . . . and experiment . . . and succeed — in Him. It involves disappointment and hardship, doubt and faith, fear and trust — and a thousand other factors — all under the Spirit’s control. The chiseling, the polishing, the straightening, the loosening and tightening never stop. Every day as we follow on to know the Lord, the raw material of our crooked spirits becomes more pliant, more malleable. Thus the gentle Spirit molds and shapes us continually into the divine image.”

There’s a powerful truth in that rather deep dissertation. Did you notice it? “Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.” Becoming a great soccer hero doesn’t happen in five minutes. But God takes us patiently, graciously, and relentlessly — over the course of many, many games . . . many, many bruises . . . many, many wins and losses . . . toward His own Faith Hall of Fame.

C. S. Lewis once described God as a kind of Soccer Dad, who watches His five-year-old on the field. Listen to this play-by-play:

“This Helper who will, in the long run, be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection,” he writes, “will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest duty. As a great Christian writer (George MacDonald) pointed out, every father is pleased at the baby’s first attempt to walk: no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free, manly walk in a grown-up son. In the same way, he said, ‘God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.’”

In the second chapter of Romans, verse four, the Apostle Paul addresses this determination by God to lead us into His own version of perfection, of brilliant soccer play. He’s not just the Dad on the sidelines; He’s the Trainer and Coach as well. I like how this reads in the paraphrase version called The Message.

“God is kind, but He’s not soft. In kindness He takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life change.” ‘God’s kindness leads you toward repentance,” says the NIV.

Listen, friend, I’m glad that God is patient with us when we kick the ball out of bounds and miss a shot here and there. And I’m thankful that sanctification really is the work of a lifetime. But it goes both ways: the work of a lifetime IS sanctification. You can have a newborn baby, and it can be a perfect baby that drools and coos. You can have a two-year-old who sits on the curb and goes blither, blither. And it can be a perfect two-year-old. But if someone is still doing that at age 20, we get a bit uneasy. If someone is still drooling and cooing at age 20, we know something is wrong. I’m thankful for this concept of growth, as given by Jesus, because it just may be that there are some of us still in the early stages of Christian growth!

And what do you do if 20 soccer seasons pass and you’re still not playing like Pelé? You’re still stumbling out there on the field, failing and falling and making mistakes. Well, I’ll tell you the one thing you DON’T do: you don’t leave the Coach. You don’t say to Him, “Your timetable for my growth is terrible! I’d do better on my own!” . . . and quit the team. Listen, staying with the Coach, having a relationship with the Coach, is the only way you and I can ever hope to succeed. And really, success and soccer wins are HIS responsibility, not ours. Our job is to listen to His instructions and follow the team blueprint He gives us, and to take the field when we’re invited to.

We’ve used a favorite C. S. Lewis expression in this series: “Obeying in a new, less-worried way.” Let me give you a closing second opinion, this one from Philip Yancey.

“Jesus proclaimed unmistakably,” he writes, “that God’s law is so perfect and absolute that no one can achieve righteousness.” Even Pelé missed some shots and lost a World Cup in 1966. “Yet God’s grace is so great that we do not have to. By striving to prove how much they deserve God’s love, legalists miss the whole point of the gospel, that it is a gift from God to people who don’t deserve it.” Now notice this: “The solution to sin is not to impose an ever-stricter code of behavior. It is to know God.”

Yes, friend . . . knowing God. As our friends at ESPN say, THAT is always the play of the day.