Welcome to Super Bowl week! For football fans this is a fun week, the best part about it is at the end of the week, all the analysis, breakdown, and talk about the game will be over. For the next three and one half hours, the two best teams will play against each other to see who is the best. The majority of America will tune in this Sunday, albeit many just for the commercials. As I was listening to the radio this morning for a little while, an interesting conversation broke out between the hosts, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic (ESPN radio’s Mike&Mike). The conversation centered around the legacy of Peyton Manning, the quarterback of the Denver Broncos. This will be the third Super Bowl that he has played in. He has won one and lost one. By many account Manning is one of the best quarterbacks of all time. However, he only has one Super Bowl win whereas many other great quarterbacks have led their teams to multiple Super Bowl wins. Would Manning be considered the best quarterback ever if his team wins this year was the question that Mike Greenberg asked. Or does Peyton face a problem like another Hall of Fame quarterback, Dan Marino? Marino has or had many of the all-time passing records for the NFL, but there is a “but” after that statement. The rest of the statement is, but he never won a Super Bowl. Greenberg then makes an interesting argument when he says “Dan Marino will be largely forgotten years down the road, because all of his accomplishments won’t last. Records are meant to be broken, and many of Marino’s have been broken or will be broken. Only Super Bowls last.” That is an interesting notion, only Super Bowls last. You may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with faith and my relationship with Christ? In short, everything!
Jesus said in Matthew 6 to “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians about the fact that every Christian will stand before God and be judged based on their faithfulness and service to Christ. Specifically in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 Paul writes, “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” There are six “things” Christians can build on their foundation. Before we get too far, I want to talk about this passage for just a moment. First, there is only one foundation, that is Jesus Christ. We are saved by God’s grace based on the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ (John 3:3, 16; 14:6; Acts 4:12). The “wood, hay, stubble, gold, silver, and precious stones” here refer to our faithfulness and service to Christ. It is important to realize that we are not saved by our works, but our works prove that Christ has saved us. We know this passage is speaking of saved people because of verse 15 where it says “he shall be saved.” It is important to see the difference here between these verses and references to hell. In hell passages, the Bible speaks of the person being judged. In this passage, the works of the person are what is being judged. So what does this passage in 1 Corinthians 3 teach us?
First, it shows that although some people are saved, they are not investing in things that matter. Paul talked about if he was the smartest, the best preacher, and did many wonderful things, if they weren’t motivated by love, it doesn’t really matter (see 1 Cor. 13:1-3). The two greatest commands of Scripture deal with love, love for God, and love for others. So it’s not just what I do, it is my motivation behind it. Secondly, this passage shows that our works do not save us. Again, three out of six of these works will get consumed by fire, but the person is saved. We must always remember that salvation is through grace (Eph. 2:8-9). Finally, this passage shows that we will be judged. We are going to give an account for our life, as believers specifically for our faithfulness and service to Christ. We need to make sure that what we are doing in life is going to last, not just for a lifetime, but for all of eternity. So in a sense, it is only the Super Bowls that will count.
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him