The Soccer World Cup has begun. It’s the biggest sporting event in the world (yep, bigger than the Olympics). Billions of people around the world will be watching, which means there are going to be some spectacular, mega-bucks commercials on TV. One such advert is “Nike, Write the Future”. You can check it out on YouTube. It is one spectacular commercial! It features the world’s best soccer players, not to mention Kobe Bryant , Homer Simpson and the Queen. It is visually spectacular, fast paced and funny. You might say that it kicks a lot of goals. I love this ad, it’s amazing!
But this commercial actual has a pretty sad underlying message. The underlying message is that the world will judge you on your performance and the world only loves winners. If you win a game of football for your country you will be treated like a hero. You will receive respect, status, fame and fortune, be knighted, have many babies named after you, have movies made about you and date super models. However, if you make a mistake or do not perform up to the standard that people expect, you will end up a nobody, living in obscurity, in a caravan, doing a dead end job, sporting an un-kempt beard.
Sadly, this is a pretty true reflection of life in our competitive, consumerist, western world. Our world will treat you well if you have the goods; the body, the beauty, the brains or the bucks. People will like you if you are a winner, or good looking or funny. Some of you will OK, but most of us will struggle – and most of us feel the pressure to try to measure up. For there is massive pressure everywhere in our world to perform: at home, at school, in the dating scene, in the sporting arena. If we perform we are loved. If we don’t we are rejected.
This is one area in which the gospel of Jesus shines so, so bright. For God’s acceptance and love of you is not based on your performance. God does not judge you on your body, beauty, brains or bucks. God doesn’t care if you are a winner, good looking or funny. God loves because God is love. And God accepts and includes you, not based on your performance, but on the basis of His grace.
Ephesians 2:8-9 sums it up beautifully:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
The world loves the winner and leaves the loser. God is different. He offers grace to all, through faith in Jesus. Put your faith in Jesus now and be freed from the pressure to perform. You don’t need to write your future. God has already written and won a wonderful future for you: a future of love, acceptance, forgiveness and freedom in Christ.
That’s one spectacular gospel.