Two of the Big Ten’s football programs, with beloved coaches have been torn apart this year with scandal. First, it was Ohio State’s Jim Tressel’s lie and cover-up of NCAA violations that led to his resignation and recently with Penn State’s Joe Paterno’s 10 year cover-up of an abuse scandal resulting in his firing, just games before his planned retirement. Before we rant against these men and what they should have done, we need to ask: What lessons should we learn from the failures of these two men? I came up with three:
1) There is no such thing as hidden sin.
We like to think that there are some parts of our lives that are private. There are times when we might feel safe to engage in “private sins.” We might even justify these by saying that we are not hurting anyone. When we do this, we forget that when we play around with sin, there is always a price to pay. The biggest price is to our personal integrity and our relationship with God and others.
“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
― John Wooden
2) We need to choose our hero’s wisely.
We live in a celebrity culture and we tend to put human leaders on pedestals, especially those who can shoot a ball through a tiny rim, run a oval shaped ball across the goal line, or those who are proven to be able to win. There is nothing wrong with having role models and examples that we try to emulate, but we need to be careful that they are worth our attention and reverence.
Psalm 118:8 reminds us that “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.”
Our young people need models of faithfulness and godliness. As Paul said to the Corinthian church “follow me, as I follow Christ.” Are we seeking to follow Christ or celebrities? Are we modeling faithfulness and integrity to those who are following in our footsteps?
3) As Christians, we need to respond to the failures of others (no matter how public and how offensive) with humility, knowing our own tendencies toward sin.
We should be grieved when men and women are caught in the tentacles of sin. We should hurt for their families and friends who lives have been touched by the effects of their sin. We should be driven to prayer for the gospel to penetrate the depths of their depravity and sin. We should remember that, “but for the grace of God, so go I.” As I shared with the youth last night: We are no different than they are, we are just on the other side of the cross. Those who have been saved by the blood of Christ have changed from the thief that was mocking Christ, to the one who claimed him as their Savior.
Finally, We need to pray for those who are caught up in sin and pray against the same tendency towards in sin our own lives.
