Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
I don't talk about it much, because I don't want people putting me on a pedestal or asking for autographs - especially with Wimbledon just concluded. But the fact is I once was (You ready? Drum roll please) the champion doubles player in the B Club tennis competition in Townsville. I still have the trophy - if you can call it that. It’s tarnished - almost black, one handle has broken off, and you can hardly read the inscription. I did offer it to the Townsville Public Library for a “heritage keep-sake”, but they declined the offer - thank you very much!
But of course that's the problem with trophies. Just ask the US University of Alabama football team. They won it all last year, including the national champion trophy. It's a $30,000 Waterford crystal football. Well, it was. At the function celebrating the win, a player's father somehow knocked it off its stand. It's not a crystal football anymore, but a crystal football in a million little pieces. That's the problem with trophies. They break.
All of life's prizes ultimately shatter and disappoint us. People put so much emphasis and effort in being the best and the greatest, and then expect the buzz and thrill of winning to remain the foundation for their lives from then on. But it doesn’t work out that way. How many times do you hear of athletes who have been at the top and had it all, appear in the media as broken men and women, sporting a drug problem, and declaring themselves bankrupt? One player on a past national champion football team shared how depressed he was - even the day after his sports dream had come true. Here's what he said, "When I saw that front page headline about us winning, all I could think was, 'My god just died.'"
The thrill of the win, the excitement and the applause of the crowd, become their “god”, but when it’s all over, this “god” disappears and the players are left with an emptiness that often leads to despair. By the age of 33, Alexander the Great had conquered the then "known" world - a tonne of trophies! But instead of being elated, he was darkly depressed. When an officer asked him why, he just said, "I have no more worlds to conquer." Yes, before we have our trophies in our hand, they look like they're worth whatever we need to do to have them. But then they disappoint, they disillusion, they disappear. Like that football trophy, they're just so breakable.
I suspect you all have a "trophy". You have pursued or are pursuing - greatness in your career, recognition by some people or group that means a lot to you, a championship, a scholarship, a relationship, financial security, raising 'superkids', a dream home, a dream job, a strong and healthy body, no more pain and so on. Once you achieve your dream, once you clutch your trophy, then all will be well. Happiness and satisfaction will follow. Sadly, No! Even these will disappoint, they disillusion, they disappear. Like all other trophies, they're just so breakable.
The problem is that these dreams and ambitions - these trophies - tend to become idols; something or someone that pushes God from the centre of your life. That dream, that ambition, that hope - that trophy - takes the place of the One who alone can give you a foundation that will never crumble, collapse, break or disappear, but will take you into an everlasting eternity.
John Calvin said, that "the human heart is an idol-making factory". Trophies shatter because they become too important to us. God loves us too much to let our idols stand. Jonah 2:8 says it is because "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." God doesn’t want you to forfeit the grace that can save you. Instead He wants to give you what these shattered trophies cannot.
The failure of our other "gods" points the way to the true God whom we were made by and made for. The God Jesus died to reunite us with. If you're tired of the world’s disappointment and dissatisfaction, your heart is ready for Jesus - the Saviour who died to pay the penalty for your sin, who rose again from the dead, who's ready to come into your life to give you NEW life, which alone can fill the emptiness only He can fill. He alone is the sure and certain foundation which will never shatter. Maybe you have ignored Jesus in recent times? Is it that you have never trusted him so far? With the shattered trophies all around you, it’s time to repent of your sins, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace...