Child of God

In the Kendrick Brothers’ movie Overcomer, there is a powerful conversation between a man who is blind, in a hospital bed and in his final days, and a basketball coach at a Christian school who ends up coaching track with only one person on his team.  The blind man asked the coach, “Who are you?

That’s a good question for all of us.  There are two questions, the answer of which will define your life.  Jesus asked the first of His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”  The answer to the 2^nd question, “Who are you?” depends on how you answer the first question.

The coach goes down his list of “who he is.”

·     I’m a basketball coach.  (What else?)

·     I’m a teacher.  (And then what else?)

·     I’m a husband and a father. (God forbid that fails, but if it does, then what?)

·     I’m a white American male…

Finally, he answers, I’m a follower of Jesus Christ.  After this answer finally surfaced at the end of the coach's list, the blind man basically asked, “Why wasn't his last answer his first?”

Tonight, I plan to ask the youth at Grace Place those two questions.  The reason people struggle in their walk with God is centered on how they answer these two questions. 

·     Who is Jesus?

·     Who are you?

The coach in this movie went on to mentor and invest his time coaching a young athlete, “Hanna Scott.”  He asked her one day, “Who is Hanna Scott?”  Later in the film, after receiving Christ and reading Ephesians, she responds to the coach's question.

“I am created by God. He designed me, so I’m not a mistake. His Son died for me, just so I could be forgiven. He picked me to be his own, so I’m chosen. He redeemed me, so I am wanted. He showed me grace, just so I could be saved. He has a future for me because He loves me. So, I don’t wonder anymore, Coach Harrison. I am a child of God.”

Ephesians 2:10 

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. 

-Joe