John Stamper joined us tonight at Ozone to share his heart with us and to tell of how the Lord changed his life. John played football at South Carolina (2001) and was drafted in the 6th round by the Tampa Bay Bucs. He also played a couple of years for the Chicago Bears. John shared how he grew up in a Godly home, but athletics always gained more attention and effort than Christ. John said that it wasn’t until meeting Adrian Despres(http://adriandespres.com) , who was the chaplain at Carolina, that he was introduced to authentic Christian faith. John experienced an ankle injury his freshman year that caused him to examine his purpose in life and Adrian was by his side to point him to a Christ-centered life. John lamented the times in his life when he began to excel in football and lose focus on Christ. He explained the blessing of the injuries that he sustained that allowed him to realize that God gave him the talents and ability to play football, and that He can take it away. John suffered a career ending shoulder injury that forced him to examine his purpose in life beyond athletics. John encouraged everyone to keep their focus on Christ and not let success, fame, or money distract them from Kingdom-centered purposes.
John’s message was a key example of a simplistic truth of the Christian life, that idolatry will destroy our lives. Jesus warns his disciples in Matt. 19 that it is very difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus is not just picking on wealthy people, but he wants his disciples to flea the sin of self-sufficiency (self-righteousness). Jesus then explains that only those who have left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for His namesake, will inherit eternal life. The writer of Hebrews explains in chapter 13 that we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Our life’s purpose is this: Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that ackowledge his name (Heb 13.15). Life is not neutral in regard to worship. We will always worship someone or something. You can worship pleasure, success, sports, popularity, tradition, children, spouses, etc. We must constantly reflect upon our worship habits. Chances are that all of our worship habits need to be refocused from time-to-time. Our purpose is to continually worship the Lord in every facet of our existance, not just certain days of the week. The problem with our generation is not that we have too many distractions or busy agendas, but we have a worship problem. We worship everything in life that does not deserve our adoration. What would the church be like if we fixed our worship problem?
We appreciate John and his wife for joining us and sharing with us his life transformation through Christ.
