1 Through My Eyes, The Tim Tebow Story, We all are witnesses Luke 12:35-48 This message was delivered to Saint Paul s UMC by Rev. Lisa Crone Sheldon on September 9, 2012 Tim Tebow is perhaps the most popular and also the most controversial football player today. His name emerged as a new word in modern language for the act of kneeling on one knee in prayer with his head resting on his fist. This is called, Tebowing. It is derived from Tebow s propensity for kneeling and praying. The origin of the phrase is credited to fan Jared Kleinstein, who posed a picture with friends on Facebook, in which they mimicked a pose of Tebow following the Broncos comeback overtime victory over the Dolphins on October 23, 2011. The popularity of this picture led Kleinstein to set up a website showing pictures submitted by people depicting various interpretations of Tebowing all over the world. After two and a half months, the site received 20,000 photograph submissions from all seven continents and 20 million page views from 2 million unique visitors. The New York Times wrote It can be hard to tell whether [people tebowing] are celebrating or mocking [Tebow] for his virtuous ways. Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl tebowed as part of a bet with the mayor of Denver following the Broncos playoff victory over the Steelers in 2012. 1 Tebowing was recognized as a word in the English language by the Global Language Monitor, due to its level of worldwide usage. How did a young man who was born in the Philippines to American parents serving as Baptist 1 Wikipedia On-line Encyclopedia, article on Tim Tebow
2 Missionaries become such a household name? What can we learn from his success? The Jesus Film was playing on a large homemade screen hanging between two coconut trees when Tim s Father, Robert Ramsey Tebow II, began to pray, Father, if you want another preacher in this world, you give him to me. You give me Timmy, and I will raise him as a preacher. The name Timothy was chosen because it means, honoring God. There were serious complications with his mother s health toward the end of the pregnancy. The baby was almost lost but on August 14, 1987 a miracle happened. Tim was born as a healthy baby. The attending physician said he was a miracle baby. Yet, that was not the end of their troubles. His mother continued to need medical care for complications and Tim was losing weight and showing signs of failure to thrive. They asked family and friends back home in the U.S. to lift them up in prayer. Tim s mother used to sing Bible verses with her children. She always believed that putting verses to tunes helped her to learn the retain them. One of the verses they learned was Psalm 27:14 and 130: 5. The words to the song went like this: Wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait. And in His Word do I hope. This crisis in their lives has given them a platform to talk about trust in God. Tim s dad always tells his family that faith is like a muscle. You trust God for
3 the small things and when He comes through, your muscle grows. That enables you to trust God for the bigger things, in fact all things. 2 Growing up with two brothers to play with was great. It didn t matter if it was Monopoly or chess inside with his sisters or baseball or basketball outside with his brothers. His siblings took no prisoners. The rules applied equally to all. There was no letting someone win because he was younger. Tim remembers to this day the first time he won one of those contests. He earned it fair and square. Most of his memories revolve around sports. His two brothers beat him at everything as badly as they could. So, when he played with them, he wanted to win. So, we can see the foundation at a young age for a person who fearless in the face of the hard work, pain and sacrifice that would be required for being the exceptional football star that he would later become. 3 His parents decided that, with three boys around the house who were as competitive as they were, they had to institute a new rule. He was still young and they were already concerned about bragging that the boys were doing among themselves. Here was the new family rule: They were forbidden for talking about their own accomplishments unless asked first by someone else. If someone specifically asked them how they played, they could answer, but they couldn t volunteer the information. They based this new rule on an admonition found in Proverbs 27:2: Let not another praise you, and not your own mouth, a stranger, and not your own lips. It was a great lesson in humility that Tim and his brothers continued to work on. His parents were good role models for living their lives with humility. In addition to this, they were given a dollar if someone 2 Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker, Through My Eyes, (Harper Collins: 2011), pg. 10 3 Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker, Through My Eyes, (Harper Collins: 2011), pg. 14
4 complimented them on their character to their mom or dad. They quickly became focused on those matters character and humility. 4 Living in the public eye as Tim Tebow does is not easy. We have seen actors, athletes, and political leaders fall of the pedestal that people put them on. But I believe that the values instilled by his parents will give Tim a greater ability to handle those pressures. Listen to what he says in the preface of his book about getting attention from the public. In some respects that is very flattering. I guess that any one of us would be flattered by that level of interest. However, my parents always told me from an early age, that we all have the ability to influence others, whether through words or actions, or both. They always added that besides possessing that ability, we also have the responsibility to use it in a positive, encouraging and uplifting way a platform. 5 Tim Tebow turns down appearances that conflict with his Christian values. He declined an invitation from Playboy Magazine for this reason. He is human and has his flaws I am sure. But Tebow is at least trying to use his public attention to set a good example. God gives us various levels of leadership and authority, talents and abilities, position or power, some have more and some have less. However, for those who are given more God will expect more. So, leaders in the church whether they be clergy or laity, have a significant responsibility. We are all accountable to God for what we do with the authority, leadership, or talents we have. These are our 4 Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker, Through My Eyes, (Harper Collins: 2011), pg. 14 5 Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker, Through My Eyes, (Harper Collins: 2011), pg. x
5 platform. What will we do with the opportunities we have been given? How we live our lives will encourage or discourage others from being Christians. Tebow says, God challenges us to change the world. And to accomplish this, He asks us to change it one life at a time. 6 Jesus teaches us in this Gospel lesson from Luke that the Second Coming is certain, but we cannot know the timing. So, His call is to stay awake -- to be ready. He makes His case in the language of His day. "Be dressed and ready with your lamps burning," Jesus says. We need to stay awake because we never know when we are going to be surprised by new possibilities. Most of us have lived long enough to know the unexpected will happen -- we can count on it. Tim Tebow certainly found it so in his life. We will hear more about that in the weeks to come. Your life may be the only Bible that some people ever read. We are all witnesses for Christ every day when we encounter people in our ordinary relationships. There are also unexpected relationships and opportunities we are given to witness to our faith. God can use these unexpected opportunities to help us be the change that we want to see in the world today. God can use even you and me to lead people to Christ. We just have to be ready to live boldly, unafraid to pray in public, consistent with living according to the eternal values we embrace, and loving in such a way that everyone can see Christ in us. Amen. 6 Tim Tebow with Nathan Whitaker, Through My Eyes, (Harper Collins: 2011), pg. xi