In 1 Corinthians 8:1 Paul says, “Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.” An image that helps me put this verse into perspective is Spongebob Squarepants, or should I say Musclebob Buffpants. In this episode Spongebob purchases inflatable arms to impress people who lift at the beach.

Spongebob is adored by everyone, but there is a problem: he is no stronger than he was before he got the arms. He was all look but no substance.

I was a lot like SpongeBob when I first became a Christian, and am tempted to be that again. I felt a lot of pride in knowing more about God than everybody else. I thought my holiness was based on what I knew. I wanted to show people how “good” of a Christian I was by how well I knew my Bible. The problem was my knowledge didn’t make me love God and people more. I probably looked better than I actually was. And as I’m in grad school learning more about the Bible I have to ask myself, “Am I here to learn a lot and impress people, or am I here to be better equipped to serve the Church and love God more deeply?” If it’s the former I become like SpongeBob, puffing myself up but staying spiritually in the same place. But if it’s the latter, both the Church and my spirit are strengthened.

Consider the Pharisees. They knew more about God’s law than anybody, yet neglected justice, mercy, and faith (Matthew 23:23). Christians, as we strive to know more about God may it not be at the expense of intimately knowing and loving God. As we learn may we not puff ourselves up, thinking we are better because we are aware of theological concepts, but rather strengthen our character and build up the Church as we are conformed to the image of Christ. May God humble us, give us courage to be honest about the state of our hearts, and grant us grace to persevere as we struggle to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Underneath the ridiculousness, slapstick humor, hilarious quotes, the movie Hot Rod actually addresses some deep struggles that I believe all men have. Throughout the movie amateur stuntman Rod Kimble (Andy Samberg) performs/fails ridiculous stunts with his crew. Essentially the plot is Rod doing stunts in order to raise money to fund a huge jump (15 buses.. One more than Evel Knievel jumped, I know cause I checked. Online.) for a heart transplant to save his dying stepdad. However, Rod wants to save Frank in order to beat him in a fight and thus earn Frank’s love and respect, which he cannot do if Frank dies (Maybe he should’ve thought of that before he sucked at being a man all his life). When his step-brother Kevin asks Rod why he has to fight Frank Rod tells him, “You wouldn’t understand, Kevin. He’s your real dad, so he automatically loves you. He’s my stepdad. I have to earn it.” Also, Rod believed his biological father to be a stuntman, so he then does stunts to honor his memory. This movie is all about a young man struggling to become a man and earn the blessing and validation from his stepdad.

Rod’s story reminds me the biblical story of Jacob. Jacob also struggled his whole life for validation of his identity as a man and he did not receive it from his father. Genesis 25 tells us that Isaac loved Jacob’s twin brother Esau because he was a big hairy hunter, while hairless Jacob (“You know I have a hormone disorder!!”) was a quiet man who stayed at home. Isaac’s favoritism for Esau deeply wounded Jacob. Jacob was constantly struggling with Esau, even from birth, for who would be the future leader of the family. Jacob convinced Esau to give up his inheritance for a bowl of soup, and he also tricked Isaac into giving him the blessing meant for Esau. Pastor Tim Keller believes Jacob stole the blessing because “Jacob, even under false pretenses, longed to hear his father say, ‘I delight in you more than anyone else in the world!’ Jacob’s life had been one long wrestling match to get blessing.” (Counterfeit Gods, 158) Since he didn’t have his father’s love Jacob looked for validation in a woman, Rachel. The price for her hand in marriage was 7 years of service, upon which her father deceitfully gave Leah, Rachel’s older sister, to Jacob, and required another 7 years to marry Rachel as well.

The climax of Jacob’s life comes the night before he was to meet Esau and his army. We are told that a man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak. A man so strong that he dislocated Jacob’s hip just by touching it.  Jacob told the man that he would not let him go unless he blessed him. The man told him, “You will no longer be Jacob, it will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.” Jacob then said, “I have seen God face to face and have been delivered.” At some point that night Jacob realized he was wrestling with God, and rather asking him to let go so he doesn’t die, Jacob did the opposite and clung to him. Jacob received a new name. He was no longer defined by his struggle, but by his victory. This reminds me of the final scene in Hot Rod where Rod is fighting Frank and holding him in an armbar saying, “Tell me I’m a man, Frank! Say it!” Frank then smiled at him and said, “You’re a man, son.”

I think in all men there is a desire to hear their father say they are proud of them. We long for validation. We want to know we are enough and have what it takes. I think it is important to receive this validation from our earthly fathers, but ultimately the validation that matters most is from our heavenly father. Hebrews 2:11 says, “For the one who sanctifies (Jesus) and those being sanctified (believers in Jesus) all have one father. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Paul also says that we are co-heirs with Christ because we have the same father. We did not earn this identity. Rather it was given to us through Christ’s death on the cross. He took our sin and gave us his righteousness. So the Father no longer sees our sin on us, it has all been defeated on the cross. Now all he sees is Christ’s holiness. We receive the same blessing the Father gave to Jesus at his baptism, “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.” Christian, rest in the fact that we don’t have to win a fight to be sons and daughters of God. It’s all by grace.

Here is the final fight scene from Hot Rod 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKxbL8Sh8mU

If you know me you probably know that I really enjoy movies. If you know me well you probably know that “The Sandlot” is one of my favorite movies of all time and that I can pretty much quote the entire thing. Needless to say that I was super excited that on the 700th time of watching this movie I saw a really good picture of the Gospel of Christ. If you have never seen  The Sandlot, shame on you (jk), but spoilers alert.

In The Sandlot, new kid Scott Smalls learns how to play baseball and also gets himself and his friends into an unexpected adventure. One day team leader Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez busts the guts out of the baseball and is upset that they can’t play anymore. Smalls, not wanting to stop the fun, claims he can get a ball from home. So he goes home and grabs his stepdad’s baseball, signed by Babe Ruth, and then hits it over the fence into the clutches of “The Beast”. Smalls and the team try everything they can think of to recover the ball from the beast. They even build a robot! But no matter how hard they try they cannot get the ball from the Beast. All hope seemed lost. Smalls even says that his life is over. It was then that Benny understood that this was his opportunity to do something great, to hop the fence, challenge the Beast, and get the ball back. Benny describes the Beast as, “A giant gorilla-dog thing, that ate one kid already.” As Benny prepares to hop the fence everyone is telling him not to do it and that it is suicide. Smalls says, “Benny, it was my fault. You don’t have to do this!” To which Benny responded, “Yeah I do, Smalls. I have to do this.” Long story short, Benny hops the fence, looks the beast in the eye, gets the ball and starts an epic chase scene with the Beast.When Benny gets the best of the Beast, he becomes the team mascot. How does this relate to Jesus?

Smalls taking the ball is like Adam and Eve taking the fruit in the Garden of Eden, and hitting it over the fence is like the fall. When Adam and Eve sinned they cause a separation between mankind and a holy God. So think of the Babe Ruth ball as our soul. Because of our sinful nature it is separated from God and is in the territory of a “beast”. Although we as mankind try everything to bring our souls back to God by our own strength and wit, ultimately we come up short, much like how the team couldn’t get the ball back. The only way they could get the ball back was for Benny to risk his life, hop the fence, and look death in the eye. Similarly, the only way we get our heart/soul back is when Jesus came down to earth, died on the cross, and resurrected. Benny didn’t just hop over the fence, he emerged victorious with the Babe Ruth ball. Jesus didn’t just die on the cross, he rose victoriously. Benny defeated the beast and ultimately tamed him so that he was the team mascot. By his resurrection Christ defeated death and we are able to say, “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Although The Sandlot it a great movie, it is just a shadow of an even better story: Christ coming to bring hope and new life to mankind.