The Undefeated Champion of the World

We all have a special regard for our favourite sporting heroes, despite the fact that our various sporting teams all seem to disappoint us just when we are really hoping for the best from them. This got me thinking about a sport like boxing – I wondered if there had ever been a world champion - a champion who was indisputably the best and who had never ever lost a fight. So I did some research on all the famous names I could remember, and few more that I found during my research that I had never even heard of before. Here are the facts on some of those I found. Let’s take a look.

 I started with Jack Dempsey. Now there was a real fighter who, in his early days, is reported to have picked fights wherever he could by walking into bars and saying, "I can't sing and I can't dance, but I can lick any man in the house!" He went on to become the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1919 to 1926, and in his professional boxing career of 83 fights won 50 of them by knock-outs, in 26 of which he knocked out his opponents in the first round. But he also had 9 draws and 6 losses. Clearly he was not quite the super hero, at least at boxing, I had hoped to find.

 Next I looked at Joe Louis, born Joseph Louis Barrow and nicknamed The Brown Bomber, who became one of the greatest World Heavyweight Champions. In all, Louis made 25 defences of his heavyweight title from 1937 to 1949. He was a world champion for 11 years and 10 months, a record that still stands. His most remarkable record is that he knocked out 23 opponents in 27 title fights, and He retired with a record of 68 wins, 54 of these by knock-outs, but he also lost 3 times.

 Finally I looked at Mohammed Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. in 1942. Standing at 6' 3" (1.90 m), Ali had a highly unorthodox style for a heavyweight boxer. He carried his hands at his sides, rather than the normal boxing style of carrying the hands high to defend the face. Instead, he relied on his ability to avoid a punch. In 1999 he was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated. Widely regarded as the greatest Heavyweight champion of all time, surely he would qualify as the greatest sporting hero of all! But by the time he retired permanently in 1981, his record stood at 61 fights, with 56 wins, 37 of them by knock-out, and 5 losses. Not quite the invincible hero I was looking for either, which got me to thinking that I may be looking in the wrong place.

 So I turned to the Bible to see what it has to say about Jesus, the central figure of it all, and found that he had never ever been defeated, and He had never failed in anything He ever attempted. There is not a single record in the Bible of his ever having failed to heal anyone he prayed for, to perform any miracle, or to do anything else he set out to do. What a champion! But what about his death on the cross, some one may ask? The answer to that is that Jesus took on human form for exactly that purpose - to live as one of us and to sacrifice his human life for us, on the cross, and so to pay the penalty for our sins, and in this, as hard as it was, He succeeded too. This had been planned from all eternity, and was God’s plan for the salvation of humanity, as recorded in e.g. Isaiah 53, and in Isaiah 25:8 we read “He will swallow up death forever” and again in 1 Corinthians 15:54 “death has been swallowed up in victory”. The death of Jesus on the cross was the ultimate victory over death, as an act of obedience to the will of the Father and a triumph over the carnal nature.

 In fact it gets even better, because the Bible tells us that we also participate in Jesus’ victory and we are also over-comers, “for everyone born of God overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4-5) and able to live in His victory over sin and death, as victors with Jesus after the great victory that He won for us. As Paul says, “but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ, and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him” (2 Corinthians 2:24). Furthermore we have great works to do; “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12, also Mark 16: 18).

 I feel the tough times and troubles that many of us have been through in the past and even in recent years have been times of preparation, as the Bible says, “do not make light of the Lord’s discipline’ and “the Lord disciplines those he loves” (Hebrews 12 5-6), and have been intended to build character and faith into us, for the times and tasks ahead. God knows far better than us what training we need. It is easy to envy the success of a champion, and to overlook the rigours of the training they underwent to achieve victory. Moses, Joseph, David and Paul, for instance, all underwent long periods of training and testing to equip them for the tasks and works the Lord had planned for each of them, and they triumphed. No one envies their heroes - successful people in any field - their periods of training and hardship - we just admire, or even envy, the results. The seven sons of the Jewish chief priest Sceva tried a ‘short cut’ to spiritual authority, and ended up naked and bleeding (Acts 19:14-16). I feel the Lord is saying that it is time for his warriors to emerge; those who have undergone the training, those who have taken the time and effort to build an intimate and solid relationship with Jesus, as their personal ‘house on the rock’, will emerge as the leaders with the authority of the Lord. The Lord is telling us to prepare for the battles ahead, to “be strong in the Lord ” - from a close and intimate relationship with someone strong faith in such person will naturally arise - and to put on our “full armour” - to be fully prepared, equipped and trained for spiritual battle (Ephesians 6). It is time to take the spiritual offensive. It will soon be the season of spring, naturally and spiritually, and spring is the time when kings go to war (2 Samuel11:1), and we are both kings and priests, before the Lord our God (Revelations 1:6).

Brian Drury