Brother,
I see you are young in the Lord, and zealous. This is good. It's great that you are standing up for righteousness sake. I also see you asking a lot of different questions under this one topic. I could try to answer all of them in sufficient length and depth here, but honestly I am not sure this is what you need. All the answers you are looking for are in Christ, at the Cross of Jesus, and some of them you may not be able to bear now, but they will start to make sense as you continue to grow in your Christian walk. Even though I can tell you this and suggest that it is still you who must seek the Lord in prayer, and in reading of the Scriptures. These should always be your first two choices (prayer and searching God's Word) when you have questions for the Lord, with an open heart and much patience.
So, sports. I hadn't written on this subject here on SermonIndex, and I hadn't thought I ever would. I am 24 years old now, brother, and sports was something that I was raised up with, that I even worshiped (I came to the Lord when I was 20). In Europe, where I am from, soccer is big, so soccer it was; and what not: basketball, volleyball, cards, winter sports, tennis, anything you can think of. I talked sports, watched sports, dreamt sports, played sports, meditated on sports. I could tell you how each game ended at the 1996 European Cup Finals, for example, with goalscorers, etc.. I knew teams, stats, players, everything. What a freak I was! And, brother, after the Lord found me in 2003, and after I came to America in 2004, sports was one of the first things He urged me to let go of in the process of the "being crucified unto the world."
It was a long and painful process, for my interest was indeed a sinful addiction, but the Lord changed the desires of my heart to the point that I couldn't enjoy sports any more. In comparison to Him everything became so dim and lifeless: not just sports, but television, movies, books, the world without God in general.
This is a snippet of my history in the world of sports and in the Lord. For the purpose of this post I will stop here. You were asking about real Christian sports teams, so let me try to answer that.
In a way, I agree with your father, albeit for different reasons I believe, that there is no such thing as a "Christian sports team." I believe this to be a contradiction in itself, an oxymoron. For to be a follower of Christ and to be knowingly and willingly involved in or following sports is a form of compromise with the values and wisdom of the world, an enticement of our flesh.
So what are sports essentially? Do they glorify God or do they glorify us? Who is in the spotlight? What do they cater to: our holy longings or our lusts? You know, this is not something that I can just "tell" you, brother, but something that the Lord has to reveal to you by His Spirit, because to the natural man there is nothing wrong with sports, and with many other things that are sin in the eyes of God. The thing with sports is that they are all about self; whether you play them or they watch them, their end is the gratification of your desires. It is all about being better than the other team or person, which is pride at its worst. It's about being on top of somebody else and deriving pleasure from it: this whole competitive spirit. It is about feeling good about yourself and confident in your abilities. It is the glory of self, and not of God. Hence, it is no wonder that we see people at their worst when they play competitive sports: these are all the fruit of the flesh (malice, envy, etc. described in Galatians 5 and other places in Scripture). Sports teams generally exist for profit, for pleasure, for the exaltation of man.
Here are a couple of verses of Scripture for you to look at:
Luke 14:11
"For [i]everyone who exalts himself will be humbled[/i], and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, [i]he must deny himself[/i] and take up his cross and follow me."
Romans 12:1-2
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. [i]And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.[/i]"
1 Peter 4:1-3
"Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that [i]he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God[/i]. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries."
I also encourage you to read [url=http://acts2024ministries.wordpress.com/2007/01/15/the-great-sin/]this article[/url] by C.S. Lewis called "The Great Sin" about what pride is.
There are a lot of great resources here for you at SermonIndex. Have you listened to [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=2903]The Revival Hymn[/url] compilation, or the classic sermon [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=282]Ten Shekel and a Shirt[/url] by Paris Reidhead?
If you have any more questions, feel free to PM me.
Sincerely,
Slavyan
